Summertime Update

After taking a little time off after Enfilade and with my usual gaming slow-down for summer yardwork, I’m looking at getting back to some gaming stuff.

Early in June I had an unexpected windfall from a side editing project and I decided to put it into my long-term (meaning I haven’t do a lot of work on it) 15mm Age of Sail project. The main thrust of that project has been the American fight against the Barbary pirates and small gunboat actions. With that in mind I decided to order some 15mm ships from Old Glory Shipyard Buccaneer – Napoleonic Wars line.

Looking through the website, there were several ships I was interested in, but not too many photos of the models. I decided to take a chance on a couple un-photographed kits and ordered the Sloop-of-War Vixon and two Gunboat 5 kits.

There is no description of what the Vixon (which should probably be spelled Vixen) represents, since there were ships with that name in both the American and Royal Navy. Even the fact that they sell the same model in 1/300 scale didn’t help me know what ship it really represented. But I’m guessing that it would work for either ship. The American version was a 14 gun schooner (later changed to a brig rig) that took part in the First Barbary War, which is the ship I’m really looking for. The Royal Navy version was a 14 gun brig from the same timeframe.

When the kit arrived, it didn’t really have any information to clear up the question of what it represented, but it definitely was a brig rig. The ship will work fine for my project, so I guess it doesn’t really matter which ship it is representing. Here are a couple photos of the kit.

All the parts in the Vixon kit (each square on the mat is 2 inches by 2 inches)

A closer view of the hull (click the photo to see a larger version)

As you can see, the resin hull has some nice detail (although the gun ports are all filled and will take a little time to clean out). Overall it looks like a good addition to the fleet.

The Gunboat 5 kit definitely represents the American single-gun Gunboat 5 that crossed the Atlantic and served in the Mediterranean in 1805. It is a nice looking kit.

All the parts for the Gunboat 5 kit

Close-up of the Gunboat 5 hull

My only issue with the model is that it is relatively small, although the measurements seems to match those given in Chapelle’s The History of the American Sailing Navy book. My problem will be fitting many figures on the model.

These kits will get some work a little later this year. But for the rest of summer I have a couple other plans.

First up is my Summer Solo Project, which will be an adaptation of Two Hour Wargames Hell Hath No Fury rules to the Western Desert Campaign.

I had heard about the rules before Enfilade and had a chance to play them there. I like how quick they play and how easy they work for solitaire games. Unfortunately, they only have stats for a handful of American and German late-war tanks. So, I need to spend a little time coming up with stats for the Desert War tanks. I’m also trying to do this on a small (and somewhat cheap) scale, so my plan is to use 1/285 tanks. I’ll have more posts on this project later.

My other summer project will be finishing up and polishing my modern submarine rules. I’ve been working on these for a little while and I think I’m getting close to having something that I want to share with others.

So far summer is looking pretty busy.