Tuesday 28 April 2020

SALAMIS . What scale for a refight?

Considering how to best do a refight of Salamis in the year the Greeks have chosen to celebrate as the 2500th anniversary I intend to to a refight with 1 model for 1 ship.

A basic question is what scale? 'Normal' waterline models come in at 1200th or 600th scale withthe diminutive 3600th scale also available.  I decided to resist the temptation to use 1/72 Academy, Atlantic or Zvezda ships....

The area of the battlefield is an important consideration because your wife will probably resist any intention to knock the living room and dining room into one because of something which happened so long ago. (Was it Tony Bath who had to reinforce his ceiling because he put an enormous sand-table in the loft? Ed.)

Your dining room/gaming table/garage floor is here..

Deciding what scale to fight the battle I drew up a table of values for comparison between the scales.

The total number of ships engaged can range from 600 to 1800 depending on what you want to recreate. In any event it means 500 or so models.


The 'bottom line' is where considerations of space and cost led me. Covid19 has put the kaibosh on any use of the local hall. So a smaller scale and cheaper figures are needed.

I have made some trials with 1200 and 1000 scale models mainly to use a scale where the ships are individual models rather than counters. I like Outpost 1/3600  See HERE and in header photo - but  I will try to do the project in as large a scale as possible.

Trying out some 1/1200 rules for unit-scale gaming...



With beginnings of 1/1200 models in high density polystyrene


1/1000 model prototypes under way.

Fiddly bits
Not bad when assembled. Greeks on left, Barbarians with depth charges ready for Greek sponge fishermen attacks


1/1000 scale models set for moulding - to be cast in resin.

I have a reserve option, to cast the ships using glue-gun glue but I will see how good they look in resin first and calculate the price.

3 comments:

  1. Personally I'd go with 1/3600, but have you considered Tumbling Dice's models in 1/2400?

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  2. Hi, yes 1/3600 has advantage of cost, and space. I decided to go for spectacle and models i could work on and paint without too much strain. 10 yrs ago maybe i woul duse 1/3600 ;)

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  3. Tumbling Dice's models I have som eof. Problem fo rme was they wer neither small enough to save a lot of space or big enough to allow figures on them . They ar enice models though.

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