Set Sails for Adventure!

and Signal Close Action!

Steady is the word and sharp the action!

Fire as she bears! 

and other fun naval expressions....

Recently, I went to Kublacon, a large game convention here in CA.  While there I played in a great AoS game that looked like this: 

this is a game of 'Form on Admirals Wake"
using Sails of Glory ships

IN this casel AoS means Age of Sail, and not Age of Sigmar.  I am way more of a historical gamer than Scifi;  but I do like both kinds of Scifi - Starwars and StarTrek.  

And I thought that I've always liked this genre, I've enjoyed some fiction a long time ago (the Bolithio and Ramage series), though I rarely play Age of Sail games.  How hard can it be really?  only need maybe 10 ships and sea mat...  

so looking around on the internet I discovered GHQ and Langton 1/1200 Ships and thought that those were really pretty models.  Though I was also hesitant because I am NO great modeler or painter and the models seemed complicated, especially the rigging.  

I started a thread on TMP asking how hard were these ships to do really, and got a lot of responses of encouragement and also of the "go ahead and try it" variety.  

bare metal... and in pieces...

I ordered from Waterloo Mini's the Langton Queen Charlotte hull and parts, and then ignoring other projects as I was excited about it, focused on getting her ready to sail.


In the end, came out like this:  Not too shabby for a first attempt.

Looks close enough to a British 1st rate ship of the line

I am very grateful for the War Artisan guide to rigging (thanks again sir!),  which describes how instead of doing knots, you stiffen the thread with glue, cut it to the right length, and glue them onto the ship in the right places.  it appeared much easier than tying little knots.  If you google 'War Artisan guide to rigging' it'll pop up as a PDF.  i add a link when I figure out how to add links without just copy and paste.

you can see on the rigging spots where i added too much glue.
this is more noticeable in the pictures than in the flesh...err, wood.
I also wonder if i used white glue versus tacky glue if it would matter.

Looking now, I forgot to paint a stern wake in the ocean, but i'll get to that however I'm not too worried as once I get a sea mat, I'll likely paint it over again to try to match it.

Overall, I call that a success.  I've already ordered a large 120 gun French ship!

so it begins

Hello, welcome to the blog.

This is the first post, and since no one really cares about a first post let's not put too much effort into it.  : )

I know I am late the party to blogging, I was also late to miniature wargaming; as I didn't know it existed till my late 20s, and now I've been doing this for over 10 years,  so maybe the blog will be as long lived.  I really enjoy this hobby and talking about it endlessly.

Starting this for 3 big reasons.  for One; I'd like a little wargame journal for games played, thoughts, ramblings, and a nice way to document progress on projects.

for Two: over the years, I've come to enjoy other people's blogs, especially when starting a new projects, genre, terrain.... etc..  And seeing what other people did, what worked for them, what didn't, and now i'd like to contribute to that online literature.  I've also enjoyed rules reviews, miniature reviews, product reviews.  Really, there is a whole body of work out there of people who like to share and help, and I'd like to give back a little if I could.  That will, of course, depend if anyone reads this blog and finds in interesting or helpful, something that remains to be seen.

and for Three: to increase the sense of community.  it's really a small niche hobby after all, and i can never do as much gaming as I like, so this can be an outlet for that and to communicate with others.

So there you have it.  Starting this because I'd like to be able to look back at my wargaming, and maybe give back a bit.  Also because I think it'll be fun of course, adding another facet to this wargaming hobby.

What to expect? Not so sure really.