Saturday 27 June 2020

Galleys, Galleasses and Lake Steamers


I've been painting a mixed bag of ships recently.

1/2400 Tumbling Dice Galleys



I've had these for a while but hadn't got round to painting them because I wasn't happy with the rig. These are ASD 3 & 4 - large and small galleys. Out of the box they come with two masts moulded to the hull, and as far as I can tell the galley "suttle" types that the French used in 1545 tended to be single masted. Also, the foremast on the TD models is positioned off the centreline of the ship, presumably to make it possible to fit both lateens in, but it just looks weird. I should have taken a pre-conversion photo. Anyway, I hacked off the masts and repositioned them and they seem to look ok, and they sit pretty well with the Figurehead galleys I already have. This is good news, since the Figurehead stuff is too rich for my taste since the price increase, and it's good to know I have a source of galley models.

English Galleasses


These are attempts to depict the larger English galleasses c.1545. I took the ASD 5 "Galliot" models, removed a large part of the stern castle, and added a bowsprit and mizzen and bonaventure masts with lateens. They're not entirely successful but they're closer than anything else I've got. The oared version works better than the one under sail I think. I'm going to try another pair, only this time I'll remove the forecastle as well to give them a flush deck.

Lake Tanganyika 1915

More stuff from Tumbling Dice, this time in 1/600 for a change. These are all to be used with Steamer Wars from Long Face Games.  I still need to acquire some more boats in order to play the campaign, and I'm going to have to bite the bullet and attempt some scratchbuilding as well.

Graf von Goetzen

Hedwig von Wissmann
Kingani
Hedwig towing a hastily scratchbuilt gun raft with two 88mm.
Mimi and Toutou. They looked a bit wrong without crew, so I added a single 3mm scale infantryman to each one. (They're actually Warsaw Pact with their guns cut off!)

60' and 40' Coastal Motor Boats. I'm going to use the 60 footer as the Belgian motor launch Netta.
Small boats. The little steamer bottom left makes a pretty decent African Queen.
Admiralty drifter. Clearly more at home in the North Sea than an East African lake, but I've painted her up as a generic small tramp. Not very convincing but it might come in handy as a substitution if I get really stuck for a suitable model for something.

3 comments:

  1. Blimey Matt, you've been busy. I really like your 1/600 WW1 stuff. I have some of the TD CMB's...Nice little models and I've always fancied some sort of raid on Kronstadt type game. Looking forward seeing your boats in action!

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  2. Thanks chaps, and sorry for the late reply, been a bit busy. :)

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