Today instead of sharing a battle report I'd like to show you another project I am currently working on alongside my Republican Romans. I am also looking forward to playing Poseidon's Warriors which involves Ancient Trireme naval battles. This book can be found on the Osprey publishing website. Amazon also has it, which is where I bought up my copy.
The rulebook, and a life sized replica of a Trireme.
I will be setting up a mixture of Classical Greek Trireme in one fleet, and then the opposing fleet will be made up of Phoenician Trireme. The sailors from Greeks and Phoenicia were professional at their jobs and they were often foes in naval combat and trade, so I therefore felt they would make for two good teams to build the Trireme around.
For those of you interested, Xyston has made a number of factions for it's 1:600 scale Trireme. You can get classical Greek, Phoenicia, Carthage, Roman, and Hellenistic versions of Trireme, Quinquereme, Heptereme, Hemiolia, Transport ships.. and even siege tower equipped vessels for attacking nations like Rhodos! Needless to say, they made a lot of boats!
I buy mine on eBay when I find deals for them and only currently plan to stick to the Greek and Phoenician boats, but for those of you who are interested, you can see all of Xyston's range here on Xyston's webpage.
Anyways! Here is my gathering of pieces, assembling of and initial painting of the Xyston Greek Trireme and my thoughts.
Basing
To start, I had to choose what sort of Bases I wanted to use. Poseidon's Warriors Rulebook had many homemade examples , as did the internet. It is not hard to make bases but that also means I need the right tools and supplies to make them, and I am the kind of person who will buy something already made if I can just to speed up the process of getting a project done.
None of my longer bases at home would do, so I measured the average length of the Trireme that Xyston makes.. it's under 70 mm long and so I decided that Citadel's 70x25mm oval bases would do.
However, the local model game store I often frequent did not even sell these. Quite surprising since these are commonly seen used with Warhammer 40K Space Marine Motorbikes or whatever they are. Luckily Reaper miniatures sells a big pack of the exact same thing. I paid $6 for triple the amount of bases that Citadel sells.
Preparing the Pieces
The main body of the boat on a base. No fiddly little parts. I shaved off any mold lines or weird spots that I could see and got right into it.
Here are two sails of different sizes, and the two upper sides that make up a Trireme.
The Oars for both sides.
Mast pieces, and rolled up sails. Also the steering oars for the back of the boats.
So there are all the pieces. Nothing too small I think - easy to put together, no instructions needed. Plenty of choices for building this Trireme. You can build them with full sails, rolled up sails, one main mast, or no sails or masts at all!
I immediately noticed a flaw with their masts. The bent piece of metal there is their original mast piece. It is made of that old, cheap metal that some miniature spears are made of. They bend like nobody's business and can even break in half. Worse than plastic, even! So I replaced the masts in this with more durable, stronger wire spears (or tried to as you will soon see !).
I always wash my models with neutral dish soup in warm water and scrap the heck out of the metal ones. There is often molding residue left over that primer cannot seem to cover. Many times on my old metal models edges and sharp points lose their paint and the metal sticks out. When that happens I feel frustrated because I put a lot of effort into painting stuff!
So I throw all the pieces into an empty yogurt container, wash them, then scrub them with an old tooth brush then let everything dry, as seen above.
Gluing the Ship Together
After all is dried I begin to assemble the pieces. I always use some of the "best" super glue out there. By "best" I mean the ones that state they're the world's best (Like Gorilla Glue here) or whatever Citadel or Gamesworkshop has going. Both brands get the job done most of the time. Other times no matter what I use they all fail and much cursing follows.
Next we glue on the left and right sides, I guess where the windows or rowers would be. You'll notice that I glued the main piece on slightly off centre...oops!
Next the wire spear mast. I have lots of wire spears that are pike length, so I just cut them from the non pointy end and try to match Xyston's original mast length. Glue that sucker on. There are tiny holes that are drilled in two spots of these Trireme's bodies that are meant for builders to stick the masts in. I enlarged them a little with a small hand drill because the original one's were not deep enough.
I get impatient, so I let modelling tools hold things for me while I go do other things.
There she blows! I let this one set for a good few hours before attempting the sails.
To be honest, the wirespear metal simply would not adhere well to the Trireme metal. Sometimes super glue doesn't connect two different alloys together, and the damn things will not set for the longest time. Or at all!
Next go on the steering oars in the back.. Ah, I guess they're called rudders. Might be nice if I use the right terms.
I broke one of the rudder's upper piece off, the part where a guy would be steering them, I think. It was made of the same useless metal the original masts were. No big deal. It is a tiny piece that will not be that noticeable. 
Next I put on the sails. I was really dumbfounded because the glue on the sails set to the mast almost immediately! What gives? The mast at the bottom wouldn't stick in the boat for the life of it, but the sail and wire spear stuck together like a kid hugging their teddy bear.
And I held it in place again with the extremely overpriced Citadel mold line remover.
So... you remember when I said kids hold on to teddy bears? That comparison was true for the wires spear mast - kids also drop the teddy bears when they find something else exciting and forget about their little toys almost immediately. The wirespear would not hold the weight of the Trireme sail. The original mast metal was also pathetically weak.. so I went to the next strongest thing I could find. Toothpicks.
Yes, toothpicks. They are easy to snap in half and have less durability than the wirespears. BUT, they stuck in the metal and to the sails like nobody's business since it's wood on metal, and then they were strong enough to hold up the sail at the same time. Now it looks like a Trireme. The extra girth the toothpicks have don't really offset the model's scale all that much I think!
Next was the front sail. To be honest, I did not do all of this immediately. I waited a full 12 hours for the mast to set, before setting in the big sail. Then I went to bed, and in the morning another 12 hours later, I put in the front sail tooth pick mast.. and waited another 12 hours. This was just so everything would set properly.
Next I put up the front sail. And waited another 12 hours.
Priming and Painting
I primed her up after all was dry. I used some car primer from Duplicolor, the stuff that goes on thin and you can sand it. It stays on like nobody's business and puts anything Citadel puts out to shame.
And I've started painting to this level. Base coats are basically done but I need to do some touch ups before washing. I'm going with a darker - medium tone of wood for the oars and the bases, and I've decided to go with a green and ocre pattern on my first Trireme. Sails are rakarth flesh and will be much more bright after highlighting and layering the sucker.
The only bad thing about painting this is the weight! Damn this boat is heavy! All the metal pieces are quite heavy for their size, so the whole thing together weighs a lot. Way more than any 28mm human sized figure I've painted.
I also need to freehand some eye's on this fish. The most unique thing about these boats was that they did in fact often resemble some sort of sea monster or a fish, and I will paint mine in a similar matter.
And that's part one of building a Xyston Trireme. For preparation and assembly I'd say this is probably a beginner to intermediate level assembly job. They are really, really easy to put together until you get to the masts. The sails are metal, and heavy, so you really, really do need some strength to hold them up if you use sails! If you use the masts that come with the set, I am afraid your sails will bend and break relatively quickly.
Here's some of the photos I found online to assist with assembly ideas. There's tons of literature and photos on how these things looked, so it is easy to set up a certain era!
You do not have to use the sails, or the masts at all Or you can add them with the sails rolled up. The above photos and images show replicas and drawings in all sorts and forms. Trireme's went into battle by taking down their sails and masts to gain more rowing speed when ramming, and also to avoid grappling hooks from enemy vessels.. so the next few I do up may not even have masts or sails, which is perfectly fine. The ship's do look much more grand when you do add the full kit to the set I think, though they wouldn't have their sails out and blowing when they were trying to ram each other!
Also, it seems many Trireme's only made use of a single mast. I think I will do a combination of mast and no mast boats just to have a nice variation in the navy.
That's it for now. Part 2 will have more painting and the final work, including how i plan to make water and waves beneath these vessels!
Thanks for reading!
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