New Small Third Rate 64-gun - Warlord Games (Available to Pre-order)

Agamemnon opens fire on the Ca Ira, 13th March 1795 - Geoff Hunt
Purportedly Nelson's favourite ship was the 64-gun Agamemnon, here seen keeping well clear of the heavier guns aboard the 80-gun Ca Ira as Nelson sailed back and forth across the stern of the French ship raking her into submission.

It gives me great pleasure and a real privilege to be able to present a set of models that have been put together for over five months at the time of writing and which I was really excited about painting and preparing for my own collection, namely the brand spanking new small third-rate model ship of the line from Warlord Games.

When referring to this class of vessel in the classic age of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars we are mainly concerned with the 64-gun ship of the line, which by this period was basically a cut-price 74-gun ship with 24-pounders on the lower deck instead of 32-pounders.

However, as the saying goes 'you get what you pay for', the 64-gun small third-rate was fast becoming obsolete as a ship of the line able to hold its place in the line by the start of the nineteenth century prompting a British naval officer of the time to state:

'There is no difference of opinion respecting 64-gun ships, being struck out of the rates. It is a fact that our naval officers either pray or swear against being appointed to serve on board them.'

Ten guns difference to an uninformed observer doesn't sound a major deficit in power versus the standard or common 74, but that difference was further enhanced by the heavier timbers, wider breadth of the gun deck, enabling the heavier guns to be carried thus more firepower to deliver with a stronger ship able to resist attack from anything smaller, like a 64.

Building these small third rates for the British Royal Navy ceased with the conclusion of the American War of Independence, but the demands of a new war meant that the 64-gunner was still a fundamental part of British naval deployments throughout the latter period with five 64-gun Indiamen, then under construction in 1795 for the East India Company being taken over for use by the Royal Navy and principally for deployment with the Nore Squadron, tasked with its observation of the Dutch Batavian fleet in the Channel and North Sea, and also using similarly small third rates to bulk out its numbers.

The first of my three 'small third-rates' from Warlord Games with resin hull, metal masts, anchors, figureheads, boats and stern galleries, with parts interchangeable with the plastic large third-rate, providing yet more variety to your models, here seen as a British 64-gun model in preparation for my Camperdown collection, but also making a very nice stand in for Agamemnon when I come to play the Ca Ira scenario.

The fact that these small third rates were deployed in squadrons facing enemies often deploying similar sized vessels is seen by where these ships were deployed in numbers, principally against the minor navies such as the Dutch, Danes, Swedes and Russians in the Baltic, or out on the far flung, slightly quieter areas of the British Empire in the Caribbean and East Indies, where they were more likely to encounter French frigate squadrons or the Spanish using the 64-gun ship themselves to police their own colonial holdings.

That said there were four such types at Trafalgar in 1805, three British, (Africa, Polyphemus and Agamemnon) and one Spanish (San Leandro) so if you are a keen collector of models for this and earlier periods you are likely going to want to have a few of these smaller ships in the collection and challenge yourself to handle one of these ships in the Nelsonian manner, by choosing very carefully how and who you decide to fight.

So to give you an idea as to how these models can look I have prepared my three models styled in the look of three of the principle users of small third rates, the British, Spanish and with an eye to my own Camperdown collection, Batavian Dutch.

Back Found - Carlos Parilla Penagos
A Spanish 64-gun ship attached to the Ferrol squadron, indicated by the blue pennant on the foremast passes a British 74 gun ship flying a commodore's pennant from her mizzen 

The Spanish option has already been in battle and featured in our anniversary game of Cape St Vincent along with my scratch built option prepared for my Trafalgar campaign collection.

As the figureheads from the 74-gun plastic option fit the resin hull of the new small third-rate, I opted to use a spare lion of Castile at the bow to emphasise the Spanish look of this particular model.

 

The new small third-rate (right) alongside her larger sister (left)

Here, above and below, you can see the new small third-rate, on the right, alongside the larger plastic 74-gun option, to the left.

I know some folks prefer thicker masts, although personally I don't find any of the previous models a problem, but as you can see the new masts are very sturdy in comparison.

The wider deck of the larger 74-gunner on the left is obvious with the view from the stern galleries.

For my small Dutch third-rate, I opted to have her in the Revolutionary War trim with a figurehead bearing the Batavian coat of arms and the blue trim seen on paintings of the Dutch ships at Camperdown in 1797.

If you want to go for extra detailing, the Dutch squadrons at Camperdown seemed to have gone in for different coloured hulls with some sporting all black hulls and others in a black with white gun-port strakes, something I aim to add with my own Dutch collection of these models.

My three versions of the new small third rates from Warlord

I think these models are a great addition to the current range and for those of us interested in squadron and fleet actions, a must have option in our line of battle.

Warlord Games have big plans for the Black Seas range of model ships with lots of new models announced and planned, with these, the new sloop-corvette, the British second-rate, and models for other nationalities fleets, plus models for the War of 1812 on the Great Lakes, and even galleons for a much earlier period.

 

The new Small Third Rate Squadron, together with the British second-rate and galleons are now available for pre-order on Warlord Games web shop, with a link below to the models featured.

https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/black-seas/products/black-seas-small-3rd-rates-squadron

Next up, I got to play a very interesting set of relatively new rules for a very underplayed area of the horse & musket era of wargaming, which proved great fun and has me planning for some new games - more anon.

JJ