Brainstorming the future of SoG

[Diamondback]

At this point, I think we have enough data that we can start projecting out benchmarks for future reprints and somewhat new sets.

we know...
1. Ares requires six names per sculpt, by hook or crook.
2. Ares prefers to have at least one reflag paint scheme whenever possible. Single reflag ship may not be enough (see 1793-1802 HMS Commerce de Marseilles, a captured Ocean, though this may also be because CdM was never truly recommissioned as a fighting ship but only used in ancillary duties usually reserved to hulks).
3. We can expect to see downgraded versions of Special sculpts in regular releases, or Specials as upgraded versions of regular. (The CAD file they're using for ALL British First Rates is HMS Victory.)
4. Reprint sets we can expect to see one carry-over, and only two new offerings.

That said, here's some brainstorming about possible future sets... I'm going to focus mainly on the classes with less reprint potential, I'll work up to the bigger populations later.

Wave 2 British First Rate: (note, I'm including two dimensionally near-identical Second Rates that were built as "let's build another Victory, but leave some guns ashore")
2-B: SGN108D 1756 HMS Royal George 100/1810 HMS Boyne 98, SGN108E 1810 HMS Impregnable 98-104/1811 HMS Union 98
left for 2-C: 1810 HMS Queen Charlotte

Wave 2 Ocean 110: We have five ships remaining, plus two of a cut-down variant. Despite the Action of 5 Nov 1813, I would not expect to see 1811 Imperial for a while due to name confusion. I'm pairing one Commerce de Paris 110 with each of these reprint Oceans, as otherwise I don't expect to see 'em.
2-B: SGN106D Wagram/Commerce de Paris, SGN106E Montebello/Duc d'Angouleme
left for 2-C: 1811-14, briefly '15 Imperial/1814-15, 15-25 Royal Louis

"Wave X" USS Constitution downgraded sculpt: Here we have a problem. Three Humphreys 44's, one of which is Off The Table from being a Special. One reflag, two closely-related ships. I'd suggest pairing each 44 with a 38, and doing HMS President as a single-side-only. Speaking solely for myself I would not be comfortable with having Chesapeake share this sculpt
Wave X: SGN1xxA USS United States/USS Congress, SGN1xxB USS President/USS Constellation, SGN1xxC HMS President single-side

I'll toss up more later as I develop it, but I could easily see a combined Dutch/Spanish "quick launch" using reprints--the Spanish and Dutch had 5 Temeraires each, and the Dutch had seven members of the Hebe family-tree. Do two double-sides each of Spanish Temeraire, Dutch Temeraire and Dutch Hebe/Virginie/Hortense/Pallas and you're just left coming up with a reprint Spanish frigate.

[csadn]

Speaking solely for myself I would not be comfortable with having Chesapeake share this sculpt

"Comfortable", hell -- Josiah Fox so badly mangled Humphreys's design (due to the mutual antagonism of the two), it shouldn't be counted as a "Humphreys" design.

[Diamondback]

Chris, I don't--that ship is screwed, not having any sisters, not even being able to pass for anything else, and it's only Side B/sculpt-share potential is itself under RN flag. After that disaster, Fox shoulda been deported, I say... or tried for sabotage and treason.

[Nightmoss]

I don't disagree with anything you're proposing (besides I have no expertise in any AoS historical data to refute anything you've laid out).

That being said, just for the Hell of it I'm going to suggest that Ares in nine months time (or less) is going to propose another Kickstarter project that is wholly focused on the Golden Age of Piracy, 1650's to the 1730's!!!

Remember this is brainstorming, which means it doesn't have to be right or wrong.

[Coog]

Here's my list for a War of 1812 wave:

Four ships for Wave X:

British 38-gun frigate - perhaps Lively class...or Leda using Hebe model which may also work for Lively.

British 18-gun brig - Cruizer class...a must

US 38-gun frigate - Congress and Constellation...B side of card for earlier armaments.

US 18-gun sloop - Wasp and Hornet...possibly the later 1813 sloops instead but i would prefer the early ones


Other considerations:

President could have a B side for USS Guerriere...Was available late during the war but was unable to get to sea because of a blockade but could be a "what if" choice. She was later used as Decatur's flagship for the Second Barbary War.

Would love to see Essex but as it could only be used with a B side of her card as her earlier 12-pounder frigate armament, I doubt we'll see her.

Baltimore privateer schooner.

HMS Endymion...British 24-pounder frigate to match up with the American 44's

Doubtful - Chesapeake with B side Philadelphia...Philadelphia, like Chesapeake, was smaller than Constellation and Congress and could possibly share a sculpt.

[David Manley]

The US 38 sculpt could be suitably generic to allow Constellation, Chesapeake and Congress and would satisfy the vast majority of wargamers I think. The differential in hull length between Congress and Chesapeake would be about 4mm and the overall appearance is pretty close, so a hybrid model pitched between the two in length would work.

How does the "SGN1xxA USS United States/USS Congress" idea work? Two ships in a pack? If so I'm not sure thats a good idea.

[Diamondback]

I'd be reluctant about using the Humphreys sculpt for Guerriere... mostly because I havent been able to find any design data about Guerriere beyond basic dimensions yet. (That "Tomcat vs. Super Flanker" thing again.)

As for Chesapeake as Philadelphia, here again it's not just size but shape too--IF Philadelphia relates to Chesapeake as the Humphreys 38's (Congress and Constellation) do to the 44's as a true "slightly smaller version" it might work, but the problem is still one of needing at least four different names to go on double-sided ship cards. Much as I'd like a unique sculpt for every class, the tossing of almost all the British First Rates into one bucket tells us it ain't gonna happen--and we can bet that the only way we'll see true One-Offs is if they have enough going for 'em to warrant a Special Pack. I don't have insider data, this is just looking at Waves 1 and 2 and knowing that Ares needs to wring the most out of every tooling dollar they can while balancing the opposing demands of the Accurate Miniature First folks like me and the "who cares about a perfect mini, I just want new stuff to play the game" tribe.

David, we've seen that Ares thinks nothing of offering two different cards for wildly different ships with the same miniature--and IF (operative word) I understand things right there's less difference between a Humphreys 44 and a Humphreys 38 than between HMS Hibernia and the Umpires or Victory. (Hibernia was an 11' stretch from Ville de Paris, which in turn IIRC was a bit bigger than any of the 1745 Establishment derivatives.) I figured a Side A Humphreys 44/Side B Humphreys 38 or a Side A Ocean/Side B Commerce de Paris would work about the same as the SGN108 pack that has Hibernia as Side B, same mini but with different stats on opposite sides of card and log. Not saying it's something I'd be totally gaga about, just saying it's something I could see them doing to try to make a full Wave.

[David Manley]

Personally I could see a "War of 1812" special series working, recycling the (soon to be) existing Constitution and Hebe sculpts with 4 new sculpts covering the US and RN 18 gunners, Endymion and a generic US 38

[Diamondback]

At least Endymion (which has a decent-size class) and the various Brit 18s, whether ship- or brig-rig, have a large population both initial run and reprints, though. OTOH, the early USN is a fracking PITA with all its one-offs...

[David Manley]

Yes, and the Americans have "American Appeal", which would stand them in good stead.

[Naharaht]

If Ares produce a model of Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge, it could also be used in its original form as the Concord, a British merchant ship built in 1710 or as the French slave ship La Concorde de Nantes, which it became after it was captured by the French in 1711.

Some sources describe Concord as a 'frigate' but the Royal Navy did not have a frigate named Concord in 1710 in any list I could find on the internet.

I suspect that many other pirate vessels will be capable of 'doubling' as merchantmen, sloops or brigs.

[David Manley]

If they did go down the "classic" pirate route (and I agree both that it would be a fun direction to go in with lots of options for campaigns and special rules, and also with the thought about doubling) I would think that a scale change would be in order, since we'd be looking at generally smaller ships being the norm. 1/600 might be a good scale to go for.

[Naharaht]

Don't you want them to be compatible with the current ships, David, so that they could be used as merchantmen?

[Пилот]

Don't you want them to be compatible with the current ships, David, so that they could be used as merchantmen?

Compatible merchant ships could be very useful. One of two sculpts, but with more cards than usual. It could be included in Wave 3 or 4. Same with the pirates.

Only, I'm not sure about playability of expansion SoG the Pirates - well armed fast ship is chasing not-well armed slow ship, catches and plunders her, and then is chased by fleet of even better armed ships. Or something like that. There were no massive actions with well matched opponents.

Ceterum censeo, it would be nice to Kickstart Oars of Glory, ancient naval battles.

[David Manley]

Only if the designs are right. If they were to be doing classical early 18th century designs then they's be rather different and hence not really compatible.

[David Manley]

There were no massive actions with well matched opponents.

But plenty of pirate versus government sloop actions, intercepting escorted merchantmen, government attacks on pirate havens etc. if the scale of the game was adjusted it could be a really fun development.

[KeithS]

But plenty of pirate versus government sloop actions, intercepting escorted merchantmen, government attacks on pirate havens etc. if the scale of the game was adjusted it could be a really fun development.

Maybe a small scale action, say on a single mat with lots of small islands and shoals with a focus on manoeuvring. One ship making a run for an exit point and the other trying to get shots in to stop then, or possibly two ships chasing trying to corner another.

[David Manley]

Indeed, and I've played many games like this with my PP 1/450 stuff. Often characterised by lots of ham acting and a great deal of role play, with interesting scenarios and often entertaining victory conditions

[DeRuyter]

Personally I could see a "War of 1812" special series working, recycling the (soon to be) existing Constitution and Hebe sculpts with 4 new sculpts covering the US and RN 18 gunners, Endymion and a generic US 38

Can't forget the US brig 20s - Lawrence side A and Niagara B. Maybe as side B on a Cruzier class? Not sure if that is workable, notable difference in 15mm scale anyway.

[Diamondback]

Rechecked the Osprey volumes on American frigates, and have some revision to do...

Turns out Philadelphia was another Fox design, not as much of a POS as Chesapeake but still closely related. And after Humphreys was forced into retirement by age, his successor Doughty when given a free hand on building two new frigates chose to make Guerriere and Java repeat Humphreys 44's with little modification. All of the five 32's were one-offs, though. The Revolutionary Navy was intended to be built to standard designs, but since plans weren't getting to the yards fast enough the yards went and did their own thing trying to make deadline.

So, revising the previous...
Humphreys/Doughty 44: Constitution (unlikely since it's a Special), President, United States, Guerriere, Java (I would pair them by closest paint matches myself), single-side HMS President. Going by the eleven-foot length difference (~1/8" of model), I'd suspect the two Humphreys 38's could share a model with their bigger sisters.

Fox "44": Chesapeake, Philadelphia (probably Side A/B), single-side HMS Chesapeake, single-side Tripolitan-held Philadelphia.

[Coog]

I'm not sure about using the same model for the US 44's and 38's. Looking at my 1/1200 ghq's, the 44's definately look bigger than the 38's although the model length is no more than the 1/8th" you stated and the only had a beam that was about 2' more in actual size.