"New to Victory at Sea" Topic

I have resisted but relented to join in at our club with Victory at Sea by Warlord Games . So against my real wishes 1/1800 is the scale .

My main issue with the game has always been the visual aspect . I know you know whats coming next . Yes those bases . I will leave that there as I am sure plenty of comments have already been made.
Sooooooooooo I am looking at alternative producers of the ships. I am a Brit and so my preference will be to source models closer to home . I have also decided to do the Pacific as I wanted the experience of using carrier groups.

Blitzkrieg Miniatures in their Iron Tide range offer a good range of models but not complete as I dont think any range would be knowing the numbers of types of destroyer the US Navy used :)
So is there any other ranges I could look at? Shapeways , I have looked at and because of the shipment costs are too prohibitive price wise ,more than doubling the cost of the ships that are advertised .

Thanks guys for any suggestions

I would just look for the original Axis and Allies miniatures on Ebay or something similar. For example: auction

You didn't say if 1/1800 was a requirement. If not, I think GHQ is still the best cast.
link

There is also the 3D printing route:
link

We went the other way in ship size… to 1/700 as several players have now a use for their large waterline 1/700 collections. Shaded patio seascape (12x16') and tripled the movement rate and gun ranges table values. Then we improved the critical damage tables and used the AP ratings to increase the chances of critical hits when firing heavy shells at destroyers or cruisers. For airplanes, we used a "zonal" system instead of actual plane movement distances.

I have a ton of painted 1/700 scale WWII ships. Looking for a set of rules. Any chance you might have your tweaks available to download? Any pics?

Thank you

John

JL,
Welcome to have our "house rules" for VaS and 1/700 ships. Use some, none or all, your choice. I can email them to you as a .doc file, and some photos of VaS game in progress.

mrverity58 @ Yahoo .com

Email sent.

Thanks!

John

We did all the playtesting using Navwar and Skytrex 1/3000 models

Thanks for the suggestions so far

If one of the smaller scales was chosen ,how would one represent the aircraft? I dont really wish to go down the token avenue as being a modeller primarily, the visual aspect is important to me hence the decision not to use the Warlord ships.

Actually I have just answered my own question as GHQ of which I can get in the UK do produce aircraft in 1/2400 scale.

Something to think about . The drawback for me as the club have gone down the 1/1800 scale route is that I would need to collect 2 forces . However in wargaming terms you dont need masses of figures .

Davco do 1:3000 aircraft to go with their ships. The ships are cheap and take up little room, as well as being fast to paint, so having both sides is very doable

Thanks guys for your responses .

I have bitten the bullet and gone with GHQ Micronauts,in 1/2400

A little on the expensive side but looking at the pictures ,they have terrific detail and would satisfy me as a painting and modelling project .The range is also quite comprehensive and cover the lesser covered navies like the Dutch as well.The later point is a bit of a gripe from one of my club members in that there are still many gaps within the Warlord range.

Using a small scale like this, will give me more scope I guess in moving onto a more detailed set of rules in the future.

The aircraft I may use a different scale altogether as influenced in an article by Mal Wright .

Just received my first batch of ships .These are the 1/2400 scale GHQ Micronauts. For those who reside in the UK these are obtained through Magistermilitum. A very good service as regards shipment was received, having arrived after 3 days of placing the order.

I have bought the Allied ABDA fleet as per the scenario of Java Sea in the hardback VAS rulebook. This gives me a nice mixture of US,Royal Navy ,Australian and Dutch types. It kind of covers the Era that interests me ie 1941-43 period . Whilst I do want to use aircraft ,I dont want them to dominate proceedings which kind of happened after this period. Otherwise I may have opted for Blood Red Skies I guess.

The ships are lovely and very finely detailed. The cruisers will need some building . I have therefore opted to start work on the US Destroyers slowly dipping my toe so to speak.

I havnt painted such small models before and will present a different challenge .