Battle of Lake Erie - More Thoughts

A few additional ramblings about the Lake Erie project....

Found a cheap copy of Wooden Ships & Iron Men on ebay today, so I will be set with the rules. I am hoping there is enough explanation of ships ratings that will allow me to extrapolate rigging, crew, and hull numbers, plus I needed a copy of the rules and charts anyway. I've always liked WS&IM, but for smaller ships it loses something, so changing the gun weight factor from 100 to 25 will give the smaller vessels at Lake Erie some representation.

Years ago I picked up a vinyl Chessex Megamat with 1" hexes for a low price. I've never used it, but now it will serve as a perfect gaming space. The Warbases tokens I have ordered for use as bases are 40mm in length, which will be ideal for the 1" hexes (two being 50mm), without cramming the ships together when they are at close quarters.

After years I am FINALLY getting this project moving forward!

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!