There was a moment of high drama in my study the other week. I was sitting in my comfy chair with a book, my wife was sitting at my computer desk, and I looked up and noticed that my 2 year old son was holding HMS Naiad, which I had moved to centre stage on my modelling desk so I could begin rigging it later that afternoon. Time slowed down. My wife tried to grab the ship, but I called that effort off when I saw that a tug of war had started. We instead tried gently asking him to put the ship down. That worked a treat. Alistair opened his hand and the ship fell and exploded on the floor. I don’t know where the spritsail went, which is odd because I have a wooden floor, but I raided another set of sails for a replacement. Several weeks later I am fairly proud to present two more completed frigates, HMS Naiad and La Pomone.
La Pomone and HMS Naiad
That means I now have four ships, so I can’t run Trafalgar. But there are plenty of actions that were that small – which is one of the reasons that I went with frigates.
The ships I’ve finished so far
I have also bought and painted some of the Langton’s shore installations (a Martello tower, a signal station, and a shore battery) which, together with the ships’ boats that came with them, should make for some fun scenarios.
The Langton shore battery, signal station, and Martello tower
Blurry shot of my ships’ boats
Naiad lands a Shore Party
Small Sagas 
Hmmm..and I have a Brit 74, and one each of Spanish 34, 74 and 112. We should get them together sometime soon…..but which rules?
Hopefully not a rules set that puts the 112 in the same action as a frigate! I’ve yet to run a beauty parade of rules sets, but the few games I had at Fairfield have persuaded me that either written orders or simultaneous movement are something of a ‘must’, to prevent oddities. With a small number of ships on the table, I would want the rules to handle little details like the single shot from a triple grape-shotted howitzer that decided the Battle of Lissa.
use langtons signal close action quick play… they work very well.
Thanks, I have played those and they weren’t too bad. I have Trafalgar, Kiss Me Hardy, and an old school set called Form Line of Battle to go through. I’m after something that works well for small ship actions like the Battle of Lissa.
i have the same issues with my 3 year old boy,i dont blame him really because at 3 my toy soldiers look no different than his toy soldiers haha! i have to keep mine stored in aquariums and various displays on anything he cant reach.thankfully i thought of the empty aquarium for storage/display/transport before he decided to go for my pike and shot minis because i use those metal pointy ones.on another note, good work on your minis and thanks for posting them for my own inspiration! hopefully our kids gain interest in our hobby in the next few years when they can start to appreciate it.