Photon Phun

You could be forgiven for thinking that a lack of posts here suggests I've not been up to much recently. Au contraire, I have been extremely busy, Laura headed off to New Zealand for a gap half year last month so I've been up to my eyeballs in horse care and looking after the alpacas, but in the margins I've been giving the Photon a good thrashing. Here's some of the items I've printed off in the last few weeks:

First up, a series of Napoleonic naval fortifications. The release of Black Seas has prompted the 3D modelling community to  deploy their expertise. There are a number of ships available to download, but the things that caught my eye were a couple of martello towers and a sea fort, the Chateau de Taureau. All are lovely renders of the originals and print up nicely. I printed a set martellos in 1/450 to fit in with my Peter Pig small ships of the same nominal scale.

The sea fort didn't print too well as one end detached from the print bed. However, the upperworks of the fort were fair and since the fort is supposed to sit o its own island I decided to fill in the missing area with some miliput "rocks". 

Of course the joy of 3D modelling is that you can rescale your models to print at just about any size, so I printed off soem examples in 1/1200 and also in 1/2400 to fit in with my Fleet Action collection.

Another set of models I found were the lovely 1/200 WW1 collection by Mike Bergmann on Thingiverse. One of my plans for 2020 is to resurrect my 1/300 WW1 Western and Eastern Front games, probably using Bloody Big Battles. So I decided to do some test prints of the 1/200 models scaled down to 1/300.I was not disappointed.......

This is just a small selection of the models in Mike's WW1 collection. The detail is lovely and they come up a treat on the Photon.

Finally for this post, a rather nice set of "Technicals" for my AK47 games. I've been after some alternatives to the Peter Pig Toyota Hilux. The Land Cruiser I printed out a few montsh ago (with the Tetrarch and Alecto) is a nice addition, but these really fit the bill.

These are from two sets of files on Thingiverse. The first is a collection of "tin cab" 4x4s, in basic, cut-down and "uparmoured" versions. The file set also contains a variety of weapons to fit into the flat beds, including a rather nice ZPU-2. The second is a rendering of the infamous "4x4 with BMP turret" seen during the Libyan Civil War. Again, this was on my "must do" list. A few hours after finding the files my African warlords are in possession of some nifty self propelled firepower :)

Thats it for now. I have many, many more models to share with you dear readers, but they will have to wait for now.......

Fort Barrista

Hello readers, and I hope you have all had a very happy Christmas. Santa was kind to me this year, with a new tablet for whiling away the hours with movies and ebooks on my various trips across the globe, a new book by Susan Rose on medieval navies, and a reading light for the lounge so that I can enjoy my library collection during the gloomy winter months whilst swinging in my hammock. Also some nice socks and ties, and large amounts of chocolate (including a stack of Tunnock's caramel bars - yum!)

Anyway, on to the subject of today's post. Inspiration comes in many forms, and it hit me whilst I was drinking a rather grim cup of coffee in the restaurant at NATO. Disaster relief had been high on the agenda at the day's meetings and so my thoughts were in the Caribbean. Being a naval wargamer they then drifted to the collection of 1/450 pirate ships from Peter Pig and I inwardly lamented the lack of terrain pieces to accompany those lovely models, in particular shore batteries and forts. I had already scratch built a couple of open batteries, but what PP really needed to add was a stone fort. As I opined to myself my eye was drawn to the plastic lid of the cardboard coffee cup. And in there I saw my inspiration. The coffee was finished (bloody hub of Europe, representatives from 20+ nations and you can't get a decent sup of coffee), the lid carefully put away in my case and then packed for the trip home and, on Christmas Eve in between bouts of wrapping Fort Barrista was created.

The fort, as you can see, is essentially formed entirely from the coffee cup lid. The imprinted text on the lid was obscured with polyfilla and the drinking hole covered with a wooden construction davit fr lifting guns up to the fort. The whole thing was stick on a sheet of heavy card cut to form a small island, the base sculpted with more polyfilla, decorated with a few small stones from the garden to form rocks, and then sprinkled with sand. More sand was included in the paintwork for the outer walls to give them a slightly rough finish, the original plastic appearing too smooth. The gun deck was finished off with a few spare guns and crews from the Peter Pig "Pieces of Eight" range. The end result was just what i was looking for.

Of course now I'm on the hunt for larger coffee cup lids to see about building a larger fort. But for now my PP pirate ships have a  shore based opponent that will give them a run for their money!

The Naval Wargames Weekend, Gosport

Liz, the kids and I have just returned from Gosport where we took part in the naval Wargames Weekend (organised jointly by the Naval Wargames Society and the Explosion! Museum of naval Firepower). We had a great time, and we hope the other attendees did too. There were a host of games presented over the weekend.

Stuart Barnes Watson staged a refight of the battle of Koh Chang in 1/1200. Some lovely, and quite rare, French and Thai models did battle amongst the islands and fog banks, with the French this time coming off distinctly second best.
Across from the Thai action, Battlegroup South had an awesome 1/700 Pacific War game with impressive models and terrain featuring a quiet Japanese anchorage that as about to receive the unwelcome attentions of the United States navy. This was a lovely game that earned many admiring comments during the two days.

As did the Solent Wargames Association’s “Sun, Sea and Sandwich” game, a 28mm Wars of the Roses naval game on Saturday. Many large cogs did regular battle, and several members of the public were co-opted in to command ships and to do their best for York or Lancaster.

The SWA changed games for Sunday and shifted forward in time and down in scale to cover famous surface actions of the Royal Navy in WW2, principally the sinking of the Bismarck and the Battle of the River Plate. General Quarters 3 rules were in use, and the games played with some lovely 1/2400 models.

Across the way Mark Barker’s “Inshore Squadron” put on an excellent demonstration game base don the 1811 battle of Lissa. Mark’s team always put on a  lovely show with some very fine models and this was no exception. Malcolm Smalley’s “Clear For Action” computer moderated rules were in use, and the action (at least on the first day) went true to form with a glorious victory for the Royal Navy (at least that’s what the RN commanders told me!)

Dave Sharp views the French and Venetian squadron, approaching its doom at the hands of the Royal Navy

NWS chairman Jeff Crane and family brought along a “Man o War” game, reminding players and public alike that naval wargaming isn’t restricted solely to historical genres. Alas Jeff was only able to stay for a short while, but it was good to see his MoW models in action again.

The next game on the list was an innovative recreation of WW2 damage control by Jim Wallman. In this game the players take on the role of Damage Control Officers on board HMS BELFAST, marshalling their scare resources in terms of equipment and manpower to fight fires, control and pump out flooding, limit damage and restore combat efficiency in an RN cruiser under fire. One of Jim’s participants was a serving RN officer who has done this kind of thing for real, and who said the whole thing had  a most realistic feel to it. Praise indeed!

Jim advises a member of the public on the intricacies of RN Damage Control

Wayne Pocock and Nathan Girdler planned to refight the battle of Hampton Roads in 1/600 using a variety of rules. I’m not sure how this turned out, but at the start of the day Monitor and Virginia were seen doing their best to cause damage by shot, shellfire and ramming using Jason Gorringe’s “Smoke on the Water” rules.

For my own part I had (overly) ambitious plans to run 4, possibly 5 different games over the weekend. In the end this didn’t quite work out. Saturday began with my “Wings and Waves of War” variant on the popular WW1 air combat game, wherein a brace of RN 55’ Coastal Motor Boats attempt to escape from German air attack. In the first game my CMBs successfully fought off a pair of Hansa Brandeberg W.29s; in the second action I took the Germans, now reinforced by a pair of Albatros W.4s. The RN force (commanded by Laura) was assisted by the arrival of an RNAS Camel. This time, despite sinking one of the CMBs by gunfire, my W.4s were savaged by fire from the boats (one going down to the dreaded “bang” card after suffering very little damage), whilst the Camel pounced on the W.29s. In the end the RN prevailed as my last W.29 was shot down, but not before the last surviving CMB had been heavily damaged.

Game #2 featured my “Privateer” game using 1/450 pirate ship models. This ended up as a static display, with plenty of discussion with passes by on the models, conversions and the rules.

Game #3, on Sunday morning, was the first run out of my rules covering Medieval small ship actions. The game was based on the battle of Sandwich (August 1217) in which an English squadron under deBurgh engaged a French force under Eustace the Monk. The rules worked well (although some areas for improvement were identified), and were certainly quick! Eustace once again succumbed to the onslaught of the English fleet, his flagship being surrounded and captured whilst other Englsish ships ransacked the French transports.

Game #4 was to have been my Cod War participation game, and game #5 the 1/600 model – and ground – scale recreation of the River Plate battle, but time did not permit these to come into play.

Overall the weekend went well. For a “first attempt” it was successful although as in all things we identified a number of areas where it could be better. The general consensus was that it was a worthwhile event that we will run again next year. Arranging the event at the same time as the Surface Warships Association’s display day at the museum was, on reflection, not wonderful as it meant the wargames were on display in the Grand Magazine – a lovely venue but very dark; ext time we will probably run the event on a  different weekend with games in the conference centre (which is large, light and airy). Moving away from the bank holiday weekend should also improve attendance, being more “family friendly” for potential participants (In fairness the location and date, and hence the non-availability of many NWS members and players was a result of the short timescales in organising the event).

So, in summary, a good weekend of gaming, and (for me at least) an excellent opportunity to catch up with old friends and to make new ones. Watch out for announcements about the event in 2012!

1/72 radio controlled “Flower” class corvettes, Surface Warship Association

Privateers

We are just under two weeks away from the Naval Wargames Weekend at the Museum of Naval Firepower in Gosport. I'm taking a few games along with me and I've been sprucing up the models for these over the last few days, and will be doing the same for the next week. Time permitting I'll be doing a scatch built 1/600 model of HMS EXETER, but for now I've been working on new ships for my "Privateer" variant of GW's "Man o War".

I've had "Privateer" available as a participation game for many years now. In essence it is "Man o War" played in a historical(ish) setting, using Peter Pig 1/450 scale models from their "Pieces of Eight" range. The basic rules are tweaked  abit to avoid some of the less realistic aspects of the original rules but only very slightly. The variant retains the fun and playability aspects and is very quick to explain and play out. The last trip out for the game under the NWS banner was at the Exeter wargames show in 2004. Not much has changed since then, the system still works fine. However, I've recently obtained  a large pile of Peter Pig ships and some others, partly with a view to covering the St georges Caye campaign of 1798 (which guaranteed the safety of Britain's colony in Belize). I've also got a coupel of the pirate xebecs from the old "Pirateology" range (now looking for some of the Junks in that range, rare as hen's teeth in the UK!)

This first shot shows a PP schooner conversion. The original vessel is a topsail schooner with a squre rigged foremast. martin Goddard kindly sent me several spare aft masts from this kit and, with soem careful cutting and shaping, it is possible to fit one of these in place of the original foremast. I've mad eup 4 of these types of vessel which make ideal additions to the privateer fleet.

Pic #2 shows one of the Xebecs. I've got two of these. The hull needs cutting down, and some minor paintwork needs to be done to the sails and masts to make a better looking model, but apart from that these can be used almost straight from the box. In the game setting one of the two is configured as a spanish frigate, the second as a Barbary pirate.

The final new items are a couple of shore batteries, of which this is the better one :)



The battery is made from Peter Pig guns and crews protected by a spare front face from a Thoroughbred 1/600 floating battery. all placed atop a hillock made form balsa coated with filler, with some foam bushes represnting nearby undergrowth. Honestly, it looks better in real life than in the photo! I was hoping to make a small fort but time is against me (alternatively if anyone can suggest an existing model I'd be most happy to hear from you!)

These show just a small postion of the new collection of models. The new additioons comprise two large warships, a dozen smaller warships, schooners and sloops, the forts, a couple of small junks and dhows, and a selection of boats and gunboats (converted from Irregular 1/300 boats - a bit out of scale, but they do seem to fit nicely with the PP models).

The project for the rest of the week (apart from the EXETER) is sorting out the 1/1200 Medieval collection, ready for the Battle of Dover scenario. More on this later :)