"Help with Dreadnaught Games" Topic

My grandson and I are going to start collecting dreadnaughts building toward d fleet sized battles. How to start? Which rules and which scale? The new Admiral of the Fleet or one of the older sets? 1/2400 or go 1/6000?

What specific period are you looking for for your dreadnoughts?

WWi

In re scale. Each option has strengths and weaknesses, obviously. 1200/1250 is ludicrously expensive and an instant non starter. 2400 is perhaps the most widely used scale, but can easily get out of hand doing fleet actions. 6000 is the most affordable and least space intensive, but my old eyes can't get worked up over such small models.

3000 scale exists, but isn't especially easy to get.

In re rules. From a standing start you might want to start with the most basic, which is the board game Jutland. Jutland is far from perfect, but can serve as an entry point as you test drive more sophisticated options. Jutland is oop, but you can get one off ebay for $50 USD with shipping included.

1/3000th is available from Navwar so not difficult to get at all. They are the most comprehensive manufacturers of naval items in the UK, probably so even further afield.

How old is your grandson? I would recommend simple rules that are age appropriate, depending on his age.

What size battles and how big a playing area? I suggest small actions as a start, though many did not involve dreadnoughts. Big actions take a lot of ships and space, and would be best in a smaller scale. But your grandson may find them too small. Even the small ships can get expensive. 1/2400 is too big for fleets of this era unless you play on the floor.

Thank you Dantheman. He is a very knowledgeable and intelligent 8–math and reading at the next highest grade. What scale do you recommend—as you suspect he will want to see a numer of ships—we have 6x12 playing area. What rules would you suggest?

I would suggest either 1/3000 (Navwar in UK) or 1/6000 (Last Square in USA or Magister Militum in UK). Both are small enough to allow large battles. For rules, I suggest General Quarters 2, covering WW1 (avail from Navwar in UK).

However, to start out, I would suggest a small battle to get used to the rules. For dreadnoughts, a good one is Goeben and Breslau versus Indomitable and Indefatigable (1914 in the Med). The Wikipedia entry for Pursuit of the Goeben describes the context for this might-have-been battle.

In case neither of you has miniatures experience, you will need some simple tools to prepare the castings, and some paint and small brushes to paint them. You can do gray overall, and later on add deck colors etc.

Here are some 1/6000 ships (HMS Lion and 2 destroyers). 1/3000 look basically the same, but are larger.

I'm also a fan of 1/6000 scale and GQ2, but for this case I'm going to recommend 1/2400 scale models and Si Vis Pacem.

Si Vis Pacem uses very abstract shooting mechanics, damage is tracked with markers on the table, it should play very fast, should be easy to teach, and has very easy stats to look up and memorize. Most naval games use paper rosters and some amount of math and chart/table lookups for shooting and damage. If you would rather use this as an opportunity to teach math skills, I can make some very different recommendations…

As noted above, 1/2400 models are a bit large for playing large actions, but you're likely to be playing only small actions with a pre-teen anyway. Your main options in the US are going to be GHQ, the old C-in-C ships now sold by legionsIVhire, Viking Forge, and Panzerschiffe. A few notes about those:

• GHQ models are lovely and superbly detailed. They look great with just a few basic colors and some drybrushing and washes. They are also very expensive.
  
• C-in-C are accurately proportioned and scaled, but plainer than GHQ. Most of my WWI fleets were built with these because they were cheaper; now that I'm older and richer I buy GHQ for everything.
  
• Viking Forge WWI models look hand-sculpted and sometimes oddly proportioned, but some people like them. I like their RJW pre-dreadnoughts quite a bit, but I'm eventually going to replace my VF WWI battleships.
  
• Panzerschiffe models are very plain and slightly overscale (longer, wider, BIG TURRETS), so don't mix well with the others, but they are also cheap, nearly indestructible, and nearly all the major units are made.

About other scales:
I have most of the ships that served in WWI in 1/6000 scale (and even a few fleets painted!). They are superb for playing big battles with lots of maneuver room on reasonably-sized tables (and the only way I can see actually playing a battle as big as Jutland), but the diminutive size is both less exciting to look at and much more fiddly to move and measure. I think those could be problems for getting a kid into wargaming.

I had nearly all of the Navwar 1/3000 ships made for the 1890-1910 era (and I do mean ALL, nearly every ship of every class of every nation). I got rid of them because it took too much work to make them look nice. Navwar models are pretty crude.

There may also be 1/1800 models available now, especially as STLs (if you have a 3D printer). I consider these a bit too large to game with, but I'm going to guess that accurately modeled distance and speed relationships probably aren't your primary concerns. The pre-painted WWII models I've seen do look really nice, and they're cheap when in production.

- Ix

Great advice above. I've played Great War at sea for over 50 years, from 1/1200 to 1/6000.

There are advantages to all scales. 1200 are great to look at but take but take a lot of space and money.

6000 are good for mid to large size games and have a fleet look. The fiddly part can be mitigated by mounting the models on stands. I've seen them mounted on the Jutland game counters and clear bases from LITKO.

As mentioned above, the old Avalon Hill game is a great place to start, including background and simple campaign ideas, General Quarters II, is a good game and is available from Navwar.

Yarkshire Gamer's blog has some great inspiration including painting and basing in 1/2400 scale.

I second Yellow Admiral's recommendation for "Si Vis Pacem." We use that set in our group to fight Russo-Japanese War (1905) using my collection of 1:2400 scale Panzerschiffe models.

Another US source is Wartime Journal. They now offer 3-D files of RJW and other pre-dreadnoughts -- wtj.com/store/index.html

Please see my Naval blog for game and ship pictures -- link

Jim

+1 on General Quarters II. Dated, but very workable.

While you are collecting and painting up your miniatures you'll want to actually play some battles to try out whatever rules you decide on. I'd suggest the 1/3000 Top Down 2-D counters to use until you have your models ready for action. (another benefit is that you can see if 1/3000 size is right for you, or if you should go larger at 1/2400 before investing in actual miniatures.)
Modest investment of $20 USD just print them out, mount to bases and play.
link

Thanks to all for these suggestions which I've used to follow up for rules, ships and board game items. My grandson is definitely interested in the painting part of the hobby so we'll start off with some panzer schiffe models to work on while we sort out the rules. As several have pointed out, panzer schiffes are pretty basic. Does anyone add masts to their models? If so, I assume you use wire?

I add masts, boats, anchors, anchor lines, and portholes.

You can get 1/2400 boats from the old C-in-C line at legionsIVhire, or by ordering specific sprues from GHQ. The tiny bit of extra detail on these boats (compared to the blobs cast onto the Panzerschiffes) is a vast improvement in appearance. A knife or file can reduce or take off the cast-on boats.

My masts are always plain vertical wire, no spars. Spars can look really nice, but they're fragile. I do add a platform or enclosure to the masts of large ships that had one, by slicing off a section of tiny styrene tube and threading it onto the mast. On a 1/2400 Panzerschiffe model the details like windows and even the correct shape aren't all that important.

The anchors and anchor lines are really just blobs of lead sprue in the right size and shape class. The anchor doesn't need to be anything more than a bump, the anchor lines can be just a line on the deck – just enough of a bump in the right shape to get picked up by drybrushing and/or a wash.

I make portholes by just drawing a round dot with an extra fine permanent marker. This is simple, but not necessarily easy – they have to be small, round, and in very straight rows, or they look awful.

Things I do not add, because they drove me insane or just didn't work:

davits
cranes
rigging

Admiral, you must have a fantastic collection. What size wire do you use? Do you use a SMALL drill to prepare for masts?

My most recent innovation was to start using floral wire, because it comes in short straight lengths, in multiple (small) gauges, and it's easy to cut and file. I have bundles in 22 ga, 24 ga, 26 ga, and 28 ga. I think I use 28 ga on DDs, and 26 ga on CAs and BBs, but I'm not sure. I just go with what "looks right". Floral wire is mild steel, so it does bend more easily, but it's only about as flexible as brass, and in short lengths like one uses for 1/2400 masts it's really hard to bend without using tools very deliberately.

I used to use piano wire because it was straight and very hard, but it notched my wire cutters, was almost impossible to file smooth, and had a bad tendency to shoot across the room and disappear when cut. Before that I used spooled steel, brass or copper wire, but I got tired of working so hard to straighten it. I do like working with brass and copper; they're both hard enough to make good masts (and spears and pikes and lances), but easy to cut/file/flatten.

To drill holes, I have a full set of wire gauge drill bits which I use with a pin vise (actually, about a dozen pin vises – I have a whole box of them). I also have sets of metric drill bits in sub-millimeter sizes: 0.4mm, 0.5mm, 0.6mm, 0.7mm, 0.8mm. I recently bought new sets of 0.7mm and 0.8mm, so those seem to be the most often-used sizes. A word of warning: these tiny drill bits are extremely fragile, and must be used with care. Drill a little, then back the bit out, drill a little more, back it out, etc. If you try to press on when the bit starts to jam, it can snap off and clog the hole with a chunk of hardened steel which you'll never get out. I have a few ships with masts stepped a bit forward or back from where they're supposed to be because of this.

Most of my painted Panzerschiffes are pre-dreadnoughts and cruisers; I just didn't like the battleships and they look all wrong next to my GHQ and CinC models, but the cruisers and DDs seemed okay with some extra detailing. Also, for a time the Panzerschiffe pre-dreadnoughts were all i could find. I have since acquired a fair number of WTJ and Viking Forge models, and I've bought some of the GHQ pre-dreadnoughts as they've come out.

- Ix

"it can snap off and clog the hole with a chunk of hardened steel which you'll never get out. I have a few ships with masts stepped a bit forward or back from where they're supposed to be because of this"

Without wishing to revel in another man's distress, I am so glad to hear that it's not just me … 😀

Admiral, you have great advice. Ordering the wire—do you remember what size styrene tubing you use?

No idea… But I own all of the smallest tube sizes from Plastruct and Evergreen, so one of those.

I tend to do a lot of tiny-scale fabrication based on what looks right, not precise measurements. CLs, CAs and BBs all get different size platforms, so probably different size tubing.

Thanks to everyone who responded. I'm confident I can get my grandson off on the right track!

barach2001 Can you email me?

Ix Nichols
smegma17@ixtraneous.net

- Ix

Hello Admiral! Having difficulty with that address: barcah2001@yahoo.com