What scale are aeronef/aethership combat games?

[Red Orc]

As it says on the tin...

I'm thinking of turning some of my piles of junk into aetherships. I'm looking at clothes pegs (approx 2"/5cm) and razor handles (approx 3"/8cm) and thinking 'yeah I could make some aetheric destroyers and cruisers out of those'... are these the sorts of size that ships are in aero-games? What scales are people using, and what size models?

Also, any recommendations for a free downloadable aerial combat game I suppose...

[Mr.Marx]

Really, like anything else you can play aeronef style games in any scale. I tend to play in 1/1200 and 1/2400 for ground scale purposes myself, making the airships I use between an inch and two long. But thats just me. From the sizes your starting with Id suggest around either 1/600 or 1/300. 1/300 is good for detaing as it is 6mm scale so you can get guns and figures without too much trouble.

In terms of rules, your best off geting yourself 'Ironclads and Eyther Flyers' by heliograph or 'Aeronef' by Wessex Games. If you want free rules, then you cant beat GZG's 'Full Thrust'.

Marx

[Red Orc]

Thanks for the reply, Mr Marx.

Doing some quick calculations, a 3" razor-handle large battleship type (let's assume the equivalent of 'Dreadnought' class...) would be:

1:300 = 75' (about 23m)
1:600 = 150' (about 46m)
1:1200 = 300' (about 91m)
1:2400 = 600' (about 183m)

Real Dreadnoughts (eg, HMS Dreadnought... ) were around 500'/160m... so if I'm looking at something around the real size, it has to be at 1:2400 scale. Of course, my razor-handle aethership might not be at all comparable to a dreadnought, maybe it is only 75' or 150' long...

[The_Beast]

Really, like anything else you can play aeronef style games in any scale. I tend to play in 1/1200 and 1/2400 for ground scale purposes myself, making the airships I use between an inch and two long. But thats just me. From the sizes your starting with Id suggest around either 1/600 or 1/300. 1/300 is good for detaing as it is 6mm scale so you can get guns and figures without too much trouble.

In terms of rules, your best off geting yourself 'Ironclads and Eyther Flyers' by heliograph or 'Aeronef' by Wessex Games. If you want free rules, then you cant beat GZG's 'Full Thrust'.

Marx

1/300 might be squeezing it a bit. Still, the razor handles 'chop' (shorten by removing some in the center) easily, and I'd think work fine. WWII model plane bombs convert to digs in a snap, if you've not been clued in.

I think most rule sets are 1/1200, by the by, but I think you can use them as is if you want to for other scales. Some of the gun stats, for wobbly flying beasts also struggling in 3D, make more sense as half the range. ;->=

I find Ironclads and Ether Flyers a bit fiddly, but I'm a simple soul. Wessex's is smashing with a bit of Full Thrust feel (I'm an FT fanboy) and much simpler damage system.

There are some free download, fan-written Full Thrust variants out on the web, and I think Full Steam (not Full Light, Full Steam) was an aeronef one, based on the original Full Thrust rule set, also a free download from GZG.

Oh, found it! Takes using the wayback:
http://web.archive.org/web/19991117022647/http://members.aol.com/zarathud/ft1889.html

G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T.  has a set of rules in the Compendium, but I've not tried them. I figure someone in your group has probably bitten this bullet already, and you borrow theirs. ;->=

Saw your reply, and you're thinking similar to me; the handles end up a bit narrow in the middle, ergo the suggestion they be 'chopped' as DD's or CA's. Wait, this is pre-DD's; make that CL's and CA's. I think that's right...

Doug

[Red Orc]

Thanks for that The_Beast, even the bits I didn't understand  

I don't yet have the GASLIGHT Compendium, even though I promised myself I was going to get it a couple of months ago. Maybe I should get around to it, and use whatever scale they're suggesting. I don't have a group however, I'm a lonely VSFer at the moment.

Based on the replies so far, favourite scale seems to be 1:1200, and having downloaded Full Thrust many moons ago (but never played it) I might just have a go with that. I took a look at Full Steam:1889 but I'm thinking that my engagements will more likely be between British and French Aetheric Navies in the aether between Earth and Mars, rather than in the atmosphere of Mars itself, so I'll stick to a 'space' system.

EDIT: so that would put my razor handle at about 300' long and about 25' wide. I think I am going to add extra width with 'outrigger' type extensions - these will probably be justified as either liftwood or cavorite bouyancy attachments. Or maybe I could build the 'deck' (such as it is) outwards. I think my means of propulsion will be 'aetheric paddles', like Mississippi paddle-steamers, but in the luminiferous aether, of course...


Anyone else want to chime in on this? I'm still very open to suggestions...

[Red Orc]

Further thinking on this has brought me to a startling realisation - at my favoured interpretation of scale for 25-28mm figs ('a 1" figure of a 6' man = 1:72 scale'), an aetheric battleship 300' long with a 25' beam would be around 50" long and about 4" wide on the tabletop. The slightly smaller destroyers (about 200') would be around 34" long (similar width). OK there's no liftwood outriggers included in that but still...

That's do-able for 28mms, isn't it? It would be cool to have tiny vessels for fleet actions, but then also have one or more of them 'full-size' for minis too!

[The_Beast]

***snippage***
That's do-able for 28mms, isn't it? It would be cool to have tiny vessels for fleet actions, but then also have one or more of them 'full-size' for minis too!

Very doable for boarding-style or other 'deck' actions, but more manageable deck size is one of the reasons I'm feeling the pull of 15/18mm. 

A couple of couple of Martian kites lashed up against an ether battleship supported by swooping Kraag's... hmmmmmm 

Doug

[Red Orc]

I already started doing VSF in 28mm. That's just a given.

I have been looking at and milimetrically measuring my razor handles and 'to scale' (approximately, 1mm=4feet) they'd be closer to 400' long and 36' wide, and about 40' from keel to deck - superstructures as yet to be built will include funnels as well as masts and rigging for aether-sails, so much taller. That's around 5' long (or a little more) on the tabletop and about 6 inches wide.

I was trying to tie the aetherships in with my projected future-history of the 'Third Martian War', 1909-16; this is a series of space-battles, between the Aether Fleets of Britain and Russia on the one side against France and Austria on the other (and allies of all of these) for control of the aether between Earth and Mars, and over territorial rights in outlying parts eg the Asteroid Belt.

But that definitely puts it a bit late for my VSF figures that are mostly based around 1879-1890 British uniforms. Maybe I'll have to jiggle with my dates a bit. Or perhaps I should just stick to one project at a time and not make it really difficult for myself by deciding that
1 - I'm going to do some aetherships;
2 - those aetherships can then be 20 times bigger;
3 - they all have to coherently fit together in one implausible package!

[The_Beast]

Not make it difficult for ourselves? Where's the fun? 

I make everything impossible, and the basement is filled with only-started ideas. Fortunately, you don't seem to suffer completion anxiety.

We've already had plenty of conversations of kit being out of date on Mars for a number of possibilities. I've seen you work; you can shoehorn them in together, and certains, make me buy it. ;->=

Doug

[Red Orc]

Not make it difficult for ourselves? Where's the fun? 

I make everything impossible, and the basement is filled with only-started ideas. Fortunately, you don't seem to suffer completion anxiety...

'Completion' of projects is like 'winning' wargames to me... if it was the point of the excercise, I'd get a lot better at it! My loft and your basement should meet up sometime, they sound like they have a lot in common. I was going to say '... they'd get on like a house on fire' but just managed to stop myself 

...We've already had plenty of conversations of kit being out of date on Mars for a number of possibilities. I've seen you work; you can shoehorn them in together, and certains, make me buy it. ;->=

Doug

Why thank you sir, that's a very gentlemanly thing to say. I'm sure you're right, I can get it all to fit somehow.

My main reason for coming up with the whole 'Martian Wars' framework (there are four between 1881 and 1927) was because I've got some of these -





- only mine aren't anything like as well painted - and I wanted to use them as British troops on Mars. Maybe I can crunch the Third and Fourth Martian Wars together, perhaps from 1904-1916 or something, and use the Warzone minis and both large- and small-scale aetherships to game that...

[The_Beast]

Oh my gosh! You're right, perfect 'Scarlett Traces'!

'like a house on...' *shudder*

Fortunately, the abode is in my girlfriend's name; it'd be TOO tempting, otherwise.

Doug

[Peter@BattleScape]

Red Orc

What figures are those???...I need some!!!

Pete

[Red Orc]

They're Warzone minis, from the 'Imperial' faction, from Target Games sold via Prince August (or in my case, our own Predatorpt a few years ago).

You can get a big bag of 80 plastic troopers for 20 Euros from Prince August (40 Imperials and 40 'Bauhaus', kinda Weird World War One Germans) - don't know where else they're available from.

If you go to the Target site here (link) you should be able to get to see the big bag anyway.

[The_Beast]

I think it was the second edition starter box of Warzone that used the 40/40. I only wish I could have snagged more than one on discount.

A friend lifted the Bauhaus from me, and I'll be seeing them in play 'any day'. And, yes, in spite of this person actually completing projects often, I believe breath holding is contra-indicated.

Those Imperials don't seem as fetching to some folk, but I like them even better. just haven't figured what to do, short of LXG super battle...

By the way, parts you didn't understand in my first post, Red Orc, did that include the term 'digs'? Gas bags, short for dirigibles.

As for flying battleships, I tend to think of the VSF beasts as new tech, and tending toward small while in infancy.

Doug

[Red Orc]

Hi The Beast - I'm not sure now what it was in particular I didn't understand, but looking over the thread again as I have in the last 24 hours, yes, I got that WWI bombs make good dirigibles.

But I haven't done anything with this project in the last 9 months, except look through the Full Thrust rules I downloaded ages ago, and collect more razor handles and plastic clothes pegs. I haven't even painted up the rest of my ever-so Scarlet Traces minis. Oh, yeah, I read a bunch of Scarlet Traces on the web, I know I'd done something  .

The 40/40 bag of minis is still available, and non-EU residents apparently get theirs 12.26% cheaper than we do... that's 10 free troopers!

The page to order is here - http://www.princeaugust.ie/target_games/index_warzone.html#tg1113 about 3/4 of the way down -  the code part code is tg2420-1 - for some reason you can't order from the page I linked to before.

I take the point about the experimental nature of VSF aeroships - but my campaign timeline goes up to about 1920 and includes a couple of huge industrial-scale wars in the early 20th century, wars so I'm assuming they'll be pretty monstrous by then.