DANG 2015 - Fleets Assembled

With just a couple more days until DANG (Dave's Annual Naval Game) 2015, I thought I'd give one last update. In my last two posts I showed off some of the 15mm figures for the game and in this post I thought I'd show the final pre-game photos of the ships.

Starting off with the Tripoli forces, the fleet has seventeen ships and a fort available.

There are fifteen gunboats each armed with a single cannon on the bow. Five gunboats are from Sea Dog Studios (maker of the Sailpower rules). These are actually older models that aren't sold through the store any more, but I was able to get my hands on them by going directly to the owner. Next are the eight gunboats I scratchbuilt. They are a little smaller and sit lower than the Sailpower boats. I got the dimensions and other inforamtion for the boats from a short paragraph in Chapelle's The American Sailing Navy and I think they turned out pretty well (although I should probably add a deck hatch or grating). The last two gunboats are Old Glory's Gunboat #5 models. For 15mm scale, these should be about the same size as the other gunboats, but, as you can see in the photo, they are much smaller.

Here are the gunboats (Old Glory on the left, scratchbuilt in the center, and Sailpower on the right). The sails are printed on paper and are held on with wire. The sail pattern comes from the Thoroughbred Felucca, which is shown a little further down.

Tripoli Gunboats

Next is a sloop. This is the Bermuda Sloop from Sea Dog Studios that I got as part of their Kickstarter a couple years ago. It is armed with six guns and is a nice kit (although it did need a little work to smooth out everything). It is a nice addition to the group and does have a pirate look.

Tripoli Sloop

Next up is fleet flagship, a nice Felucca from Thoroughbred Figures Sea Eagles line. This is a good kit that went together pretty easily and painted up nicely. The ship has eight guns and came with several swivel guns that I did not mount. There are a lot of extra details (anchors and such) that come with the kit to dress it up a little more, but I chose to go with a simple gaming layout. Just having the sails on is about as fiddley as I wanted to get.

Tripoli Felucca, a little larger than my backdrop

Finally, the fort. This is from JR Miniatures 15mm Middle East line (but doesn't seem to be listed on the website anymore). It is a really nice model and I've mounted five Thoroughbred 24 pdr guns on top.

The front side of the fort

and the back view

Here is a group shot of all the Tripoli forces. I don't expect them to all be on the table at the same time, but it could happen.

Tripoli fleet assembled

Now for the Americans. The American's will have nine ships available to them.

There are six large gunboats armed with a single 24 pdr bow cannon. Historically, these gunboats were borrowed from Naples to provide the Americans with some shallow-water craft to attack around Tripoli. All of these were scratcbuilt by George Kettler. They are really nice pieces (much better than my little gunboats).

George's American Gunboat

These gunboats are much larger than the Tripoli gunboats, as you can see below.

Tripoli gunboats on the left and the American on the right

Next are the mortar boats, which were also borrowed from Naples. These were also scratchbuilt by George (he was a busy guy), but he was still working on these so I only have a photo from him.

George's mortar boats

Finally, there is a Thoroughbred Figures sixteen gun schooner. I'm using this to represent the schooner USS Vixen. The paint scheme is not really accurate for the 1804 battle (the white stripe would have been natural wood and the interior would not have been green), but fits with the paint schemes for the War of 1812, which will probably be where I will use it again. The colors do fit with most gamer's idea of American ship colors though, so I doubt too many people will call me out on this.

American schooner

Here is a group shot of all the American forces I have (so the mortar boats are not included). Unlike the Tripoli ships, I do expect them to all be on the table at the same time.

American squadron ready to go

Now all I have to do is finish up all the paperwork for the game and set up the tables. I expect it will be very different from other DANG games, but still a lot of fun.