Hi All. New guy here. I have been looking at doing RC combat for years (since I was a young teenager). Now that I am an adult with means, I think it might be time to give it a try. So, a couple of questions: I see that SCRAP is nearyby-ish. Are there any other Central/Southern California groups? The reason that I ask is that SCRAP is a bit far from me, and the ruleset only allows completed vessels (which may or may not be a problem, depends on what I want to build). A little background on me, I am a 30-something husband and father and I work as a computer engineer all over Southern CA. I have a keen interest in the ships of the more marginal navies from WWI and WWII as well as the never-weres (not the pie-in-the-sky ones, but the ones that were approved or seriously considered). My main navies of interest are Russian, French (I don't know why), and a little bit of Italian. I am looking forward to talking with you all and learning from your experiences. Thanks! Ryan W.
Hi Ryan, welcome aboard! There are four major clubs in California. For Fast Gun, there's SCRAP and Cal-Neva Combat Club (Sacramento and Reno area). For Big Gun, there's the Western Warship Combat Club (in San Jose) and the South Coast Battle Group, in LA. The SCBG is closer to you than the WWCC, but is not active. They imploded years ago, and haven't really recovered from that. I would recommend that you look into the WWCC. We have regular monthly battles, plus a few huge multi-day events that draw visitors from as far away as Washington and Oregon. Some of our regular battlers travel from Sacramento, and while I was at college I drove even further. See if you can come to our first battle of the season, the 2011 Maker Faire. The Maker Faire battle is a two-day festival of geeks and inventors in Silicon Valley. The entire club gets together and builds a portable pond, and we hold battles every hour on the hour from morning 'til night in front of thousands of screaming fans. It's a lot of fun, plus there's stuff for wives and kids to do while you're playing boats. I haven't heard an official date for that yet, but I'll post when the announcement is made.
Don't apologize for your fondness of the French and Russian navies. May not have always had the best of ships (or luck) but they were never boring.
It seems that most folks that are interested in the French ships are also interested in the Russians. Perhaps because we don't often see those ships on the water. Mikey
Hello! Welcome to the hobby. I'm Harry, current VP of SCRAP the local chapter of MWC. We have guys coming from as far as Reno & San Diego so Ventura isn't so bad! We have our battles (generally) every 1st Saturday monthly. Afterwards we get lunch & have a build session in Pasadena. We also have members who host impromptu build sessions from time to time. Everyone around here is very friendly & ready to help out in any way possible. We can help you get your ship on the water in no time. Our ranks include Engineers, Doctors, Teachers, retired guys, youngsters of 11, Guys that drop things & giggle a lot & strange guys who dress up in pirate gear... ahem! Moving On... I'm sure we can guide you through the process of getting on the water. Please check out the SCRAP page & contact any of us listed on there. We'd love to hear from you. That goes for any lurkers out there as well.. Drop us an email or a message, come see what we're about! Please send me a message if you like, Harry Hollins SCRAP "USS Prune Barge"
