With storage for gaming miniatures becoming more and more problematic for me. There just isn’t much room to add in another collection of any type or era. Some new rules downloaded rules, sure. A few figs to round out an era certainly, if they can squeeze into a storage box that is already in use. But just to bring an new game or era into the mix…not so much…
Wanting to add in a fleet for age of sail meant being creative and being small. The ships would have be generic, doing double, triple and more duty. They would also have to get on the table quickly as months to build and paint models just isn’t that appealing anymore. Looking around I elected to steal an idea from Steve Lowry and his use of scratch built homemade vessels for his age of sail fleet with a bit of a twist to shorten the time from concept to deployment. I am also not one to carve ships out of wood as my knife skills are far less than what would be required to both make a nice model and keep all body parts attached.
I picked up some plastic board-game replacement parts online awhile ago from Amazon (above) and this formed the basis of my efforts. I have also added some more variety picking up some additional ships from the online retailer, The Game Crafter (below) who has an extensive variety of board game parts available for purchase .
We used the batch from Amazon at a Semi Regular Retirees Game in August of 2025 doing the Battle of The Nile with Limeys and Slimeys rules and they did adequate service.
Taking some advice from Kurt Linke who played in that game and a stack of 3D printed bases that he generously provided.
The black plastic ships were left in their original unpainted color with only the sails being done by the used of markers and paint pens. Some touch up to the masts and cross pieces and they are pretty well good to go.
The bases were sprayed with a can of mat blue paint I picked up at the hardware store.
I am happy to announce that the project is well underway at the Florissant Shipyards with the first of the vessels coming down the ways. Thanks also to Pat Lewis for his suggestion on labeling the bases which will make things look and work a whole lot better. The bases will have some magnetic attractive material added beneath them and then placed into a storage box with magnetic roll from Michaels Craft Store. Both of which I have on hand. With the number of ships I was able to purchase from the Game Crafter at a reasonable price I will have plenty to create wrecks and fire ships as well. This will all be still easy to store in a flat scrap paper crafting box with the main fleet. The ship data cards will be created with the help of Patrick Connaughton and his updated work on Limeys & Slimeys.
Thanks to Kurt Linke, Pat Lewis, Steve Lowry and Patrick Connaughton for their assistance in this project. Their ideas and material support are all appreciated. It is truly a wonderful gaming community that we have here in the St. Louis Metro area and we should all be proud to be a part of it.
