1/2000 Age of Sail

Hachiman Expects Every Man To Do His Duty!

My entire fleet

     It all started with a flea market buy a few conventions a go -- some cheap packs of Valiant Enterprises "Fighting Sail" vessels in 1/2000 scale. Now I have painted vessels and enough ships to do the Battle of the Nile. I like the 1/2000 scale as there is enough detail to make the ships look good, but they don't require the work in painting and rigging of the bigger scale. Don't get me wrong, fully tricked out minis like the Langton 1/1200's are gorgeous, I just know that I don't have the time or resources to do a fleet of them justice. All models are Valiant Enterprises.

A pair of 74-gun Third Rate ships of the line

     A few pics down you can see my magnetic basing system. My club uses "Fire as she Bears" for our fleet action rules, and that requires octagonal bases. I could have attached each ship to a base, but I figured that I'd want to do different battles that involve different ships and different nationalities, so I made swap-able bases.

      Lastly you can check out the custom octagonal movement templates I made for a recent Battle of the Nile game. They are basswood, painted brown with color printouts of the national flags and commanding admirals Mod-Podged on the top. I thought they gave the proceedings a dignified touch.

My changable basing system

Roster (painted): 1 x 18 gun brig, 2 x 100/120-gun First Rate ships of the line, 6 x 60-gun Fourth Rate ships of the line (that I also use as frigates), 3 x 80-gun Third Rate ships of the line, 22 x 74-gun Third Rate ships of the line, and 8 sinking ships.

My measuring octagons