Introduction:
My name is Jeff Perryman, and I have lost my fuzzy little mind.Let me explain.
My friends and I are currently playing DnD 5th edition and the campaign is a pirate based world. So naturally we will be seeing ship-to-ship combat so I bring, to the game some of my Games-Workshop Wan O' War ships to use.
This got me to thinking.
I have been mulling over for a few years of creating a 28mm ship for my games, both role-play and table top, and I have wanted to do a port themed table in a big city for them at some point.
I like the Imperial ships in Warhammer universe, as they have a nice fantasy medieval feel to them and are loosely based on Henry the VIII’s Mary Rose.They blend well with medieval fantasy games and are just pain cool. So I plan on sticking to roughly 15th and 16th century design ideals.
So I decided I would see what such a project would entail and I am writing this build blog to help me work out details and logistics of a honestly massive project for one person.
I decided to go big and chose the Empire's Greatship.
( this is where the loss of said fuzzy mind starts ).
Now it is here I would like to point out I have ZERO knowlage of all things nautical. My knowlage of knots is at best limited, and I have no clue where to start. I am endeavoring to create a realistic ship out of a very small game piece. SO...
The first thing to do is decide what kind of model I want to create, a pure gaming model, more of a set piece, or something more akin to a naval architectural model.
I know I want to use it as a active part of my games, so accommodations for miniatures need to be made. I also want to take the design of the ship and my scenery up a notch, so I also want it to look as real as feasible. So I will need to strike a balance between these to ideals.
The ship has a gun deck below the main deck where there are what appears to be 14 great cannon. I am not sure if I want to make access to this deck or not, but it seems a good idea that I consider it in terms of gameplay. So I will need to think of a way to split the model in a seamless fashion to show off this gun deck.
The next consideration is display,storage, and transport. Display is easy for me as I am lucky enough to have a glass display case for my miniatures that the ship should fit on nicely. However if I want to move it around or even transport it to other game locations, I have to make sure the ship can break down easily. This could be a bit hard as I was hoping to add in the proper rigging for such a ship.
To be honest, this project could take months, a year, several years, or never be realized at all, but I want to work though this at the very least to get it out of my head.
Scaling:
The next step is to find out how big this ship will be. I took some photos of a 10 mm model I have and then used a Spelljammer Galleon template from AD&D 2nd Ed for getting the scale (Based on rough mast thickness) in the ball park. A Spelljammer galleon is about 115’ from prow to stern. The Great ship in turn is 195’ from front of the forecastle to the back of the sterncastle and about 50’ wide.
On top of all of that, the ship is frik’n loaded for bear with 68 cannon across all of the different decks. I found 12 more after I did the layout!!
16 Great Cannon and 52 deck guns in all!
So I printed my layout to scale and laid it out with a few minis. To say the least this will be a whole lot of work and this ship is a monster.
Materials:
I am going back and forth on the materials to use in making this model. The natural material would be to use balsa wood, but as this is a gaming prop, it will need to withstand being handled, bumped, leaned on, transported, and general wear and tear most props endure during play. So I think I will settle on styrene plastic. It is easy to work with, fairly cheap, and far more durable that balsa wood. I can carve the wood grain into the plastic giving it that Warhammer chunky feel.New skills needed:
So I will have to learn a great deal to make this a proper feeling ship. A good deal of the skills that I will need to learn, but not all, will come from the model ship scratch building community. There is a level of craftsmanship and skill in that community that blows me away when I started looking into it.- I'm going to have to learn how to create a ship hull from scratch.
- learn how to plank that hull properly so that it looks good.
- I'm gonna have to learn casting techniques so I can create the cannons as well as all the decorative pieces on the ship.
- I have to learn how to scratch build a set of anchors.
- I'm going to have to learn how to scratch build masts and sails
- Learn to create block and tackle.
- Learn how to do ship rigging. ( This is not in the least trivial )
So having done a bit of research, seeing a few things I like I am currently reworking the layout and stating on the hull design. So please stay tune, and please feel free to offer your thoughts and ideas!
Thanx
