War of 1812 Naval Wagaming

  While gaming Plattsburgh, we were talking about how nice it would be to have the naval battle being played at the same time. 

   I have gamed Napoleonic ship games extensively with my dad when I was a kid. We would play Trafalgar with ships that were around 1:2000 scale. 

  I want to make one scale of ships to play Lake Ontario, Lake Plattsburgh, Lake Erie and small ocean battles. Later on I would also like to do large Napoleonic ocean battles (maybe at 1:900).

  I found several manufacturers of different scales, but in the end, I like building things, more than I like painting. Also, I didn't want to spend a fortune. 

  I found the perfect solution; The War Artizan. His ships are cardstock and easily found materials. He has ships scaled for 1:300 for Lake Erie, plus a line of 1:600 and 1:900 Napoleonic ships (including American heavy frigates). I bought his complete 1812 and Napoleonic range for $75 Canadian. That's for around 40 ships with all the variants, from gunboats to a first rate line ship. His service was super speedy, in a few hours I had the invoice, had paid him and had all the files. 

And the finished products look awesome. I don't plan on making bases for mine, as I don't like the look. The scene below is what I am striving for. 

http://www.warartisan.com

I wanted one universal scale for my ships, and there are very few line ships in these battles. I tried shrinking down the sloops and gunboats to 1:600 but it was redicilously small, so instead I am increasing the 36 gun to 100 gun ships to 1:300; this makes the HMS St. Lawrence (which I'm making from modifying HMS Victory truly enormous; around 8 inches long without rigging. I will post photos as I work on them. I'm starting with Lake Ontario for 1814; full of "What Ifs", and a strange mix of super huge and super small warships. 

I will be making a list of all manufacturers for War of 1812 ships and rule sets coming up.