From AdamW: Carry on up the Tigris (Fraud) (160 points)

 I'm currently living in chaos with a, long overdue, new kitchen being fitted. This means painting productivity has slowed to a crawl.  

I have managed to build three ships, two 'Fly Class' gunboats and Espiegle, a Cadmus class Sloop.

The 'Fly class' river gunboats are small, well-armed, Royal Navy ships designed to patrol the Tigris river during the Mesopotamian Campaign of WW1.

They were officially called small China gunboats. This was a deliberate act to disguise their real intended use. So for this reason I have chosen them to claim my 'Fraud' bonus (someone or something who claims to be something they are not).

These are designed for 15mm gaming.  I have been generally dissatisfied with the look of 'wargaming' ships.  Due to the problems with making things to scale the way most people have approached it is to make short fat ships that are all out of proportion.

My approach is a little different. 1:100 ships are very big and even on the large table we use it's just too much.  The compromise I have made is to make them at 1:150 scale, BUT, stretch the height of superstructure so that 15mm figures don't look too tall.  This gives the right overall shape to the ship and generally works well.

The first ships I did like this were card models I designed for the ACW. Since getting a 3D printer I am now doing the same process but in a different medium.  This particular model is a free download from Thingyverse. I have tweaked the design to suit my need. The railings are brass etched ones, as I only have a filament printer and it's not quite up to printing them.

Below we have HMS Espiegle, a Cadmus class sloop. A well armed vessel with 6 x QF 4in guns, 4x3-pounder guns (in the hull) and 3 machine guns.

It was used by Townsend as the flagship of the Mespotamia Campaign. It was one of the last British ships to have a figurehead.

In this model I designed the hull from scratch. The other bits were 3D kitbashed from other models and some parts designed by myself.

I find ship painting tricky for a few reasons.  Ships were generally kept in good condition to keep the sailors busy when not in combat, so generally they looked clean and not rusty. As this is a wargaming piece and not a military model I have tried to break up the monotone look with some shading and weathering. Overall I am happy with the result, although as always the close up pictures to me don't look as good as the model looks to my naked eye. The camera picks up the print line that you just don't see and where I have painted for an effect it looks more slapdash.

I also need to work out how to model decking, as the models currently only have a flat surfaces. This is much harder to paint as there are no grooves to run a wash through.

So points???? Well will have to leave that one up to you Martijn. At least you had an idea of what I was doing before I posted this.

The figures were all painted by me a while ago, so just needed a few touch ups. No claim for those. Figures are a mixture of navy chaps from various manufacturers including QRF and Peter Pig. I did head swaps on many of the peter pig ones to get chaps with Pith Helmets,

2 x  10inch 15mm gunboats @ 40 = 80 pts

1 x 18inch 15mm gunboat @60 = 60

Fraud bonus = 20pts

Total 160

Yes, you have given me fair warning, and yet the result surprises me. A great collection of gunboats, Adam, all the more impressive for being produced in  the midst of  that most horrible of  disasters that is a kitchen renovation. Ah well, it has to get worse before it gets better I guess. I love these ships. They are have a good amount of detail, and the brass railings really add to them. The figurehead is really nice! Also, the clever rescaling absolutely works I think. A fabulous job! Now, unique items such as these are always difficult to score adequately. Most often in the past, vehicle equivalents have been used so I will do that here too. Let's score the smaller gunboats as 4 15mm vehicles and the larger sloop as 6. That will give you a base of 32 points for the smaller ships and 48 for the larger one, which seems to give a result that is fairly consistent with earlier (though 28mm) ship entries. However, in recognition of your scratchbuilding and development skills, I will round them off to 40 each for the smaller gunboats and 60 for the larger sloop. So,140 points then, for a total of 160. Well done!

Martijn