1/600-ish sailing ship recommendations

[pancakeonions]

Howdy Lead Adventurers!

So I love sailing ships, and I have a copy of galleys and galleons from Ganesha games (based on their Song of Blades and Heroes game) and was hoping to pick up some galleys to add to my 16th and 17th century Age of Discovery for an eclectic clash.  I know Warlord has released a few Galleys and Xebecs in their Black Seas line, but do others know of good quality ship makers in the ~1/600 to ~1/700 scale?  I'm more interested in sturdy models than historically accurate, but any suggestions you have would be appreciated!

I'm aware of:

Warlord's Black Seas range.  Their plastic models are quite nice, the resin-and-metal models made me too nervous (metal masts?  No thanks!) to try.  Are they sturdy?  This is what's keeping me away from their Galleys and Xebecs.  Maybe I should just bite the bullet, and see how they are?  I don't much care for the thin, "paper" sails, and the rigging is so darn fiddly and hard to make look good.  I would rate these models as pretty good (the plastics are really nice, actually) but aren't awesome, because they're so fiddly and fragile (though I'd love to hear what folks make of the metal masts).  There's also a really cool set of sea monsters!

Flintlocks (edit: oops, I mean Firelock) Oak and Iron range, as part of their Blood and Plunder pirate universe.  This is my ideal set o' ships.  Very sturdy plastic, molded masts and sails, nearly indestructible and still pretty good details on the ships.  They look great alongside the BS range (supposedly they're not quite the same scale, but given how shipbuilding wasn't an exact science, they work fine together).

Mantic's Armada range.  These are fantasy, and will serve nicely for some of the Faye Winds and Foul Tides expansion for Galleys and Galleons ships.  They're sturdy resin, with good quality (first printing of the game had lots of miscasts, but they seem to have gotten that under control) and the masts and sails are cast together, which I like.  They're fun, and if you like the "heroic" art style (they are chunkier than other ships at this scale, with fatter cannons and such) they're nice models.  I like fantasy naval games, so I like these ships.

Are there other games or shipmakers I should check out?   Has anyone seen the BS Galleys and Xebecs, and do they look sturdy?   Does anyone do 3d printing, and know of stls that are really good? 

Thanks in advance!

[mellis1644]

The Oak and Iron range and so much nicer for gaming than the warlord ones IMO. The warlord ones are really nice but flimsy IMO. As you say the rigging etc are just delicate. Thats great for the right people but for me the O&I versions are better gaming pieces. Also as a bonus they cover a whole range of ships vs. just ships of the line. That allows pirates and other actions with ease.

As you said they paint up really nicely - I'm not the greatest painter and you can see my test model below, which I was happy with.

I have now painted a load up on my blog: https://mellis1644.wordpress.com/category/ship/

[robh]

I really like the Minairons 1/600 range:
http://minairons.eu/en/76-1-600-catalogue

The are nicely detailed and robust enough for gaming.

[pancakeonions]

The Minairons look really nice.  The shipping is killer though...  And of course, no one carries the models I want here in the US.  Sadly, I reckon the market for wee galleys and xebecs is limited! 

[SteveBurt]

The warlord ships are not flimsy at all once rigged. I use fine wire for the rigging and it makes them very strong

[pancakeonions]

So I went ahead and bought a few from Minarons, and was pretty disappointed.  The price is nice (except for shipping) but the model quality is fairly poor.  Most of the galleys are really boring, like they were the first models someone learned to make on z brush.  No details, basic straight lines, very uninteresting.  And the more interesting models were very badly made, with lots of weird imperfections that I can't fix.   Ah, well.  But for now, I don't recommend these guys:

This is what I ended up getting:   
    03NAV002        1/600 Xebec    (Ship was resin and very nice, sails were a mess.  Too small, lots of miscast messy bits, hard to fix)
     03IMBR01        1/600 Galiot    (Boring model, metal mast too thin for furled sail)
    03SKYRN04    1/600 Ordinary galley    (Boring model, metal mast too thin for furled sail)
    03IMBR02        1/600 Galley type 1    (Boring model, metal mast too thin for furled sail)
    03IMBR05        1/600 Heavy Galley type 2    (Boring model, metal mast too thin for furled sail, casting problems)
    03SKYSA42    1/600 'San Lorenzo' galleass   (very cool model, but again metal mast too thin for furled sail, casting problems)
    04PP18006    1/450 Sloop small ship    (I really liked this one!  And it looks like a 1/600 ship, so will work fine for my purposes.  1/7 a success, !)

[AdamPHayes]

So I went ahead and bought a few from Minarons, and was pretty disappointed.  The price is nice (except for shipping) but the model quality is fairly poor.  Most of the galleys are really boring, like they were the first models someone learned to make on z brush.  No details, basic straight lines, very uninteresting.  And the more interesting models were very badly made, with lots of weird imperfections that I can't fix.   Ah, well.  But for now, I don't recommend these guys:

This is what I ended up getting:   
    03NAV002        1/600 Xebec    (Ship was resin and very nice, sails were a mess.  Too small, lots of miscast messy bits, hard to fix)
     03IMBR01        1/600 Galiot    (Boring model, metal mast too thin for furled sail)
    03SKYRN04    1/600 Ordinary galley    (Boring model, metal mast too thin for furled sail)
    03IMBR02        1/600 Galley type 1    (Boring model, metal mast too thin for furled sail)
    03IMBR05        1/600 Heavy Galley type 2    (Boring model, metal mast too thin for furled sail, casting problems)
    03SKYSA42    1/600 'San Lorenzo' galleass   (very cool model, but again metal mast too thin for furled sail, casting problems)
    04PP18006    1/450 Sloop small ship    (I really liked this one!  And it looks like a 1/600 ship, so will work fine for my purposes.  1/7 a success, !)

I think most those are the old Skytrex models. The actual Minairons ships are very good.

[chema1986]

So I went ahead and bought a few from Minarons, and was pretty disappointed.  The price is nice (except for shipping) but the model quality is fairly poor.  Most of the galleys are really boring, like they were the first models someone learned to make on z brush.  No details, basic straight lines, very uninteresting.  And the more interesting models were very badly made, with lots of weird imperfections that I can't fix.   Ah, well.  But for now, I don't recommend these guys:

This is what I ended up getting:   
    03NAV002        1/600 Xebec    (Ship was resin and very nice, sails were a mess.  Too small, lots of miscast messy bits, hard to fix)
     03IMBR01        1/600 Galiot    (Boring model, metal mast too thin for furled sail)
    03SKYRN04    1/600 Ordinary galley    (Boring model, metal mast too thin for furled sail)
    03IMBR02        1/600 Galley type 1    (Boring model, metal mast too thin for furled sail)
    03IMBR05        1/600 Heavy Galley type 2    (Boring model, metal mast too thin for furled sail, casting problems)
    03SKYSA42    1/600 'San Lorenzo' galleass   (very cool model, but again metal mast too thin for furled sail, casting problems)
    04PP18006    1/450 Sloop small ship    (I really liked this one!  And it looks like a 1/600 ship, so will work fine for my purposes.  1/7 a success, !)

Hi mate, as far as I know, those are from  Skytrex cataloge, also sold by Minairons,  but not produced by them.  I have a galleon from Minairons and is pretty good.

Cheers!

[pancakeonions]

That's all good to hear...  It was hard to tell from the pictures, but the galleys are all pretty boring (or badly cast) but it wasn't too much money, so no worries!

[robh]

Hi mate, as far as I know, those are from  Skytrex cataloge, also sold by Minairons,  but not produced by them.  I have a galleon from Minairons and is pretty good.

Cheers!

I think the "NAV" code model is the only actual Minairons piece, the others are Skytrex, Modelbau and Peter Pig products sold through Minairons.
I am surprised you had miscast pieces with the Xebec which I thought was a lovely little kit. Luis would sort that for you if you drop him a line (he posts here).

[pancakeonions]

I think the "NAV" code model is the only actual Minairons piece, the others are Skytrex, Modelbau and Peter Pig products sold through Minairons.
I am surprised you had miscast pieces with the Xebec which I thought was a lovely little kit. Luis would sort that for you if you drop him a line (he posts here).

It was a lovely model!  The sails were pretty bad however with weird blotchy messes all over the sail and the design was such I'm not sure how to fix it - the join between the mast and the sail arm (yard, right?) is so tiny I just can't figure how to make them stay.  Also, the sails were oddly tiny, like I got the wrong sails for the ship (they didn't come down nearly as low as they do on the picture and made the ship look like it was wearing pants that were many sizes too small, .)

But the ship was so inexpensive, it's hard to pester them for replacements...  It's just gone into the bits box as a possible wreck at a future date...  But I think I will eventually try the Xebecs for Black Seas.  Those looked nice, if a bit more pricey!

[Lawgiver]

this is an older thread, but since I stumbled on it, figured I'd post a link for the next guy.  It compares the differences in Oak & Iron vs Black Seas

https://timberandsail.com/oak-and-iron-vs-black-seas/

[SteveBurt]

Another option in 1:700 is the range from a Hagen in Germany. Very good for smaller vessels

[Froggy the Great]

Also the PDFs for cardstock ships from warartisan.com

[tangarex]

@Lawgiver thanks for a link. Very useful comparison.