Battle of Lake Erie - Scale, Bases, and Rules

Having purchased ships for the Battle of Lake Erie in two scales within the last few years, I have decided to go with the Figurehead (aka Hallmark) 1/2400 ships as opposed to the Valiant 1/2000 Fighting Sails range. The main reason is assembly. The Figurehead ships are one piece castings, except for the 20 gun sloops, which have a separate main mast and separate sails for the rear mast. Beyond that, it is simply mounting then onto stands and painting!  Or is it....

Warbases make custom acrylic tokens that one can have etched names added. They did some great work for me on for a Balkan Wars naval project, so today I placed a custom order for clear bases with names for each ship at Lake Erie. This means I will have to paint the ships before mounting them to the stands, a change for me.

Rules - Having recently played a game of Wooden Ships & Iron Men, I may tinker with them to increase the values of guns, hull, and rigging so as to represent all the vessels present. WS&IM does have a Lake Erie scenario in the rules, but it only encompasses the five larger ships, and hence the Americans really lose on their broadside weight advantage. Some discussion on the Battle of Lake Erie Yahoo group has lead to converting the broadside gun weights as follows:

As always, more on this once the bases arrive!

More on Elli

One of the items I discussed in the first post about the First Balkan War naval Battle of Elli was about a basing system. I really wanted to go with clear acrylic bases, and Warbases offers a 40mm by 20mm base, with etching, for a good price. But 40mm was just a tad too short. An email to Warbases to inquire about getting larger acrylic bases made, with the ship names etched, has already been responded to, and apparently can be done! So, I have sent them the ship names, and awaiting a PayPal invoice and in a few weeks I should have bases for the Navwar ships. Pretty darn cool, but now I have to ensure that I can glue the ships to the bases without causing the bases to fog. Oh, and of course paint the ships before mounting them, as I normally glue the ships, then prime everything at the same time. A bit different direction this time.

The Battle of Lemnos? No, Elli!

Battle of Elli - ships engaged - from Age of Steel and Coal

A few years ago (see HERE) I picked up some Navwar ships from a chap who thought he had organized his purchase for the Battle of Lemnos (First Balkan War). However, in recently reviewing the ships that I purchased from him and the lack of enough destroyers for the Lemnos affair, it appears that really he collected the ships needed for the Battle of Elli. Makes perfect sense considering that at Lemnos the ironclad Asar-i-Tevfik was not present, yet I have a casting for it. Ahhhh, good, now I know what I have to work on for a future game!

Okay, what to do with this project, meaning what sort and size of bases to use, and what rules will offer a simple enough game, yet give that period feel I like? Here is a nice after action report using Majestic Twelve Games' Grand Fleets (never heard of them, although they seem to be available Stateside, and apparently they offer a scenario book that has the ships for Elli already rated). Thinking about some clear acrylic bases, but also worried that the glue might fog the bases, and with the tiny destroyers in this scale it will be difficult to not have excess glue along the waterline. And, my go to base supplier, Litko, does not make rectangular acrylic bases. But I do have some nice splash markers from them, and they also offer some firing arcs that will be useful.

Warbases make custom etched acrylic bases, which could be excellent to have each ship's name already etched on the base, but while nearly all the miniatures would fit on the largest rectangle base they offer, the Georgios Averof is just a tad too large. I think I will send them an email to see if they could make a larger etched base.

The rules and scenario book that covers the First Balkan War have been ordered. The neat thing about the scenario book is if I enjoy the rules I can also use my Spanish-American War fleets for Manila Bay!