The Heroics and Ros Merchants

After a year of assembling planes for Malta, Dave Schueler and I determined we needed a variety of targets.  We’ve done that using the Tinywargames Malta mat.  I’ve put together my own airfield felt mat and added a wide variety of buildings.

But something was missing.  A huge part of the Malta story was the siege that settled over the island as convoy after convoy brining precious supplies was attacked by the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica.  The converse side of this is that aircraft stationed out of Malta mounted relentless attacks on German and Italian ships headed with supplies for North Africa.

The two of us have acquired some of the merchant vessels offered by Ros and Heroics.  These were originally Skytrex castings, produced in pewter.  They aren’t cheap at six to nine quid a throw, plus the spendy shipping from Great Britain.  I was prepared to be disappointed when I ordered my first four models, and four more later.

I’ve had a love/hate relationship with H and R.  Love them because they carry the Skytrex range, which is unique and combines so well with David Gregory’s great range of WWII coastal vessels from PT Dockyard.  The range of sea walls, jetties, and fortifications can’t be matched.  But they’ve been challenging to order from the states.  Everything from missing molds, to slow service, and that shipping charge certainly makes things more costly.

I made my first order for ships in September. All merchants including the big tanker and British merchant at nine pounds each.  Service didn’t disappoint-four weeks from the order to receiving the product.  But, the real surprise was in the casting.  Three of the four miniatures had newly molded resin hulls.  They were nicely cast, no bubbles, mold marks on the seven inch models were extreme and easily sanded.  All the additional details-superstructure, masts and booms, the odd deck gun, were nicely cast in metal. If there was a problem with the minis it was that the portholes-nicely formed-were probably big enough to accommodate a bus. Small potatoes in the world of miniature making.

German 5,500 ton cargo ship. Yes, it can definitely double as some other nation’s cargo vessel; I won’t tell.

I waited to make a second order, mostly because the H and R website was under renovation.  When I did order in January it was like a night and day difference.  Owner Andy sent me a prompt e-mail to let me know my order was received and another in a few days to let me know the order was on its way.  I had the ships within two weeks from the U.K. The e-mail contacts were refreshing and should be an industry standard.  The quick delivery was stupendous.

A none-too-friendly look at all four ships together. The Nikon tends to focus on a particular target and blurs everything else. You’re looking at the 4,000 ton tankner

But the miniatures are also great.  Again, the crisp casting of the resin hulls was really good.  This batch had a bit of light flash, but nothing that couldn’t be easily removed.  Light mold marks at the bottom of the hull, easily removed with light sanding and extra fine sand paper. My only complaint was my Flower class corvette did not come with its four-inch gun turret.  I replaced it with a gun turret from the Tamiya Japanese Auxiliaries kit.

Two views of the nifty little Flower class corvette. My favorite of the four models, it is a little small for for the 8″ base.

These miniatures are sizable at 1/600.  The smallest are about four inches long, and the largest are pushing eight inches. So the question is always to mount them on bases or not? In a conversation with Dave, he said he preferred bases because it’s just easier to move the ships. But basing material is always a challenge.  Plus, arriving at a consistent color with the mat is always a challenge.  Dave suggested a clear base with wakes painted in white.

3,000 ton tramp steamer was a pleasure to put together.

One more look at the tanker by H and R.

Easier said than done. My first thought was 8” X 1.5” bases on clear acrylic by Litko.  Hey, they’d be straight and at 1/8” thickness they’d be strong enough for the largest ships.  Plugged it into their custom base maker and it came back as sixty bucks for ten bases.  Too much. I needed a Plan B.

I ordered a 12” square piece of acrylic from Amazon.  Intended for a picture frame, I thought maybe I could scribe it with a sharp Ex-Acto knife and break it off as I’ve done with sheet styrene.  I’m sure somebody could, but it just didn’t work for me.  I made too many additional marks on the acrylic and simply could not get the scribing lines deep enough.  That was a ten-dollar failure.

Went back to Litko, and looked at the same dimensions but at 1/16” thickness.  Half the price.  I hit the buy button and had my bases within a couple of weeks. They look great. Litko has also improved their service and made their shipping more affordable.  Highly recommended.

Although it may not be clearly evident from my glare-ridden, somewhat blurry photos, the Litko bases definitely served their purpose.  I’m not struggling to match my bases, let alone lining them up against the mat.  The ships, the bases, and I haven’t even mentioned my tinywargames mat, all work together to look different.  Even I can’t screw that up.

 

From heraldry to railroad ties: my gamer’s life

I’m a very project oriented gamer.  Almost everything I work on has a beginning and an end, based on its intended purpose. When Enfilade is over in May I’m almost always geared toward what I’m going to do for the next Enfilade. I’ve mentioned my Enfilade projects already, and at some time I’m sure I’ll go into depth about them.  But I’ve shifted gears away from my Lion Rampant stuff, which I really enjoy painting so something a little less interesting and exciting, painting 1/600 scale bits and pieces for a scenario based on the Raid on St. Nazaire.

For those of you who don’t know this action, it was a WWII raid on the French port of St. Nazaire which possessed a strategically important drydock built for the enormous French liner Normandie, the only one big enough on the French coast capable of servicing the German battleship Tirpitz.  The British feared the Germans would move the Tirpitz there where it could menace shipping, the British coast and control of the English Channel.  If you want to really set the Brits off, threaten control of the Channel.

On March 28, 1942 a combined force of British commandos were ferried into St. Nazaire by motor gunboats and an explosives-laden ex-American destroyer, the Campbelltown.  Their mission was to destroy the massive caissons of the dry dock as well as operating machinery and industrial targets in the dock area.  The Germans defended the port apparatus with dozens of automatic cannon and about 6,000 men. The raid succeeded in the sense that the Campbelltown detonated and destroyed the caisson while loaded with celebrating German officials, but the raiding force was largely forced into captivity and the motor gunboats and smaller vessels were mostly non-factors.

Dave and I plan to recreate the St. Nazaire raid, including the Campbelltown and supporting MGB’s, emphasizing mostly the role of the commandoes.  The players will run the British while the Germans are more or less randomly run.

Our challenge as game designers is to reproduce all the dock goodies, including buildings, railyards, teeny, tiny figures and the vessels involved.  After our last meeting, it looks like Dave and I are agreed on using rules inspired by the Raid on St. Nazaire board game published by Avalon Hill many years ago.  We’ve worked together on many projects, and I always look forward to our collaborations.  Dave is the brains of the outfit, and often takes on the bigger modeling pieces.  I usually take on more of the smaller bits. For example, when we did our Tirpitz game a couple of years ago, it was Dave who took on the battleship, while I worked the Fleet Air Arm stuff.

This game is a little different.  We’ll be trying to recreate portions of a large port city, including living areas, industrial and warehouse districts, rail lines and buildings, as well as bridges, canals, lock-gates, and, of course, the enormous dry dock caissons and the ephemera that go with them.

I wish I was an awesome scratchbuilder who could make all this stuff myself, but alas I am not.  So, I’ve been acquiring 1/600 scale buildings from a variety of sources.  One source I really like is the old Skytrex range of ships and buildings. They are all in metal, which I like a lot, but they are also spendy.  Another complication is that Skytrex folded last year and have since been acquired by Ros/Heroics.  I’ve made a couple of orders to them and found them easy to work with, but their goodies are priced in pounds and shipping is significant. I’ve included pictures of some of the items I’ve received.

Another important supplier I’m using is PicoArmor.  If it wasn’t for this project, it’s a company I would have overlooked.  Pico does a lot of work with WWII and Modern 1/600 ground and air combat.  But they also carry some wonderful buildings in that scale from Brigade games. I’ve ordered their industrial buildings and railroad bits, as well as their own 2mm (as in eeny-teeny) figures needed to play the game.

Railway buildings by Brigade Miniatures. Eeny teeny, but oh so necessary

Railroad tracks by Brigade. Without question the most tedious thing I’ve ever painted, period the end.

Some of the Pico buildings are really small, so Dave and I are also exploring some of the buildings made by Bay Area Yards for their ACW naval range.  I really like Bay, and I really like their buildings.  They are more substantial than the Pico structures, but there is also the question of size and scale.  They may be out of scale, but sometimes it’s important to have something larger and more detailed for our failing eyesight to look at than be just so on something so small.  I’ve included pictures of the warehouses I’ve completed to give you an idea of what they are like as well as a comparison shot with the Pico buildings. Bay casts in resin, and their buildings are nice, and quite inexpensive.  The resin poses a few problems with bubbles and such, but they’re hard to pick out when the miniature is this small.

This is a big change from painting my beloved Hundred Years War miniatures, but I’m also very excited about this project.  I’m hoping it will be as good a game and as pretty a project as the Tirpitz affair.  When I’m ready for a bit of a change I’ll share the building of the PT Dockyard vessels awaiting construction.