So, with Xmas and it's various alarms and excursions behind me I turned to painting for the first time in almost two months.
There are literally hundreds of Early Bronze Age 6mm's to paint, 1/2400 Renaissance land and naval part painted, 10mm German WW2 to finish, 10mm WW2 Russians to start so I painted ... Navwar 1/1200 Ancient Galleys, for Poseidon's Warriors, bought a couple of weeks ago.
Doh! Attention span of a .... Ooh! Squirrel!
So far my Carthaginian fleet consists of one heptereme (7), 2 hexeremes (6), two three-ship squadrons of quinqueremes (5) and two three-ship squadrons of quadriremes. Two more squadrons of quinqeremes and a five-ship squadron of triremes to go.
Front row is the heptereme flanked by the quinqeremes and the rear row the hexeremes and quadreremes.
(http://i1335.photobucket.com/albums/w669/ithoriel/Other/20170125_104125_zpswderhw0k.jpg)
Looked at your lovely fleets and a line from a poem came to mind from School. " Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,"
It amazing what you can remember from 40 years ago. It might be that my English teacher Liz Calnan was a bit of a hottie?
Anyway a bit of Culture from Orcs - yes I know that's unusual. ;) Here is the full poem,
"Cargoes'
Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.
Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.
Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.
John Masefield
Even at 13 years old my buddy and I raised eyebrows at the idea of an Assyrian quinquireme.
Good luck with Poseidon's Warriors - I was very sadly disappointed.
I have had better luck with Ganesha Games Galleons & Galleys but there appears to be a gaping hole in the market for a decent galley set of rules - Corvus and Naumachia [sp] are a bit venerable and old fashione dthese days.
And I've been reading far too much Christian Cameron and really, really want to fight some galley actions!
Nice
Your navel isn't ancient. It's the same age as the rest of you.
:-bd =D> :-bd =D>
Nice job on the eyes :)
My search for a good set of Galley rules also continues. I'm looking for a set that covers battles between squadrons and doesn't get bogged down in almost skirmish level details
Thanks folks.
Quote from: paulr on 25 January 2017, 06:23:34 PM
:-bd =D> :-bd =D>
Nice job on the eyes :)
Thank you. They were a pain to do but worth the effort. Repeatedly touching up the touch ups (Ooh! Titter ye not!) was a bit like evening up the legs on a table :)
Quote from: paulr on 25 January 2017, 06:23:34 PM
My search for a good set of Galley rules also continues. I'm looking for a set that covers battles between squadrons and doesn't get bogged down in almost skirmish level details
Poseidon's warriors are fast play, low detail, squadron based. So far only played a couple of push about games solo but like what I see so far.
Must try to stay focussed long enough to paint some Romans!!
And I'm thinking about assembling my Carthaginian soon too!
Quote from: FierceKitty on 25 January 2017, 02:38:42 PM
Even at 13 years old my buddy and I raised eyebrows at the idea of an Assyrian quinquireme.
Absolutely, Nineveh was ruins three centuries before quinquiremes were invented.
Quote from: Zippee on 25 January 2017, 04:03:55 PM
Good luck with Poseidon's Warriors - I was very sadly disappointed.
I'd be interested in what you found disappointing
Quote from: paulr on 25 January 2017, 11:03:54 PM
I'd be interested in what you found disappointing
Sadly just about everything - lack of flavour, lack of command decisions, lack of finesse, lack of tactical input.
For the game they produce they play nicely, it's just that what they produce is a very simplistic game with little feel or nuance of the period. I don't feel I can make any meaningful decisions, there's no friction, no reaction and it's far too instant death. For instance, although I don't want to micromanage every oar bank, there needs to be some nod to the impact that loss of oarsmen has (it isn't just a flat speed reduction - it's more about lack of manoeuvrability coupled with inadvertent change of direction). Ramming needs to be more flexible/variable and boarding actions to have more impact and duration.
It just doesn't give me anything close to the game I was hoping for or looking for.
For me galley actions have the following "things":
1) the steering oars - casualties here effect manoeuvrability and current direction
2) oar banks - damage and loss change direction more than they change speed (but yes speed too)
3) leadership (affected by steering and oars) - dictates the ram strike position (head on, cat head strike, oar rake, beam on, etc)
4) marines - not just a static value, marines depart and fight their own fight often across many decks
5) grappling - ships seem to easily become locked into floating platforms for marines to fight over
6) sinking - most don't sink they float semi-submerged and are a real impediment
PW has some of those differentiations but doesn't plug them together right for me or place the emphasis in the right place.
As you can see from the photo I'm basing mine on hex bases to use with my hex gridded chunk of vinyl flooring.
We've only managed half a dozen games so far but I'm enjoying the fast play, "sudden death" feel of the system.
Inevitably I'm tinkering with the rules. I use the optional rule for wrecks but, instead of a blanket 4+ to hit a wreck if you enter the hex, I use 3+ for wrecked 6s or 7s, 4+ for 4s and 5s and 5+ for triremes and smaller plus merchantmen.
We've been adding the combat factors of all ships on each side where multiple linked grapples occur precisely because marines aren't nailed to the deck of their ships - is that wrong? Must look up the rules later.
Oar sheer is indeed simplified but I can live with that to keep the game moving.
Variable crew skill is something I want to tinker with but beyond thinking the higher skilled crew might get a +1 to saving throw in a bow-to-bow ram I haven't come up with anything so far.
We're using half a dozen squadrons a side (maybe 20 individual ships) and despite chats, coffee/wine breaks, and other interruptions we're getting in multiple games in an afternoon or evening.
I'll do a proper AAR when I have ships for both sides painted!
Please.
Thanks Zippee
I look forward to your AAR Ithoriel
Watching this thread with interest,
Rest of the Carthaginians cleaned up and based, as are my 4 merchant ships.
Filling of mast holes and undercoating to commence just as soon as I stop meeting up with old friends and overindulging :)
Anyone have the Tumbling Dice Ancients and able to give me dimensions for the merchant ships, pirate galleys and quinqiremes?
Not measured,but everything in the Roman and Cartaginian sets fits on a 20x40mm base.
Quote from: mad lemmey on 28 January 2017, 08:34:00 PM
Not measured,but everything in the Roman and Cartaginian sets fits on a 20x40mm base.
Since they are nominally half the scale of the Navwar ones I'm more concerned they may be too small than that they would not fit my 30mm hexes.
If you could stick a ruler alongside them at some point and report back I'd be grateful. Length is probably the only critical measurement.
Cheers
The ship itself is 22mm, the cast base, which includes oars, is 33mm x 13 mm, give or take 1/2mm
Quote from: Ithoriel on 28 January 2017, 10:55:14 PM
Length is probably the only critical measurement.
...as the actress said to the bishop.
Quote from: mad lemmey on 29 January 2017, 12:39:22 AM
The ship itself is 22mm, the cast base, which includes oars, is 33mm x 13 mm, give or take 1/2mm
Thanks, sounds like they might do for what I'm after. Cheers.
Took possessions of a handful of Langton 1:1200 Ancients this afternoon and spent the evening glueing my hand to the table assembling the merchant ship and the Frumentarii.
The merchant ship is considerably larger than the Navwar ones - a sea-going vessel to their coastal traders.
The Frumetarii grain ship is ginormous by comparison to everything else and is the first ship to need two hexes as a base (will need to tweak my rules to cope). Ideal to represent "Isis" or one of the other 55m long, 1200 ton, monsters that plied the route between Alexandria and the likes of Rome or Athens. Too high a freeboard to be easily boarded and too tough a hull to be easily rammed. Even my quinqiremes are going to be like wolves trying to take down an elephant against that thing!
Also in the package were a Siege Quinqireme - basically a quinqireme catamaran with a siege tower mounted on top - a wrecked quinquireme and a couple of packs of odds & ends that may (or may not) end up adorning my wreck markers.
In the meantime, the rest of the Carthaginians and the four Navwar merchantmen are undercoated and base coated.
Pictures when I get them finished.
Looking forward to seeing these
Sounds great!
OK, got the Langtons stuff assembled, undercoated and basecoated this morning, had a couple of games of Poseidon's Warriors this afternoon and have managed to fit in a session drybrushing the Navwar Carthaginians, the assorted merchantmen, the wreck and the Siege Quinquireme this evening.
Some thoughts on the Langtons stuff.
They are much better detail and more crisply cast than the Navwar stuff but correspondingly more expensive and I found them fiddly to assemble. They have separate sterns, masts and sails are separate, the ballista is a 2-part kit!!
Beautiful when done but an exercise in frustration as I glued bits of ship to myself and myself to the painting table and then dropped things on the floor when they turned out not to be as glued as I'd thought. Worth it for the variety it brought but glad not to be doing entire fleets. Younger, nimbler and more svelte fingers than mine would no doubt have fared better.
Sizewise, Langton warships are a smidge bigger than Navwar but not anything particularly noticeable. Their merchant ships are a whole different league from the Navwar ones but that's why I got them.
With Tumbling Dice having their oars as part of the base not the galley I think I'd have had more work to do with my basing so, although I like their models I'm glad I went with Navwar.
On Poseidon's Warriors - we're still enjoying the games but my opponents don't seem able to tell a trireme from a tambourine, let alone from a quinqireme :) Another reason not to do 1:2400. So my plan is to add a small disc of 1mm grey board, created with a hole punch, to the base, paint it with the squadron colour and add a number to indicate the ship size - currently from a 2, for the Roman Liburnians, to a 7 for the Carthaginian flagship.
More on this as the project progresses.
Quote from: Ithoriel on 05 February 2017, 10:46:15 PM
On Poseidon's Warriors - we're still enjoying the games but my opponents don't seem able to tell a trireme from a tambourine, let alone from a quinqireme :) Another reason not to do 1:2400. So my plan is to add a small disc of 1mm grey board, created with a hole punch, to the base, paint it with the squadron colour and add a number to indicate the ship size - currently from a 2, for the Roman Liburnians, to a 7 for the Carthaginian flagship.
More on this as the project progresses.
Langton's are a modeller's wargaming ship - lovely but intimidating :D
For the dots, it would surely be easier to purchase stick on coloured dots from Amazon (other retailers exist, but I mean why bother?) 700 8mm dots here for £1.85
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Labels-Index-Dividers-Stamps/STICKY-COLOURED-LABELS-CIRCLES-ADHESIVE-ASSORTED-COLOURS/B00EU8WWUE/ref=pd_day0_229_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=3BQ4N9EWDNQ3H9A1DMET
Quote from: Zippee on 06 February 2017, 12:48:51 PM
Langton's are a modeller's wargaming ship - lovely but intimidating :D
For the dots, it would surely be easier to purchase stick on coloured dots from Amazon (other retailers exist, but I mean why bother?) 700 8mm dots here for £1.85
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Labels-Index-Dividers-Stamps/STICKY-COLOURED-LABELS-CIRCLES-ADHESIVE-ASSORTED-COLOURS/B00EU8WWUE/ref=pd_day0_229_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=3BQ4N9EWDNQ3H9A1DMET
Thanks Zippee but dots already glued on to the Carthaginians. A bit obtrusive but if it means my regular opponent will actually be able to play it will be worth it.
Squadron colour and "Oarsmen per file" info added.
(http://i1335.photobucket.com/albums/w669/ithoriel/Other/Squadron%20Markers%20Added_zpszuveiyye.jpg)
That works, I can quite understand your friend's problem making out the different types of ships.
8)
Cheers - Phil.
Temporary inability to access email and the internet has had the slight bonus of seeing me painting rather more and playing Elder Scrolls Online considerably less!
As you can see, I am now returned to the digital world courtesy of a very nice Virgin Media engineer so I thought I'd post some pics of the slow progress of my ancient galley fleets. All of the (planned) Carthaginian fleet is now painted and the bulk of the merchants fleet too.
Pictures of the merchant ships below, with a Navwar quinquireme from previous post to show relative sizes.
From the front, two Navwar Greek coastal traders, Langton sea-going Roman trader, Langton's massive Frumentarii 1200 ton grain ship - actually to scale it is slightly smaller in length and breadth than the figures given for the "Isis" when she docked at Piraeus in the 1st Century AD - then a Navwar quinquireme, two Navwar Roman coastal traders and finally a Langton wrecked quinquireme.
(http://i1335.photobucket.com/albums/w669/ithoriel/Other/20170607_170349_zps3jrgt2wb.jpg)(http://i1335.photobucket.com/albums/w669/ithoriel/Other/20170607_170539_zpspmfa11w8.jpg)(http://i1335.photobucket.com/albums/w669/ithoriel/Other/20170607_170552_zpswgsx8ggw.jpg)(http://i1335.photobucket.com/albums/w669/ithoriel/Other/20170607_170608_zpsobqzxb2w.jpg)(http://i1335.photobucket.com/albums/w669/ithoriel/Other/20170607_170636_zpsgiudcft5.jpg)
Those are brilliant
Is that Lino?
Excellent stuff, Mike !
Cheers - Phil.
:-bd =D> :-bd =D> :-bd
Please tell me those sail markings are transfers ;)
Quote from: mad lemmey on 07 June 2017, 05:29:56 PM
Is that Lino?
Yep, a one metre length of a 2m wide vinyl flooring. Cost less than a tenner iirc.
Quote from: paulr on 07 June 2017, 07:27:44 PM
Please tell me those sail markings are transfers ;)
Much as I would love to be able to say they were hand painted I'm afraid that I do not have the time, talent or hand-eye coordination for that. Part of my extensive stock of GW waterslide transfers.