1/2000 Naval - updates and ponderings

Over the preceding years I have accumulated a large 1/2000 scale scratchbuilt WW1 and interwar era naval collection. In this scale models are rather easy to produce to a reasonable standard (nothing like the 1/2400 GHQ ships, for example, but good enough).

While I occasionally dabble in scale modelling, the space even a 1/700 scale ship requires is huge compared to a 1/2000 scale fleet, so in the near future I hope I will be able to return to this project.

First I have to review the state of the existing ships and make minor updates and reparations, the occasional filling, sanding, replacing masts. I expect this task to last for a while, but I can safely bring out rather large fleets if I want to play with them.

Next up my goal is to unify each fleet's paint jobs as I just painted them in colours I liked, but perhaps they would look better with universal colours across each faction.

I also stockpiled on 2mm plasticard and aim to create 3d sea bases for each ship instead of just painting the base blue.

In the meantime I aim to expand the collection, mostly by focusing on the following vessels:

Great Britain

- Iron Duke, QE and Revenge classes (along with the respective battlecruisers)

France

- Bretagne class

- the single ship class pre-dreadnoughts

Japan

- updated Fuso and Nagato classes in their interwar outfit

I think I'll start with the British ships and see where I can get from there.

Project Napoleon and a Basing Conundrum

If there is a single period that lends itself to the 'grand manner' type of game, it is the times of Napoleon. I've had large and mostly complete armies in 1/72 for the period and enjoyed playing with them before I traded them off. I also refought some historical battles using makeshift 2mm match stick armies, and the virtual tabletop.

Now I'm at a point where I should start rebuilding my collection, this time in 6mm. Commission Figurines are the perfect choice for me as I can get loads of figures on the cheap and they are rather easy to paint.

My dilemma is that I already have about a thousand Commission Figurines troopers based for my SYW ImagiNations, on 75x25mm bases, and would like to be able to use them for Napoleonics as well. In this scale a dude in a bright uniform and a bicorne could be early Spanish, 1806 Saxon etc., similarly a dude in a bicorne and a blue uniform could be Revwar French, 1806 Prussian, the list goes on. 

While the more linear warfare of the SYW period favours narrow bases, for Napoleonics I'd like to perhaps increase the scale and pack my bases more thickly, so I was thinking about 60x30mm bases with infantry in 3x8 ranks and cavalry in 2x5 ranks. This of course would mean that the two collections cannot be mixed. I would also like to get some Ottomans, which could be used for both periods, so to have an army in both basing styles would mean doubling the figure count. And then Napoleonic Austrians could be used for the 1848-49 Hungarian war as well, meaning I only have to build the Hungarians and Russians...

So this is where I'm at now, planning to make a large-ish purchase in the near future with Walt at Commission F., but kind of at odds with the basing style. In the end I might just go with 75x25mm for the Napoleonics as well and double up the bases when needed. Blücher for example uses a 'stock' unit base size of 75x50mm. What I most certainly will not do is rebase my SYW figures.

This then raises the question whether I'll have enough table space to field units of that size as I currently only own a 110x70cm coffee table and I worry that the unit footprint would be too great.

Numbers, numbers...