SYRAKOUSIA VIII : TIPPING THE SCALES

Syrakousia is not forgotten......a word about scale choices.

The common scales for tabletop model ships are 1/1200 1/600 and possible 1/2400.

My idea is to base a game on attacking Syrakousia as she crosses the table to safety. The attackers being a motley crew of pirates on variously sized vessels. Or a Baddies naval flotilla.

Exactly what scale this should take place in is a question to be answered.

Syrakousia is relatively large but we also need to represent the attackers adequately on their smaller vessels. If we take a pentekonter as the typical pirate vessel we can see how big a model will be at various scales.

A 30m pentekonter would be ..so big.. at the various scales...

• 1/2400        12,5mm
• 1/1200        25mm
• 1/600          50mm

These are not very large models, and if we want to represent men...they will be tiny.

Left to Right : 10mm, 6mm, 4mm, 2mm

The only option is to go up a level of magnitude to useable figure scales. 6mm is possible - but still rather fiddly. This is usually accepted as 1/300 scale which gets our pentekonter up to 100mm long. The ship is now a nice size and the figures can be handled but when considering the details of Syrakousia not big enough. Syrakousia at this scale is 65m /300 = 21.6cm. Not a lot of space for detail nor for figures.

4mm scale trieres with
MM 4mm figs

10mm scale is the only solution. And a table larger than a playing card.

10mm is nominally 1/183.. This makes Syrakousia 35cm long. Now that is something you can get your hands on to model. Small details like the cranes and turrets can be done without requiring watchmaker's spectacles. Attacking pentekonters will be 16cm long - and can also be modelled well.

Front to Back :1/1000, Hotz 1/300, 10mm trieres and Syrakousia mock-up in 10mm

I am not getting younger, my hands and eyesight do not improve with the years. The argument for 10mm is irrefutable. Syrakousia will sail on a 10mm seascape.