What SCALE & WHICH MANUFACTURER?

Ok well there are three major scales. The most popular to our knowledge is 1/1200th and there are some great manufacturers out there, but we also have 1/2400th and 1/300th. The one thing about Ancient Naval is that it is not expensive.

If you want to play the Battle of Salamis or other big fleet battles with hundreds of ships 1/2400th scale is preferable however there were many historical small actions involving 20 ships or less per side and you may prefer 1/1200th scale (and then end up spending your nights painting up hundreds of ships anyways) which provide greater detail and are individually more attractive on the tabletop.

A smaller range comes in 1/300th (and potentially 10mm as well). These ships are ideal if you want to represent not only ramming but boarding actions. It can also be handy when combining land and sea actions (not uncommon in the ancient world). Additionally some vessels are available in 15mm, but these are not exactly cheap (or small) - but great, if not essential for some marine raiding parties/assault re-fights (and I'm going back as fat as 1800 BC here).

The other thing we will be looking into is terrain, not so much the sea but often battle took place pretty close to land and occasionally harbours & towns. We also need to look at shoals, sandbanks, rocks and small islands.

Currently we are trying out Tumbling Dice & Irregular Miniatures' ships in 1/2400th scale with Ospreys Poseidon's Warriors 'big fleet' rules. We'll let you know how we get on....

Other manufacturers of note are obviously Langton Miniatures (who created the finest ship miniatures in 1/1200 scale) but also Irregular Miniatures who do an interesting Dark Age/Medieval pack and now 1/2400 scale Greek vessels.