Irregular Wars Wargaming

One of my gaming comrades as been developing his own set of naval rules called  Broadside  - initially focused on 20th century engagements but I believe the intention is to adapt it later to deal with the 18th and 19th centuries as well. After playtesting Broadside I  received an enthusiasm boost to return to All at Sea , my ship-on-ship game set in the 16th and 17th centuries.  My 1/1200 scale galleons were irreconcilably damaged during the big move two years ago, since then I have been using 1/2400 scale vessels for my own play testing. These paint up fine but, admittedly, are really just gaming pieced at that scale.  I looked around for alternatives and kept coming back to the Peter Pig Pieces of Eight range, 1/450 scale 17th century vessels. While being slightly later than my previous forays into naval games (very much the 16th century), I decided to order a couple to see how they paint up.  I also came across the Ral Partha Europe range of fanta...

My 1:1200 scale Valiant Enterprises galleons (rather ironically) fared very badly in the ship journy between the Antipodes and this island, clinging to the edge of Europe. I rather like the vessels by Valiant, but loath how soft their masts are. The weight of all those sails always left the masts bent so I replaced them all with brass rods. For me, that was far too much effort if I ever wanted to put together a decent sized fleet and so I looked around for alternatives. Tumbling Dice to the left, Valiant to the right. One result of the search was the discovery of the Tumbling Dice line of 1:2400 scale vessels. These are smaller than I would have liked, but I placed a small order (last year) to see what they were like. Twelve months on, I've finally painted a few of them and thought I'd share a couple of pictures. The website at Tumbling Dice has changed since I placed my order and is now much easier to use with clearer definitions on which ships belong to which range. Th...

Finally I present the third in the series of 'ship studies', the Dutch jacht ( reconnaissance /privateering vessel) Duyfken - on in English, the Little Dove. Built in 1595, the small vessel was used extensively by the VOC ( Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie)  in the East Indies until her abandonment in 1608. In 1606, she was the first European vessel to reach the shores of Australia. The full scale replica was built at Freemantle WA in 1999. Particulars: Displacement - 110 tons burthen Length - 19.9m Beam - 6.0m Draft - 2.4m Speed - 7 knots Armament - 8 small cannons The Duyfken at sea: The Duyfken docked at Coffs Harbour in 2006: The following timeline was opportunistically appropriated from  www.duyfken.com , I can claim no credit or responsibility for any of the content. CE 1595 Duyfken  is built about 1595 in the Netherlands. A fast, lightly-armed ship probably intended for small valuable cargoes or privateering. CE 16...

This is the second of three posts dealing with replica 16th century ships... Scratch that - this post has little to do with replicas at all. In this post I wanted to show a couple of pictures of the armament from the Spanish galleass, La Girona , on display in the Ulster Museum (incidentally, for a regional museum, the Ulster Museum in Belfast is pretty fantastic and well worth the visit < http://www.nmni.com/um/Collections/World-Cultures/The-Armada-Collection >). Of the 130 Spanish ships that set out in 1588 to invade England, over 20 of them were wrecked off the North and West coasts of Ireland.The Ulster Museum owns the excavated remains of three of these ships, the galleass La Girona which was wrecked at Lacada Point, near the Giant's Causeway, Co. Antrim, La Trinidad Valencera which ran aground in Kinnagoe Bay, Co. Donegal and the Santa Maria de La Rosa which sank suddenly in Blasket Sound, Co. Kerry. There are no known representations of the Girona but other gall...

Flicking through my old photos, I noticed that I had quite a few relating to my gaming interests that would be worth posting on the blog. This post marks the first in a series of three dealing with replica 16th century ships. I felt it was only right to start with one of the most famous of all English galleons - the Pelican , better known as the Golden Hinde . In 1577 Francis Drake left England with a fleet of five ships, including his flagship, the Pelican , with the intention of raiding and pillaging the unprotected Pacific coast of the Spanish New World colonies. Only the Pelican made it through the Straits of Magellan (Spring of 1578) and was renamed the Golden Hinde in reference to the heraldic crest of Drake's patron Sir Christopher Hatton.  Drake and his men played havoc with Spanish shipping and ports in the South Seas. The most famous encounter was with the Spanish galleon  Nuestra Señora de la Concepción (Our Lady of the Conception), also kn...