"GHQ WW1 German Battlecruisers" Topic

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A shameless show off post today. I have finshed my WW1 German Battlecruiser Fleet and here they are for your delectation. Battleships, Pre Dreadnoughts mmm…..

Regards, Ken
The Yarkshire Gamer

Lovely work, they really look the part.

Excellent job Ken. Particularly like your basing. I have invested heavily in 1/3000 for WW1, but, having seen your models, I am beginning to regret that decision.

Very nice work! The circles on the turret tops have defeated me with the slight tremor I have developed.

There's really nothing wrong with 1/3000 scale. 1/3000 is functionally equivalent to 1/2400 in gaming use, and the 1/3000 models actually fit on a table better, with reduced scale distortion. If you want models with more detail, the growing range of WTJ WWI ships can be printed in 1/3000, and the blander models from Navwar or Davco can be dressed up with boats, masts, anchors, chains, booms, etc. glued on. Mount your 1/3000 ships on lovely looking bases like Ken's and they'll look great.

- Ix

Heres one I did earlier !

I agree Yellow Admiral, there really is nothing wrong with 1/3000, the ships above are from my WW2 1/3000 collection. I have massive numbers of WW2 ships in that scale and just fancied a change for WW1. They are a damn sėte cheaper as well !

Steaming Dave 47, I have done a couple of tutorials on my basing, one for each size. Pop onto my blog you should find them quite quickly. Is really isn't to difficult, its mostly technique and colour choice.

Regards, Ken
yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk

For myself my 1/2400th scale is somewhat small I mostly have WWII Japanese with some US,French,German and some others most of these are GHQ which I still think is the best quality out there.

I recently got from Shapeways the Fuso which looks very good I got it because GHQ only does Yamashiro so now I have both.

I also have a fair number of 1/6000th scale ships which include the entire German,Japanese and Italian WWII Fleets which include some never built ships in addition I also have some US,British,French and Dutch ships as well.

But for me my main love is the Pre-Dreadnought period I have the following Fleets:

Japanese
Russian
French
British
German
American
Spanish
Italian
Austrian

With the exception of a small number of ships the bulk of them are painted.

Most of the Fleets I acquired from the collection of a very good friend who passed away several months ago.

All my Pre-Dreadnought Fleets are 1/3000th scale.

For example my Japanese and Russian Fleets I got mainly for fighting the Naval Battles of the Russo-Japanese War.

I'm very pleased with all of my Fleets whatever scale they are.

Michael

Love the fabulous, fabulous paint job on the ships, but IMHO the bases completely ruin the effect. It makes them look like fridge magnets. All I can see is a base.

That said, I've none of these myself to offer as looking better :-)

But I wonder. Could the base simply be a bow wave and propeller wash? You'd then have something that served a purpose in handling the model, and that also added information at a distance (as to which end is the front). Has anyone tried this?

Ah 4th Cuirassier you return to flame me yet again !

Its been over a year you really don't like my bases do you.

I have to say that every time I put up one of these ship related posts I always get requests for a tutorial and when I painted professionally I sold these by the bucket full at a very good price, they do seem to go down quite well.

Fridge Magnets is hilarious, I actually spat my Tea out when I read it, I had a good look at my fridge and just found Mrs YGs holiday magnets, maybe I could start selling them as Fridge Magnets "this time next year we'll be millionaires !"

To try and be sensible for a moment, I think a lot of what you see base wise in the photos is due to the magnification used to show the detail on the ships. There is also the practical aspect of strength, the base needs to be strong enough to not warp over time , I have suffered from this in the past when I used artists mounting card for basing.

The base could be painted rather than sculpted and painted but then you would still have the base depth vs strength issue. I have seen people use a clear perspex base with bow waves etc painted on so that the gaming mat shows through, that maybe the look you are looking for.

The front of the ship is the part with the bow wave painted in white usually found just in front of the pointy bit with the anchor, front turrets and bridge, the back has the ships name on.

Fridge Magnets, really Fridge Magnets LOL

These are some of my WW2 efforts. I used artists card and thick acrylic paints for the bases. I am reasonably happy with them, but I do like The textured look of Ken's bases and will certainly have a look at the tutorial. ( I could do with some fridge magnets!!!!😄

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More on the Yahoo groups 1/3000 naval gaming group

Steaming Dave, those pics seem to be in a restricted Yahoo group which I can't seem to get access to, any chance you could post a direct link ?

Cheers, Ken
yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk

YG – Nice touch with respect to the red after funnel on the German BC pictured in the topmost photo.

B

@Yarkshiregamer. Don't realise the link would only work for members. The pics are quite old now, but I will have a look if they are still in my archive and put them into a Google folder or similar with public access.
Dave

@Yarkshiregamer.
Hi Ken,
I have put some pics into a One Drive folder which is supposed to be public. Let me know if it opens:

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Cheers for putting those up Dave,

I think it's a nice effect and it will suit some peoples style of painting. I have always prefered to use the detail on a figure or base to build up layers of dry brushing but the flat base using colour on its own as a method of shading is equally valid. It might be worth having a go at a textured blank base just to see if you like the effect before committing further.

Don't forget to make your bases really thin or they will look like a fridge magnet !

@ YG

Apologies if my reply caused offence. As I said, I think the paint job is fabulous and really well executed, and my comment about bases isn't about your bases but about bases under ships generally. Yours are indeed very good, but to my eye they are the first thing I notice.

I get the need for bases on things that would fall over without them – single plastic figures on a slope; single Elite Miniatures 28mm figures on anything. But isn't the frame around the picture upstaging the picture?

Here, the frame is so busy and so outsize that it's all you notice:

Hi 4th Cuirass,

No need to apologise, I genuinely was laughing out loud. If you recall you put a similar comment on my WW2 Tutorial post about a year ago so I would class it as Deepnavalbaseophobia.

I don't see it myself and I am sure that at lot of it is due to the magnification on the photo to bring out the detail. The size of the base is dictated by our rules.

Just for you is a picture with no base edge visible, hopefully that will lower any blood pressure rises ! I shall forever call my ships Fridge Magnets in honour of this thread.

Regards, Ken
yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk

That's a better view, although they should really be displayed vertically with a window cleaner's calling card underneath them…

I'm going to get some popcorn…

I'm more of 4th Cuirassier's view with this. I think I have posted before that my preference is a clear acrylic base with the bow wave and wake added. That said I have only based a few of my ships at all as there never seems to be enough time. That will happen the day I get around to repainting the fleets, most of which are over 30 years old.

Something I do not do is add the name to the base. I put that on the underside of the model If a player cannot keep track of which ship is where it adds to the fog of war. When land wargamers start labelling their units I might consider doing the same :-)

Pontius for myself I don't have that many nice bases as the bulk of my bases are somewhat plain painted Lt Blue or Dark Blue but on the top of the bases where the ship is in one corner I have the nation's Flag and in the lower left hand corner the name of the ship.

This tells the players 2 things one who's ships it is and what's it called this way there's no confusion.

Basing comes down to personal preference and game mechanics. I like Yarkshire Gamer's bases a lot.

I personally keep all my 1/2400 scale ships unbased (even my Russian TBDs, which are really too small for that) because I like my ships to look like they're actually on the sea instead of a pedestal, I find writing aesthetically distracting, and I prefer not to see a wake on anchored or drifting ships.

So far my larger scale ships are still unbased for the same aesthetic reasons, but I may be changing my mind for purposes of game mechanics, at least for some genres.

I tend to agree with 4th Cuirassier's POV about large bases being distracting ("fridge magnets" LOL!), when the bases don't blend into the sea surface, because as his picture frame example above demonstrates, the eye is distracted by the large area of the base and away from the ship model. However, if the base is functionally invisible (clear or painted to blend into the sea surface), the eye is instead drawn to the ship model itself, and the wake and the label appear to be "floating" in the sea near the model. My 1/6000 WWI fleets are fully based (they have to be, they're tiny!) and feature writing and wakes and wavetops galore, but I took great pains to paint the bases in colors that blend with the felt I was using at the time. You can sort of see the results in these photos, and a couple pictures on this page. Keep in mind that photos lie, and what the camera sees is not quite what the eye sees – the edges of those bases are a lot less obvious in the real world under real indoor lights. I suspect the same is true of Yarkshire Gamer's photos.

As I posted elsewhere, at Navcon I was really impressed by Jeff Nicholls' creative use of lettering as the wake on his bases:

Thanks to War Artisan for the picture.

- Ix

Just for 4th Cuirass !

Can anyone guess the WW1 ship this Fridge Magnet is based on.

Regards, Ken
http//yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk

Hi Pontius,

You said "Something I do not do is add the name to the base. I put that on the underside of the model If a player cannot keep track of which ship is where it adds to the fog of war. When land wargamers start labelling their units I might consider doing the same"

Get painting ! Here is an example of my 15mm Napoleonic bases, land wargamers do label.

I can see the advantages visually of not having names on bases and it would be great if you are playing with a bunch of Naval uber geeks. However lots of gamers aren't, if I put a game on at the local club its better for me if players can read which ship is which rather than picking up a ship looking underneath and the enviably putting it back in the wrong place.

As Yellow Admiral mentions some people put Flags on their bases which is a nice visual touch, I have also seen some bases with gun data on. Horses for courses.

Regards, Ken
yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk

The money off coupon's expired.

Maybe the fridge magnet was so big it obscured the claim-by date?