More Dystopian Wars ships

Here an Independence class battleship, cruiser and frigate head out to sea on their next mission.

These are part of the starter set Jeff painted for me.

FSA escort squadron

And just as a proper lady would go out on the town alone, neither will a ship such as the Republic go to sea without escort. 
Here, the capital ship escort sqadron 638 prepares to accompany the Republic on her voyage.

FSA Dreadnought "Republic" ready to head to sea!

The dreadnought FSA Republic readies to leave port! The captain only waits for the tide to come in and they will be off to defend the Republic against all who would do her harm!

I have just completed most of the details and next will be the base.  I am not happy with the stars on the paddle wheels so I will be re-doing them this week.
We have been playing alot of Dystopian Wars in the last couple of months.  And it's all Jeff's fault.  He painted a starter fleet for each of us. So we have been able to just jump in and start playing.   The update to 2.0 in the rules has dramatically improved the playability of the game,  which was good to begin with.

HMS Saturn leaves port to join Admiral Parker!

Just finished rigging the 74 gun HMS Saturn.
After looking at the ships I have finished I have decided to wait to finish the waves on the base until I have most (if not all) of the ships done.  The wave patterns on each of the ships so far has varied dramatically.  So I think I will try to do them in large groups to get a more consistant look.  I do want some variation, but not as much as I am getting.  I love how these Langton ships turn out, and I am getting faster at doing the rigging.  6 down, 40 to go.

Painting Langton ships

So, one of the on-going projects (and procrastinations) is building and painting Langton models for fighting the Battle of Copenhagen.  Currently working through the British ships.  The paint scheme seems simple, black sides with a yellow gunstipe and the gun ports painted black.  This is also known as the Nelson Checker.

Now the gun ports on these models are approximately 1mm square.  This requires brush control.  Brush control.  The ability to put the paint only on the model where it belongs.  This is a long standing issue for me and I can usually work through it.  Not this time.  To get these done I have to build up the gun ports by painting the gun stripe yellow, painting the gun port black (which seem to end up round or oval).  Then I go back and cut in with the yellow to make the gun ports square and the same size.  The only issue is that the yellow does not cover over black in one coat.  I am having to go over the black 3 or more times to get good coverage.  Which leads to 3 times to chance to screw up the other work.  I decided to try GW's foundation paints and use the Darksun color (A dark mustard color) to cover the black and the hopefully give one coat coverage for the yellow.  The first sample work turned out usable. So I dove in and used the foundation paint to cut in the gun ports on 3 2-deckers.  Lots of little black squares.  I sat down to go over the foundation paint with the yellow and hopefully finish up the gun stripes in one sitting.  This was not to be.  The foundation color shows through just as much as the black.  What???  I checked the yellow paint bottle, gave it a vigorous shake and tried again.  Still really poor coverage.  I worked through rest of one side of the first ship.  No change. Poor coverage.  I am now looking at 3 or 4 more coats of yellow.  Grumble, grumble, grumble.  I am not sure what caused the first sample to work out.  I went back and tried this again on the sample figures (Swiss pike with parti-color yellow and black pants.)  Not able to duplicate the first success.  

I will be looking into some different brands of yellow.  I am currently using Reaper Master Painter Series.  I am not sure what caused the sample to work out.  And I tried this on the sample figures (Swiss pike with parti-color yellow and black pants.)  Not able to duplicate the first success.

The local shop carries P3, GW paints, and some Vallejo paints.  I may even try some "craft" paints from Michael's or Joann's.  This issue is the main slow down in getting these ships painted.  Who wants to do a main detail on the figure 3-6 times?  I know I do not.  So, 3 sessions of painting that only leads right back to the place where I started, only with 3 more coats of paint on the ships (and the ships look worse...).

Well that is painting this weekend.

Langton Ships

This is the Langton NA5 USS Congress 38 gun frigate fresh from the package.

This is the Langton NA1 USS Constitution 44 gun frigate. 

 

Here is one of the Langton NB15 British 32 gun frigates with the SF-M-ES1A cast metal sails.  We will be using it for the HMS Aeolus.

These are three of the ships for the event that my Dad and I are planning to run next spring.

Pictures of dice cup and ships

Here is the dice cup I made. I plan to dye it blue. We will see how that turns out.

















Here is a comparison of 1/1200 ships. The foreground is a 44 gun American frigate by GHQ, behind it in the middle is the same ship by Langton, and in back is a 64 gun ship of the line by Langton. The big American frigates were a little longer than a typical British 74 gun SOL, so the relative sizing is good.

This last picture is the 44 gun frigates nose to nose. The one on the right is the Langton. I am surprised how much higher out of the water the Langton stands. The bow high silhouette (which cannot be seen in this picture) is comparable to pictures of the Constitution under sail (here is a picture I got from Google: http://www.midatlanticsail.com/photos/).  I am surprised by the differences between the Langton and the GHQ (on the left).  And, as expected the Langton ships have much better details.  This is going to be an interesting and challenging project.

64 gun SOL

Work in progress:
This is a 64 gun SOL, 1/2000 from Valiant.
The hull is finished and the sails are progressing.
This little project is serving as filler for when I am tired of whatever is the current "main" project.
This is also why it has taken 2 months to get here.
And in the background is the mess I like to call a "painting table".