Has anyone thought about how to put gundecks on the Maiden for warships? I am thinking about building either a Frigate or a Fourth Rate, but they need a gundeck, and between 32 guns for the Frigate, or 56 for the Fourth Rate. (Both are fairly small as far as 18th Century full warships go.) That's a lot of guns!

The player's ship will likely be a Brigantine, a lot fewer guns (a mere 10 in each broadside, and 4 smaller cannon for the stern guns.), but it will also need a gun deck. (Guns do not go on the upper decks, a loose cannon is bad enough below decks! Why do you think pirates are so often shown with peg legs?)

The Auld Grump,Ack! Is that dawn?

*Gubs? My ship is armed with gubs? Shades of Woody Allen, I need to fix that!

You could make a half sized support column for the inside deck (gun deck) and add a second deck between the upper deck and the lower crew deck. However, the side scale of the maiden would make it impossible to fit any miniatures insided those new decks. You'd also have to duplicate the side port holes that currently run on the upper railing and paste them lower on the side walls.

The support for the ratlines might be in the way.

That's about what I was thinking. It might be possible to make them -exactly- tall enough for figures, cutting down the lower supports as well as the upper, and adding a strip between each of the decks to make a bit of room. (Rather than trying to blend it in I would make this strip decorative, most likely black and gold, easy to do, and it was in fact sometimes done.) The result would be about six feet of head space - Ships were cramped! Even then no figures with raised cutlasses would be able to go below decks.

Or I could build some decks that do not stack to actually build the ship, and have only the castles and main deck on the waterline model available for the figures, for everything else pull out the deck models... Not my favorite option, but the easiest and certainly the most workable. And the most likely, dang it!

The steam Maiden was easier in regards to the guns -, I only gave her paired demi-culverin fore and aft. Because she does not rely on wind she is more maneuverable, and not really intended as a warship, but rather an exploration and light merchant vessel. She is likely to be in need of sternchasers more than a broadside.

And I was wrong in regards to the 'no guns on deck', armed merchantmen sometimes did it, they were on deck at least partly so they could be gotten rid of quickly in a storm. Mind you, it was still a bad idea, but better than pirates.

A lot of pirates would leave off chasing a ship with any cannon at all, at least one cargo fluyt managed to chase off a pair of pirate ships with nothing but two cracked four pounders! This is the role that I am assigning to my finished Maiden, an armed merchantman, something for the pirates to plunder, armed only with demi-culverin. (Enough to give the feeling of a fight, not so much that it is likely that the PCs will flee.) I actually knew about armed merchantmen, but my mind was on warships.

And I should mention that at least one amed merchant vessel, a cargo fluyt modified to carry more gun, became famous as a pirate. The Queen Anne's Revenge, Captain Edward Teach commanding, known as Blackbeard.(Cue music.)

The Auld Grump, Full fathom five, my father lies, Of his bones all coral made, those are pearls that were his eyes...