Sunday, December 30, 2012

(Almost) the end of the year report


Instead of gaming, Friday night was a painting spree at the New Buckenham club, a successful feature which might be repeated in future. It offered members a chance to chip away at the lead mountain and demonstrate their painting techniques. My wife and I weren't able to go in the end, but Amanda painted her first wargames figure. The consensus of the club is she did a good job of it. We're so proud! ;) 

Farther poking around in my shed turned up the naval component of the Early Imperial Roman force I mentioned previously. These 1/300th scale galleys are home-made, being cast in resin from a latex mold. 
All are basically of the liburnian pattern, a light war galley used for patrol and coastal work. The model at the rear-right is an incomplete trireme intended for use as a flagship. 

I made space on each deck for a couple of stands of Roman marines, the classiarii. For those current and ex-Marines out there, note I didn't use the proud upper case M in describing the troop-type for a good reason! To quote from the Military Analysis blog, "Being in the Roman 'marines' (the milites classiarii) didn't convey the same prestige as being in the modern US Marine Corps does now [British Royal Marine Commando or Russian Marines for that matter either!]. The Roman marines were provincial or foreign auxiliaries that could fight on or off boat."

My intention is (eventually) to add a Germanic equivalent force equipped with something like the Hjortspring boat, the Iron Age predecessor to the Saxon boats and the classic Viking longboat. Unlike the longboat, the vessel really was suited only to operating in relatively sheltered waters, along a coast or in the Baltic. Quick and nimble, it would've been great for raiding parties.
 The Hjortspring boat, showing the curious double-prow and stern. Purpose unknown, these disappeared in later versions of the boat in its gradual progress toward the Viking longboat design.



4 comments:

Bluebear Jeff said...

You might want to take a look at Eric Hotz's "Roman Seas". Here's a download for his free catalog:

http://www.romanseas.com/rs_catalog.pdf

It has lots of great photographs of different ships even if you don't want to get any of his printable .pdf downloads of the ships or buildings . . . but they are in the 1/300 scale as well.

I'm not sure about his rules though . . . the initial reaction to them was "ho hum" as I recall . . . but his ships are great.


-- Jeff

A J said...

Thanks, Jeff, a very useful link there. His models do look nice, and are cheap - something which appeals to me in my current financial.

Bluebear Jeff said...

Yes. One of the nice things about the "print your own" .pdfs is that for one price you can print as many as you like . . . and I believe that the files include a number of color options to help identify ships.


-- Jeff

wardy-la said...

We have nominated you for a Liebster Blog Award!

http://bytheordersofthegreatwhitequeen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/liebster-blog-award.html

 

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