Battle of Trafalgar

[Thantsants]

Hi all - I usually post mostly in the Fantasy board but thought I'd share a little project I completed recently.

For my Dad's 60th I thought I'd put together a little diorama of the battle of Trafalgar - he's currently researching our ancestor, Captain Charles Mansfield, who captained the 74 gun Minotaur at various engagements including the Battle of the Nile and Trafalgar.

 Having made something a bit smaller in scale, in a bigger scale, last year -

http://teasgettingcold.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html





 - I foolishly joked that I would have to do something a bit more impressive for the big 60!

I managed to pick a copy of Wooden Ships and Iron Men for a song on Ebay - happily the integral bases of the Forged in Battle ships from Westwind were the same size as the cardboard ship counters from the game.



Which gave me the idea of magnetising the bases so they could be detached from the sea bases I made - I just now need to collar my Dad for a weekend and see if I can pressgang him into re-fighting Trafalgar!

As the whole thing threatened to get so big that it would be tricky to display, and as I didn't fancy having to paint up large tracts of sea to mount the ships on I came up with the idea of smaller strips for each column of ships. They in turn could either sit on the card base that I'd made using a collage of various cartoons, paintings, letters and other documents related to the battle. Alternatively the collage could be stood up and provide a kind of backdrop.



 The Victory heads up the Weather column heading for Villeneuve's flagship Bucentaure.



Collingwood's 100 gun Royal Sovereign heads up the Lee column, driving for the Spanish admiral Alava's flagship Santa Anna.





Having seen some of the tasty looking ships here this is a period I could really get into!

[Prof.Witchheimer]

Wonderful. One day, by all means, I have to play that sort of naval game.

[Galloping Major]

That looks great 



www.gallopingmajorwargames.com

[Thantsants]

Thanks Prof - it does sound like a lot of paperwork with a game like Wooden Ships - from various brief perusals of the rules it sounds like you have to keep individual orders logs for each ship. Being a stranger in these here parts I dunno if that's par for the course or whether there are more streamlined games around?

Cheers Major - I managed to resist temptation at Vapnartak I'm afraid but those are some fine minis you have there!

[warrenpeace]

WS&IM is not too bad. Enjoyed it a lot in the 1970's and 1980's. There are simpler and faster systems though, if that were desired. Part of the beauty of WS&IM was the way ships chipped away at each other for several turns before one would strike. I think it will be interesting though to see what the company that produces Wings of War comes up with for rules for combat in the age of fighting sail. Supposed to be a new line of plastic ships for this, probably maneuver cards as well.

[Thantsants]

That does sound interesting - might have to look into those plastic ships at some point and give the wallet a rest.

Think I'll have to give WS&IM a go if I can - best get my £3.70's worth out of it! Although I do like the look of Sails of Glory - I'm sure it's probably poor form to speak of such things here but having also got hold of GW's Man 'O War a while back, I'm all for cards and templates to speed up game play!

[aggro84]

I'm not normally into the whole Nautical thing, but those ships look really nice. 
Great colors choices as well.

[FierceKitty]

Love those FiB ships!

[Harry Faversham]

Forged in Battle, are the ship models metal or plastic?

 

[FierceKitty]

White metal, one-piece ships. They come with pegs at the bottom if you want to use the metal bases provided, but these are easy to remove if you  don't want them.

[Harry Faversham]

Thank you Sir...
it's a moot point really as I have no intention of buying, painting and sailing into battle on the poop deck of HMS Victory...
none wot so ever, and that's definite... definitely!

Just out of a passing interest, what's the best Vallejo colour, to paint the sails?

[FierceKitty]

Dunno that one. Just get my paints from a local equivlent of WH Smith.