Project | Battle of Lake Erie (Part 2)

Well, progress has been slower than I would like, on account of having a kid and all, but I've managed to steal away some minutes here and there. Mostly more Black Seas work, although the new skirmish game Port Royal from Firelock Games has piqued my group's interest, so I've been doing a smidgen of dabbling in 28 mm piracy. More on that in some future post. Back to the Battle of Lake Erie. In the last project post, I was firmly in the planning phase, but now I've got some fruit to show for my efforts. One completed ship, the Caledonia, and some major work done on the Niagara and Queen Charlotte. 

The Caledonia was a smaller brig than either Lawrence or Niagara, and so needed a suitably sized model. Warlord Games doesn't really make anything in this category, but the brigantine conversion I did a little while ago provided the perfect hull. While yes, the actual ship was meagerly armed in comparison, I just needed something that was visually distinct in size from the normal Black Seas brig. I kept the standard masts and sails and she was done.  It was a little tight to get all the rigging and masts in place, but overall not too bad. 

Reference images of the Caledonia are precious few, and I didn't want to spend all of my spare time going down unnecessary rabbit holes. In the end, I decided to use the ochre color scheme that shows up in a lot of the contemporary paintings of the period, just to see what it looks like. It does the job, but I'm glad I didn't paint my super frigates with this scheme. 

On to some of the WIPs. My intent was to keep to the basics and not do any conversions for the Niagara, but I've done so many brigs at this point that I needed ways to differentiate each one. Nothing too drastic, all very simple in fact. The first was to sand down the bulwarks, almost to the channels that support the ratlines. The hull appears more streamlined while also more closely matching the current Niagara at the Erie Maritime Museum. I wish that I had sanded the bottom more as well to get an even lower profile, but hey, I can use that for another brig, I have plenty to experiment on. 

I also took a dab at painting in the name at the stern. None of the other brigs, other than Speedy, come with a name. I did well enough, so I'll let it be, but writing with a brush is not very easy. In the future I'll get a pen to do any more names. It's obscured anyways, but I know it's there and so it makes me happy. 

The last change was the addition of a stern davit and boat. This was very easy, just two thin brass rods and an extra boat from the Constitution. If you've built a Black Seas brig before, there's actually the perfect slots in the stern for these rods to sit in. The standard brig is on the chunkier side of things, which has to do with the ratio of the beam to the length. With the added boat it really helps stretch the ship out and improve the ratio, making the whole boat look a little thinner.

Speaking of boats, I'm also making a launched boat model from a spare 3rd Rate boat. I made some greenstuff pellets and glued them in to give the appearance of crew. The brass rod I have looks a bit thick for the oars, so instead I may use some house painting brush bristles. This will represent the famous moment that Perry rowed out from the severely damaged Lawrence to the Niagara to continue the battle. There are currently no rules to represent this in game, but I have a few ideas bouncing around in my head. 

Finally we have the Queen Charlotte, the other ship-rigged sloop-of-war on the British side. This is the same basic conversion I did not too long ago, with some minor changes. I used a different generic frigate sternplate, made the quarterdeck a smidge smaller, and then sanded the top of the hull to give it a classic sloped look, where the forcastle and quarter deck are raised while the middle of the ship dips in. I know that it's an older look, but it's the classic pirate ship look. At the end of the day, it will be quite subtle once all the masts and rigging are in place. The last things I need to do is scratch build the mainmast and it'll be ready for painting.  

Once that's all done, I'll have the square-rigged ships done and it'll be nothing but schooners and a solitary cutter from here on out. 

-The Space Dinosaur