Poseidon's Warriors- The Corinthian War

[Easy E]

I have been playing Poseidon's Warriors from Osprey for a few years using Trireme paper templates.  These games have often been part of a larger campaign with my Greek land forces, and I like to place it during the Corinthian War period. 



The Corinthian War was a conflict between an expansionist Sparta and her allies and the combined alliance of Athens, Corinth, Thebes, and Argos.  The war took place between 395 to 387 BC and involved forces on land and sea.  The land warfare mostly took place near Corinth and Thebes while the ocean battles took place around the Aegean.

Corinth and Athens were the second and largest fleet in Ancient Greece respectively.  They were well established naval powers.  Sparta on the other hand was attempting to build their Naval power to align with their abilities on land.  Most of the Spartan ships were tribute from allied city-states from the Aegean.


However, on Christmas I got a Orange30 Resin Printer and the first thing I did was to start to print 1/1200 Greek Triremes.  The Triremes I am using I found on Thingiverse and were made by a fellow named, Captain Ahab.

For my battles, I need essentially two Trireme types; Fast Triremes and Standard Triremes.  The Spartan and Corinthian forces are mostly made up of the Standard types, while Athens used the Fast type.  To differentiate the Fast triremes, I think I will model them with masts/sails up; even though this was NOT how triremes went to battle.  Both forces should have about 25 ships.

Here is what a printed ship looks like:



Then, as I was printing the next squadron I did some test painting.  You can also see the next squadron drying out beyond. 



I still have work to do on the painting front.  My Aegean Sea bases do not look right to me at all.  The ships do not look like they are moving.  However, they are working for now, and I will need to keep testing and experimenting until I figure out how to do it.  This time, I used Armypainter paints; with an Ash Grey undercoat, then Dark Blue base color, drybrushed electric blue, and drybrushed ash grey, followed by a blue tone ink wash. 

As for the Trireme's themselves, I will keep using various browns and other colors to push the envelope on their color schemes.  I want to do some more research on how Triremes are painted besides brown as well.

Anyway, let's see how far I get on this project!     

[Easy E]

Here is two squadrons of 5 Fast Triremes to represent the Athenian contingent of the allied fleet. 



Normally, a Trireme would lower their masts and sails before engaging.  However, I left them up on these Fast Triremes for easy identification on the tabletop. 

The rest of the fleet are the slow "Cataphract" style of Trireme so the masts will differentiate between the two types going forward.  I do not plan to use the mast versions for the rest of the Corinthian or Spartan Fleet.

I am undecided if I want to try to add any sails as of yet.  Maybe for the admiral's ship?   

[Pattus Magnus]

This is a very cool project. The models look quite good! I think the forces will look quite striking on the table during games. If you decide not to use sails to represent commanders, another option might be to add a small colored flag on a pole at the rear (or front?) of the ship.

[Easy E]

I have five more ships ready to paint up as Corinthians.

I tried expanding to five ships on a plate, as opposed to singles and..... it did not work really well.  On the flip side, I also have a ton of wrecks I can use now too!   

[vodkafan]

Not knowing anything about the history of this conflict Eric, I was just wondering did the Fast triremes give the the Athenians a distinct (and unbeatable) tactical advantage in naval warfare? It seems to me it should have done, as the weapons employed would be the same; faster boats would be a "force multiplier" like helicopters were few thousand years later?   

[Easy E]

It did give them an advantage of maneuver.  If possible, you did not want to go head-to-head in a ram.  Instead, you wanted to hit them perpendicular, with your bow hitting their side.  You could also use your maneuverability to try and sheer the oars off a side as well, to limit the enemies ability to maneuver.  Therefore, speed gave you the ability to set the pace of the battle, in theory.  All that being said, it was not unbeatable or fool-proof.  Maneuver is great, if you have space to maneuver.

Athenian (fast) triremes still had the same limitations of their "cataphract" cousins when it came to voyaging long distances.  Therefore there mobility advantage was more tactical in nature than strategic.   

[Easy E]

This has been a slow moving project as I struggled to learn how to Resin Print better at the same time as trying to build a fleet. 

The first challenge was trying to make a plate that allowed me to print more than one ship at a time.  Much resin and many ships were wrecked in this process.  However, from the dregs I was able to forge together enough usable ships for the next 15 or so cataphract triremes for Corinth in the allied fleet. 

Much was learned, and now I think I have a way to consistently get 4-5 ships per print run of about an hour.  Plus, I just got in two new bottles of resin.  Hopefully, the 25 Spartan cataphract triremes go a lot faster!

Here is the Allied fleet ready to challenge Spartan hegemony.....