"Searching for 1/1800 ships" Topic

I know Warlord is coming out with some. Found more on Etsy but not sure of quality. A site called Shapeways had some great looking stuff but their site is an absolute disaster couldn't find anything or get anything to work. Not sure if trust ORDERING from them. Any other good sources of 1/1800 scale ships out there? Thanks!

Hi

The Shapeway stuff is fine but opt for the better plastic. All the axis and allies war at sea ships are 1/1800th.

You can find lot of usefully ships cheap. The rares( BB,CV) are pricey but you can find deals. E-bay and several facebook sites also sell them.

If you know someone with a quality 3D printer there are a large number of decently priced designs here: link

There are a few sources for 1800 scale warships, but the scope of available models is a bit limited and there are significant differences in quality from maker to maker.

Shapeways 3D stuff promises to be excellent, and I've seen some Shapeways 2400s that were very good. I must agree that their website is a train wreck. I've tried ordering several times and cant get anywhere.

I figure Etsy's quality is also good, but I've never tried to use them.

The War at Sea game system uses 1800 scale models, and they have a lot of models in their line, but it's a collectible system, so the rares are $'y. I recently sold a New Jersey for $22. USD MORE TO THE POINT, their quality is pretty iffy. They're prepainted, which is convenient, but they're game pieces. More than a few of the smaller ones are pretty bent up. Not my 1st choice.

War Times Journal make 3D pre dreads and WWI (plus a few WWII) models, and are flat out superb. They ain't cheap at 1800 scale. Fletcher is $7 USD; a German WWI Battlecriiser is $20 USDish.

Mongoose publishing had a limited run of 1800s, but it looks like it's gone. It may have morphed into the new Warlord line. Hard to know.

Good luck.

The new Warlord line is indeed the old Mongoose line, although Mongoose generated the 3D CAD models for many, many more models than they actually produced

I have bought 1/1800 from Shapeway and they are beautiful models (bought Italian battleships for my grandson's A&A games). Agree that their search function is s**t. Just put 1/1800 scale in the search bar and then page thru until you find what you want. They are lots faster producing the models than they were just a few years ago.

Have bought most of their 1/4800 scale US battleships and cruisers (to use with CinC's old "North Cape" rules) and while very pretty and detailed, they are fragile and I'm careful with them).

With Shapeways, it helps to enter as little information as possible. Use '1/1800 ships' to find the area of interest, then make a note or bookmark the manufacturers you are interested in. The next time you search use the manufacturers name in the search bar.

I bought some 1/4800 ships off Shapeways years ago and they are fantastic, even at that scale.

Just out of curiosity, why 1/1800 ?

LT

I've ordered from Shapeways many times, and never found it all that challenging to do. What's the problem…?

Note that Shapeways is just a 3D print service, not a manufacturer. You are really ordering from individual designers who posted their designs to the Shapeways site; Shapeways only does the printing and shipping. As a result, quality varies immensely. There are great designers, average designers, and terrible designers. Pay careful attention to the shop name ("made by") you are ordering Shapeways items from, and caveat emptor.

Also, another caveat about Shapeways: some designs are unprintable, and if you are the first person to order it, you may be the one who finds out. Shapeways tries to print everything, but if a print fails, they just tell you so and then you get nothing. It's up to the designer to make necessary changes, not Shapeways.

Shapeways seems to be a perfectly reputable business. I've never had any issues with them as a customer.

- Ix

I fleshed out my modern navies with Shapeways. FUD (Frosted Ultra Detail) is good stuff. The search function appears to display anything with any of your words in it rather than all your search words. Does make life harder.

Why 1/1800? I cant speak for the OP, but I'll give you my view. Scale choice is a matter of aesthetics. A model that is 2-3 inches long is big enough to look great, in addition to being functional. If function is all I wanted, I'd use cardboard counters. If actions between destroyers is your primary focus, then 1/1800 puts them in that sweet spot – just big enough to look great, not too big for a typical table.

1/1800 was the Hasbro thumb in the eye of the installed base of 1/2400 players with the A&A War at Sea game, trying to herd gamers into THEIR walled garden.

Shapeways (obviously) does not care about the retail nickel and dime retail level of our hobby. I've gotten some interesting ship models there (Mostly 1/2400) but the listings are dominated by 1/1800 to fill the gaps in the War at Sea releases,

And the default search terms have NOT been updated by Shapewasy, ships can be found under both "Models" and "Games" categories.

ie, WW II Germans, Japanese/US Pacific war, etc. And lots of Modern Ships!

If you are just starting, consider the traditional 1/2400; The choices are much deeper.

Vidgrip +1

I mostly game small RN v. KM/RM destroyer and cruiser actions, so with only a couple of small(ish) ships aside I would love a bit more visual impact.

All my WW2 (and modern) stuff is Navwar 1/3000 but I am very interested in scaling up to 1/1800 *IF* I can get a decent selection of British/German/Italian ships.

I agree on the Shapeways website; the search function is appalling but this seems to be largely because (as lx points out) you're dealing with lots of different designers. Each will have their own listing conventions – if you're looking for a RN JKN destroyer, it might be listed as 'J/K/N class', 'JKN class', 'J, K and N class', 'HMS Kelly', etc, etc. Makes searching very random, but once you find a designer who does something you're interested in then you'll usually be best off filtering by their designs alone.

Nick