Hammerin' Iron

Monitor vs Merrimac

Enthusiasms come and go, and plans and projects leapfrog one another before they can be finished or even started. But interests can also do an orbit and come back into view. Such is the case for me with American Civil War ironclads in general and Peter Pig's Hammerin' Iron game in particular.

The fascination began as a child when, inspired by one of Don Featherstone's books, I scratchbuilt from plasticard models of the Merrimac and Monitor. They certainly weren't accurate scale models but I think they captured the look and feel. An indecisive game between two ships, however, was rather unrewarding.

Galleys & Galleons: Run for port

Merchants at the far end, pirates to the sides, safe harbour
on nearest edge.

This was an impromptu and simple Galleys & Galleons scenario to provide an opportunity for fielding my merchant and Chinese pirate factions. It was not points-costed so only roughly balanced.

The idea was that a diverse group of merchant ships should have to make for a fortified harbour at the other end of the table.  If multiple players had been available they would have competed to get their ship home or make captures, and turns would have been regulated by drawing cards . As it happened the game was played by only two people. The objectives still stood. The merchantmen needed to make the harbour entrance and the pirates needed to capture, not destroy, the merchant prizes.

Galley & Galleons: Treasure Island

Terraforming Treasure Island

I've got a couple of shore batteries for Galleys & Galleons but had nowhere to deploy them, so it was time to make a tropical island.  Rather than trying to model something authentic based on a Googled image, I decided to use what I had - a tree slice with decorative bark.

Galleys & Galleons: Name that ship

People get very involved when, in multi-player games, they have a ship each, and I thought it would be a good idea to boost this personal identification by following other gamers in giving each ship a specific name.

So here are the names I've selected. Many of the ships are interchangeable in their affiliation. The Frigate and the Indiaman is actually the same model. Some of the names are historical or modern, i.e. stolen. Others are made-up.

Galleys & Galleons: Wreckage markers

I needed some wreckage markers for Galleys & Galleons. Wreckage and survivors are included with the Peter Pig manned rowing boats. PP also do some empty rowing boats. These would be a liability in combat and would have been towed behind rather than stored on deck. I didn't have any use for them so I threw them into the wreckage to add to the sense of chaos.

The PP bits were stuck onto 40mm MDF squares. Filler was used to level the surface around the markers. You can now get perfectly adequate filler in big tubs from a 'pound' shop.

Galleys & Galleons: Gun boats

It's handy to have a few smaller, cheaper ships for making up points, so I decided to create some gun boats by cannibalising Peter Pig rowing boats. I didn't have any contemporary illustrations to work from but I've seen pictures of later gunboats and used those for inspiration.

The starting point: light gun and rowing boats from the Peter Pig Pieces of Eight range.

Galleys & Galleons: Blockade running

The sloop sets out to run the
Barbary blockade

I fought another couple of Galleys & Galleons playtest games, this time using the Blockade Runner scenario from the draft rules. The forces were a Sloop - the blockade runner - versus three Xebecs and a Jacht.

Readers may note that my Peter Pig ships now have a little more paint on them than the last time they were photographed. The xebecs, of course, come ready painted.

Galleys & Galleons: Waterlining the Pirateology xebecs

'Waterlining' the three Pirateology xebecs was an unavoidable challenge but not one I was looking forward to.

Owing to the relatively delicate and finished nature of the model, I could hardly put it in a vice, but had to handhold it. Luckily it was possible to rest the model on its stern and this provided a reasonably stable anchor point.

I made a nick in the bow with a pair of GW clippers and then attacked the model with a fretsaw. The hull is partially hollow, but there's a lot of thick plastic to get through.

Galleys & Galleons: The Pirateology xebec

I recently bought three Pirateology xebecs as the basis of a Barbary Pirate fleet for Galleys & Galleons. Sold as a 'Barbary Galley', the ship is nicely modelled and although no scale is stated, it seems perfectly compatible with the Peter Pig 1/450 Pirate ship range. I thought it might be helpful to take some close-ups with a Peter Pig ship for comparison.

Galleys & Galleons: first games

Nic Wright's forthcoming Galleys & Galleons rules are certainly raising a lot of interest and just before Christmas my friend Ian and I finally got round to a couple of playtest games ourselves.

I can only apologise for the photos. The ships are wearing just their undercoats and look like ghost ships, and the photos were taken very inexpertly in the heat of battle. But, hey, it's a playtest. (Ghost ships are actually covered in the rules in a fantasy supplement at the end.)

The seascape in our first game was a little overcrowded with islands and shallows. They were cunningly placed by my piratical opponent, forcing me into a very awkward starting position. Eager to teach the pirates a lesson they would not forget, my ships sped ahead leaving the boats behind. All measurements are made using the coffee stirrers.

Galleys & Galleons: the fleets assemble

My first batch of ships for Galleys & Galleons is now based and primed. The ships are to some extent interchangeable but these photos represent my first thoughts.

The Merchants. From back to front: Peter Pig Large Merchantman, Fluyt, and Small Merchantman. The Dhow (foreground) is a 1/300 Grumpy model with the original crew removed, and Peter Pig crew and guns substituted. I also replaced the supplied but rather vulnerable mast with a stout dressmaking pin. This made it harder to superglue the sail on, but I'd rather cope with a detached sail than a wonky or broken mast.

Galleys & Galleons: making sea bases

I decided to try a new method for basing my 1/450 Peter Pig pirate ships for Galleys & Galleons - aluminium 'turkey' foil. It's said this should be used shiny side up. I'm not sure why but I followed suit. Rather than just crumpling it, I rubbed it over the side of a ribbed tin can. I then varied the angle a little and re-rubbed parts to create a more irregular wave effect.

Galleys & Galleons

Nic Wright's Irregular Wars: Conflict at the World's End reinforced my interest in games which require only small armies and a compact playing area, and can be finished in 1-2 hours. I was thinking about other, similarly compact, land war options, when Nic's new pirate naval game - Galleys & Galleons - impinged on my consciousness. This is currently at the play-testing stage and I have enrolled as a volunteer.

The game involves very modest forces, can be played in a quite restricted area, and promises to be fast and furious. It satisfies all the criteria for a modest, compact and fast game, but what initially attracted me to it were the photos on Nic's blog of his superbly painted 1/450 pirate ships made by Peter Pig .

St Vincent refight at SELWG by Tonbridge Wargames Club

The game's organiser, Simon, fields questions from visitors.

Tonbridge Wargames Club staged a refight of the Battle of Cape St Vincent (1797) at the SELWG show yesterday. The battle was fought between British and Spanish fleets during the French Revolutionary Wars.

The models belong to the game's organiser, Simon, and are all 1/1200 Langton Minatures. The rules used were Rod Langton's Signal Close Action rules 3rd edition (there is a 4th edition). Ability dice determine each fleet's actions each turn with additional dice for more specific things such as signal receipt, boarding and collisions!  There are a lot more extras in the rules but for a big fleet action keeping it simple is best.

Navy Days

My interest in a new 'period' is inevitably accompanied (and sometimes superseded) by an accumulation of relevant books and 'WW2 naval' is no exception.

I got the hardware bible, Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946, generally reckoned to be better than the Janes equivalent. I'm currently reading The Naval War in the Mediterranean 1940-1943 by Greene and Massignani. The authors take a very analytical approach, placing the struggle in its geopolitical context and explaining the things other authors would leave you wondering about. IMO this is exactly how military history should be written, and it's no accident that both authors are "keen wargamers". Prompted by Greene and Massignani, I've also bought Smith's Action Imminent and I've got a copy of Patrick Hreachmack's The Painter's Guide to World War Two Naval Camouflage.

World War 2 Naval

The Italian Battleship Roma

I've been thinking about getting into WW2 gun-action naval wargaming, particularly the Anglo-Italian battles in the Mediterranean. It would be a new game for minimal effort, cost and demand on storage.

I got a 2" hex cloth from Magister Militum at Salute and am now planning to get some Figurehead 1/6000 ships. (1/6000 would be a logical step down in scale from my 1/3000 pre-Dreadnoughts.)

The most appealing commercially available rules I've found so far is Grand Fleets, but I'd prefer something simpler like DBSA.

Being very small and hard to recognize at playing distance, I would definitely want to put the ships on, say, 25mm x 50mm bases which will have enough room for clear labelling, even if it's just an ID number.

A small fly in the ointment is the Figurehead destroyer bases which are moulded on and will have to be countersunk into the MDF layer of my larger MDF-and-steel bases.

1/3000 Ship bases

Here is an illustrated guide to how I made and painted bases for my 1/3000 scale pre-dreadnought ships.  The models shown (except for the heading picture which is the Japanese Asama) are all Spanish and American ships from the excellent War Times Journal line, and are based for Phil Barker's Damn Battleships Again (DBSA).