"What to do with a Port?" Topic

Cleaning up after a dead wargamer this weekend, and found a collection of 25/28mm longboats and a sailing ship or so. With things already in hand, I'm probably a sheet of blue vinyl from a pre-modern port, and Heaven knows I have enough fantasy, Renaissance and horse & musket individually-mounted castings. So what would I do with one? And what specific terrain would I need? As in jailbreaks and rescues call for dungeons or prisons and kidnappings and assassinations usually require palaces.
Time period from Conan to Hornblower by way of Captain Blood.

Thanks.

No expert on ports but it seems to me a collection of ramshackle houses, a tavern or two and a suitable fort (ideally stone but wood would work) would be pretty much all you need

Oh – and some sort of dock

And maybe a couple of larger buildings as warehouses

If you want to go nuts, a drydock, a beached/abandoned ship and sewer sections.

For inspiration, see The Princess and the Pirate (1943).

The hills at the entrance to the harbor of Hydra in Greece have a number of stone gun emplacements, rather than a big fort like we saw at the Cartagena scenes in the movie "Romancing the Stone." These would be easier to model, though less impressive than a big fort.

I also like the idea of ships pulled out of the water to have their bottoms cleaned.

Grelber

Pass it to the left?

Hornblower would be trying to destroy a battery prior to going in with boats to cut out a ship in the harbour. Possibly having landed on a beach beyond the harbour.

Quite some time ago Hank Lubbers ran a cutting out expedition game (15mm IIRC) at Advance the Colors when it was in Dayton, Ohio; a friend and I played in Hank's game and it was lots of fun. The last time I saw Hank I asked where he got the idea for the game, and he told me from some rules that had been published in an issue of MWAN.

And, of course, there was Duke Seyfried's huge Pirates of the Caribbean game, with an attack on a port that he ran at Historicon-if you weren't there, I believe you can still find photos of it online.

Nappy sailor and marine figures, guns and ships are available in 25mm, 15mm and 10mm, while pirates, ships and guns are available in 25mm and 15mm.

My sympathies for your loss, and I hope when you and I pass some equally kind gamer looks to give our possessions new life, just as we would want.

I would start with some modular dock pieces. These are easy to make out of craft sticks (popsicle sticks, tongue depressors, toothpicks etc.) and dowel. Make a bunch of rectangles, they are very versatile.

Ladies of the evening, professional companions, working girls … and they'll need a nice house -- "a proper sportin' house, with class girls and clean linen – and proper hygiene."