Valiant had during the 70s focused on naval vessels including a range of space ships for wargaming. This is a selection of 1/1200 ships from their Spanish Main range. The ships are highly detailed as one would expect for this scale. Ships appeared to be either British or Spanish with some generic vessels and a galleass with either square or lanteen rigged sails. The galleys available appear to have been part of the smaller scale Napoleonic range and sadly did not match the ornate galleass.
Though quite old, it appears that the Valiant molds are still in use and these ships can usually be found on E-Bay. The ships are sturdy and put up with a reasonable amount of abuse except for the foremasts which have a tendency to topple with the slightest pressure. These are good for Armada games, piracy on the Spanish Main and similar things.
The USS Roanoke triple turret monitor alongside a Union tin clad gunboat. The models dwell in that limbo between the more common 1/1200 scale for naval models and 1/300 as a lower limit on ground forces.Two Confederate ironclads. Top is the CSS Charleston. The lower ship is listed as CSS Columbia/Texas.
Thoroughbred miniatures ACW vessels are just a bit on the large size for gaming but I doubt that will stop anyone from using these, especially if they have enough space. The range is extensive and the models well-detailed with many small pieces for some ships like the Hartford making these more of a project than most.
I first encountered these when with nothing to do on a weekend in Columbia, SC, I wandered into a toy soldier convention. It was a small but interesting gathering. The Thoroughbred display drew my attention more than any other. I have been slowly gathering them since then. ‘Then’ was likely about 12 years ago.
There are a reasonable number of rule sets available for ACW ironclads. One likely candidate is the Ironclads games originally offered by Yaquinto. The size of the larger ships, though, make these unlikely candidates for hexagons on all but the largest game mats.
Of course, the charm of these miniatures is the careful attention to detail. These miniatures straddle the line between display and gaming. Since the reality of gaming is that most gamers select a scale based on space available and cost of the miniatures, that most of these battles involved small numbers of ships and occurred in a limited area, the large size will not seem out of place.
A selection of GHQ armor in the odd 1/285 scale. One artillery piece and all of the figures are by Heroics & Ros. The attention to detail on the vehicle castings is apparent. There is a precision in modeling that works well when modeling machines. Earlier castings including those from GHQ showed a free form sculpting which was not as effective.
German armor in western Europe in the later years of WWII used a 3-color camouflage paint scheme that can be a little tricky to make look good. Still, at such a small scale and with appropriate wet and dry brushing, some lapses can be readily forgiven especially since the original vehicles were often painted under some bad conditions. Most of these models were spray painted, masked and sprayed again, finally getting a wash of black and some drybrushed highlights. Details such as wheels, tires, tracks and cables were picked out with a brush.
Some of the vehicles shown here include the dreaded Tiger tank, the King Tiger, Panzer V and IV, and the Jagdpanzer IV. GHQ has a commitment to improving and expanding its range. This can be seen if one looks closely at the Opel Blitz trucks. An earlier multi-part casting is in the back. Newer Blitz show off the fine detail that GHQ excels at.
These tiny slightly out of focus ships are as small a scale as I have encountered for gaming so of course it was immediate unconditional adoration. They do not have the level of detail one could hope for in this computer age but the scale makes them just right for some of the Clash of Arms games where counters show vessels at 1/6000.
The small scale also allows their use in older games like Jutland or Battlewagon. It would even be possible to incorporate them in something like SPI’s The Solomons Campaign. At a scale this small, there are a lot of possibilities. Just do not try it on a thick carpet.
Figurehead Miniatures has had a number of distributors in this country so it is a good idea to check The Miniatures Page for whoever is selling them at the moment. Prices for these tend to fluctuate with some people selling them as if they were cast in gold so it is a good idea to purchase through the distributor.
