DANG 2014 Preparations

I've been (slowly) getting everything together for the DANG (Dave's Annual Naval Game) Cogs of War game.


Because I'm borrowing the my friend Kevin's scratch-built ships for the game, there really wasn't much to do for figure preparation. However, I always like to do a little something and Kevin was a little short of galleys for the game, so I decided to scratch-build some galleys for the game.

I wanted to have them blend in with Kevin's ships, so I got a couple photos of Kevin's ships for measurements. I built mine in a similar technique to Kevin, using basswood as the main construction material. However, but I built them with a lanteen rig instead of the sqyare rig Kevin used. I didn't take any 'in-progress' photos (I thought about it, but I didn't really use any special building methods, so I didn't think construction photos would be very interesting), but here are a couple photos of the completed ships.

Finished Galleys

At all angles

The other change I made was to use cardstock for the rear canopy and for the oar banks. I wanted to give the impression of lots of oars, but I didn't want to cut individual wires for them. I thought I would try a different method by cutting the cardstock with a sort of fringe pattern. After cutting and gluing to the hulls, it looked okay. But I wasn't sure how the oar banks would turn out one I applied some paint (this was really a big experiment). As you can see from the photos (click on them to enlarge them), everything looks okay. Although the photos make the oar banks look a little more red than real life (probably something to do with the lighting I used when taking the photos). The galleys and oar banks are nothing spectacular, but it does give the impression of a lot of oars (similar to how a lot of cast models look). So I'm going to count it as a success.

Now I've just got to finish the paperwork for the game (maps and order of battle information). Then the final shopping for victuals and set up the house for the game. The campaign is set to run on December 27 and it should be an interesting game. I don't think too many of the attendees know a lot about fighting with cogs (well that sort of goes for me too), but, as always, I'm still expecting a fun and interesting game.