Kra Vak APC

I am one of those people who struggle to finish projects. There is always something I can add, alter, re- paint or improve. Today my 15mm Kra Vak from "Ground Zero Games" force nudged along just that little bit further. On the run up to Salute I am not looking to spend any money so I am trying to get a few pieces that have been hanging around finished off.
This Kra Vak Armoured Personnel Carrier uses gavatic power as a means of propulsion (most Kra Vak vehicles on the battle field do), which explains the flying base. It also gives a reason for painting the underside blue!

This vehicle can carry a full squad of the alien race. While not massively armed it does have a small, one "Man", turret with some undetermined armament. I won't go into all the technical stats that are on the GZG web site but needless to say it's fairly well balanced and can hold its own against other human APCs.
As with the few Ground Zero vehicles I have put together there were no instructions, but there are only a limited number of configurations. Which leads to very little head scratching as all the components do fit together quite well and instinctively.  This is where some bright spark tells me I have got it wrong and such a piece is upside down or in the wrong place. If that happens to be the case, so be it and OH Dear never mind!

That's it for today. As despite not looking after my nephew I am STRUGGLING with the N.H.S. E-Learning. So far despite numerous attempts and several e mails and phone calls I have failed to log into the web address I have been given. I know I am not alone as the local NHS trust is doing a "drop in E Learning Clinic" on Tuesday because out of 3500+ employees only 200 have managed to complete the training. Utterly Ridiculous!

Anyway have a good weekend and I'll probably blog again on Sunday, Well that's the plan..... now back to banging my head against the keyboard and swearing at the E Learning protocols.

Best Wishes Clint

Full or Half Sail

As you know I have been looking after my nephew so there's not too much real progress. That said I have managed a very little. Here is a quick update on the planned BBIB game for the Broadside show in June. One of the issues with the trail game over 2 weeks ago now is being able to tell a ships speed. Obviously speed in a Napoleonic naval game is reliant on several factors including the wind. Other than the weather, ships in BBIB may set themselves one of 4 speeds. In order they are Anchored, No sails/ Drifting, 1/2 Sail or Full sail. Needless to say ships at anchor don't move at all, while drifting ships will move a certain distance in the direction of the wind. Half Sail and Full Sail, are the settings used by far the most in the game. I needed to make an easy way of identifying if the ships are fully rigged or half sailed without getting more ships and chopping sails off. Given that a ships captain would easily be able to tell what any opponents sail settings would be and thus be able to anticipate their respective speeds.

 My solution is to show this in creating wake markers for each ship. Having made 12 of each I now have sufficient for all the ships we are likely to use either now or on the day. These are 2mm MDF bases 20x40mm and 20x20mm for full sail and half sail respectively. I am first to admit that they will not win any painting competitions, but they will function as I require them too.

That's it for today. I appreciate that it's not the most exciting blog post in the world but it has moved the Broadside game on ever so slightly. Thanks for reading Next post on Friday. Take care till then, all the best folks.

Sunday Club (Star wars)

It was quite a strange day yesterday at the club. There was to be a large "Hail Ceaser" game with 6-8 of us playing, but John (Who was hosting the game) could not make it for family reasons so I had no real idea what I would be playing when I turned up. As it turned out I played "Star Wars" I have played wings of war, but this I found a far better mechanic. I was impressed by all the components and Dave had a set of boards with a trench so terrain was all sorted.

We managed to get two games in. Having not played before (the other 3 players had, although one player claimed only once but that was disputed) I went with a force that Kev selected for me. As far as I was concerned he knew best so I was happy to go with his selection..... It turned out to be quite good.

If you don't know I am quite strongly dyslexic especially when it comes from knowing my right and left. I can tell them apart don't get me wrong, I know I write with my right hand and that's how I work out right from left. Working out right from left on someone else is a step harder. Working it out on a space ship that is at an odd angle to me (which does not have arms!!) a step harder still. Working out left and right on a playing piece with a dial that is then inverted is actually pretty hard for me. If I only had one playing piece I would have a very good chance of working it out. And here's the problem..... I was controlling 4 tie fighters.

In the first game I had all four ties destroyed pretty quickly as much by my own ineptitude and the fact that I was somehow magnetic to the asteroids as enemy shooting. I would have been alright with just the asteroids, but with a X Wing and the Millennium Falcon to contend with as well, let's just say goodnight Vienna pretty quickly. Which left Kev with his 4 ties to face pretty much a whole rebel squadron as well as the Falcon. I think he lasted 3 or 4 more turns before the weight of incoming fire utterly destroyed him. I have to admit it was my fault he was facing more and bigger ships but without weight of numbers. I felt bad for him but Kev is the kind of bloke that plays for fun and not for victory.

The second game was a different story. We had an objective. We had to pick up some damaged satellite pieces. I was more aware of asteroids and I had worked out a lot of the rules. Kev and I very quickly decided that we would ignore the victory conditions and shoot the shit out of Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon, and that would be enough for us. (We're like that!)  Dave (A fairly new club member) was controlling the Falcon, he also had an X wing for support. . Ian two X wings and a single Y wing. I screwed up on the first turn and steered a Tie the wrong way and it ended up directly in the way of all my other plotted moves. When the dust settled and my little game of bumper cars had sorted itself out Kev had managed to strip most of the screens from the Falcon. Ian had picked up one Satellite and Dave's X wing had nabbed another. But I was back in the fight and could keep bearing 2 of my Ties onto the big ship.

My tie advanced (Kev kindly gave me Vader to control, more out of kindness than the belief I could do anything useful with him) was well out of the action steering well clear of asteroids (well sometimes). Anyway there was a rush to pick up the last two pieces. Dave grabbed one with the extra large base of the massive ship and both me and Kev had a Tie closing in on the last one as did Ian with his Y wind. I overshot it and had to spend two turns turning round. Kev undershot it and Ian killed his Tie with the Y wing.

Meanwhile, More by luck than judgement my two Ties took the last of the Falcons hull points and it was out of the game and dropped the satellite token. Dave's X wing was headed of table to secure the victory point for the rebels so Dave was out of the game. One of my Ties managed to pick up the token and started to head off the board with an X wing chasing me. I set the move dial to right instead of left. Left would have set me up for getting of the table the following turn and it was the only sensible option. Right was towards an asteroid and the no go section of the board edge which we had already been informed was instant death. Left was the only Option. In my mind I was going left and knew that Ian's X wing would have a free blast at me. I worked it all out and set the dial for a hard left, confident I had a tighter turning circle. And then I turned the move dial over only to see the hard right manoeuvre revealed.  Remember my dyslexia? Well sometimes it works in my favour. I was out of shooting arch and still had JUST enough room to avoid the wrong board edge and the asteroid.

Darth Vader meanwhile had been out of the game pretty much since the start playing dodge the asteroids but somehow Ian's Y wing with the satellite came into range and arch of fire. So I shot him down. Yeah Ok it took me two turns but I did it!) Vader then managed to pick up the bit of space junk and with nothing rebel close headed for the board edge.

My last Tie was also "stressed" but moving super fast (speed 5) in a straight line and coming to join my other tie behind Ian's last x wing. Cutting to the chase I managed to turn the Tie carrying the Satellite so close to Ian's ship he had to move beyond my tie and that allowed my other two Ties to get the killing blow.

 It wasn't pretty, it was lucky and I really enjoyed the game.  Sometime Dyslexia is a joy. Kev got chewed up pretty badly but I think he stole one Satellite part. The game finished with me having 2 of the satellite pieces and a full compliment of ships (some very beaten up though). Somehow I won the game. Mostly I think from a combination of luck, ignoring the victory conditions, shooting down the falcon and Kev doing all the hard work!

Conclusion: Having played Star Wars I would be tempted to buy it myself. However as Dave has a everything (Apart from A wings and a couple of other ships) and Kev also has a copy (basic set). My purchase of it would be redundant. And that is the only reason I have not  been checking the internet for the best price today. Over all a great fun game and worth playing again.

That's it for today. Sorry it's so wordy and with so few pictures but I was more interested in playing then taking pictures and I think that is the real testament to the games quality.

Wednesday is the next post so with luck see you then. All the best Clint.

Apache Cheif.

Due to my nephew and the painting of space orks I have only finished 1 figure this week. This is a Black Scorpion Apache chief. A very nice sculpt with a lot of detail. I am not totally sold on the historical accuracy of the figure but I'm not going to worry about it over much as it is such a nice sculpt. It's things like the necklace the boots etc. that make me doubt the realism. Small things I know but sometimes I just get very picky.  He clearly covers a double barrelled shotgun which should give any adversaries second thoughts. Again no visible knives or daggers but the long coat could easily conceal them and pretty much any other weapon smaller than a gatling gun.  Painting wise it really was a joy to paint, despite the fact that I mucked up the eyes.  For the colours I have mostly limited myself to the colours and tones that I feel a tribal culture could create. Even the blue I could dye myself using Brazil Wood and a good mordent. Given that Brazil is named after this wood it is possible that it could have been traded through central America although I have no evidence to support that fact. Or the material could have been dyed by white men and traded for furs. Either way the colour would have been rare if it existed at all. I don't need to justify the colour choice any further than that as all the other colours and tones are very natural earthy hues. Not much more I can really say about the figure, except this was my first Black Scorpion figure and having painted it I would be happy to get some more either of this range or maybe to try another.... Fantasy pirates look great and I anticipate would be tremendous fun to paint even if I have no use for them.

Anyway I have finally worked out how to crop pictures on windows 8 which is why these are both in focus and bright enough to see. Which makes a change for me, but now I have no excuses at least from now on.

Other news: I am clearly visible on Google Earth should you have my address. I am talking to the window cleaner. I have painted the front of the house since the picture was taken so it looks a little better. I only mention it as I was told Thursday after my last blog post. It seems strange that I am now an extra in the worlds largest game of "Where's Wally!"

Club tomorrow so no doubt something club related on Monday when I post again. Until then enjoy the upturn in the weather have some fun but not too much and I'll catch you all later. Take care folks.

WAR of the worlds (2)

I have to be really quick before I get guilted into painting more space Orks... which I'm quite enjoying but don't tell anyone.

Anyway cutting a long story short, Kev from the wargames club emailed me this last night.

This is a link to a new wargames Pre-kickstarter.

My reply was "OH F**k! No way round it. think it's a must! "

 It's kind of right up my street so I feel sure I will get sucked in. There are a number of other kickstarters I would also be interested in as well and needless to say no one is going to give me any more money, so I will have to start selling things. Maybe a lung!

Anyway the slave driver (nephew) has started to pester so that's it for now.

Have a good couple of days and I will post again on Saturday.

EDIT 7am Friday morning, having slept on it for a second night.

Having thought about it, It's a NO from me. There is just too many fundamental flaws with the whole idea.

Tanks were created to counter the trench warfare stalemate of 1916-17. Not how we use them today.

I can't conceive of the Martians building trenches ergo the trench stalemate would not come to be.

Unless the tanks are made out of ceramics then they will be worse against heat rays than being in the open.

The whole idea is set in the wrong scale. If tripods are that big then a smaller scale like 6mm or 10mm would be better. If tripods are not huge,  go larger to 20mm where there is already a lot of commercial kits already about. 15mm seems to be 100% designed to limit all the spending to one company, with no other options.

I think it's the wrong era. I think set later, in the great depression maybe. when tanks are in existence and that counters my first point. It also allows you to do gangsters verses Martians which would have much more appeal to me. "Eat Lead you slimy rat!"

SO to conclude it's a No from me there are some nice ideas but overall too many flaws and missed opportunities.

Another gun

As mentioned previously I am trying to finish some things off before I go to Salute. In that vein here is another of the Peter Pig 15mm scale pieces of artillery for PBI. I have all ready put 2 of these on my blog last year and this is the third and most likely final one. A 105mm gun for my US infantry company the other two have not yet seen action on the table top, but it's only a matter of time. Adding an extra gun to the battery is a good step forward not many points and a very useful addition as it can and no doubt will be used in anti tank and against footsloggers. The crew of the other two are in Vietnam era uniforms, while this one is strictly WW2. It makes hardly any difference to me, they were all painted the same way. The difference is the Vietnam era uniforms look scruffier,  with shirts untucked and open at the neck which I am sure I would have done if I had been working in a jungle as well.

Very close examination of the second picture may reveal the differences, but it will most likely show the similarities. "Shelldrake" pointed out last time that you would never store ammunition in this way (standing up) as it is possible to accidently set one round off! As this was my last piece of ammo for these guns I have put it on in the same manner as previously only for continuity and not for realism.

As we are now into the Easter Holidays I will of course be looking after my nephew for a few days. If he's happy to play on my computer it will mean I will get some painting opportunities, but should the weather be better he may decide to do something out of doors in which case for me painting just won't happen. So while I intend to continue to blog and post as normal there may be some disruption. Anyway that's todays quick update, not a huge amount to show I will try to post again in 2 days but I can't be certain that I will manage it. Still until I do have fun, enjoy the sun (yes it's out as I type this) and try to get some painting done. All the best Clint.

Happy Easter

Without kids all the holidays kind of sneak up on me and this Easter is no exception. I did manage to buy myself an Easter egg though so It's not a bad thing. Actually out of all the holidays we have in the year Easter is possibly my favourite.

But you did not check here to read about my thoughts of Easter. As you can see a few more 28mm Apache warriors from Foundry. Only one with a bow but he also has a revolver in a holster so it's not like he's shunning white skin weapons. The other three are all rifle armed, 2 Winchesters and one breech loader. Painted in the same way as the other 4 from two days ago. To be honest I started all of them at the same time but only finished 4 at a time. I have stuck to the same palette as last time so they all should look compatible. I have one more 28mm Apache to do, so expect another one soon. (different manufacturer though). I might pick up a few more at Salute in a few weeks but if not that will be the extent of them for now. There is not too much on my Salute shopping list at present so anything is possible. This is because I want to get a few existing projects moved forward rather than starting something new. Therefore expect the time between now and Salute to be me working on existing things and rounding armies out. This is for 2 reasons, 1) because I really do need to get things finished that are half started. and 2) because I want to start the War of Spanish Succession but to be honest I am a little daunted to start. This reluctance is well set in my mind but I will overcome it in time. However for the next few weeks a little tidying up and finishing off is in order.

It's a bit rambling today, which shows how much my thoughts are all over the place. I shall post of the blog on Tuesday and with luck will have my act together. Thanks for reading todays waffle, hope you have a wonderful holiday and that the weather improves for you where ever you are.

Until Tuesday, take care and try to get something painted! Best Wishes Clint

28mm Apaches

I wanted a break from my usual painting so I went back to the old lead pile and dragged out some old Foundry 28mm Apaches. When I went to the box containing my un-painted lead I had no strong idea what I was going to select this time, I wanted something fairly self contained so I could do them start to finish and add them to an existing set of figures that I already had. For that reason these appealed. I have a reasonable range of 28mm wild west figures mostly used for gunfight type games but very few Indians so I'm quite happy to round out their numbers a little.
I did not find any plains Indians on foot, although I did find some on horses. I did find a few Apache Indians. As you can see they are all rifle armed but a couple also carry pistols in holsters as well. The rifles are a mixture of Winchesters carbines and breach loading rifles, I like the mixture on these irregular foot.There are a couple of knife sheaths as well, but I am surprised that not every figure carries one. I would imagine that a knife might be more use in day to day activities than a long arm or pistol, but there's not a huge amount I can do about that with regard to these figures. If I could sculpt (I can't very well) I would have added some more knives. It's probably just the selection of figures in this batch. I have deliberately added some bright colours to their clothes as I did not want them to look all the same or in some kind of uniform. They have been quite a tonic and have shaken of some of my painting lethargy which was the reason for selecting something a little different. As such I have undercoated 4 more and will start them this afternoon.

UPDATE:
All the components for the 1/2400th scale fishing village have now arrived (on Thursday) so I should be able to proceed on that project in this coming week. Should it turn out how I anticipate I can see everything being finished for the Broadside show game in 2 weeks time.

That's it for now, have a good Easter Break and I'll do my next blog post on Sunday. All the best Clint.

Necessary but not pleasent.

Hi Folks, I have struggled to get anything done these last couple of days. No Physical problems, just apathy and lack of direction. It is so much easier when you know what you are supposed to be doing and can crack on with it. I have finished my reading book and can't get into a new one and my usual selection of computer games has left me feeling Meh! I shall blame the weather for now although I really know it's just a passing phase and a few day down the line and I'll have rocketed forward with enthusiasm.
That said I have finished 4 stands of casualty markers for my US Infantry PBI company, So It has not all been a waste of time. These are by Peter Pig and while casualty markers are no ones favourite things to paint they are necessary for some games, PBI being one of those. Hence the blog post title. For many people casualty markers are unpalatable but for me I have no moral issue with them. There has been some discussion on wargames boundaries of late on a couple of blogs I follow (Hi Brian, Hi Lee). And for some people this would no doubt cross some sort of line. Personally I would rather put some counters like this on the table than for example a dice (die! No Pun intended).

So before this gets heavy and maudlin please remember if you see someone without a smile on their face, give them one of yours.

All the best Clint

Trial Games at Club

 AT the club yesterday I found 2 chaps (Graham and Tim, Patrick as well for the third game) willing to try out the Blood Bilge and Iron Balls rules, (BBIB). So we settled down to make sure as a club that we liked this set. I talked them through the set up and how the rules worked and we played the first game with me as a reff. They each had a 64 gun third rate ship of he line, with no fancy optional rules or different ships. Just the basics to get us going. So the first battle went like this. Two or three turns of moving ships and very little shooting, which you expect until they get pretty close. Even using the 2400th scale ships the guns have a 12" range so "close" is a comparative score. Now one of the things I like about BBIB is the turn sequence. It's random! By that I mean that each player has a sailing phase in which they move, a firing phase in which they let loose with the guns and a repair phase in which they get to re order the ship, mend sails patch the hull reinstate the chain of command and those sort of things. At the beginning of the game the Repair phase is  Meh. Once you ship starts taking damage though it's vital if you want to keep afloat. Anyway cutting a long story very short Tim Manoeuvred, then Graham sailed into position for a stern rake and the last phase (as already mentioned was randomly drawn ) turned out to be Grahams Firing phase. One Stern Rake on Tim's 3rd rate but Grahams gunners mostly rolled low and only 2 cannon factors hit. Still devastating, but Tim ship "EL Titanica" (Made up name for the day) survived. Next turn and the first action drawn was Grahams Firing phase. So before Tim could move or repair anything Graham gave him another stern rake. Ouch. This time his gunners were on target and 5 of his 6 gun factors hit causing 15 damage cards to be drawn. This is Bad! What makes it worse was that the second damage card Graham drew was the red joker (A critical hit) and 5 additional cards were to be drawn. It could not get any worse for Tim until the black Joker was also drawn, and another critical was achieved and Tim's ship was pretty much turned to ash by the damage and raging fire.

So for the second game they took two 64 gun 3rd rates each. This Time it was Grahams turn to suffer. After some initial turns of manoeuvring and getting into range Tim was able to bring the broadsides of his two ships onto one of Grahams. While Graham was out of ark to return fire. he made them count and although it was not an instant ship death like the previous game had done enough damage to cripple Grahams ship "Grey Lady" and to stop it from being able to steer until he could get the steerage repaired. Which he failed to do for a couple of turns so the ship had to just carry on in a straight line which meant that Tim could pound it some more with one ship, the other going in the wrong direction and therefore literally two ships that passed in the night (ok it was daylight but you know what I mean). This second ship of Tim's "El Lusitania"  moved into ark of Grahams other ship and it too suffered steerage damage and was stuck facing into the wind, unable to change course until it finally managed to repair the damaged rudder controls. All the while Graham was dropping shot all over it.

So as Patrick had now been observing the game and both Tim and Graham had one relatively undamaged ship each and one ship sinking each (Graham from a severely breached hull and Tim's ship on fire but without sufficient crew to put all the fires out in the repair phase) Both Myself and Patrick bought another 3rd rate each to control. Both the picture pertain to that encounter. It was a chaotic cat fight with each captain reacting to the other sides positions and trying to out-manoeuvre them. The last few turns though saw me dispatch Patricks ship, The ship was relatively intact and would make a good prise, as I had mostly (by fluke) managed to kill crew and not damage the ship. even his command structure, was in good shape. At the cost of one of my masts (which reduced speed and manoeuvrability my ships master gunner, carpenter and with a chain of command so full of holes it was more sieve like than chain like. Grahams ship had likewise lost a mast and most of his crew and was trying to "limp" of the table. The final two turns saw Tim shine. He completely outmanoeuvred me  managed to Stern Rake me (he must have learnt how to do that in the first game), which again surprisingly resulted in both Joker criticals being drawn. And then he boarded me. My crew now so reduced as to be rolling just 2 d6 put up a good fight against Tim's intact Marines but as Tim managed to score 3 "kills" to my two, I literally had no crew left so he carried the day and I struck my colours!

Conclusion: Firstly It was a lot of fun. The rules work well, but we all thought that controlling more that 3 ships was beyond us (at least at this stage). The rules are simple and straight forward even intuitive but give a sufficient level of challenge. This make the games playable as games arher than exact detail simulations. To me this is the right approach.
Given the size of the ships (40mmx 20mm bases) My ship starting the game late still managed to travel 4 and a half feet down the table with the wind and about 9 inches tacking back into the wind. Which tells me that the ship size is about right for a game on the boards I have started to make. (Big smile on my face). There are a number of tweaks I need to make to take the game from club level to show level. Things to indicate full or half sail settings, measuring sticks and better Phase activation cards spring to mind as well as a couple of stands for sinking of sunken ships would also be nice.

So what next? As I need to get a couple of bits and bobs to do the next stage of the boards I will give them a break for a week or two, knowing that the game will work in a show setting. As I still have plenty of time, Broadside is on 9th June, there is now no need to rush and I will look to get everything finished mid May so we can get a practice game in with the full set up and everything looking groovy!

Thanks for reading, I hope you found something of interest, and I will do my next blog post on Wednesday. All the best Clint

Ship Ahoy!

So far I have managed to get 5 ships painted, and intend to paint another 5 this afternoon. Here are a couple of snaps of them on the partially finished boards. These ships are 2400th scale, a smaller scale than most people use for this era. However this compact and bijou ness allows me to hide the fact that I know NOTHING about the rigging of ships. yes I know it involves ropes and block and tackles and knots and things like that, but if you asked me to rig a model ship I would be stumped. So this smaller scale lets me avoid the issue. Yippeee!

These ships are about done, bar so tweaking and no doubt some repairs when they go to the club tomorrow. I look forward to being proven wrong. I have tried to keep to what I believe are the correct colours of the period. I tend to think of the ships being a mixture of Yellow and Black. The yellow seems to have been any and all shades of yellow from a light "lemon" to a dark "Ochre, while the Black could actually be a dark grey. I am told that the captain of the ship was responsible for paying for the paint so no universal colour scheme or pattern was established. However I am also informed that the Royal Navy would supply yellow and black paint free of charge, which is why we tend to think of the Nelson Checked wooded walls. That being the case I have one red ship and the others are is different yellows and blacks. As such They look alright. And I'm definitely not going to be too concerned about the colours selected while sticking to what I have been told.

So this afternoon I will have to paint 6 more ships, read the rules make a wind direction counter. (This can be static). In most battles of this period the wind direction and intensity did not change so once set for the battle so it will stay as set.
As you can see in this last Photograph the ships are quite small and given that the effective range of there guns is a mere 6" perhaps I can get away with a smaller board.

That's it for today, thanks for looking have a great weekend (in the sleet snow and rain....and that's just so far this morning). All the best Clint

More WIP BBIB Boards

 As you can see a little more done on the land boards for BBIB show game for Broadside. All I have really done since last time is neaten them up and add some colour. Which is a very English understated way of saying repainted everything completely.
Starting with the beaches I dry brushed two lighter shades of the sand colour, lightening with white and a very small touch of yellow each time. The yellow is powerful so really be very gentle with it. I then dry brushed the cliffs with the same tomes to make it match in. The green for the grass was straight from a tube of acrylic from "the works" discount book shop (2 for £5 so very good value for money). Again this was dry bushed to simulate a texture. I was a bit heavy handed in places but I have more to do on the land so any mistakes will be rectified in subsequent treatments. Again I used both white and Yellow, but now with considerably more yellow than white to hi-light the texture of the builders sand.
I did drop some paint onto the land section of a different colour (beach colour as it happens). But this is a happy accident as I have painted it into a more "regular" shape than the splatter and the area will grow into a field on the finished headland. It is important for me to take this sort of approach and not try to make it look perfect. Accidents happen to us all and it's sometimes best to just roll with them.



Together as a river mouth



Together as a peninsular

I also thought to show you the two sea shore boards together so that it was clear that they would look ok next to each other either as an estuary or cove or inlet or as a headland or peninsular. being able to move them around is important to me as it gives a far greater use from the boards than just one set up. The estuary is particularly of use as it allows for blockade running scenarios where the ships have either to leave the river moth or to enter it which give a strong reason for a battle. Of which there are a number of historical examples.

 Overall I am very happy with the result so far. Obviously there is more to do so it is just another WIP post today but I thought it was worth showing the progress. Thanks for following my progress and I hope to have more to show on Saturday, maybe even some ships!!!! (I know how to tease you!). Have a good couple of days all the best Clint.