Saturday 6 August 2011

Wooden Walls

Fire as she bears, Mr. Pullings!
Some of you may have noticed that I have been having issues with bandwidth running out my Fileden account.  The good news I guess is that more and more of you seem to be checking out my blog(s), so clearly I am doing something right!  Either that, or else some robotic bandwidth thief has been at work.  

Of course the downside is that if this happens again, I'll need to consider upgrading my Fileden account (i.e. pay some money!)  I'll see how it goes.
 *****

Right, to business.  Last Sunday (July 31st) the West Tokyo Wargamers had its monthly games day, with a much better turnout than expected given that it is the height of an extremely humid summer, with the children on summer holidays and many people on vacation.  

Matt and Achilleas were both unavailable, so no Black Powder this month (anyway I had a good fix of BP when I was in Vancouver).  Instead, Sada bought his amazing collection of Langton Miniatures' 1/1200 Napoleonic sailing ships, and I watched him and Rod fight out a small engagement using Warhammer Historical's Trafalgar rules, as you can read here.  

Sada's dedication to the era is impressive, and it shows in his project.  Boxes and boxes of completed models, each taking a full five days of work to complete.  

Aside from his considerable modelling and painting skills, it must be remembered that English is not his first language.  Sada painstakingly translated the rules into Japanese for easier reference.  I cannot begin to think of how difficult this must have been, given the specialized jargon.

It was a gorgeous game that moved quickly and was a lot of fun. The seascape he created was very simple, but very effective.   I can see more maritime madness in the future, and while Sada probably has all the ships we would ever need, I can see myself building a few islands and fortresses for the games.

For the most part I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.  You can click on any picture to enlarge it.
My favourite shot!  French frigate starts to burn.
Note the effective sea- blue cellophane on a blue cloth.  Cheap, too!
 
 
"Enemy in sight!"
 
 
Sada ponders his next move.
Santissima Trinidad, 130 guns

Oh, and the battle ended up a victory for the Royal Navy.  But it was close!

7 comments:

john de terre neuve said...

very very nice. thanks for posting

Dr. Willett's Workshop said...

Sugoi! Boats look great.

The Angry Lurker said...

Beautiful boats, nicely done.

Christopher(aka Axebreaker) said...

Lovely stuff!!

Christopher

Ben Gilmour said...

Dr.W. and Angry L. for shame! They are ships, not boats! Jack Aubrey would have you at the masthead for a whole watch for that display lubberly-ness!

Lovely pictures, Robert. Who knew that blue cellophane would be so effective. Gives me an idea...

Unknown said...

Dear Robert;
Let's play together now!
And I would also like to play the game of a Napoleonic by when and Black Powder.

Robert said...

Thanks, all.

Sada, we have a Black Powder game coming up on September 11th. You're very welcome to participate!