From RaulM: Merchant Shipping (12 Points)

I've decided to keep the them of merchant shipping going, so this time I have a small merchantman. This model is sold by Warlord Games as a fireship, which is such a niche use-case that I'd rather have it as the merchantman which I can use more often. In addition I painted up a little longboat to use for landing scenarios. 

The model itself is nothing particularly crazy. Technically, with the foremast being taller this would be a ketch rather than a brig. 

The reason I decided to paint her as a merchant is that her deck is modeled with a ton of crates and barrels, which as a fire ship would have been loaded with flammables and explosives. Instead I've given them a more peaceful purpose. 

The longboat is a simple little conversion I did, where I took the largest boat from the 3rd rate frame, sculpted some tiny crew, and given them some oars. Some small, fine work, but not overwhelming. 

I've painted all of the passengers as marines, which gives it a really nice bright pop of color on the table. 

 I've counted the merchantman as 10 points, and 2 points for the little longboat, for a total of 12. 

I've really enjoyed your Age of Sail work Raul, and this week's post is no exception.  That's fine looking Merchant brig suitable for many uses.  Also love the long boat. 

From RaulM: Black Seas Indiamen (15 points)

I've painted a ton of military ships for Black Seas, but what's the point if there are no fat, juicy prizes to chase or a grateful convoy to dutifully escort? Warlord thankfully has provided some Indiamen to make this a reality in your games of Black Seas. 

I purposely strayed away from yellow and black to help distinguish this ship form its escorts. The photography doesn't quite get the coloring great, but the hull is a very deep brown. I also avoided using any of the other types of national colors as I wanted this ship to be generic and usable by anyone for any scenario. 

The model also came with 4 different inserts to give some variety between Indiamen, and I chose the open deck full of cargo. It was a little difficult for me to get that to look ok in this scale, but I did my best. 

For scoring I put this at 15 points to go inline with the frigates I painted last year. It is a little larger and chunkier than those 5th rates, but I didn't have to rig any ensigns or pennants which made my life a little easier so it comes out in the wash. 

What a wonderful fat prize for any raider Raul.  Of course there are equally examples of Indiamen fighting a raider off due to their crew size and armament.  Wonderful work.

From RaulM: Black Seas HMS Indefatigable (25 points)

Hello and welcome to my first post of the challenge! It's a little later than I had hoped, but I've had a lot going on behind the scenes. You're not here for excuses though, you're here for some painted minis. I'm continuing last year's adventure with Black Seas, Warlord Games's foray into Age of Sail miniatures. The scale is 1/700 (although sticklers would point out that it's on a sliding scale and not all of them are true 1/700 and so on and so on...). The first miniature I have this year is the HMS Indefatigable, a rather famous ship in Napoleonic naval circles.

This is a resin, metal, and plastic model. The metal stern and figurehead are technically meant for one of the plastic 5th rate frigates in the Royal Navy starter box, but the Indefatigable is not a standard 5th rate, but instead a razee, which is a larger ship, like a 3rd or 2nd rate, who's upper gun deck has been cut away. So instead I used the small 4th rate razee model, which is made of resin. I also took the masts from a plastic 3rd rate as I thought the 5th rate masts were a touch too small. 

I used my standard Royal Navy colors here, which is an amber yellow with black. The figurehead was a fun little challenge, and is practically a miniature on a miniature. My photography isn't great, but that's a Greek warrior with sword and shield. 

And for those of you that can't really picture what 1/700 scale means, here's the ship next to a Blood & Plunder 28 mm pirate on a 20 mm base. 

As for points, I've scored this at 20 points based on previous challenges, particularly my USS Constitution from last year. 

Welcome back Raul and what an absolutely smashing first post!  A famous ship indeed, now you just need the Droits de L'Hommes for her to fight in a gale.   Just lovely work on the painting and rigging.  Speaking of rigging, I fully support the idea of using the bigger masts, as Captain fellow specifically kept her original masts on conversion from a 3rd rate.  I'm adding in a few points for the flag and the fine work.

From KenR: 1/700 HMS Forester & Foxhound (80 points)

 

Ship of the week has become ships of the week ! In what may be a vain attempt to finish off the military ships of Narvik I managed to get two Destroyers finished off this week, leaving me 1 Battleship and 3 Destroyers to do before close if Challenge in just 15 days.

HMS Forester is one of 9 F Class Destroyers a repeat of the E Class, she served throughout the War being involved at Narvik, where she escorted the Warspite. Forester went on to be part of Force H participating against the French at Mers el Kebir, escorting in the Med, Atlantic and the Russian convoys, chase the Bismarck and DDay, her crew would certainly have some tales to tell.

HMS Foxhound was also an F Class Destroyer, she had a similar career to Forester but was converted to an escort Destroyer and transfered to the Canadian Navy in 1944 and renamed HMCS Qu'Appelle, she also ended the war in one piece and her last duties were bringing Canadian soldiers back home after they served in Europe.

Both ships are 1/700 E Class Destroyer kits from Tamiya, the tooling for these is really old and they are the most basic of the kits I've done. The ridges along the Hull are a massive pain in the backside both for the decals and the weathering but they have turned out nice enough.

Foxhound is in a particularly interesting colour scheme, one I haven't seen on other ships and comes from wartime photos of the ship. It uses the high contrast of other schemes but the lower hull is split into two colours rather than having a single colour hull and a single colour upper. 

So that's two Destroyers at 40 points each for a total of 80. I have 2 Destroyers half built and Warspite on the go, but the easy wins have all gone. The remaining Destroyers are more advanced kits and Warspite is, well huge, my work pattern means I've only got 4 days left in the Challenge to get stuff done, so let's see.

TeemuL: As promised last week, there are two ships this week, well done, Ken! Older and simpler kits are not necessarily easier and funnier to work with, something you seem to have experienced first hand this week. Once again, you have managed to make the ships individual even though they are the same kit. Let's see if you can make a ship in four days for the rest of the Challenge, I'm sure there are several thumbs up.

From KenR: 1/700 HMS Punjabi (Ship of the week) (40 points)

Well this Challenge has turned into a ship fest against all my planning but with work commitments getting through a ship a week is a challenge in itself at the moment. It's definitely helping me progress the ship part of the Narvik Project.

This week I present HMS Punjabi, the final one of 4 Tribal Class Destroyers for the project and this one is a 1/700 scale Trumpeter kit, just like last week's entry. I've opted for a dark grey lower hull with light grey upper on this one and it does make quite a nice contrast.

The ship spent its career in home waters and on the Northern Convoy routes, she was involved in the 2nd Battle of Narvik where she was badly damaged, losing all power for over an hour. She was lost escorting Convoy PQ15 in May 1942, the deck watch believed they had see a mine and ordered a 15 degree turn to avoid it, unfortunately it was foggy and without knowing the ship turned in front of the British Battleship KGV. The larger ship sliced Punjabi in two however the impact and explosions of depth charges on the Destroyer caused serious damage to the KGV.

So that's another 40 points to the total, I'm a country mile of my target but at least I'm getting a bit done each week. With this ship complete, I have 5 more Destroyers and Warspite to do. With 3 weeks to go, I'll need more than a ship a week and the Warspite is a huge job on its own. Never mind a half done unit of Prussian Landwher !

Anyway, I'm going to aim for two ships next week, until then here are the 4 Tribals for the project.

TeemuL: Let's start with a safe and familiar first entry of the day, 1/700 ship. Thank you Ken, I know there are lots of followers on this project. And two ships a week next? I just hope that those people who are waiting for the Prussian Landwehr and other 28mm models are not neglected too much.

It is interesting to see, that even when those four ships are more or less similar, your skightly different colour choices make them all individuals, but they still look like a group and they all look very real. Splendid job!

From RaulM: Black Seas Cutter and Schooner (20 points)

Life has been particularly busy for me as I just became a new dad, so this will more than likely be my last post for this year's hobby challenge. I was working on a Battle of Lake Erie project, and as part of that I have these two vessels: a cutter and a schooner. 

Both are metal models from Warlord Games Black Seas, although I do think that the schooner comes with resin hulls nowadays. They're fairly simple to build and paint as the sails are sculpted onto the masts, which eliminates a step when compared to the standard Black Seas models. 

The cutter comes in two varieties, an armed and unarmed version. I used the unarmed version, but added a 12-pdr gun to the fore and aft, run out on opposite sides. I based the look off of the HMS Little Belt, that itself was actually the Friends Good Will, of which a replica can be found at the Michigan Maritime Museum. It was fun to use some different colors than yellow and black. 

The schooner got the standard US Navy colours that I've established thus far. It has a little bit of stern detailing, that I embellished with a metallic gold paint. 

These are both planned for a Battle of Lake Erie scenario at some future time. 

As for points, they're both quite small, so I'm taking 5 points each for a total of 10 points. 

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I must admit to getting a bit excited each week when I see that Raul has a post ready for Minioning :-)

And this week's entry is no disappointment either! Two more lovely additions to your Fleets and the great lakes are a wonderful place to sail the lighter hulls. I really like the darker stains on the canvas on the Yankee Schooner too - reminds me of the effect sails get when furled not quite dry.

Lovely work as ever on all the details - worth 10 points each at least!

Most importantly though - hearty congratulations on becoming a Father!!! I'm thrilled for you, as I'm sure everyone else here is too. And you thought Wargaming was expensive.... :-)

- Paul

From KenR: 1/700 HMS Cossack (40 points)

 

Second ship of the week and that's me back on track. I've a couple of Tribal Class Destroyers to do and this is the first one.

This model is the usual 1/700 scale made by Trumpeter and after the Photo etch fest of the previous IBG Models, this has zero PE which is definitely my favourite amount of the devil's work. It's still the same 40 points PE or not !

HMS Cossack had a short but exciting career, first known for her part in the Altmark Incident where she "bumped" into the German Ship and rescued around 300 British prisoners of War who had been captured by Graf Spee. This took place in Norwegian waters (who were Neutral at the time) and Germany claimed that it was a breach of International Law. Pot, kettle, black.

Cossack was involved in the 2nd Battle of Narvik and was badly damaged during an engagement with the German Destroyer Z17 and just made it back to safety. She was then involved in the hunt for the Bismarck, finding the German Battleship during the night and kept it busy until larger ships and aircraft could attack the next day. Cossack was rather lucky in that one of her antenna was shot off by a shell from Bismarck, a few feet lower and it would have been a different story. She was finally sunk after a storm when she was being towed back to Gibraltar after a U Boat Torpedo hit.

Above are the 3 Tribal Class Destroyers to date (2 done pre challenge) and HMS Punjabi is the next ship to build. I reckon I can get another couple of Destroyers done plus Warspite before the end of the Challenge, which will leave me with just 3 more to complete the warship side of the Project.

TeemuL: And Ken delivers, the second ship this week and project is again back on track. Quite an interesting career for this HMS Cossack, nice to read it. Great job again and it is nice to hear there are options even on this project, with different manufacturers and amount of photo etches. :)

From KenR: 1/700 Destroyer HMS Hostile (40 points)

Apologies for the late entry today, its been a busy week but I needed to keep my ship a week target up, it's not a Challenge for nothing !

Having finished the 10 German Destroyers for Narvik last week it was time to move on to the British, there were 5 H Class ships in the first battle followed up by 4 Tribals and 5 mixed Destroyers for a total of 14 ships (plus Warspite of course). 

This is HMS Hostile, Pennant number H55, the model is 1/700 scale and from a company called IBG Models in Poland, these are what I call a "Big boy" kit, there is a load of photo etch, some of which is on the kit 😀 The detail is amazing.

HMS Hostile had spent a lot of time in Spanish waters during the Civil War enforcing the arms embargo, she entered the port of Narvik in the initial British attack, torpedoing a number of merchant ships. Hostile then engaged the German Destroyer Z17, causing significant damage for only one hit in return. She briefly escorted Warspite the next day before escorting HMS Hotspur home as she was badly damaged. 

Her War ended later that year when on the 22nd August Hostile hit an Italian mine and had to be scuttled.

So that's another 40 points in the bag, this week will be a real challenge to get a ship done due to work but I'm going to give it a go. HMS Havock is looking at me 

TeemuL: I'm quite sure there should be a circle in Dante's Abyss for "Hostile". For "Havock", too... But I disgress. Another fine ship, Ken, and you have joined PaulSS in Thursday crew to paint both sides of a conflict. Am I wrong, but is this more brown than the German ships? Very lifelike - as lifelike a grey metal construct can be, but I guess you understand.

P.S. I added some basic labels to the post, I hope you have more time next week. ;)

From RaulM: Black Seas USS Constitution (50 Points) (Lust)

She was lusted after by Paul in my last post, and so I have delivered in the first ring of the Abyss. I've painted Old Ironsides, or USS Constitution, a resin and metal model from Warlord Games Black Seas. 

This ship is the reason I got into Black Seas, as upon my visit I was enthralled and needed to get into some kind of naval wargame where I could use this model. I believe it's one of the earlier Black Seas resin models to be made, as some of the details are quite chunky when compared to the latest releases. All the same though, I like the look of this model. 

I kept the metal masts this time around, as they were thick enough to withstand some touching. With all of the rigging and sails in place they're quite solid. The kit came with a stern davit, but it covered all of the beautiful stern detailing, and I couldn't bring myself to the do that to the model. Instead, I stole the quarter-davit boats from the USS United States model, and I think it nails that iconic look of the Humphrey's frigates without obscuring any critical details. 

I do think the bow railing is a tad chunky, but I think that was a limitation of the casting, as otherwise all of this detail would have been too difficult to cast. I think the Black Seas ships are a "heroic" scale for naval miniatures, as details like figureheads and stern galleries are larger than they should be just so that you can actually read what's going on. And I'm totally ok with that and actually prefer it. 

Based on ratings I've done for previous ships, I'll score this at 20 points, as it's larger than a standard frigate, almost about the same size as a 3rd rate. I've claimed the Lust bonus for this one as Paul wanted to see this model before the challenge was up, and I also have really wanted to point this one. That gives me 40 points total for the post. 

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A fabulous beauty she is too Raul, well worth waiting for! As ever, your work on the rigging, sails, pennants and flags is top notch and worth some bonus points too. 

Thanks indeed for prioritising "Old Ironsides" - thats made my week!

- Paul

From KenR: 1/700 German Destroyer Z12 - Erich Giese (40 points)

It wouldn't be a Thursday without a 1/700 WW2 ship and this week is no different. Welcome to the final German Destroyer of the Narvik Project.

So thus is Z12 - Erich Giese a Type 1934A Destroyer, completed in March 1939, she had a short career being sunk on the 13th April 1940 at Narvik, but before that had been involved in mine laying actions as well as escorting two German Battlecruisers out to sea. She was also responsible for the torpedoing of HMS Jersey before heading to the Fjords.

Struggling with various mechanical and ammunition issues she survived the first days fighting at Narvik she managed to get into action on the 2nd day at a much reduced speed, Z12 ended up fighting 2 Tribal Class Destroyers and unsurprisingly came of worse and was sunk.

As previously this is a Trumpeter Model and this is the best kit for this ship in this scale. So its another 40 points to add to the total which keeps me on track for 1500 for the Challenge. Next up, ship wise is the British, I have started building HMS Hostile so hopefully you can see that next week. Finally a group shot of the German Destroyers done this challenge.

TeemuL: So you have done now the German ships, but will continue on the British ones. I'm glad several followers are happy to see more of these ships of yours. Myself, it seems like last week when I saw one of these ships, is that so? Yes it is, Thursday traditions are strong and alive! Another 40 points for you!