The Pewter-Pixel Wars

Just a quick pic or two:






On the left, my new 1/1800 ships from WTJ, with a pair of extras that were sent just in case some of my order fell afoul of a production problem.  Awesome service from WTJ!  Now, for some primer...



And on the right, one of my 1/600 Xyston ancient vessels, and assorted bits.  I am going to take another look at this scale for my Tékumel naval project.  One item that I can see already is the size of the 'castle' from Xyston.  It seems to be slightly small.  A scratch-built replacement might be in order.





Lastly, the Tékumel naval project got another boost with this:






I finally purchased my copy, and I am looking forward to reading through it again.

One of the projects collecting dust (but not forgotten!) on my hobby desk is this little guy:




No, I have not made any actual 'progress' on the Qél, mostly because something was bothering me about it.  Something just did not look right.  Actually, it is several things...  First, the 'castle' as seen in the mid-deck seems very small - it could hold two maybe three marines at most.  Second, the steering oars near the stern of the vessel do not seem to be as prominent in the drawings of Tékumeli vessels in Qadárdàlikoi.  Third, the masts seem a bit close together.  But, that is just a symptom of another issue - the Xyston miniature is not quite the right length:




The piece of balsa is the average length of a Qél according to Qadárdàlikoi.  


So, what to do?


Despite the issues, I like the Xyston ships, but future builds might be slightly modified.  I'm thinking of omitting the steering oars and the foremast from the Qéls built after this one.  The Qél above will be kept in this configuration, and will be an archaic design kept around because it was some Tsolyanú admiral's first command.




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A little bit of progress here with my first Tékumel-style naval vessel:




The original mini is a Xyston Hellenistic Quinquireme, which can be seen in its original form here.  In its Tékumel form, it shall be a Tsolyáni Qél.  I have changed around the deck somewhat as compared to the original, and readers of long standing will also notice that yet again I have changed my mind about the masts!!!    The base is a piece of 3mm thick plywood, 80mm by 40mm, from Litko.  


It is not quite completely assembled, as evidenced by the parts alongside the base, but it is really coming together this time and I am satisfied with my plan for the ultimate form.




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With a little bit of free time at the table recently, I turned to making my first scratch-built Tékumel ship, a srügánta (comparable to a Greek bireme):


Plastic and balsa together for the hull. Oh boy, is it a chunky ship! Just goes to show that simply measuring things does not make a nice mini. The srügánta drawing in Qadárdàlikoi is much more sleek, although it does have an interesting sternwalk. Also, when I realized that my ship was not coming along, I made a very simple mistake and did not test-fit the aft superstructure piece before gluing it down; if you could see the mini from a top view it would be obvious, and too wide.

With the above in mind, I tried to draw some designs for more suitable ships:


The versions of srügánta here are still fairly chunky compared to the original, so I need to work with that. The zírunel, however, should be properly large and imposing and the drawing tries to be. I am also experimenting with slightly different architecture styles for the different nations plying the seas. I would like the ships of Tsolyánu flotillas to not only be a different color but a subtly different shape from their Mu'ugalavyáni counterparts.


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My copy of Qadárdàlikoi arrived very recently, and although it is a book that mainly deals with land battles on Tékumel, it has some nice information of the naval side of things. And, accordingly, it presents myself with a dilemma.

In the section on naval warfare, there are stats and line drawings on six of the most common vessels used. These vessels are, for the most part, not very similar to the Xyston ships I have just purchased! So, a decision needs to be made [actually I have already made up my mind but I am dragging it out for you the reader ;) ]: use the Xyston ships and go a more 'faux' Tékumel look; or scratchbuild new ships based on the line drawings?

Now, I can not really foresee giving up entirely on the Xyston ships. In fact, the Xyston merchant vessel is rather similar to a Tnék, except it lacks a lateen foresail. The weapon and sail kits will be handy, and I might use the oar banks from the Xyston ships I already have on the scratchbuilt ships. So the Xyston purchase is not a complete bust!


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The first order has arrived:


1/600 ancient ships, made by Xyston ( link to mfg's web site ). I ordered a variety of minis, just to see what they look like in person. I am quite surprised by their size - they are MUCH bigger than I thought and enormous compared to the 1/1200 ancient ships I have used in the past. Unfortunately, I was not able to get any Roman ships, and only one Carthaginian ship. The plan is to group the minis, mostly by their historical nationalities, into fleets for the Tékumel factions. One problem with the Xyston range is a shortage of smaller ships, so the one hemiolia mini - the smallest ship of the range - might be used for all of the human fleets, perhaps with some minor modifications.


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Balsa + a new cutting mat + a sharp blade =


Here is the base hull for my first ship, with two more blanks waiting.




The hull and upper deck.




And this stuff is for the deck planking to be fitted onto the deck pieces, next time!

Here is a pic of a page of my gaming notebook, with the first doodles of a plan for a Half Continent naval vessel:


It is a 24 guns-broad frigate, and the sketch is the approximate size of the model in 1/600, although it is probably distorted a bit by the pic. The measurements at the top of the page do indicate the actual length and beam of the model.

The drawing is rough. It lacks a lot of deck detail, and the ship's boats are definitely way off in scale, but this is close to what I think the frigate might look like in model form. This page on DM Cornish's art site has some much better (by the originator of course!) of the ships I hope to imitate.

I will need to make a trip to the local hobby shop for some balsa and sheet plastic so I can start to put one together!