I'm starting to think that I may need to create a new tag on my blog, something along the lines of "..you know I said I wasn't going to get any more little ships..?".
Well, it's happened again - and this time it's a classic tale of a wargamer foolishly trying to save a few quid, but then finding that this plan was in fact fatally holed below the waterline even before it started being put into practice due to a complete lack of planning, and - of course - a failure to properly read the f@@king manual!
The guilty model is HMS Victory in 1/700th scale, and the rookie mistake was to try and avoid paying the near-£40 ticket price of the Warlord Games resin and metal model from their Black Seas range by picking up a plastic kit of Victory from China on Ali Express for a little over a tenner.
The model arrived rather promptly, along with a set of laser-eteched metal ratlines also ordered from China too. This made my total outlay a shade under £20, and of course I would have some extra ratlines for the bits box too should I crumble and buy any more ships in future that I really don't need nor want. Of course.
The mistake I made though was not qute understanding what the small white text on the box front of "w/interior" would actually mean in practice.
Because this was a "kit", not a "wargamers piece" or a "tabletop gaming counter with detail". A proper, honest to goodness, "making it is most of the fun" and "this really should be a challenge" sort of plastic kit assembled with poly glue and all the gubbins.
Which, for HMS Victory, meant 104 separate guns to snip off the sprue and glue into the decks - many of which would then be sealed up and hidden from view!
Anyways, much swearing, many stuck fingers and ham-fisted modelling later...
For the full, painful story - and more of the finished results - have a look at the post on my blog at
https://madaxemandotcom.blogspot.com/2025/05/hms-victory-in-1700th-scale.html
December 06, 2015, 06:51:32 AM