Sailing into Revolution

So currently the working title of my To Covet Glory supplement is Sailing into Revolution. I am not sure I like it yet. There are 10 historical actions detailed. Some have multiple scenarios in each one. There is a generator for creating convoy actions. The scenario portion is standing currently at 45 pages. Then I am detailing the ships of the Royal Navy by providing stats for Royal Navy vessels below the rate. There are hundreds of vessels detailed. Most are complete stats that can be used in your own games.

I have been tinkering with my 3d printer. I have managed to get some better prints by lowering the support density. I was having trouble getting reliable prints on sails. I was breaking the print attempting to remove the supports. I think I have this fixed. I am hoping to get some painting in soon.

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.

Happy New Year

2023 has come to a close and 2024 has started. I had a good Christmas that netted me some new books. I picked up British Warships in the Age of Sail 1793-1817 by Rif Winfield. While it is outside of the period that I am working on for the AWI scenarios, it is actually a significant help. It has shed some light on ships from the AWI as there were numbers of veterans of the AWI that continued service into the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. I also picked up James Henderson's Frigates - Sloops & Brigs. It is two books published together and was a great read. It gave me some ideas about the use of tenders. The British had armed tenders serving larger vessels to expand their reach. I have previously looked at examples around Charelston in the early stages of the AWI. These two have given me additional information to push forward on the AWI scenarios.

I also picked up Sacrifice on the Steppe: The Italian Alpine Corps in the Stalingrad Campaign, 1942–1943 by Hope Hamilton. This could become a follow up to In the Name of Roma.

Santa left me two new jugs of water washable rein under the tree this year. I have already used it to print out some 1/700th scale ships for a convoy scenario for To Covet Glory. With 1/700th scale, I find that I can get more than one complete ship on the build plate unlike 1/300th scale. I am trying to find out how to print out some smaller vessels than what are currently available. I am having fun with the resin printer. It seems to be much more straight forward than the filament printer I was using earlier.

I have found a figure to convert for my 1982 Israelis for Lebanon. I plan on printing a few and seeing how they look when I match them with my exising Peter Pig miniatures. I printed a Merkava Mk2 that came out rather well. I need to sand the barrel a bit to fit with the turret. Somehow I lost the turret hatch cover and need to print that.

------- 15 days later ---------

Somehow I forgot to hit the publish button here. I found out that even with water washable resin, you MUST wear gloves. The resin gave me a bad rash and swelling around both eyes when printing. It took about a week to heal. I am going to invest in lots of gloves. Will probably wear a mask and goggles as well.

I did purchase a 3d Model for a Bermuda Sloop from Wargaming3d. The model is very nice and the producer was more than willing to talk to me. I am shrinking the hull down to 1/700the scale. I am printing it with and without guns. For a mast and spars set, I had tinkered with some for a cutter a while back and I am going to try to reuse that even though the topsail will be too large for a Bermuda sloop.

I had done some more work on my AWI book for To Covet Glory. I am having great fun going through Winfield's book on the Royal Navy in the Age of Sail. He has a vast amount of information on ships below the rate. Thus far I have been making ship stats for all of the Ship Sloops of the Royal Navy. It has shown me a few mistakes in the original To Covet Glory. I will have to update the book at somepoint.

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

Wargame Vault Deal of the Day

Well I have received notice that my East Front Bundle will be the deal of the day on Nov 1st, 2023. I just need 2 more sales for it to hit the Electrum rating. Back when I set the bundle up, I did it incorrectly and the ratings do not reflect down on the individual products within it. Thus the individual books should have a much higher number of sales. But if you can pass the word to your friends, it would be much appreciated.

Work on the To Covet Glory scenarios has stalled out. I have two books I am reading to complete out the Convoy scenario that I am working on. One is an analysis of the sunken merchantmen near Yorktown. And another master's thesis on the merchant shipping coming in and out of Yorktown in the 1700s. Both are interesting and offer some interesting details. I am still trying to work out how to make it a reasonable scenario in terms of ship numbers. I think it will end up being a large scenario reguardless.