I have been distracted for the last week by another interest. I have built a couple of model boats and for years have been interested in R/C naval combat, where model ships are armed with BB guns and try to sink each other. However, not being particularly mechanical and with basic ships costing around $600.00 and up just to start, has always stopped me beyond the dream stage. However, there is a movement afloat to start a new class of warship which they call the"Steampunk Flotilla", where the boats below the waterline will all be built the same with the same motors and props. Above the water line the builders have complete freedom to build the ship as they please. The idea is to represent Predreadnought style ships. Now for me, seeing the Bismarck and Yamoto slugging it out while bumping each other just never looked right; however, it is a little easier imagining old Predreadnoughts doing so.
With this sudden turn towards naval warfare, I decided to do a mold of one of the toy warships which I had done an earlier post about. The idea was to cast around 8 of them, paint them simply, and find a easy set of rules and have a war-game. The casting and painting is done, the ruleset chosen (Bob Cordrey's "Portable Naval Wargame; Predreadnought), now only the battle is to be fought.
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| I think the battle will be between the Shiak and Brookshire navies. Shown is the Shiak fleet, the blue national flag on the foremast and ship identifying flag on the rear mast. |
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| Closeup of the Shiak flagship (as of yet, unnamed). |
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| The Brookshire fleet steaming out of port. |
John, have you looked for Monoply spares on e-Bay? You can often pick them up very cheap and that would give you some more battleships
ReplyDeleteIan, I really hadn't thought about that. At a school I worked at they were throwing away a few Monopoly games missing parts and found a couple of the battleships ( and one doggy, the piece I always used). Those are great pieces as they look like American Pre Dreadnoughts or Russian "flatiron" Coastal Pre Dreadnoughts. Avalon Hill a few years back produced the game "Diplomacy" where the countries got fleets of these pieces,along with the cannon pieces. I was going to buy a copy but for the playing pieces but never did. Tootsytoy also made a couple of pieces that looked like Pre Dreadnoughts; years ago I missed out on a large lot of them. Something else for me to start looking for on Ebay!
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