Sea Mat

Buying a gaming mat these days leads to quite a few rabbit holes, due to the vast amount of options currently available. Used to be one bought some felt at the local fabric store, then that permeated into buying Geohex mats, then Geohex terrain pieces, and that covered the gaming needs for a number of years. But more recently one can buy mats on fleece or mousepad material or PVC, beautifully printed. One could also use various sign making companies and upload an image for the company then to produce a mat printed on banner material. Then, does one want hexes or no? All sorts of decisions to be made.

To use with my Figurehead Great War ships, mounted on Warbases custom bases, for the Coronel and Falklands scenarios, I spent a few hours weighing options at various online retailers. Cost would be a primary factor as I did not want to spend too much on a mat, but still wanted to have a nice looking and functional surface. To that end I went with a PVC mat from Deep Cut Studio.  

I placed my order on a Sunday afternoon (U.S. time). The website is easy to use. Find the mat you want, pick a material, pick a size, add to cart, and checkout with PayPal or a credit card. My 6' by 4' mat was $72.00 which included included overseas shipping.

I received my mat on January 24th, the Friday following my order. During the process I received updates about shipping with a FedEx tracking number. A Sunday to Friday turnaround time is really amazingly fast from Europe to the United States! The mat came in a long tube, which I should be able to use when the mat is being stored.

I am very happy with how the mat looks with my Warbases custom blue bases. Now, time to determine rules and to host this game at a local shop!

Coronel and Falklands Ships - Based and Ready

Using tacky glue I have been able to base the various ships for the Coronel and Falklands battles. I am just waiting for my Deep Cut Studio mat to arrive to see how well these blue tinted bases from Warbases will look on the gaming table. I am really looking forward to running some games with these little beauties! Now I need to sort out a simple set of rules!

Basing

It is time to get these Figurehead ships for Coronel and the Falklands (picked up from Tiny Tin Troops) on their newly acquired bases! I recently received my custom bases from Warbases, each base etched with the name of the ship. Should make it easy for players to know which ship is which, while not being as intrusive as a print out of the name. The blue color of the base will blend nicely with the gaming mat as well. 

Now, next quest, to find a glue that will not cause any hazing or smoking of the base itself, just in case I get a little glue beyond the miniature itself!

And the other next quest, a nice sea mat to game on!

UPDATE - Per the suggestion of some on a gaming forum, I've tried some tacky glue on the Scharnhorst to see if it will hold decently enough for game play. Checking it after a night of drying, the ship is firmly in place. Thus, the basing glue conundrum has been solved.

Battle of Elli - Basing Solution

When deciding on how to base ships for the Elli project, I did some searching on various gaming sites, looking for a clear acrylic option. One suggestion was Warbases. Alas, while they offered clear bases, and even etching for ship names, they did not have a size of base that would be suitable for the larger ships. I decided to send them an email to see if they had any options for this issue, as their pricing was so incredibly reasonable. To my great pleasure I received a timely and favorable response - indeed they could create a larger base that would accommodate the larger ships and they could move the etching of the ship names along the long edge. Warbases worked with me to design a larger base, and so I was able to take care of that issue!

The next issue for basing will be painting and gluing the ships to the bases without creating any fogging. I typically mount ships on sheet styrene and prime everything at one time, which obviously defeats the purpose of using clear etched bases.

Battle of Lake Erie - Project Organization and Next Steps

I received my custom bases from Warbases some weeks ago. They did a fantastic job on creating a base for each ship. As mentioned in my previous post, I ordered clear acrylic 40mm by 20mm bases that will fit nicely on my Chessex sea mat.

A bit on organizing the project....

Using the Figurehead 1/2400 scale ships, here are the ships and the codes for each. Not perfect matches for each ship type, but as there are no manufacturers in any scale that cover each Lake Erie vessel perfectly, this list will have to do:

FN14 - 20 Gun Sloop:  Detroit and Queen Charlotte

FN15 - 18 Gun Brig: General Hunter, Niagara, Lawrence, and Caledonia

FN16 - Sloop:  Little Belt and Trippe

FN20 - Schooner:  Lady Prevost, Chippewa, Ariel, Scorpion, Tigress, Porcupine, and Somers

Some obvious issues arise:  The General Hunter and Caledonia, while of brig configuration, are certainly not brigs of the same size as the 18 gun brigs. Also, I am using cutters for the two small sloops.  

Next steps are priming then painting the ships, then finding some sort of glue that will not cause frosting on the plastic bases.

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!

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!