"War Artisan Texans" Topic

176 years ago today, the sloop Austin and brig Wharton of the Republic of Texas Navy set sail and engaged Mexican steam-powered ironclads loaded with brand-new explosive shells. By the time the battle was done, the Mexican ships were forced back to port, and would not set out again for the remainder of the campaign. It is the ONLY time in history that sail beat steam.

How cool is that! Commodore Moore would be proud!

Isn't this the battle that is engraved upon the cylinders of the Colt 1851 Navy and 1860 Army?

Those minis are very well done.

Gorgeous ships, you did a great job with them!

What scale did you print them up in?

Choctaw,
It's the Battle of Campeche, and yes it is on the 1851 Navy cylinder.

Weirdo,
Very nice indeed! What rules are you going to use for this?

They're in 1/600 scale, with the base on each being 3" long.

I actually don't know of any good rules for playing Campeche(or sources for the Mexican ships). For the time being, they'll likely see use whenever a regular AoS game needs a random sloop or brig.

I do mine in 1/600 as well, I find theyīre less fiddly that way. Love the rigging!

I imagine whatever rules you end up using you will have to either add sail or steam ability. Sounds like fun though.

In what sense were the Mexican steamers 'Guadalupe'and 'Moctezuma' "ironclad"? Is this American hyperbole? All my reading shows that they were build by Laird in the UK and had iron hulls, but a thin iron skin, while not being susceptible to fire or lethal splintering like wood, was not the same thing as providing iron armor calculated to stop enemy gunfire.

Thanks for posting this. I did not know anything about it.

I'd use Ironclads for Campeche.

Though they may not have been proper ironclads, to be fair, he did claim it was a victory of sail over steam, not wood over iron.

(Really nice work on those models, by the way.)

Thanks, everyone!

138, I did not know they weren't truly ironclads as we think of them. All I knew was that the iron was there, nothing on the thickness.

@138sqd
Why must you imply that America has some sort of monopoly on hyperbole? I have never heard an American call a cup of tea lovely.

Weirdo

So sorry, I forgot to complement you on the quality of your work. Well done.

Texas Jack: That's because we have functioning taste buds that haven't been dulled by constant exposure to dirty leaf water.

I will admit, a good cup of coffee is quite lovely. :D

Too cool. I didn't know War Artisan was doing this. I need to go take a look.

Where can we find the Mexican ships?

I looked at warartisan.com and didn't see the Texan ships, are they something else repurposed?

They really are excellent models. I donīt know for sure about the ships above, but they appear to be from the brig and sloop set found here, in the Napoleonic ship section: link

I havenīt bought them yet, but they are definitely on my list. But first I have a few first rates and big American frigates to build, which I am very much looking forward to.

Andrew,
I don't know about miniatures for the Mexican ships, but there is some data for them over at threedecks.org .

They're from the brig and sloop set, exactly. No modifications made, I just built them exactly according to the instructions, then gave them Texas flags. Since I've no current interest in going any earlier than the AWI, that's pretty much my plan for all of my Age of Sail stuff – build a stock model of the appropriate gun rate(or close enough), then use flags and a name on the base to denote specific ships and nationality. To go more detailed than that is a road to madness I'll venture down at a much later date.