B Class Gunboat

Yesterday I finished three new models of my designated B Class side wheeler.  This one is for my good friend Jim Ferich of the Delaware Gaming Group.  The model is made of Basswood built around a blue foam structure to keep them light for shipping.  The first of these boats a year ago I was making them out of solid pine wood under the decks.  Way too heavy!  The Guns are from John at Reviersco Miniatures.  The other two models are going with me to Hurricon.  They will be part of my Gunboat Scenario.  Should be a lot of fun!  I start my drive on Wednesday.  Hope to see some of you there!

Dan

Last Stand Boatyard (September)

Hello Everybody,

Well it has been pretty busy getting ready for Hurricon and the clock is ticking.  It's coming up on the 25th to 27th in Orlando.  It is one of my favorite Conventions to attend and I look forward to seeing my east side brothers and friends at HMGS South.  I will be putting on a couple of games, the first from the Gordon Campaign book, the Battle of Ginnis and the other a Gunboat battle featuring my Gunboat & Dhows! rules which are in the final review stages for a long awaited release.

In the Boatyard, I have been building all kinds of boats to use in my games and display at the dealer table.  Come look for me.  Man, I can't wait to retire when I can do this full time!  So here are some tidbits on what I have been up to.

One of the boat ideas I have been playing around for a long time was that of a Steam Launch.  A year ago when discussing the idea of a Launch, I met my new friends at Firelock Games ( https://www.firelockgames.com/product/longboat/) who make that great game of Blood and Plunder.  I found they made a very nice looking longboat which turned into what you will see here.  With a few conversions and some boiler creation help from Mr. Doug Wildfong, you will see my rendition of what I think is a very nice Colonial Steam launch.  I hope you like it.

I always wanted a shirt that has my favorite word "Gunboat" on it.  So after some heavy thinking and milling over some ideas I finally came up with a design for a shirt.  The picture/art was created by Mr. David Mills who helped me out a lot!  After that was squared away I contacted my friends at INK FX, in California (https://inkfxcorp.myshopify.com) who did a great job on the screen printing.  I have never been involved in what it takes to put all that together and I was so glad for the assistance.  I think they came out very very nice.  These shirts will be available at Hurricon and can also be ordered on the website (laststanddan.com).  By the way, the Model in the picture is not included!  I don't know why I had to say that, but it may have to do with me knowing some of you Pirates out there.  arrgh.  lol.

There is another shot of the new L Class which is now designated the L70 (70' long).  I think that is the best boat for moving into the late 1800, early 1900s. With simulated rivets all over the hull it definitely has a Gunboat/Fastboat look and feel to it.

I even received a few requests to rebuild the Governor House that was displayed and used in my "Get to the Boat Scenario" (http://laststanddan.blogspot.com/2017/10/tmwwbk-get-to-boat-sudan-scenario.html).  I made one and received requests for a couple more.  Those are always fun to make.

So how about another boat option for the Dervish?  In my scenarios I like to arm my Dervish with captured Egyptian boats.  Nothing too powerful but enough to make Imperials sweat a little.  There is nothing like seeing an angry bunch of dervish warriors crowded on a deck with a Krupp gun sitting on the bow.  So I made the new F class. The F being a type of civilian ferry boat.  A little under powered and unprotected but still dangerous with the right dervish or traitor Egyptian Captain fighting it.  So you will see a couple of pictures of it in its final stages.

With all that going on my gaming table becomes the work table and it is a mess!  I am also building more B Class Gunboats, C Class steamers and several 15mm Double masted dhows.

So keeping busy and looking forward to my road trip to Orlando!  And Thanks for all the orders coming in!  I really appreciate it and I hope those models are adding to your gaming experiences!

Well that is all for now.  Still so much to do!  I hope to see you at Hurricon!

Last Stand Dan

"Always Send A Gunboat!"

 

Giza Rebuild (28mm Gunboat)

Well it's been awhile and I have been busy.  I have been getting many orders for boats and as soon as I got started things started heating up at work (in a very good way).  What slowed me down was a couple of my fellow wargamers requested the Giza boat.  That was the second model I made a few years ago and didn't create any plan drawings for it.  That made things interesting but I did record it all in my blogs.  That helped!

I remembered the build and thought it could have used more space on the bridge for a couple of riflemen.  So you will see I ran the deck a little longer with a canopy for the helmsman.  If you look at the old pictures the Machine gunners port and starboard did not have much room around the gun.  So I opened the main deck by building the stack structure a little smaller.  This also gave me a nice location to mount the flag holder. 

The stack is removable for storage.  I am going to put on a small wood plank wrap to the base of the stack as added protection like I usually do.  The canopy over the bridge is also removable but can be glued down if the gamer would like it that way.  You can still slide models from the rear into position.

  

The other item that I think enhances the model are the sandbags.  My cousin Bud came over and helped me start rolling and shaping up the bags out of modeling putty.  That saved me so much time.  Letting it dry and start the layers of dry brushing was easy.  I still want to add a little more sand color to these.  And I still need to add a layer of bags around the helmsman position.  I think it's a nice touch. 

The hardest thing to build for this model is the paddle assembly.  Very labor intensive.  They are not perfect but I think they look pretty good.  Somebody suggested that I use a 3D printer.  I say where is the fun in that?  Yeah it's a bit old school but I think wood looks better than resin? That is my humble opinion.  But then again I do see some beautiful resin boats out there.

So my typical caveat about these models.  These are my own representations of gunboats I have either seen on wargame tables or articles and movies that provided the inspiration. They are not perfect, not even close.  Each model has its own personality as you can imagine.  I am building them in three's and I cut the wood exact for each but after assembly there is always something a little off.  It's funny but as any ship builder you start making minute changes here and there.  The good thing about my models are they are built with basswood for the most part. So if anything breaks just grab some wood glue, repair and paint.  Hey, it just adds more personality!  

Well these Giza gunboat models are ready to be shipped.  Next I'll build three Double masted Dhows and followed by three more new L Class boats. I also have a small steam launch project on the side.  Where is the time!

As I mentioned these boats are ready but I really can't let them go without a few Dervish bullet holes drilled into the sides of the boat now can I? 

Remember to "Always Send a Gunboat!"

Last Stand Dan 

TMWWBK - Get to the Boat! (A Sudan Scenario)

Finally, I finished the Town for this scenario and worked it out using The Men Who Be Kings rules.  This was two play test battles because after building this little town I am going to tour with it at conventions next year.  I already know how to switch it up to The Sword and The Flame.  I just wanted to try these rules which really worked out great.  I will not go into any comparisons and this is  not meant to sway anyone from the rules they are currently using.  It's just another great option out there that may or may not fit your style of play or scenarios.

And again I have always wanted to do something like this.  It was inspired by Sand Pebbles, The Wind and the Lion and other great movies that had some cool evacuation scenes.  And of course my good friend Sgt. Guinness who over a year or so put on The Wind and the Lion at a convention which got me thinking.  Thanks.

So some notes on the rules around Regular units or just Regulars.  In the rules the Free Actions, meaning you don't have to roll against your Leadership value to perform are firing and Standing to.  We did this in the first game and although they had a great 5+ to perform that movement using 2d6 we must have had over 6 or 7 non movements throughout the first battle.  We also only completed 8 of 12 turns and the Dervish just swarmed them and blocked their escape path to the awaiting gunboat.  The same for the rescue forces coming from the boat. We had a number of stalls.  So with all that said we gave Regulars Move as an additional free action.  They are running for their lives right?  So in the second battle it worked out great.

And yes I made the Egyptians Regulars in this second revolt.  But only the Egyptians had to roll on the random leadership tables.  That was interesting and added some very reluctant and very eager Egyptians to fight next to.

The mission was to evacuate the Governor General and his staff from the Government House to the Cairo.  His staff has a British unit as an escort (Grenadiers in battle 1 and Highlanders in battle 2).  The rescue force has three commands.  Each having either a Naval, Grenadier or Royal Marine unit with an attached Egyptian unit.

The order or movement was borrowed from Western Gunfight rules.  Each leader is dealt a playing card and highest card goes first, etc.  Jokers were wild and did not shuffle the deck each turn.  We just ran through the deck and it worked out well.

Other conventions is that the rules state that you can only fire at one unit and any units in a melee, everybody fights.  Well, how many Colonial Street fights do we see in our games?  So in this scenario, a unit can split their fire if in Open Order and if a unit is charged with half of your guys outside then only those poor souls fight the attackers.

Same for firing.  You can only fire and target what you can see.  So if three guys are sticking their heads out coming around a corner and you are firing 8 guys then you can only kill the ones  you can see.  When defending a narrow door, similar to the close order melee rules, you can only fight two wide and two deep.  So if you have a unit defending or blocking a door, then the fight will be 4 vs 4, so not everybody fights.  We figured that you may be several soldiers holding your ground in a narrow doorway or alley and a mass of warriors is trying to push their way in.  We had this happen a couple of times and it worked out great.

Also in the rules if you take a casualty you roll for Leader hit.  And if you lost the melee you rolled again for your pin.  After a while we started just to roll once if you lost.  If you rolled double 1's your leader is killed and you probably get a pin.  Anything else your leader is okay and you fall back and you may or may not get a pin based on your leadership with that one roll.  Did that make sense?

Dervish Insertion Rules
So I borrowed this from Mr. Carpenter's Ambush alley.  I placed ten (10) Hot Spots on the board.  I also created a Dervish insertion schedule for each turn.  The Dervish are able to place their units on any spot that is not in sight of the infidels and is still active.  Active meaning that if an infidel comes into contact with an insertion point it is removed.  This is not to say that there is anything to kill there but think of it as a Dervish gathering point and it was broken up by just their presence there or they locked up a door etc.  So there is a tactic both sides have to take into consideration, one how do we get the Governor out and two how do the Dervish intercept and kill him.  Sounds easy?  hahahaha (evil Mad Guru laugh).

So the two battle worked out great.  Each battle in the future will fight out differently and there are some tactics that I want to try as the British that I will not give away here.

And if you have any questions or comments just leave me a message.  Join the blog for updates!

Thanks again to all my friends and colleagues that helped out.  I will blog about the building of the town next time.  For now its pack this all up and get my boatyard up and running again.  Our Colorado Military Historian (CMH) Club's Vet Wars is in two weeks here in Denver, Colorado.  Should be a good one. Hope you like the annotated pictures of both of these battles.

Last Stand Dan

Please forgive all my typos.