Napoleonic Naval miniatures

[bubbacleese]

Who out there is playing old school, sail and canon. I've been running Napoleonic Naval games at various conventions for about 30 years now. First was Wooden Ships and Iron Men, now it is Close Action. In 1987 at Origins I played in my first game of Close Action, it was a small intimate game, just 50 players. A full ring of players sitting on the floor, and ring of players sitting on chairs just behind and finally a ring of players standing behind the chairs. It was beautiful.

So who out there has ships and whose ships do you have? I have a personal preference for Portsmouth Miniatures and Games ships, but then again that is my company so yes this is a shameless plug. Here are a few pictures of my ships and yes, the old man behind the booth is me.

Jeff Hunt (side note, how do I change the size of the two large pictures?)

[shigure]

Thanks for posting the pics. My personal preference is that I like the larger pictures as it shows the detail and the effort put forth by the builder to make a beautiful model. What scale are your ships and what navies do you cover?

[TheDreadnought]

Those are cool ships. How do the painted ones come shipped? Are the masts attached, or do you have to attach them? (I'm assuming the sails are already on the masts?)

[warchariot]

Hey nice stuff. We play Fire as She Bears! which is great fun. Our ships are Langton for the most part. We also started with WS&IM I was lucky enough to play my first game with craig Taylor In Denver back in the mid-80s I think???

[warchariot]

Oh, nice ships, if i need more I'llbe looking at yours!

[bubbacleese]

Thanks for posting the pics. My personal preference is that I like the larger pictures as it shows the detail and the effort put forth by the builder to make a beautiful model. What scale are your ships and what navies do you cover?

My ships are 1:900 scale. I have four hulls:
Single Ddecker - 32 guns to 44 guns
Small Double Decker - 50 guns to 68 guns
Large Double Decker - 70 guns to 86 guns
Triple Decker - 90+ guns

So the ship hulls are generic and I have 10 different nationality Flag & Pennant sets, each pack comes with enough flag and pennants for five ships. British, French, Spanish, American, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Russian, and Turkish.

Those are cool ships. How do the painted ones come shipped? Are the masts attached, or do you have to attach them? (I'm assuming the sails are already on the masts?)

The painted ships come fully assembed inside a gift box using that wonderful technology "the twist tie". When you order a painted ship you get everything, you tell me what nationality you want for each ship you order.

The ships also come in kit form. The kit has the ship hull, the masts (down under the hull), and the paper sails. Separately are wooden bases to mount the ship on and the Flag & Pennant sets.

Hey nice stuff. We play Fire as She Bears! which is great fun. Our ships are Langton for the most part. We also started with WS&IM I was lucky enough to play my first game with craig Taylor In Denver back in the mid-80s I think???

Craig used to work here in Dallas with Yaquinto Publishing. We would play a pre-cursor to WSIM that used squares instead of hexes with hand cut balsa ships. What fun we had in the old days.

[afilter]

OK, you guys really need to stop posting stuff like this.....I already have enough games.

Bubba cleese,

You are going to be a bad influence on me. So, do you have a web site?

Ships look awesome!

[bubbacleese]

Being the clever fellow that I am yes I do.

www.portsmouthminiatures.com

Have fun.

[afilter]

May 5, 2011 15:25:05 GMT -5 bubbacleese said:

Being the clever fellow that I am yes I do.

www.portsmouthminiatures.com

Have fun.

You sir are what is referred to as an enabler....you would probably bring a cooler to an AA meeting. ;D

Nice site!

[bubbacleese]

Back in the late 80's in Dallas we had a nice little convention. Me and some friends would run a Nuclear War game. It was held at Midnight. In the game description we indicated for players to BYOIC. For those of you new to alcohol that stands for:

Bring your own Ice Chest (cause we all know one bottle is just not enough)

==================================

Let's get deep here for a moment. Why are we here on this planet. Do we serve a purpose. Did we have a choice. Are there meetings and discusions and forums going on right now about if we wanted to be here and if so what should we be doing. I have but one guide that I run my life with and that is "Have Fun".

We all have problems and troubles and if we worry about them they don't go away. We will have what I call "Life Happens" events our entire lives. We can worry and worry and worry about them or we can have fun. Both still leaves us with the problems and troubles and yes we have to deal with them but why not have fun instead of worrying about them.

You say I am an Enabler, I say you are completely correct. I am Enabling more and more people to have fun. If we are here going through our lives not having any fun at any time what is the point? I hope to be an Enabler for a very long time, as it is my small way of helping as many people as I can get through the little tough patches.

...Damn, this soap box is really tall...I better get down.

[afilter]

LOL..... ;D

I am definately having my share of fun.

[shigure]

Hmmm...I wonder if that is why they say the person that dies with the most toys WINS!!!!

I'm all for fun... ;D

[TheDreadnought]

Your prices for the painted miniatures I feel are very reasonable. At that price, I'll probably wind up picking up a number of them and starting to do something about my Age of Sail game.

[bubbacleese]

Thank you for the nice comment on my prices, I try to keep them as low as possible. When you do place an order for painted ships you are supposed to have a notes area where you can tell me what nationality each ship order should be, that feature is not working just yet. So you will need to shoot me an email with those details. If I'm lucky I'll have that little bug ironed out this weekend.

[fastgit]

May 6, 2011 11:33:02 GMT -5 TheDreadnought said:

Your prices for the painted miniatures I feel are very reasonable. At that price, I'll probably wind up picking up a number of them and starting to do something about my Age of Sail game.

I agree. Quite reasonable. It's been a long time since I last played WS&IM... gads... must be close to 25 years or more. Those might bring me back.

Dread... Bubbacleese... you are very bad men.

Btw, as I'm somewhat dated in my knowledge of Age of Sail rulesets, what are people's preferences?

Thanks.

[warchariot]

BTW, as I'm somewhat dated in my knowledge of Age of Sail rulesets, what are people's preferences?

We play Fire as She Bears! which had a website by the same name. Not sure if they are around, but it was/is a quick easy game that is lots of fun.

[regiamarina]

Btw, as I'm somewhat dated in my knowledge of Age of Sail rulesets, what are people's preferences?

At my group we use Form Line of Battle. I've also tried Trafalgar but it was a bit too fluffy for my tastes. Not a terrible game just not for me.

Martin

[bubbacleese]

I've been running Close Action both locally and at conventions since 1988, before that I was running WSIM. After playing in just one game of Close Action I switched from WSIM to Close Action, it is that much better. Just like WSIM, Close Action is a board game with the little counters and paper hex maps of ocean. It is produced by Clash of Arms, last time I checked it was $48.

I will be running games at Texicon in Ft. Worth (May 20-22) ... better yet I have an Events page on my www.portsmouthminiatures.com site showing all of the upcoming events I'll be running Close Action at for anyone who is in my neck of the woods (Dallas, TX). I'm missing this years Historicon but will be there next year.

Through the years running as many as 20 players I've found the Close Action damage chart and ship sheets to slow down these really big games, so I wrote my own set of ship sheets each of which includes a damage chart. You can find a link to the PDF for these on my the front page of my site. Before changing to my sheets a big game would take 40-45 minutes per game turn, with my sheets we are taking about 12-15 minutes per game turn.

If you already know how to play WSIM then you know 80% of Close Action. I have a couple of game store groups who are always after me to run games at their stores.

If you have any questions about Close Action just ask.

Bubba Cleese

[TheDreadnought]

Can you a tell me a little about what the mechanics of close action are like at a high level?

[bubbacleese]

Each player will control one or two ships; in a small game (2 to 4 players) a player could handle three ships once they know the game.

All players plot each ships movement (hidden; even from their own players as ships captains did not have cell phones yet.) You have a specific amount of movement based upon how much sail you have up (fighting, maneuver, or plain) cross referenced with what facing to the wind you have (Broad Reach, Running, Close Hauled)

All ships move- resolve any collisions

Each ship fires on a target ship if possible

Damage resolution - little bit of sail, little bit of hull, a few crew...
Game effect change happens when a "section" is lost.
You will have four rigging sections, four hull sections, four crew and one marine sections.

Critical Hit check - slight chance for extra fun ;D

Boarding - Let's remember how many true boarding actions happened before a target ship was just beat to crap, almost none. Thus in this game it is very hard to board and capture a ship until just before its ready to strike. Of course you could put together a specific scenario having a target ship missing a bunch of its crew and marines as a game victory condition...etc.

Drifting, burning, exploding, firefighting, fixing those little things, sail status change, morale checks...end of turn.