Ancient Galley sinking markers -part 2

 UPDATE

Here are those homemade ancient war galley sinking markers painted.

These cost, all up, about a few dollars. Best bit is that these were all made from junk leftovers I had lying around from previous projects. So cheap and recyclable.

Ancient Galley sinking markers

 

When it comes to what painting project, or what game for that matter, I'm working on miniatures for its probably accurate to say that I can have the attention span of a goldfish. Currently I'm working on at least three separate projects. As such, work progresses slowly on each.

But one project that has always sat on the backburner, but I'm keen to play, is Persidons Warriors by Osprey Games. I have always had a love for ancient history and in particular the wars of ancient Greece and Rome. So, as I slowly build my collection of ancient naval galleys, I lacked one important thing. Sinking galley markers. These can be expensive to buy, and I'd rather spend that money on another trireme. As such, I decided to make my own.  Here are my D.Y.I. ancient war galley sinking markers.

These are made from craft sticks, toothpicks and sand glued onto 40mm x 20mm war bases. The sand I use to represent sea water foaming over the sinking wreck and the sticks and toothpicks get broken at odd angles to represent the breaking apart of the galley.

I'll paint these up and show them off again. But I wanted to show what they are made of just in case anyone is curious.

Whirlpool for Uncharted Seas

I wanted to make a whirlpool for Uncharted Seas and so I set my mind to thinking how best to do that. I have some blank CD's that I've used for terrain and so decided that one of those would work well in forming the base.

I used PVA glue to create an uneven water base and the swirling effect of water being drawn down into the Whirlpool.

Once the first layer was dry I repeated the process by adding PVA glue to raised areas in the swirls of water. This I did three or four times, each time waiting until the glue had dried before doing the next level. I was careful to create an uneven feel so as to reflect individual waves being tossed in the maelstrom.

After this dried I base sprayed the whole think in Black Spray. As an afterthought I realised that I could use sand to reflect the foaming of the waves. So, again using PVA glue, I glued sand to the top of the waves. Once dry, I then base coated the sand in Black.

Above you can see the paints I used, in order from left to right. I painted the first two layers by wet brushing one after another and leaving some of the base coat black showing through. The final two paint colours were dry brushed on afterwards. Each application of paint was applied in a swirl so as to suggest the whirlpool's churning waters. The final images below show this process.

As a final act, I very lightly dry brushed the wave crests with White paint. So there you have it. Cheap and easy. All you need is a spare CD, PVA glue, the desired paints and a lot of patience as you watch glue and paint dry.

One maelstrom whirlpool ready for Uncharted Seas and naval wargaming.

Affixing sails to Ancient Galleys

My gamble payed off. Using small 1x2mm circular rare-earth magnets I been able to secure sails to my ancient galleys. Using superglue (of which mine isn't!) I was able (eventually!) to secure the magnets to both the galley and sail.

This now permits me to affix the sails when I want to but leave them off most of the time, as would occur prior to most battles. Below you can see the arrangement of the magnets on both the galley and sail. A 1x2mm round magnet is powerful enough to secure a large Xyston miniatures sail, though it is a bit flimsy. The smaller sail secures more firmly and will be the main type of sail I apply this method too. I'm also only using one sail on a galley.

Below are a few close-ups showing the magnets affixed and the removable larger sail.

Xyston Greek Triremes

I'm slowly working my way through the mountain of ancient galleys I have had for some years now. The latest edition to the slowly growing fleet are three Xyston Greek Triremes. These are some very nice streamline beauties! They just look like hot-rods of the ancient seas, as indeed they were. These were the mainstay of the ancient fleets around 400BC and later.

I'm tempted to get a whole bunch of these to build up a Greek fleet. I studied Ancient History back in my High School years and loved it. An interest that hasn't left me since. The wars and the struggle for freedom. We forget in the modern Western world today just how much of the Grecko notion of freedom from tyranny still influences us today.

Anyway these beauties are such a streamline model I just had to share them.

Ancient Roman Galleys

Years ago at MOAB I was fortunate enough to be able to by off a retailer a stack of 1/600 scale ancient galleys for a very reasonable price. He was keen to offload them and I was more than happy to take them off his hands. An amicable arrangement was struck and I was duly supplier with a bunch of ancient galleys.

Then they just sat around for a few years forlornly longing for the day when they would be painted and make it to the war gaming table. Well my friends, that day is finally upon us! And what a glorious day it is for the Roman Empire!

Having been bitten by the war gaming naval bug recently I have set upon the unenviable task of getting these lads to the gaming table. So far I have nine Roman galleys painted and others of a non-Roman persuasion are still on the painting table. So more posts to follow on this.

Given these are Roman ships I have given them a consistent paint scheme to differentiate them from non-Roman galleys. The obvious choice was to go with a red colour scheme. Sadly the highlighting in a different red hasn't really stood out and so the paint job doesn't quite pop the way I was hoping it would.

I posted about some of these ages ago when I first started to paint them. But I then put them on the 'to-do' shelf unfinished. Finally I have kicked myself into gear and gotten back on to these lads.

Above is a Skytrex Roman Quinquireme. This will be a command ship for an admiral or sub-admiral and so I have mounted it on a base and had the sail permanently affixed to the model. This is to make it stand out on the table when the inevitable carnage of ramming occurs and knowing just where the command ships are will become important in the game.

Above is a Xyston Roman Trireme. Given that most ancient galley battles would have occurred with the sails and masts left on the nearest shore in order to save weight and increase rowing mobility, I felt it better not to add them. I am experimenting with rare earth magnets as an idea of being able to attach a sail when the scenario calls for it, such as chasing pirates. If it works I'll post about how I was able to do it.

And lastly, we have a Xyston Roman Quinquireme with a Corvus. Still at a scale of 1/600 this lad is smaller than the Skytrex model. But given there were something like fourteen different versions of a Quinquireme apparently, that doesn't matter. In fact this will also double as a Quadrieme.

Once I get through the current lot of galleys, I hope to add to the individual fleets and amass of small (very small) naval power. My plan is to use the Uncharted Seas rules for this as it lends itself to large naval engagements and I couldn't be bothered learning a dozen different rule sets to play at various fleet scales.

I'll have to come up with some house rules for galley rowing and fatigue, use of the Corvus and some specific Critical Tables for Oar Ranks, Broadsides and Rudder Strikes. So more on that someday in to the future.

Peter Pigs new Viking Longships... are they any good for 10mm?

Well might you ask, dear Reader!

In my last post I noted that Micks's Metal Models had a stall at MOAB and I was fortunate enough to nearly buy him out of the Peter Pig 15mm Norse Longships that he was selling. He had two varieties of the ship, one of which you can see on Mick's website page. The other variant however you can see above. This second variant I purchased is un-crewed and open, giving more possibilities for variation in what you add to the basic ship, and is definitely the better option of the two in my humble opinion.

So, any good for 10mm?

Simple answer is YES!  As you can see from the images below, this scales to 10mm very well.

But first up, some details of the actual product.

Instructions on how it fits together.

Two stands from the GW Warmaster range next to the ship for scale.

Its just shy of being wide enough to fit a Warmaster stand (40mm x 20mm) on it and so you can't sit a standard Warmaster unit on the deck, sadly (queue sad face!).

But they can still fit in length ways as you can see below. Also you get some perspective on the size of the Helmsmen. It isn't a true 15mm figure, being closer to 12mm in height.

This is good though for the Kallistra range of 10mm figures, because these are more 12mm in height also. So these ships will certainly suit Kallistra's range of Normans, Saxons and Vikings.

Two Norman's chat to the Helmsmen

True 10mm figures will however look undersized next to the Helmsmen. The figure below is a Pendraken Imperial Roman Command figure (10mm size) showing the size difference.

The image below shows the various components you get with the model.

Finally, its worth noting that there are two varieties of the figure heads as well. One variety is more of a fantasy dragon figure head. The other is more of a historically accurate dragon figure head. Both are equally suitable for fantasy and historic gaming. I have both varieties but only show one variety below. The stern also has a "tail" that comes with the core set.

So there you have it!

If you are after a longship for 10mm wargaming (and I have been after something like this for years!) then this is the ship for you.

Building a Roman Navy - Xyston 1/600th scale Ancient Galleys

As a side project (one of many), I have been slowly working on my collection of Xyston 1/600th scale Ancient Galleys.

Roman Quinquereme, Admirals vessel.

A search around the web shows very little in the way of painted ancient galley wargaming blogs, so I thought I would share a few pictures of what I have done so far. I want to build up fleets for Roman, Greek, Persian and Carthaginian navies.

First set of images is the Roman Quinquereme which has been based so that its easily identifiable on the table as the Admirals ship.

I still haven't found an ancient naval ruleset that doesn't require a PhD and that I am happy with. But here's how they have been painted.

Basecoat in Skull White.

Pain the underneath in a Scorched Brown.

Wash the entire model in a brown ink wash.

 

I used Red Gore as the red colour common the fleet. Each of the navies I propose to make will have a common unifying colour somewhere of each ship. In the case of Rome is has to be red, for what other colour typifies Rome more than red?

I then used Snakebite Leather for the rudders and some of the raised panelling on the ship.

I then used Skull White again for painting certain areas on the bow and stern and the teardrop shaped eye on the bow. I also used a Bronze colour for the ram on the bow of the ship.

I then used a variety of colours for the tent at the stern of each ship.

Finally, I stripped up the tent with white stripes on some of the ships. This helps to differentiate which ship is which on the table.

When I get the Roman fleet fully finished, I'll post a group photo of the lot.