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.

Painting Boats

I managed to finish two more of the Hagen Miniatures boats that I had purchased. One is a small sloop that still needs paper sails. The other is a small gun boat with a gaff sail. These came out well. I also managed to dinish the repairs on the two damaged ship-sloops that I broke trying to move them. According to USPS, I might get my clear bases today. I will need to figure out what the right glue is to use on these. I will be basing all of my 1/700th ships from now on. The bases from Litko arrived. I think they are large enough for most of my 1/700 vessels. Some of the larger ones would not fit.

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.

Hobby Time

I managed to grab some hobby time today. I glued about 70% of a Team Yankee T-72 together. I also finished gluing and primed a BMP-2, also team yankee. Then I primed three T-55s (Old Glory), a QRF M60, some US Infantry (Khurasan I think) and some Russians (Khurasan maybe).

But I also did some brick work on the old Warehouse building that I put together years ago. I have finished the tin roof on it. I will add framing to the doorways, some lintels on the windows and then weather it as the brick work paper that I have looks a bit plasticy. The tin roof looks good but needs weathering as well. Looks too brand new at the moment. I am very excited about this as this building was a plain white with a black roof before.

The Team Yankee BMP-2 comes with the upper hull and turret to give you the options to make a BMP-1 instead. I glued together the turret and have the hull top. I am thinking of making a stuck in the mud version. It might make a useful objective at some point.

I have not started on the Merkava tank yet that I purchased. Nor on the M163 (?) Vulcan for the Israelis. I did get an unexpected auction win though. I placed a $1 bid on a Blue Moon corner tavern. Somehow, I won it. The shipping was expensive but still cheaper than the actual building by far. however, in double checking the auction, the picture was the saloon but the description was for building set #6. So it was still a bargain but not sure I am as happy about it. It will be fine.

I found my old documentation on how I painted my previous Cold War minis. Even found a business card with the Israeli infantry painting guide I had made. I am really looking forward to painting them up.

I still have a table full of ships that need painting. I just am not feeling it at the moment. Hopefully, I will get some time to work on this again. Or steal a few minutes daily and get this stuff knocked out.

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.

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

AWI Naval Wargaming

One of the things that I want to model on the tabletop is a convoy raid. The Royal Navy was constantly escorting convoys between England and the United States throughout the American Revolution. Between the US Navy, American, Spanish, French Privateers and later the French and Spanish Navies, there were countless vessels on the ocean looking to raid these convoys. These convoys could contain hundreds of civilian vessels, most of which are unarmed. The escorts were few in number and had to protect the entire fleet. As such, hit and run raids could pull away ships from the convoy before the escorts could react.

The complexity here is that most gamers have large numbers of warships in their collections but fewer numbers of merchantmen. The scale I choose for small ships restricts this further. Henry Turner has three different East Indiamen among his 1/700 to 1/1200 offerings. I might switch scales for this scenario.

I am struggling to figure out how the scenario should work out.

New Scenario for To Covet Glory

I stumbled upon an interesting naval action off the coast of Jekyl and St Simons Islands during the American Revolution. This is right in the same area that the War of Jenkin's Ear naval battles were fought. It is a small scenario of three ships per side. The Rebels have three oared galleys compared to the larger sailing vessels of the Royal Navy.

I have largely finished the scenario and am going to publish it on my PayHip site. Since it is a one off scenario, it will be just $.99.

The British have an advantage in number of guns but face a significant challenge.

The War of Jenkin's Ear supplement is Released!

I have settled on a final cover. The product is released to the PayHip Site. The product includes a history of colonial Georgia and the War of Jenkin's Ear in the colony. It has some rule modifications for To Covet Glory and some adidtional rules for Sharp Practice to complete the scenarios. It includes ships stats for a number of additional vessels and an All At Sea campaign modeled after the Rich's article from the 2013 Christmas Special.

The historical scenarios include five scenarios modeling actual and hypothetical actions before the Spanish invasion. These include four for Sharp Practice and one for Kiss Me Hardy. There are nine scenarios covering the Spanish invasion of Georgia. These are divided into four Sharp Practice scenarios and five scenarios for Kiss Me Hardy.

In addition, there is an outline for a campaign dealing with the Spanish invasion of the Outer Banks of North Carolina in 1741. Some suggestions for additional scenarios from the time period, and instructions for assembling the Scout Boats, Piraguas, Fusta, Galliot and Galley 3d models.

I would like to point out that this would not have been possible at all without the help of many people. Rich and Nick at TooFatLardies have created some exquisite rulesets that provide toolboxes to create with. Jonathan Jones who playtested the Kiss Me Hardy scenarios and provided pictures of their fantastic miniatures. Mark Luther for testing out my Sharp Practice scenarios and also sent in pictures of his fantastic terrain and miniatures. I really wanted to use his picture of a wild pig attack against the Georgia Highlanders. Tom Davis and Brian English encouraged me throughout the two plus years to work on this.

Click the picture of the cover below to go to the webstore.

It is also available on Wargame Vault.

A print version will be made available through Amazon by next year.

The Spanish Navy - War of Jenkin's Ear

Here are the updates to the oared galleys for the War of Jenkin's Ear. I have one of the full galley's in good shape. I have to glue and paint the yards. You can see one clipped on. The others are coming along.

The Brig is taking shape for the second time. I am getting close to having it back in shape again. I have a few others on the tray in worse states of assembly. I am steadily making progress.

I also have undercoated a model of the CSS Virginia and some sprues that I will use as a 1/600 scale forest. In the coming week, this should get some attention. I did finish painting the USS Monitor. This continues to build my 1/600 scale ACW navies. I also placed an order on Shapeways for three more vessels. I am looking forward to seeing these.

Next up is the Fort that will stand in for Fort St Simons. If I have enough spare materials, I will do something for Delegal's Fort as well. Fort St Simons will be interesting. Instead of a palisade, they used barrels filled with sand that were topped with spiny vines. Not sure how to represent that.

Oared Galley's of the 18th Century

It still seems very odd to me that the Spanish would be using oared galleys when they had much more modern craft at their disposal. It is likely that the Galleys, Galliot(Half-Galleys) and Fusta (Quarter-Galleys) used were locally made and not sailed over from Spain. Havana had a thriving ship yard that was fully capable to produce these as well as more modern vessels.

Either the governor of Havana wanted to hold on to his better craft or they just didn't have anything better to spare. Given the shortage of men (only raised 1900 of the 3000 ordered by the crown for this operation), it is likely that these were all that were left.

Whatever the reason, I need several of each for the scenarios. My first stop was to look to see who made these already. I came up with a couple of options. The first was Old Glory Shipyards. They have a few galleys in their 1/300th ships. However, they only had galleys and those only had one mast. I wanted to differentiate in the sizes of the ships by the number of masts as well as the size. The ships are rather nice but thin looking (which honestly may be more to scale) for my liking. The next stop was Skull and Crown. They produce all three types in MDF. They did have a two masted Galley. Their ships don't look to bad. I am extremely tempted to buy some as they would be quick to paint up. The fusta is the only disappointment. It is for their rules and is to be used as a dice holder and not a combat vessel. So I have held off on these as well for the time being.

Next up was what was availible for 3d printing. I had a hard time finding anything that would work. I attempted to build my own model and i was very unhappy with my results at the end of the day. Then I found a model on Thingiverse. It was uploaded by one Tosostefanots. It is a beautiful hull of a Genoan Galley. It was perfect... almost. The hull he produced was a complete hull and not a waterline model. Also, his model is from the 1600s and unarmed.

Well, the basic shape was perfect. The model was in 1/250th scale which was easy enough to resize to 1/300th. Over the course of a few days, I messed with the files in Thingiverse and produced three different models out of it. First was a simple waterline version of the original. That was easy enough in TinkerCard. The hard part was shrinking the 22 oar pair Galley to become a Galliot of 18 oar pairs. Then converting the Galliot into a Fusta of 12 oar pairs. I think I have done an adequate job of it but not a great one.

These are early prints of a Galliot and a Fusta. The Fusta has not had the supports removed yet. This is also before I did work on the bow of the vessel. You can see where I accidentally broke the bowsprit of the fusta. I had actually broken a bit of the Galliot's off as well while removing the supports.

With the three base models I then created two variants of each. One with a rear canopy and one without. The galleys would have cloth covered canopies on the bow and stern of the vessel. The original model came with the supports present for the forward canopy. The stern canopy was not present. I made the basic shape for it and added it to the hull. For the Fusta, I removed the supports for the bow canopy. The pictures that I saw on line did not show such a large area in the bow of the vessel. To this, I clipped off the corners of the bow area and lowered the overall superstructure there. To give some variation, I will print a couple of each (canopy/no canopy).

Next I added some guns to each of the vessels. The galley has four guns in the bow. The Galliot has two and the Fusta has a single bow gun. There are stylized representations of guns. I am not good enough yet with TinkerCad to do more than that. At 1/300 scale, the fusta comes in at 115mm in length. The guns are mighty small. For the Galley, the guns are just tubes poking through the superstructure at the bow. They will be covered by the canopy there and only the bit of the barrel will be visible.

This is getting me closer to having a complete and usable fleet for the scenarios. I have started to paint up one of the Piraguas for my Spanish fleet. I will be working on organizing what ships are needed for each scenario and posting that up next. I printed a review copy of the supplement and am starting the editing process now. I know one of the scenarios will be rewritten. It is too big to be practical.

I'll post more pictures when I have the newer galleys printed.

Success!

I have been working on making sure I have consistent dates through out the WOJE scenario supplement. A tedious job that I have broken up with more work on the Piragua and Scout Boat hulls. I have managed to get a good print from my model of the 1/300 piragua hull. I have been fooling with the settings.

In the picture above, you can see the progression. The hull closest to the camera is the best print thus far. The front post and the rudder are present. The holes for the masts are present and will hold the paperclip masts. There are no major flaws. The foremast hole is very close to the edge, but it isn't really an issue. The post for the tiller bar didn't show up in the print but given its tiny size, it isn't surprising.

While that one was printing, I decided to put masts and sails on one of the earlier prints. That one I had not printed with 80% infill and had some holes in the floor of the vessel. When primed, they won't even show up. The one printed on a raft also was not printed at a high enough infill. To the point where the print looks as if it survived a few terrible rounds of combat. I'll throw that print away. I was seeing if i could do something with it and gave up.

I will add masts to the good print then prime them both. Hopefully to paint this week.

The scout boat, on the other hand, continued to have failed prints. There is a consistent gap appearing in the port side to the aft end of the boat. i went back and zoomed in on the model in TinkerCad and found the issue. I added a small block into the area and saved the model. I will print that later today to see if it helped. I am currently printing a Fusta model. it is based on a fantastic Genoese Galley hull created by Tosostefanots on Thingiverse. It will be interesting to see how it turns out.