Dînadan:
Found this pic of a comparison between a US Dwarf battleship and the Dreadfleet dwarf ship:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-n9tZi9zU3xU/TrezyUt7SUI/AAAAAAAAAkY/y3bhsyc8JH0/s1600/uncharted+seas+iron+dwarves+dwarfs+battleship+dreadfleet+grimnirs+thunder.JPG
Admiral:
Uncharted Seas miniatures are that big!? That’s too expensive for us to pursue. Collectors can use US ships as mega ships if they want to, but we’ll land somewhere between Man o’ War and Dreadfleet. Quantity and lots of details on small scale rather than size are key here.
Besides, Green Forest Trading Co. produces a few fantasy fleets. They’re not the best quality, but they could at least provide collectors with rival fleets if scale corresponds with lack of details… As could some historical naval ranges for those wanting human triremes or galleons to fight against.
Dînadan:
That’s just the battleship - the big, only one per fleet, flagship type ships. As you can see here:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_LHA-O8oYD3E/TQVw35vj3AI/AAAAAAAAAP4/iW8TuNpTQWA/s1600/iron_dwarf_fleet.jpg
The others are considerably smaller. The cruisers are about half the size and the escorts about half-two thirds of those.
Going by the pic of the fleet boxset on the Spartan site (http://shop.spartangames.co.uk/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=SDW018) I’d estimate the escorts as being 40-50mm long. Anyone know what size the Man o War ships are?
Admiral:
Good! Then our vessels will be compatible with Uncharted Seas ships. Could give a few more customers if one announces about it enough.
No idea as for Man o’ War measurements. Perhaps da Khan could help us out here if we’re lucky?
Grimstonefire:
I shall get my thinking cap on and see what warped things I can come up with.
Generally speaking, do ships in games like these have ramming/ boarding/ close combat capabilities?
I’m leaning towards a regular ship (as opposed to a mechanical creature), but clearly a bit daemonic/ twisted. So its a good question for my designs. 
Grimstonefire:
Also, back in the Nemesis campaign I wrote a lot about the Hammer of Hashut, a semi submersible troop carrier with many rocket batteries down the sides. That might be fun for someone to have a go at.
I imagined something very low and flat in the water with hatches that come up to reveal the rockets. All black iron to be a ghost ship at night.
Dînadan:
I shall get my thinking cap on and see what warped things I can come up with.US does, don't know about Man o War, but considering the death rollers (or whatever they're called) have spiked rolling pins on the bow I'd expect so. Generally don't think of it like a WW2 naval combat, but closer to classical era naval combat with guns.
Generally speaking, do ships in games like these have ramming/ boarding/ close combat capabilities?
I'm leaning towards a regular ship (as opposed to a mechanical creature), but clearly a bit daemonic/ twisted. So its a good question for my designs. ;)
Grimstonefire
Admiral:
@Grimstonefire: Boarding and ramming (and poison gasing, in the case of Man o’ War Skaven) are always an important part of naval rules systems so far as I understand. Likewise, fire and putting out fires are usually also an important bit. So by all means go for close quarters if you like to! That can include anything from grappling guns to corvus boarding bridges and outright floating siege towers or drill ships. As for anti-boarding tricks, the Koreans used spiked, armoured turtle ships when dealing with the Japanese navy at the end of the 16th century, in case it’s of any inspirational value.
Your idea for the ship sounds great! I look forward to see what you come up with.
That rocket ghost ship is a very good idea (do you have a link to the writings?) and could sure be done if someone is inspired by a good way to pull off such a sculpt. I’ll think about it, but don’t hesitate to attempt that vessel too, beside your main ship, should you wish to! The more, the merrier, and the more bizarre and exotic, the better.
Fuggit Khan:
No idea as for Man o' War measurements. Perhaps da Khan could help us out here if we're lucky?The Battlebarge hull lengths are about 55mm long...I will try to take some comparison/size pics and post them here next week.
Admiral
Admiral:
Thanks! That’s good to know for sure. Since cruisers and capital ships will be the most interesting vessels to sculpt for everyone involved, I’ve started with the escorts. For the small ships, I believe a multi-part kit to be unnecessary and quite hard to pull off for a raw amateur.
These are the small ships planned out to be in the escort group and mould (one of each, green are started sculpts, red are sculpts to be started):
Escorts
Slave galley with ram
Demolition ship
Support vessel*
Fire cannon ship
Chained fire demon ship with altar and idol
Buzzsaw ship?
Torpedo ship?
Rocket ship?
_______________________________
* The tugboat/craneboat/workboat/trawler/cargo ship/support vessel will have a small cannon in the fore, and a crane with a diving bell at its aft. Just chop off the diving bell if you want to leave it off. Versatile for convoy shipping scenarios and the like, and can work as a weak emergency warship thanks to the cannon. After all, a navy needs mercantile and civilian shipping to protect, and it would be a shame to leave it out.
I’m not sure about the rocket ship or torpedo ship. The cruisers and capital ships (might end up as one kit and mould, we’ll see) are bound to have rockets. Do you wish a rocket artillery ship and/or a torpedo ship in the escort kit, or are they redundant? The more minis in a mould, the costlier the kit.
Also, do you want to see a buzzsaw ship?
I’ll post pictures of all WIP sculpts when the demolition ship is finished.
Jackswift:
I like the ideas I am seeing so far. Away for a bit with limited access so I’ll chime in when I have more bandwidth.
Admiral, having you sculpture detail on built models sounds like a great plan. I’ll work up some sketch ideas.
Grimstonefire:
So I’ve quickly designed my ship on paper, probably not my first as I want to try something daemonic.
It’s basically a steam paddler with a big hammer and a suitable level of steampunk.
My idea for other ships; a triple hull catamaran, with steam paddles inbetween and twin decks of gun batteries.
A ship that’s basically built around a huge triple fire hellcannon, very much daemonic.
Finally the hammer of hashut already mentioned.
That’s probably all I’ll have motivation for.
Another crazy idea was a “ship” built on the back of a daemon or shoulders of a giant etc, to show the slaving theme.
Admiral:
@Jackswift: Looking forward to it! :cheers
@Grimstonefire: Brilliant brainstorming results. :cheers
Both weird and exotic, and befitting! I particularly like your eye for the daemonic aspect, since that is important to include in some of the ship classes. I think we’ll do the small escorts I’m sculpting now in one mould, and your vessels in two moulds, with some cruiser and battleship size sculpts from me and Jackswift thrown in to round it out. After that, we could attempt an oceanic ziggurat and similar weird stuff if we like to.
I like very much the ideas you’ve shared, and hope to see most or even all of them come to fruition. Don’t hesitate to share sketches and WIP sculpts whenever you feel like it. It’ll certainly be a bizarre and varied range of ships we’ll put out.
Besides, shall we post all our sculpting updates here, in our own logs separately, or open a new project logs common to all involved?
Grimstonefire:
I think a new project thread in hobby.
Thinking about the giant thing, it might be better to have two giants towing something. That would be a great one to do for something that wouldn’t obviously move efficiently on it’s own. Like a floating ziggurat.
Reminds me of the black ark
Edit.
I’m thinking 5cm long for all of my ships, is that ok?
Admiral:
That’s an excellent idea. Please tell, later on, if you even would be interested in sculpting a ziggurat towed by giants or shackled demons. We all know you’d make a great job of it!
5 cm is a good length. Will launch a common project thread for all involved contributors when I have finished the demolition ship tomorrow.
Dînadan:
I think 5cm is a good length. Escorts/small ships should be 3-4cm, cruisers/medium 5-6cm and battleships/large 7+cm. not counting decorations, figureheads, etc, just main hull of course. This is just a rough guideline, so there should be some wiggle room, eg light cruisers and heavy escorts would be in the 4-5cm range and heavy cruisers the 6-7cm range.
As I posted earlier, as a rule of thumb maybe try to keep tiny ships such as tugs fitting on a 25mm base, small ships on a cavalry base, medium on a monstrous cavalry base and large on a chariot base. And don’t try to fill up the base - leave a gap around the edges (think the bases for Dreadfleet ships); if it fills up a base it should belong to the next size category. And by this I don’t mean having a base is mandatory, just that using them for size will help keep things in proportion
Admiral:
@Dînadan: It might be that we’ll come somewhat close to that template, but I assure you this is all to random for anyone to expect us to check with bases… 
Dînadan:
@Dînadan: It might be that we'll come somewhat close to that template, but I assure you this is all to random for anyone to expect us to check with bases... ;P*cracks whip* that's rebel talk - obviously the shipyard taskmasters are slipping :hat
Admiral
Admiral:
We’re slipping ships down the slipway faster than you can crack a whip, I’ll inform you of that!
Fuggit Khan:
Some Man O’ War pics for size references…the Battlebarge hulls are 53mm in length. And as you can see, the Hull Destroyers are roughly the same length…showing that even a smaller hulled ship can still be large in terms of overall dimensions
:hat off
