Tumbling Dice: Napoleonic Warships

The Tumbling Dice Napoleonic Squadron.  Eight ships Seven ships of the line and one frigate.

The Flag ship is a massive 120 Gun ship of the line.  That's a big man of war.

I'm very pleased with the sculpt especially the inclusion of rat lines which help make these ships look more realistic than the other models I have.

I followed the painting guide lines in the Trafalgar book and the ships really came out well.

A pair of large 3rd rate ships of the line, tumbling dice calls them 80 gun ships of the line.

A pair of average 3rd rates 74s according to the Tumbling dice web site

A 64 gun ship of the line on the left and 50 gun "4th Rate" ship of the line that I will probably consider a second 64.

Finally the frigate I think its ASN10 at 38/40 gun frigate.

I think these will work with my Figurehead miniatures.  This is the Figure head 65 and the Tumbling Dice 50 gun ship.  They seem to be a reasonable match.  The Figure head ship looks a little smaller perhaps more delicate.

Since ships of different countries (or even from different builders) could have different designs I suppose they will work well enough.  The lack of ratlines on the Figurehead ships is pretty obvious... and really detracts form their appearance.

Trafalgar Test game

Frank and I have been trying to give Traflagar a try for a couple of weeks and last night we were able to get our schedules to mesh.  I set up a small scenario where two ships of the line are trying to escort a merchant carrying the pay chest of an army. A force of two frigates and a ship of the line are trying to intercept and capture if possible but destroy if necessary the Merchant while trying to keep their losses to a minimum.

The Convoy Warspite (74); Marry (armed merchant) and Thunderer (74)

The intercepting force from furthest to nearest Falcon (40); Sphinx (82) and the Seahawk (40)

The convoy has the weather gage. Falcon and Sphinx move directly at the convoy while the Seahawk tries to come around behind them.

The ships close and a few minor hits are scored by my fleet but then Franks Warspite gets in the first devastating blow of the night as his crossing broadside sends men running from their guns

Sphinx looks to be in serious trouble but my men are hustled back to the guns..

and cross the Mary's stern causing multiple hits and starting a serious fire.

Shots are exchanged back and forth Sphinx is taking damage as Frank focuses on her though Falcon also takes a few hits... The Seahawk is trying desperately to get back to the fight having misjudged the course of the action badly.  

After a couple of turns of maneuver and firing the Sphix is down to only her light guns but these strike the Thunder and start another fire.  The Mary has been slowly loosing ground to the fire and has lost its main mast.

But Thunder now takes the Sphinx out of the fight.

The Falcon is hurt badly and is more concerned with running thought it continues to throw long range fire on the Mary which looses its crew and then burns to the water line.  The Seahawk exchanges long range fire with two ships of the line and is then rakes by the Warspite starting a fire.

Seahawk makes its get away as the Thunder is "de-crewed" but then Saint Elmo blows out the flames.  We call it a draw the Mary and its cargo have sunk but I lost the Sphinx.  Warspites crew will have a heck of a time getting both cripples home but we assume she does compensating for the loss of the Mary at least in a tactical sense.