Unboxing Day!

The opened box of goodness!

In yesterday's post I received a small box from one of my favorite manufacturers, Thoroughbred Figures.  I had placed an order for their newish line of 1/1200 American Civil War vessels.  Over the years I had purchased many of their 1/600 scale range, but having smaller space to game and to store gaming materials, plus the fact that my gaming friends, particularly The G Dog, has about every 1/600 scale vessel known to man, I thought heading towards 1/1200 would give me the scale that worked for my space limitations, while also allowing me to focus on specific projects without hopefully getting overboard (pun intended).  I have a few other 1/1200 scale resin vessels from Titan Military Miniature Products, but haven't really done anything with them, and when I saw that Thoroughbred had released 1/1200 scale ships, I knew they would be the premier range to own (nothing against Langton Miniatures but I have never purchased any of their 1/1200 ships).  So, I sent an email to Toby Barrett and placed my first order for his 1/1200 scale ships.

I decided that I would stick with the brown water navy, meaning mostly riverine actions.  Currently Thoroughbred only offers the USS Cairo for river battles, and seeing that the Cairo is probably my favorite class of ironclads from the war, I decided to go big and buy seven, one for each ship in the class, the main distinction being the colored bands painted on their smokestacks.  This will allow me to use the correctly painted ship for any of the actions I want to game.

After just a few days of placing my order with Thoroughbred, I received my goodies.  I eagerly opened the box to find not seven, but eight little boxes with ships! Toby has a history of providing me with excellent service and on occasion some extra goodies, and in this case added in a little something extra as he delayed shipping my box by one day!  Really, he was that concerned about not sending out the package one day sooner that he added a surprise for my "troubles."  Amazing service!

Here are a few pics for viewing to give you an idea of what to expect when ordering these little gems from Thoroughbred.  They are superbly cast, no mold lines or flash, perfectly scaled, and really should paint up nicely.

A stack of Cairos, anyone?

What's this?  An extra ship?

She's a beauty

Sizing up the Cairo

A "super" CSS Albemarle was included in my order

1/1200 American Civil War

I have always thought the 1/600 scale Civil War vessels from Thoroughbred Figures to be some of the nicest ship castings available, no matter what period and what scale.  But my gaming buddy The G Dog has about every 1/600 scale vessel known to man, and with living in a condo with limited and temporary gaming space (the dining room table) that scale is not just too large for me.  Toby Barrett from Thoroughbred has provided a potential solution...go small with great quality with his newish 1/1200 scale range.

Admittedly the offerings at this time are limited, but Mr. Barrett already has several more castings in the works, so this promises to be the epic range for 1/1200 scale Civil War naval gaming.  He also provided me a couple of pics of his current offerings.

CSS Albemarle, USS Cairo, CSS Atlanta, USS Passaic

USS Monitor (early), USS Monitor (late), CSS Tennessee, CSS Super Albemarle