One Steamboat, two steamboats, three steamboats

"Compression and Compromise"

I never quite understood why we had to count "steamboats" when I was compelled to play touch football, "football" also has 2 syllables and so takes the same amount of time to count but would have made more sense. However, the list of things I don't understand is pretty much endless so I'll move on to talk about my boat building industry.

The Reuse and the Recycle began as identical sister ships but now both have been refitted in their own way and are ready for hard service.

Back in the days when the Royal Navy would land my 15mm top hatted British troops on various West Indies beaches, they used nice Battle Honors boats with seated infantry, rowers and the whole bit. Lovely little scale models that fit on the table despite being long musket range   from bow to stern.

When I went from 15mm to 54mm as my primary scale without becoming a 1:1 "skirmish" gamer the disconnect between model scale and gaming ground scale became a major obstacle made worse by my reluctance to abandon the WYSIWG, moving diorama approach to wargames.

My 15mm boats came out of retirement one last time about 10 years ago to appear on Gary's table. 

Dropping back down to 40mm had little impact on the problem but my fairly recent conversion to a more abstract  toy soldier and growing appreciation of a symbolic approach crossed with a toy esthetic has helped.

Take the boats in the first picture, the proportions are internally inconsistent and wrong. They are obviously too small for the figures but their foot print is still too big for the ground scale. Despite these faults they have been used in games again and again and worked well. Because of the esthetics the eye overlooks the inconsistencies while the footprint works within the structure of the rules.

When I decided I wanted some smaller boats to ferry troops up or across rivers, I hit an extreme case of the old conundrum. What I wanted was a longboat, something akin to the souvenir fishing dory in the 2nd row above but with the foot print of the red toy boat. Since my two steamboats are meant to be larger vessels with cabins and some freeboard, they should be taller than a longboat which is obviously not the case with my existing boats.

My first thought was to just do a thin wooden hull with a mast. Oars would probably be better but they  look odd with standing oarsmen who then join the  landing party and permenently sitting ones just take up too much room. This low hull has a reasonable height differential with the decks of the steamers but in practice the figures look like they are on a raft, not in a long boat.

First row prototypes, 2nd boat commandeered boats, 3rd Recycle, 4th Reuse before her make over.

The issue of course is that without a deck, the figures on the boat should actually be sunk down into the table, obviously a problem. A mental review of OS boat pictures reminded me that this is usually done by adding unnaturally tall gunwales out of cardboard. Fine, I started to fiddle with some cardboard and then realized the bit of wood I had used for the hull was so thin that gluing card gunwales to it in a robust fashion exceeded my skill. I made a 2nd hull from a slightly thicker board, an offcut from my last trimming of my gaming table as it happens.

I started on the gunwales again and again I stopped. The figures looked just as silly with knee high gunwales but deeper ones on such a small boat just looked too bizare. To distract myself I started experimenting with  masts and crew capacity while pondering movement rules for wind and current where the river is only 1 square wide. Since small steamboats were used by both sides of the War of 1812 to move troops on inland waterways I decided that my life would be easier if Atlantica was precocious and made wide use of steamboats. Two pieces of dowelling soon provided a boiler and funnel and work on troop capacity and gunnels continued.

Tugboats and fishing trawlers both came to mind as I fiddled with bits of cardboard. They often have a higher bow and a low stern with low or no gunwales. The high cardboard gunwale on the bow would suggest structure while the low  quarterdeck would allow troop bases to overhang and help keep that low, smaller vessel feel compared to the big armed steamers. The use of a screw for propulsion is a bit anachronistic for the 1812 and 1837 campaigns but dashed convenient.

I want to add a few small details but essential she's ready to assist the bigger boats on an expedition. Together they can carry 5 companies of infantry plus a company of blue jackets and a naval rocket battery.

Is that enough or should I make one more?

Almost there, just a few details to add either physically or with paint. Cutting a very basic gunwale stretched my cardboard modelling techniques, I don't think I'll be making tanks or artillery anytime soon!

Of Cannibals and Queens

Jack and John both lend a hand to build a new river steamer to carry troops upriver. Surrounded by endless forests, ts hard not to feel they are being watched but they can never quite see any hostiles.

Some minor renovations and rearranging have overflowed into my games room once again. Since there is little room or time for a game I decided to resume working on props and figures that had put off doing until I figured out what the heck I wanted to do.

The last game was a small example of the sort of Middle Game which I intend to be the main stay of the Atlantica campaigns. For the foreseeable future Big Games will be restricted to the 1/72nd ACW and planning has begun for a  game based on one of the early Western or more precisely, Trans-Mississippi theater. Wilson's Creek, Elkhorn Tavern and Prairie Grove are all being looked at.

That leaves the Little Game, the Colonial, skirmishy, sort of game. There are various options but the one I have had my eye on is a return to the rain forest of the North East. We first glimpsed the cannibal tribesmen in 2009 and first saw them in action during the 2011 Nest of Pirates game. I'm  still not sure if these games will play ok with the rules as is or if I'll have to make some small changes to make games interesting with small numbers of units but the only way to tell for sure is to try. Now that the grid and size of grid, time periods, etc have been determined work can resume. Even if I allow for some allies, either Atlantican tribesmen or Brethren of the Coast, or both, I need more tribesmen. I also need more boats than can fit the grid. The refitted HMS Recycle overhangs one square but I can work with her.  The HMS Reuse  takes up 3 squares and is just a bit too big.

During an expedition against a nest of Pirates, the Victoria Rifles find the allied forest tribesmen to be formidable foes. 

A prototype troop carrier small enough to fit in a grid and carry 1 unit is currently under construction as can be seen above. (OK admittedly I am actually doing most of the work myself, when I left the little guys with the tools and materials and went for coffee,nothing seemed to get done in my absence.)   Three things quickly became clear:

• I don't really know what I'm about despite my 1971 Industrial Arts class
• I need a proper coping saw and a work bench if I'm going to make a habit of building things
• I can do this! (more or less, in a ham fisted, improvised, Floor Games sort of way).

In 2010 came this speculative illustration of a coming game. Its still coming but its getting closer! 

Stay Tuned!

Where did the week go?

Last week's game at my Gathering of Hosts blog.

Its not often that I go a week between posts but last week my hobby time was spent largely on my medieval/fantasy campaign, something I expect to occupy a big chunk of my time this year. Not that my expectations seem to have much to do with what actually happens.

I'm also contemplating a larger role for my home cast 18th C NQSYW collection in light of the new range of SYW figures from Prince August.

Then there is the Atlantica toy soldier collection to work on. The idea being to have smallish 'armies'  at 25 year intervals, (1812/1837/1862/1887/1912) all in the same style so that figures can be borrowed from adjacent intervals and the whole will be able to draw from 1 collection of terrain and accessories but which will allow me to paint a wider variety of uniform styles.

I also have an itch to get a largish (for me) 1/72 ACW game sorted out and on the table, something to balance the usual quick games.

Not to mention about 500 25mm ancient and 40mm AWI and 1812 figures to organize and sell.

Lots to do over the next months.