"Largeish-scale Armada period ships" Topic

I began collecting 1/2400 Armada ships some years ago but never pursued the project. It would take a lot of models to do justice to the idea and I'm not convinced that fleet actions in this period would be particularly satisfying as a game. But since playing 'Galleys & Galleons' using 1/450 Peter Pig ships and an assumed target date post-1700, I've been thinking about approaching the Armada period from the other end, i.e. using a few, relatively large-scale ships.

G&G makes a great multi-player game and large-scale models would make quite a spectacle. I was considering the Old Glory 1/300 ones but I understand that the models are physically quite large and probably too large to be practical on a 6' x 4' table. They would also be challenging to transport in any numbers. The next option might be to go down to 1/600 and use the Skytrex Triton ones. This is quite an old range and I'm wondering what the general opinion is of them. The Peter Pig ships are easy to assemble, robust and look good, even without rigging, so that's the sort of thing I'm looking for.

40 years or more ago, a friend and I used the Airfix 1/72 kit of the Golden Hind for a set of homegrown rules for this period. We played on the floor, but on an area not much bigger than your 6x4. Found the rules in my archive a few weeks ago, Great fun. The kit is still around:

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Can't comment on your other options, as never seen the Old Glory or Peter Pig ranges.

Check E-bay for 1/600 scale model ships. Airfix, Heller, Gowland, Pyro/lindberg/life-like.

If you want to use cheap ships and with very good finishes, I recommend the brand ZVEZDA. It has a range of three ships of the Spanish Armada (Golden Hind, Revenge and San Martin) and a boat the discovery of America (Nao).
I add some links about my work with ZVezda model. I know that you want more simplified, but you can get an idea of the quality they have.
All ships are 1/350 scale.
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If you want 1/1200. Langton miniatures has a range about Venetian galleons, I add a link about these:
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I hope it helps you…
Regards,
Julián

And in 1/1200 there is the old Valiant line "Spanish Main":

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Most kits contain more than one ship and despite their age (late 1970's?), they aren't bad…

Here's my page on the Old Glory 1/300 Galleons, and some related kits.

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If you click on the pictures, it gives dimensions of the ships.

And…. if you get some baloney about Wargamer's Ring, hit the back button and click again. I cannot get rid of that pesky stuff.

I love those 1/450 Peter Pig ships. They are gorgeous. Been considering the 1/600 Armada ships to. The 1/300 scale is more for modeling than gaming.

JPK

Years ago I came to the exact same conclusion as the OP – the four Spanish expeditions to England don't look all that much fun to game, at least not with any rules I've yet tried. However, before the Second Anglo-Dutch War, actions under sail tended to be ill-disciplined and chaotic, with individual captains ignoring orders and sound strategy to go whichever way best pleased them, exactly the way wargamers behave. Even better, many "Armada period" models look appropriate all the way into the 1620s (and even through the 1640s if modified appropriately), and during this period the nations of Europe and the Mediterranean were constantly in low grade conflicts at sea, even when technically at "peace", providing nearly infinite potential scenarios of all sizes. I think the period has excellent potential for "skirmishy" naval combat (e.g., 1-2 warships per player, maybe plus a couple oddballs and/or auxiliries).

I have a moderately large collection of the Skytrex 1/600 ships. I think they are a bit crude, too expensive, and the range doesn't have enough variation. I wish Skytrex would cast them in resin, cut the price in half, and add a bunch more models to the range. However, the models they do sell actually look pretty good if painted carefully, they're the "right" size for wargaming ships (small enough to have maneuver room on a medium-to-large table, big enough to strike most miniatures gamers squarely in the "toy lust" center of the brain), sturdy, easy to assemble, and pretty easy to customize. On that last point, I consider it very important to the period – if you look at a lot of period paintings, you start to notice that each ship is unique in details, even while they fall into national designs patterns. So far I've successfully altered/added/removed stern galleries, added extra poop decks, altered the lines of railings, altered the beak under the bowsprit, and hand-painted unique art on a few sterns. Earlier this year I started trying to find ways to create nice-looking and durable stern lanterns and carvings, as became common on ships after 1600. I think they have a lot of potential. I picked up nearly all of mine by buying leftovers from other people's collections, so I didn't overpay for them.

I should also note that the larger Skytrex galleons seem oversized for the scale. I have a bunch of Dutch fluyts from the Peter Pig 1/450 range that I think will mix in just fine. Someday I need to scratch build a bunch of smaller fluyts to get some extra variation.

I'm not quite as impressed with the Skytrex 1/600 galleys. The proportions are off, the cast oarbanks look too crude, and they are much closer to 1/450 scale than 1/600 scale. They'd probably mix with Peter Pig ships really well. On the bright side, they look attractive if painted nicely, and they have the rowing crew cast in (no creepy empty benches!)

I own a small bunch of the 1/2400 armada period Figurehead models, and consider them too small to game with as individual ships. They might work mounted in groups on larger bases, but I don't care to game naval battles that way, so never tried.

I also accidentally got a bunch of the Valiant "Spanish Main" line. I like them, but honestly find them too small for ship-to-ship gaming. I think they'd be excellent for Renaissance fleet games, but haven't yet found or written rules that make such games a fun experience (another project I'm partway through…). They have the kind of cartoonish, exaggerated proportions that you see in 16th-17th C. engravings and early 17th C. Dutch paintings, so I think they'd be delightful to look at if painted and rigged properly. They even have the guns run out, like a warship in action should. They are also scale compatible with other lines of miniatures (Langton, Navwar, some items from Napoleonic naval ranges that are sorta timeless) and there's a ton of shore buildings available now (Langton, Brigade Models) to decorate the shorelines.

I hope some of this rambling helps.

- Ix

Actually the Langton Galleon dwarfs the Valiant ships.

It does, but I think it's a model of a particular Venetian galley that was notably huge for its day. To me, the other Langton models in the Renaissance Galleys range look okay mixed with the Valiants and Navwars.

- Ix

Thanks to all for your responses and especially to Yellow Admiral. I'm now convinced that 1/600 and G&G is the best way to go and that enough ships can be commissioned for this skirmish level game using the Skytrex ships, the Peter Pig fluyt and a little customisation. There may also be some kits that can be co-opted, but that would require more work and does not always achieve a look and feel consistent with metal models.

I've recently been reading about the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, Yellow Admiral, and in an old article in WI Chris Peers claimed that Vasco de Gama used line-ahead and broadside tactics in a battle against a combined Calicut and Mamluk fleet off India's Malabar coast in 1502!

Guilmartin mentioned that in his book Galleons and Galleys, and Maarten Tromp famously used the spaced-out line ahead on the lee gauge to hold off a far superior Spanish fleet before the Battle of the Downs in 1639. I'm sure there were other instances of fleets using line tactics before the ADW period, but in general, they were the exception, not the rule.

Before the development of professional navies using formal signaling systems, large fleet maneuvers would have depended heavily on pre-battle planning, personal understanding of the lead captain's way of thinking, and a lot of "follow me". Perfect for wargaming. :-)

- Ix

I use the old Airfix plastic ships for the Armada period. They are around about 1/500. See the Armada page at runtus.org