NAUMACHIA : PART XII

Following behind  Demetrios' fleet, here come his opponents - the Rhodians!

A trihemiolia - Rhodian speciality

Tetrereis coming up behind the trihemioliai

Another Rhodian favourite - the tetreres

NAUMACHIA : PART XI : And still they come...

Part of Demetrios' siege fleet ? A couple of octoreis, and some covered-in triereis, two of which tow a catamaran bearing an artillery tower.

An octores with fighting tower

Fully enclosed triereis

A slog for the triereis towing the tower catamaran

The artillery tower is packed with catapults I don't have to make !

An octores with fortified bow and massive ram

NAUMACHIA : PART X

The barbarians are here !

Persian triereis provided by the maritime cities of Arados, Sidon, Byblos and Tyre.

Equipped with spike rams rather than the later trident type or the Greek theromorphic versions.

NAUMACHIA : PART IX

Sea trading and piracy go together like a horse and carriage. It was almost assumed that if you lived outside a city you made part of your living as a leistes or robber. Sea robbers had the advantage of being able to easily destroy all witnesses and evidence...

So it wasn't long after I built some freighters that pirates also appeared, hot on their heels.

Lembi and hemioliai ambush and pursue freighters.

Can sail outlast the pirates' oar muscles?

A motley crew closes on the large freighter, whose crew resists.

But the cavalry is here ! In the form of three pentekonters.

The small freighter is safe now.

NAUMACHIA : PART VIII

And now, as the fairy lights blaze to a a crescendo of fairylightness..

My own 10mm scale constructions. Here comes a batch of triereis plus a version of the great Leontophoros maybe ..

The oars are specific type of dress-maker's pin. Yes - pushed in one by one...until I made a small jig to put several in at a time. They have to be swept back so much to reduce space taken on the table.

The men are Magister Militum 10mm. Some painted by Wild Duck Trading some by me.

The ship style is a little exaggerated to give them character and let them differ from each other.

These are fully decked triereis of late Peloponnesian Wars era to 350 or so.With hide side-screens.

A large flagship of 4th century Successors - maybe Leontophoros..
(oops towers not completely painted yet!)

And so we bid farewell to the parade of Peloponnesisk triereis....

NAUMACHIA : PART VII

A short reference  to full size Hotz ships. Circa 1/300.
My problem with this size was space, so I rapidly switched to using them half-size.
The models are built from a flat printed sheet. You get the PDF files from HOTZ ROMAN SEAS which is worth visiting if just to see the city panoramas built from Eric's building kits. Fantastic!

A deceres with tower along with hemiolia.

Some triereis. And various buildings.

Look back through blog entries using keyword HOTZ to see a lot more.

NAUMACHIA : PART IA - HEXAPOLIS

Hexapolis is a project I have to make a modular city at 1/3600 - 1/3000 scale.

It can be used with campaugns and allows tiles to be laid in different configurations to represent different harbour cities.

There is a military harbour, mercantile harbour, upper class urb, lower class urb, administrative buildings, acropolis, agora.

This combines with the modular fortification system shown in Naumachia Part 1.

They can be scratchbuilt or cast in resin.

Lastly, my unfinished model of Naupaktos to go with a game of Phormio's famous campaign.

NAUMACHIA : PART VI : RAMS, RAVENS AND WRECKS CARD SHIPS

Now on to the project which got me into this blog. Making card ships.

Part inspired by Eric Hotz ships but made in a smaller size and less complicated to build, I gradually devised a series of ships in 10cm - about 1/450 scale or so.

They are printed -out flat and in one piece so not so much cutting and fitting as with Hotz ships.

However, discussing with others, people dont seem to like paper /card for ship models. Lead has the lead as one could say. However, weight and the elimination of painting argues well for them in my opinion.

First, various Greek triereis. Early, open style with crews visible toiling away.

A mix of different styles. With sidescreens or not.  More or less decorated.

Here come the barbarians!  Persians with their exotic triereis...and lots of deck fighters.

For figures it is simply a matter of print and fold - maybe stick them on a base.

Now for the Carthaginians - a mix of Hotz ships printed smaller plus my own.

And the Romans with their scary quinqueremes - again with deadly Roman deckfighters.

I am still a big fan of the elegance of design and satisfaction of creating a 3d model from a flat piece of card. They are colourful and cheap. Still not sure what will become of them.

NAUMACHIA : PART V

And now all covered in lights like a fairy parade with fairy colours and etc..

Larger scales . Moving on to scaled - down versions of Eric Hotz card ships.

I made a series of half-size ships which were handier on the tabletop than the 1/300 full size version.

Have a look at Hotz Roman Seas website. Eric makes buildings ships and a load of wild west stuff too!

A very economical way to do galley wargaming. But you need patience and to be able to cut accurately.

original versus shrunk. based and named

Hptz buildings in background

NAU,ACHIA : PART IV

Cheapnis is my weaknis

It is not necessary to have complex models to try war-galley gaming. Indeed, you can use little cardboard squares like Avalons Hill's famous TRIREME game. But that is rather dull too.

A slightly more lively style is to use Toblerones. I printed some images and folded them before sticking to a thin card base... voila  war-galleys. Lots of them....

You can down load the images I used -- see link at upper left on this blog for SIMPLE FLEETS.

These can be printed at the scale you want. I printed them at 1/1200 , I think.

You could cut the silhouette ... but it takes much more time.