"Greek Trireme scale?" Topic

What scale of ship would work well with 15/18mm Ancient Greek miniatures. Could be wood or plastic. Manufacturers?
Thanks.

Zvezda does a 1/72 scale model as a plastic kit. It looks quite nice if a little fiddly to build (as it has full rigging, seperate individual oars and so on). It is scaled perfectly for 20mm figures and shouldn't be far off for 18mm.

There are also a couple of Roman ships in the series, if you want to build a navy or two…

There's a template to make your own online at the Jackson Gamers site:
link
though they will not be as pretty as the models.

Merrimack Miniatures Old Glory Shipyards does a 15mm resin galley wars line as well as other periods and scales:
link

For 15mm I'd pass on the Zvezda ( I think it's actually a "16" and not a"3". It's right out of Connolly as such)for $60 USD or so and go for the $30 USD Academy "Roman Warship". True, it has only a single bank of Oars, but it does have a outrigger: the telltale mark of a trireme and that long and narrow look a trireme should have. You can get one at any model shop.

The Academy is nominally 1:144 scale – perhaps a bit small?

Actually, I saw the Academy roman warship listed as 1/250.

Odd, that. We have one on the shelf at work – I'll have to check it on Friday. If it really is 1:250… wow, it would be tiny. At 1:144 it would be half the size of the Zvezda, or roughly 8" long (give or take 2", I'm working from memory only as I have the Zvezda one packed up at the moment).

I would go with Merrimack/Old glory Shipyards:
link

The ships are not all that expensive, and they hold a reasonable number of 15mm figures.

Note, that the Merrimack are made as gaming pieces, while the Zvezda is made as a model. Models are not made for gaming, and gaming pieces do not look as good as models. Models have fiddly things like masts, oar racks, etc., which get in the way, or break off during gaming.

Sorry for the late reply – but the Academy ship is indeed in the smaller scale. Practically 'microscale', perhaps it would go well with those 1:300 Viking ships that were going to brought out "soon"…

SPECS: Scale: 1/250 Length: 13" (33cm) Width: 3-1/2" (8.7cm) Height: 11" (27.8cm) (approximately)

So it's long enough to look impressive on the table, and might hold 10-20 figs depending on how you've based them. Should be fine for "representative" (1 man does not equal 1 man) gaming.

I know this is an old thread but I was searching the net on some galley images and ran across this. The Academy ships are listed on different sites as 1/72, 1/250, 1/350 and 1/48th! Who knows what to believe? I am using 20mm figures and over a dozen fit well. I am looking to use 15mm or more plastic 20mm for these as well. Here is a list of what I have seen on the net in 1/72:

Ancient Era
Egyptian
Merchant vessel, circa1500 BC AER Moldova SH7205
Nile river boats Atlantic 1505
Pharoah's barge Atlantic 1506

Greek
War galley Atlantic 1514
War galley, Triera Zvezda 8514

Nordic
Viking longboat, 9th Century AER Moldova SH7206, Barcelona Universal 120
Viking longboat, Drakkar 'Crossing the Seas' Barcelona Universal 121

Roman
Merchant vessel, circa 300 BC AER Moldova SH7201
War galley, circa 50 BC Academy 1401
War galley, circa 260 AD AER Moldova SH7202, Barcelona Universal 72125

VR
James Mattes

Forgot this one:

Zvezda – Carthagenian Ship Scale: 1/72 #9030

VR
James Mattes

I remember when Atlantic did 2 Greek Warships for around $25.00,but since Atlantic no longer exsists(as far as i know) it's up to trying to find them on eBay.

Captain Gideon

I have an eye out for the Atlantic. I also found a video of a motorized Galley! see thread on Ancients board.
VR
James Mattes