Saturday 17 January 2015

From Curt - 1/300 Mediterranean Renaissance Ships (30 Points)


A few weeks ago I saw a post on Thomas Foss’ ‘Skull & Crown’ blog where he was play-testing his draft rules and prototype models for Renaissance-period naval combat set in the Mediterranean (update: the rules are titled, 'Galleys, Guns and Glory'). I was blown away by his 1:300 scale wooden models and so contacted him to see if I could convince him to both be a sponsor to the Challenge and to let me get my grubby mits on some pre-production samples of his models. Of course, being a very gracious gentleman, he agreed to both and so I present here some samples for you to check out.

The ship models are ingeniously designed, with each ship, depending on its size, being created from 4 – 7 pieces of flat, laser-cut wood. The pieces are essentially assembled in layers, from bottom to top. While certainly not a perfect rendition of renaissance galleys they provide, in under 10 minutes assembly, a wonderful impression of those elegant vessels.

The 'Galley' and 'Fusta' models on their wood frame.
For this post I’ve assembled and painted three ships, the larger one in green and yellow is a Turkish ‘Galley’, the slightly smaller one in red is a Knights of Malta ‘Galliot’, while the little craft without the sails is called a ‘Fusta’ and serves as a small galley / dice-holder. (I don’t have a copy of the rules yet (subtle hint to Thomas) so I can’t tell you what the Fusta’s purpose is, but my hunch is that it’s used to track ship damage or perhaps morale on the larger ships. Anyway, it’s pretty darn cool.) 

A Turkish Galley
A Knights of Malta Galliot
A Fusta
Thomas was kind enough to provide me with some flags and awnings which you can see here. I understand there will also be ‘strips’ of bulwark art, but it is still in production and will be available later. With that being the case I just bodged a rough paintjob for the hulls. I have to admit that in my eagerness to get to grips on these that I forgot to properly sand the surfaces, so I apologize if the paintwork seems a bit rough.


I used .02 mm plastic rod to mock-up the rigging that seems to have worked out pretty well. At first I thought it wouldn’t be robust enough for gameplay, but now I think it may hold up alright (and imo it's much easier to work with than fiddling about with thread). 


To provide a sense of their size I’ve included a shot below of the Turkish Galley next to a 28mm SCW armoured car and corresponding figure. As you can see the Galley is quite a sizeable model. I understand that there is one class of ship that is even larger, the ‘Lanternas’, which, of course, I’m very keen to see.

The Galley next to some 28mm models
I was also provided with some round crew tokens (not shown here) but I’m thinking I might use small bases mounting 1/300 scale figures for a bit of fun.

Thomas has informed me that while the pricing has not yet been set, one can expect the ships to range in price from $10 – 25 (USD) which will also include crew markers, cannon smoke markers, a sheet of giclee printed flags, awnings and pennants (in a choice of Turkish, Venetian, Maltese, Papal States or Spanish colours) AND the larger ships will come with a ‘Fusta’ damage dice holder. With a typical force being around 3 to 6 ships it seems to me to be an affordable entry to a very characterful period. 

Thanks again to 'Skull & Crown' for these pre-production samples - they were a complete blast to work on. I wish you the very best in this new endeavour and I can assure you that you have my future business! 


Okay so for points, I’m thinking that the Turkish Galley is equivalent to a 28mm vehicle, the ‘Galliot’ to a 20mm vehicle and perhaps a few more points for the Fusta, so say 30 points total? We'll run with that.

Finally, for those who haven't voted for the 'Victorian' theme round please remember to head over to the theme gallery, enjoy the submissions and cast your votes for your favourites. As you can see below the race is very tight again this week, with only a few votes separating those in the top six positions.



Thanks for visiting!

45 comments:

  1. Ohhhhhh. These look so cool and I'll be seriously hard-pressed not to snatch some of these up when they come out. Brings back memories of reading about the Battle of Lepanto as a young lad, and of many fun games of GW's Man O' War back in the day.

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    1. Ahh, Man O' War... I'd forgotten about that game. Another very cool game mouldering away in the GW IP graveyard...

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  2. Stunningly painted - very cool kits.

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  3. They are tremendous. I am really excited to see this taking shape. While not a project for me at this stage I can see several club members buying them.

    Nicely found, sourced and painted. Hats off to you sir.

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  4. What a great innovative product! Nicely painted too.

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    1. They are a very cool product to be sure. Thanks for the thumbs up!

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  5. Holy cow, these are AWESOME! When will they be available to the sweaty masses i,e. me?!?

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    1. I think Thomas is aiming for sometime in the next couple months (February/March) as a product launch date (though I may be out on that). If you're interested I'd suggest dropping him a note (foss1066 at yahoo dot com) or visit his blog to keep in the loop.

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  6. What I find so cool, is how you can achieve a full 3D look with these 1D parts. Great stuff but the very nice painting helps a lot to further enhance the miniatures.

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    1. Thanks very much Sander, I'm delighted you like them.

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  7. Another great sponsor, many thanks. Curt these look great.. And that could be another great distraction..

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    1. Thanks Dave. I need these like a hole in the head but they just cried out to me so how could I deny them? :)

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  8. Hmmm? They do look quite excellent! I wouldn't mind a fleet or two of these babies!!

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  9. Really nice and interesting vessels. It is going to be another distraction, I´m sure...

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    1. Yes, another damn distraction... Oh well, it's all fun so no worries!

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  10. Oh, these are lovely! Great job!

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  11. What a simple and effective way of getting a fleet of galleys. Nice work Curt. :)

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  12. Great idea and excellently painted

    Ian

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  13. These are great and an interesting new period on offer. Could be tempted for sure !

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  14. Nice work I like these. Great looking galleys.

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  15. Wow. Is it just me or are laser-cut models just getting better and better?

    Great work on these first previews, Curt, you lucky (sea) dog!

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  16. Curt
    Those are bloody marvellous. I've been drooling over these sites too…However I can be strong, and I have some 1/1200 galleys and armada era galleons. Now the italian wars pike and shot that's been appearing on the challenge….
    Cheers
    PD

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    1. You're on, let's do Italian Wars. I have some 28mm stuff already but I can be convinced to go into 15mm if you want. I think we can even entice Greg to join us.

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    2. I am definitely taking 28s, especially given the Perry plastics. The eyes are getting old for 15s, plus I sold off my 15mm landschnecks a couple of years back!
      Cheers
      PD

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  17. Those look really slick! Of course I'm still pondering on getting the wooden Napoleonic troops he makes as well! They look like a fun project to get my kids in historical gaming and painting, and they'd look really sweet on the bookshelf! ;)

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  18. The laser cut business is getting really good and turning out some fine work. These are no exception and I think you may have sold a few fleets with this post.

    Nicely done Curt and so well photographed.

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  19. Cue Lepanto! Great stuff dude!

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  20. Very nicely done. Having one of these proto types myself, I am very curious if you did anything special for the rigging. I had Tom explain his rigging process using thread, but yours sounds much simpler.

    And to follow on from David Bromley's comment about using and the Napoleonics as a way to get kids into the hobby, one of the great things is that you can use felt tip pens or colored pencils to "paint" the figures too. It's just like paint-by-numbers. I tried it on one of the early Napoleonic figures and blogged about it here:
    http://twotharksonecup.blogspot.com/2012/08/of-wooden-soldiers-and-felt-tip-pens.html

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    1. Thanks for commenting Black Cavalier. Yes, I found using the plastic rod MUCH easier than thread (but then again I'm a bit of a ham-handed idiot when it comes to rigging at the best of times). You just have to cut it to length and superglue it into place (or use hot glue, I used both). Even better the .05mm rod fits nicely in the holes Thomas provides so no need for re-drilling.

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  21. Very well done! The ships look great and I really like that ship acting as dice holder. You're a real jack of all trades my dear.

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    1. Thanks Nick! Yet another distraction to add to the roster...

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  22. How very marvellous. Great product and really nice painting to put them in a great light.

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  23. Thank you, Skull & Crown! And nice brushwork, Curt! Not really familiar with this period of conflict, but it looks like the game could be fun.

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    1. Thanks Kevin! Dave would love it as the period involves a LOT of stuff ramming eachother. :)

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    2. Ramming Speed!! ;-)

      Yeah, Dave would love that! And as already mentioned, they remind me of Man o' War too.

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  24. I'm a little late to the party- but Curt, great work! It's really amazing seeing something that one does, then handing it off and watching the results. I love in particular your painted rigging lines- I'll be doing that to my ships now! Thanks for the great review - and those playtest rules are on their way!

    Kevin- if you want to see pics of the game in action, I have some battle reports on my blog www.skullandcrown.blogspot.com
    Also you can just google The battle of Lepanto- it's amazing how much splendor there is on the ships, and then tons of troops smashing together as the ships collide.

    Cheers
    Thomas Foss

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    1. Thank you Thomas for providing the samples and for agreeing to support the Challenge. I wish you the very best in this endeavour, but I suspect you'll do just fine after seeing the quality of the products you're making.

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