Two if by Sea has launched

I have released Two if by Sea on my PayHip store. Two if by Sea is a set of scenarios to be used with the TwoFatLardies rules Kiss Me Hardy using the changes for ships under the rate from To Covet Glory. The book contains ship stats for a large number of vessels from large Ship Sloops to the smallest cutters and Bermuda Sloops used by the Royal Navy and the American Continental Navy and State Navies (Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia).

The scenarios include twelve scenario sets. Each scenario set is one or more unique historical or fictional scenario from the American Revolution. The first scenario details the British Schooner Halifax in 1769 in an incident before the war started. The scenarios continue through July of 1781. There is also a guide on setting up convoy escorts or raids on the Atlantic, Caribbean, or Far East trade routes.

There are 59 pages of scenarios and 121 pages of ship lists. There is also a section noting the types of merchant vessels that were likely to be encountered on the waters of the Americas during the war. Lastly, there are notes on the available models in both 1/300 scale and 1/700th including links to the manufactures.

I will be releasing this on Wargame Vault as well and including it in the To Covet Glory bundle as well. I hope you will take a look.

New Product

I have uploaded some 1/700th flat boats to my PayHip store. https://payhip.com/b/c4jzL Flatboats were a common sight from the founding of the United States through the ACW. There are four variants. One is armed. Two have cargo loads and another has a tent. This represents many of the types that could be encountered from the South Carolina rivers in 1780 or along the Mississippi in 1862.

These were made to support a scenario for the Two if by Sea supplement for the AWI that I am getting ready to release. The scenario features the last vestiges of the Georgia State Navy coming across some loyalist shore batteries supported by an armed flat boat.

The other ones could be useful scatter terain in any naval game taking place close to the shore.

Finished! Well Mostly

The AWi Supplement is finally done. There are eleven battles, some with multiple scenarios, and a scenario generator for convoy raids across North American, Carribean and Far East Waters. Also included are 121 pages of ship stats for Ship sloops to cutters of the Royal Navy and the Continental and State Navies of the American Revolution. The book spans most of the war where small vessels made their presence known. The commerce raiding, attacks against Nova Scotia fisheries and privateers are represented within.

I am hoping to have a final review completed this week and publish it. I also included some notes on where to get some miniatures for the game. With the wide variety of 3D printed items available, the oportunities of some unique vessels for your table are nearly limitless.

Below is the current cover that I am working with. This still could change.

Progress At Last: ACW and AWI Naval

It was a good weekend for getting stuff done. I managed to paint a few ships for the ACW. I am only missing two vessels for the Battle of Hampton Roads. I need to print and paint the Jamestown for the Confederacy and the St Lawrence for the Union. As has been my norm lately, I had a painted version of the Jamestown and managed to completely smash it to bits by setting the cover of my 3d printer down on it accidentallty. Anyway, I did get a number of models painted up.

I still have to paint the shore batteries. I started on this task but the primer started coming off the models as I tried to paint them. I did something wrong with priming them. I will have to readdress this.

AWI Supplement

As to my To Covet Glory supplement, it made significant progress over the weekend. I was able to get in a number of games. I played with both 1/300th and 1/700th miniatures. They both worked well. There are eight more scenarios to work through. I am really happy with the progress that was made this weekend. If I can get any more time to work on it, I should be able to wrap it up in November. As soon as it is complete, I will be getting it uploaded to the PayHip site first and then to Wargame Vault. It will become part of the To Covet Glory bundle on both.

Current State of the AWI Supplement

I was able to get some writing and editing done yesterday. I changed around the headings and now have it trimmed down to 187 pages. There is still significant work needed for the Virgina State Navy section that is left. I have names of ships and that is about it. I decided to limit the work to not include the vessels of the Northern Colonies at this point in time. I will probably pick back up with that with another supplement. I keep finding more scenarios that interest me and need to hold off on expanding this any more.

As far as ships go, I am not doing badly. I am experimenting with printing to try to get the masts to fit better in the mast holes without significant drilling being needed. Hopefully that will help. My printer needs a new sheet of FEB for the printer tub and I am looking to get a magnetic flexible print platform to make removing prints easier. I have them in my Amazon cart and am waiting to place the order.

This puts me at a place where I am getting pretty close to being ready. I will work on some more terrain items to complete some scenarios. I need scale trees. The nice part is that these can be shrubs for my other miniatures (15mm). I am still looking to use a layered approach for naval terrain. A blue felt sheet for the bottom layer. Some sandy patches to lay on top for sand bars. A clear plastic sheet for the surface and then other terrain on top of that for islands, rocks and the like. It should work well.

I can use this with both my 1/300 miniatures and the 1/650 or 1/700 scale minis. For ships that I print, I am liking the 1/650 more and more. They are chunkier but easy to print and paint.

I still have to finish the repairs on the ships I shattered. As you can see from the picture, The masts didn't fair well in the fall. I have some clamps that will help but I am not sure how much longer this will take.

I did get a shore battery completed recently. It came out OK. I also painted up a sinking 3rd rate. Both of these were from Hagen Miniatures. I really like these models. I painted up a Lugger from their line as well but I need sails and rigging as they do not come with it. I will probably do paper sails.

Here is the fleet thus far, minus the two shattered vessels.

You can see the sinking third rate and the shore battery in this shot as well as the lugger in the bottom right corner. These are Hagen Miniatures. The flatboats are ones I created in tinkercad. i will put them up on my PayHip for free. The three bomb vessels on the bottom left are all Saturnalia miniatures. The Cutter in the center is from Daitra productions. I may have that spelled wrong. The small bermuda sloop is one I created from a 28mm miniature that I shrunk down. The sails are paper. In the top center are more Saturnalia brigs and to the right of them are a pair of Black seas schooners.

Everything needs more work. I need rigging for the most part. But at least it feels like it is coming together. I have plans to print a few more ships and they I will look to print some ratlines for the vessels that I have.

Focused on Ships Again

I managed to complete the painting and assembly of a few more 1/700th ish vessels. Here is the current line up. They need more rigging done but I have not figured out how much I will plan to do.

These are from multiple sources. Starting with the back row, from left to right: a brig from Saturnalia studios (My Mini Factory), A Bermuda sloop that was resized from a 28mm one from Wargaming3d, A Ketch from Saturnalia Studios, a Ship-Sloop from Henry Turner Miniatures (My Mini Factory or Wargaming3d).

Next two rows are schooners from Black Seas. The back one painted as a Frrench Vessel with cleaner sails and the forward one painted more or less as an American vessel.

Next row is a Cutter/Sloop from Productions Diratia and a Ship Sloop from Saturnalia Studios (both found on My Mini Factory).

The front row is a Lugger from Hagen Miniatures in Germany. I still need to add sails to this vessel and some rigging.

These were great fun to paint up. Most of them were primed with the wrong primer. It added a gloss finish with it and the paint didn't always stick. I bought some Army Painter Primer for some of them that worked out much better.

I also have some others on the bench that could be in the same shape in a couple of hours of work.

On the left you can see four of the flat boats that I made. These are very simple models that I made in Tinkercad. They will work for some scenarios that I put together. Then there are two vessels from Saturnalia Miniatures. A Brig and a bomb ketch. Their sails are partially done. The masts didn't fit and I had to do some work to make them fit. Then another flatboat of mine. Lastly there is a small bomb vessel. It was the same model as the previous one but i will be rigging it as more of a cutter than a ketch.

I still have four more Black Sails schooners to paint up. However, these are very heavily armed vessels and much larger than most that I have found for the scenarios that I wrote. I also have some more Henry Turner prints that I am struggling with fitting masts with. I think I have painted most of my Saturnalia prints so far. I have two more Hagen models to paint (a gaff riged gunboat and a small cutter). I also have some wrecks and a shore battery to paint up from Hagen Miniatures.

I will be reviewing scenarios and checking on what models I am missing so I can finish up my AWI scenario book. I will use my 1/300th models as well but they work better for vessels smaller than ship-sloops.

New Scenario and making miniatures for it

There was a scenario that I wanted to include into the AWI book an interesting small skirmish between two vessels of the Georgia Navy and some loyalist militia. It featured a flat boat. These were vessels that were very shallow drafted and were used to transport cargo down the rivers to port cities for transport. In this instance, the Loyalist militia managed to mount a few cannon aboard the flatboat to engage the Georgia Navy.

The flat boat was used well beyond the American Revolution and would be seen on the waters of the Mississippi River during the Civil War and after.

This image is taken from https://peoplesriverhistory.us/blog/history-of-flatboating-and-a-charming-educational-film/.

Based on the image, I have guessed this flatboat to be about 12' x 36' in size. I was using an actual picture of a flatboat from closer to the Civil War for reference. These could come in a multitude of sizes as there was likely no standardization. Since the design was fairly simple, I decided to try to make a model in Tinkercad.

So I created this. An armed flat boat, an empty one, one with Cargo and one with a structure in the center. The armed flatboat that was referenced for my scenario had no details on how it was armed. My guess is a pair of six-pounder cannon. But in truth, it could have had one large gun mounted in the bow or a bunch of swivel guns. Since many actions of the American Revolutions occured near river mouths, having flat boats wouldn't be out of place on the table. I believe in the main TCG rulebook there is reference to the same.

With any luck, I will print out a few of these and see what they look like.

1/700th Models & AWI Scenarios

I am trying to figure out who all produces 1/700 scale models that are usable for To Covet Glory. In general, the models available in this scale are far more suited to Kiss Me Hardy as they tend to focus on those above the rate. But there are some stand outs that have some nice models below the rate. One item that I found was that Black Seas models are not true 1/700th. They can vary from 1/600 to 1/700. Saturnalia is listed as 1/650 scale. While Henry Turner makes true 1/700 vessels. Thus far, here are the ones that I can come up with.

STL Files

1) Henry Turner - He has webstores with MyMiniFactory and Wargames3d among others.

2) Simon Mann - He has a few models and they are on Wargames3d.

3) Saturnalia - They are on MyMiniFactory.

4) Productions Diratia - They are on MyMiniFactory.

Many of these can be purchased as prints by resellers on Etsy.

Physical Models

1) Warlord Games Black Seas lines - They have Brigs, Cutters, Schooners and gunboats.

2) Hagen-Miniatures - I just found this company. (https://www.hagen-miniatures.de/) They have some ideal vessels. They have a bomb ketch, a ship-sloop (18g), a galleass merchant, several arabic/Barbary vessels, a tartan, several gunboats, a lugger, a cutter, a ketch, a schooner and others.

3) Meridian - They can be found on https://navymodelsandbooks.co.uk/product-category/meridian-1700-scale-trafalgar-ships/. They have a limited line. They include the HMS Pickle. With some, the masts and such are separate from the hull. I have not ordered any of these models.

From Hagen-Miniatures, I have ordered a wreck marker, a shore battery, a gunboat with spirit sail, a cutter and a lugger. They are in the mail from Germany. I will likely order more.

I am adding another scenario to the book. I was searching for information on the last two ships on the Georgia Navy and discovered a new scenario that fit in. To it is added in as part of the other scenario I am working on. Currently there are 11 scenarios that are part of the book. Several of them are more than a single scenario. So far the list includes:

Naval Action off Fort Fredericka: April 19, 1778

Destruction of the Georgia Navy March to April 1779

Captain Howell, Georgia Privateer April 1781

Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina September, and November 1780

Fair American’s Patrol: October 7th - 15th 1780

HM Schooner Halifax

The Battles of Machias

Voyage of the Vengeance

Sampson and the Swallow

A Convoy Raid

Bonavista Bay, Nova Scotia 1780

I have really been enjoying working on this again. The ship list has provided a number of interesting side tracks.

Progress! And lessons Learned.

I have finally something to show for my 3d printing efforts. I have made a number of prints but these are the first that I have gotten assembled and painted. I have learned quite a bit while doing this. I will not be adding masts and sails until after painting the components. Anyway, I have three built and painted if not rigged vessels.

Unlike my previous efforts, these are all in 1/700th scale. They come from 3 different places. The one on the left is not a print. It is a schooner from Warlord Games' Black Seas. I really like the vessel and have 6 more to do. I have painted the decks of two others.

The middle one is a model from Ash and Stone on Wargaming3d.com. The original was a 28mm model and absolutely huge. I rescaled it and built the masts and sails. The rigging was an attempt. The foresail was not put on correctly but I just let it go. It is tiny and fragile. I really need to consider basing my 1/700th models. Especially this one. I like how it turned out. I want to print a few more. Ultimately I think I want at least five of these.

Lastly we have a ship sloop. I am not 100% sure whose model it is. It might be one of Henry Turners or Saturnalia studios. It was one of the first vessels that I got a good print on the sails for. I made the mistake of gluing the sails in place before painting. In the process of painting, I broke off the main mast right below the sails. It is glued back but will need the rigging to hold it together firmly. I am not confident on how that will go.

IN printing smaller vessels (schooners, brigs and even small ship sloops) from Henry Turner, I am struggling with the sails. The masts tend to be bigger than the holes for them end up. I have a pin vise to drill them back out. But the dry fitting of the parts have led to multiple sails breaking. The detail of the Henry Turner figures is fantastic. But they are much more fiddly. The Saturnalia ones are good but the masts are chunkier which makes them great for gaming but less so as scale models. I have successfully printed a couple of bomb ketches from Saturnalia now. What I have found helpful is using warm or hot water to rinse the models. I am using a water washable resin. This helps in removing the supports. I am also letting the model air dry after that before putting them under UV lights. This has prevented some odd looking blobs showing up on the model.

This is how I spent my Memorial day. I am putting off further rigging. I will go ahead and prime some of the Saturnalia models that I have and paint them this week to get a good comparison point. I have 3 hulls printed for the HSM Pickle from Henry Turner. The sails that I have printed haven't worked yet. I have not been able to get the bowspirit to fit at all.

As such, I am concentrating on the Saturnalia figures. After printing, the mast holes are still too small. I am drilling them out to get them to fit properly. I have painted up a pair of bomb ketches so far. I have to glue the masts in place still. Should finish that tonight.

I did finish a second Black Seas Schooner as well. I used a painting guide I found online and painted it in more French like colors. I'm not sure I like it. I will get pictures tonight.

I also have an update on my AWI scenario book for To Covet Glory. I have finished with the ship list for brigs of the Royal Navy. I have also added another scenario to the book. I am working on the Brigs of captured French, Spanish and Dutch navies now. This leaves Cutters and schooners left to stat out. This puts the book in at 115 pages thus far. Of which, 45 pages are scenarios and campaigns. The ship list will be over 100 pages detailing Royal Navy vessels under the rate from Ship Sloops (3 masted ships smaller than frigates), to Brig sloops (two masted vessels with a square rig), to Schooners (two masted fore and aft rigged vessels) and cutters (single masted vessels). I will have partial lists of US Navy and State navy vessels. Some data changes the ship types from the To Covet Glory rulebook. Lastly, there is a single page of some gunnery changes that are optional. This was a thought I had to further differentiate between the smaller cannons. This section might get dropped.

3d Printing & Black Seas

One thing I am having issues with in 3d Printing ships are the holes for the masts being too small for the masts. I am not sure what I am doing wrong there. Sanding down the mast bases seems to help.

I have started to actually paint some 1/700th scale miniatures. I printed a small bermuda sloop that I scaled down from 28mm of all things.I also have a shop sloop of 18 guns that I have printed up. Both of these are on the painting bench. I need to do some rigging on the small bermuda sloop to get the rest of the sails on. The ship sloop has its deck painted. I am still deciding on a scheme.

I ended up buying the Black Seas Schooner Squadron. The ships are really nicely detailed. I have them primed and have painted one of them. The one thing I noticed is that some work with plyers is needed to get the sails lined up with the bowspirit. I have one that is painted and I am waiting on the glue to dry on the thread to being rigging it. Will see how it goes.

I am very interested in picking up the Black Seas Cutter Squadron. the problem is, I can't find any retailer in the US that carries it. Shipping for it from Warlord directly is $20. No one seems to be selling it on eBay at the moment. I would like to experiment with some different sail plans for them to give them different looks. I think it would be worth it.

The problem with both the Warlord Games models and the ones I am 3D printing is that they are light and tend toward being top heavy. I had not based any of my 1/300th ships. That wasn't an issue with them. With these, I think I will need to base them to have them stay upright on the table. Once I have some more of Henry Turner's models printed and painted up, I should be in good shape to complete the scenario book. That is something I am looking forward to.

January's Almost Over

As January comes to a close, I am happy to report that I have completed 9 scenarios for my AWI book for To Covet Glory. The scenarios are not just single actions in many cases. The one on Convoys gives a template for making convoy attack scenarios for for various theaters giving the player the ability to create random forces to the scenarios with sample merchant vessels. Others include small campaigns following the actions of a particular privateer.

The part still in progress is working through the stats for the vessels of the Royal Navy for the period. Thus far I have seventy-nine ship sloops sorted out based on the books by Winfield on the Royal Navy. I have started work on the Brigs but have much more work to do. There are still Schooners and Cutters to start.

I just started to 3D printing again. I have started on a small Bermuda Sloop and a skiff that I have scaled down from the original 28mm models down to 1/700th scale. I am experimenting with the support density as I previously had too many and the models broke when removing supports from the models. Hopefully this will be successful. In Chitubox, the models looked like they would work.

Thanksgiving

As we approach the Thanksgiving Holiday I just want to send out a thank you to the few of you out there reading my scriblings. I hope you have enjoyed this blog and the intent is to post more as I can. Thank you.

I have a quick recap of projects that I have tinkered with.

To Covet Glory

The scenario pack is coming along. I have made a concious decision to pause work while I get ready to make a bunch of ships for it. I am struggling with what do do. I have a significant fleet in 1/300th scale. These are mostly Sea Dog Studios and some War Artizan paper models. The issue is the War Artizan look great on their own but next to Sea Dog, they look a bit odd. I have printed some Henry Turner miniatures upscaled to 1/300th but the detail starts to go when expanding from 1/700 to 1/300.

The scenarios that I am looking to do will need some merchant ships. I purchased several Henry Turner models of indiamen and some usable merchant men. If I expand these to 1/300th scale, they will be too large for my build plate. So I have decided to make some 1/700 scale models. This should allow me to expand the models that I get onto the table. I should be able to print a number of frigates as well. These will end up being used for larger scenarios. Particularly the scenario I am doing for a convoy raid.

Sharp Practice

I am still looking to where to create a new project. I have a few ideas. The fourth book in my AWI series is always on my mind. I have started it four times now and will finish it one day. It will cover the Continental Retreat into North Carolina and drawing Conrwallis' forces north and ultimately to Yorktown. I need additional resources. Most of my books cover South Carolina and Georgia. I am not sure what I am calling it yet. I have twenty-six pages of notes thus far.

There is also a thought on a Seven Years War campaign featuring Freikorps troops. This one is based on period training manuals on petiete guerre. I have bought some good books on it but haven't gone anywhere with it. I have some notes but not enough work has been done.

Third is a Thirty Years War campaign. i have bought some miniatures a while back but painted nothing. This one is likely a back burner project until the enthusiasm builds again.

Fourth is one of three ACW projects. I have a pennisular campaign laid out, some battles around Atlanta and lastly Jackson's Shenandoah campaign. This project should be close to ready. I need to finalize some scenarios.

Chain of Command

There are two projects here. First is the Third Battle of Kharkov. I really want to do this but have dragged my feet in getting this off the ground. The second is the battle of Singling in 1944. I really am interested in this little battle. It seems like a good opportunity for Chain of Command. It could be done on a large table with Big Chain of Command or on separate tables with separate American platoons pushing up on the village. I have made good progress on this and want to get it on the table top soon.

What a Cowboy

I have a beta of a campaign for WAC about the Second Battle of Adobe Walls. I lack Indians to pull this off myself and have not found any reasonable prices 15mm mounted Indians on eBay yet. I purchased a couple of Indian STLs but want to pick up the really nice set from 3D Breed.

Wargame Vault

I finally hit Electrum Status on my East Front Bundle. Thank you all who purchased. I am very happy to have hit that goal. Here is where my books currently rank. Thanks again.

Book	Current Sales	Status
East Front Bundle	260
Action at Ustilug	89
In the Name of Roma	58
The Campaign for Kharkov	155
Second Kharkov Campaign	90
To Covet Glory Bundle	2
To Covet Glory	167
War of Jenkin's Ear	30
The Coming Thunder	167
The Falcon and the Gladiator	52