Somewhere in North Sea : 1/3000 Naval Battles

Regular followers with have spotted I picked up a few secondhand Dreadnoughts over the last few months and painted them up. After searching for some suitable rules I picked up a copy of “When Dreadnoughts rules the Seas” by Brian DeWitt and available through Amazon via Little Wars TV. The rules are only 4 pages and you can download ship cards and the booklets comes with background info and several scenarios.

Anyway having played a number of more traditional battles we thought we would give these a run out for fun, see if we like the rules etc….

Pretty easy terrain to setup this is my ‘sea’ cloth for our planned Cruel seas game in the spring. The rules come with some turning templates and the ship cards can be downloaded and printed off. There is as to be expected some record keeping, and we soon discovered we could simplify the speed into five steps rather than a complete sliding scale which is hard to keep track of.

Our initial battle sets out, one dreadnought, a light cruiser and a Destroyer squadron each side. The destroyers can deploy smoke so why not !

After some manoeuvring and with both the Cruisers and destroyers sent to the bottom of the sea the Dreadnought pound it out.

Despite being hit and damaged the Derfflinger scores a critical hit on the Queen Mary with their poor fire control the crew are unable to put it out and she explodes !💥💥💥 unexpected but I believe this is exactly what happened historically. We had lunch and pondered a bigger battle in the afternoon.

The added complexity of Mist now drifting across the North Sea, two pretty equal fleets now faced off against each other. We were probably too ambitious and should have limited the number of ships to about six ! Lesson learnt.

Anyway the two fleets steam towards each other

The Germans attempt to cover their attack with smoke but a couple of the British Battleships break through hunting the German fleet.

As I guess is probably the way of these things both fleets swing around attempting to get the advantage and use the mist and smoke to hide any attack. The British got the better if the encounter and although the British had taken quite a pounding by the end the Germans had lost two Battleships and were forced to flee back to port.

A fun day gaming and nice to try out the ships. The rules worked well and are pretty quick to pick up, we had a couple of questions on things which weren’t quite clear (like the number of Torpedos each ship carries) but we sorted these out as we went along. We were over ambitious with the number of ships in the afternoon and would have been better with a smaller but focussed scenario. When we play it again (sometime) we will focus down a little. But as a change it was quite fun and I have always wanted to give this scale of Naval gaming a try out. Huge benefit is the storage space and the speed a battle can be set up…..

Thanks for checking by…….back to AWI and WW2 in the next few days 

Matt ❤️

The Battle of Polotsk : Russia 17/18th August 1812

Like buses my games are coming thick and fast at the moment. Next up a rescheduled Napoleonic battle at Martins. The battle of Polotsk, we would be focussing on the Bavarian defence of the Spa/convent, the Russian attack and then the larger French counterattack. The Russians were really looking to delay the French advance and shouldn’t have got engaged but historically the outcome was a bloody nose for both and a draw.

Martin has been painting Bavarians so it was a first chance for them to get on the table.

A search of the internet provides some useful ideas for the battle, but also a very wide range of differing OB’s we went for something reasonably balanced although even then when the French arrive the Russians will be outnumbered. The challenge is for the Russians to defeat the Bavarians quickly and then go on the defensive ?

The convent sitting in the centre which for V&F will be a defensible feature, the woods will provide some cover, the stream is difficult terrain.  It only slows movement. The two smallish Bavarian brigades on the left. We would be using the free downloadable V&F sheet for these, who actually rate them pretty high !

The Russian columns advance using the woods as cover and deploy their artillery.

The fight for the convent quickly kicks off, even though it is only held by a battalion of light infantry they get the advantage of the defendable terrain and hold on the leading Russian columns are badly mauled.

In fact the leading Russians are driven back from the convent

On the Bavarian right the Russians are coming under heavy volley fire, whilst light infantry contest the woods

On the left the Bavarians are threatened by Russian Cossacks so are forced into square at the edge of the woods. The Bavarians are holding but only just.

Just as they are about to break the drums are heard as the French arrive from the south.

To counter the Russian reserve cavalry arriving the French bring on their cavalry !

The Bavarians are pretty much out of it now, the Russians have finally made it into the convent and a Russian reserve brigade can be seen advancing from the rear. But the French have the numbers

The Russians are thrown back on the right but the French advance is constricted by the stream

On the left of the convent the French initially fail to seize the moment and spend two turns redeploying in the woods, but then they charge forward in column to drive the Russians back.

The Russians are not giving up though and contest the convent to the end

The fresh french infantry has the advantage though and they are able to retake the convent, and drive back the remaining Russians. Time for Wittgenstein to withdraw…… somehow I missed taking any other photos of the cavalry battle. Not completely decisive but the cuirassiers eventually chased off the Cossacks, whilst the Russians dragoons sent my French hussars and chasseurs fleeing the field 🙁 honour even on the cavalry front I guess ?

A splendid set to, wargaming at its best. We might revisit this some time but give the Russians more time to finish off the Bavarians ?

On the painting front I have been painting up the WW1 warships, these were mainly picked up secondhand for a bit of fun to try them out, I have rebased them and at this scale it is a pretty simple paint job.

Finally with some improving health and a sunny day I got out in the hills not too far but the views were spectacular.

That’s it for now as George is arriving in a bit for an ECW battle down in the dungeon 👍

Thanks as always

Matt ❤️

The Battle of the Nile , Battleground Show and more

Well another busy week on the hobby front. First up I have been searching out a suitable set of rules for my 1/3000 sailing ships. Many I have looked at involve record keeping for damage for each ship and a level of complexity which isn’t really appropriate for my little ships. I have looked at quite a few rules and  having played many of the ‘Osprey’ rulesets thought these were worth a try.

Turns out they are pretty much exactly what I was after, they still have the fun of potentially changing weather and wind conditions, gunnery and discipline favouring the British but are fairly quick to pick up and importantly you can manage without any record keeping even at my tiny 1/3000 scale, all the damage etc been marked on the table. So after a couple of mini test battles and with the table in the dungeon clear I  set up the Battle of the Nile to see how Nelson would fair.

As one of Nelson’s famous victories there is plenty of info on the battle and maps etc.

Also lots of elegant paintings of the battle to give it a heroic feel ?

Brace the mainsail and all that !

One of the benefits of the scale is it fits pretty neatly onto a 6x4 seascape, the French are ‘anchored’ in the bay the rules have a convenient way of representing this. The British fleet is tracking in the distance to pass around the headland and catch the French by surprise. I was playing solo for a change which allowed me to fiddle the scenario as I went along. The french would be unable to move until they could see the first British ship around the headland. The wind at the start is coming across the British in the distance putting the French at a real disadvantage.

But the British get a little ragged in their haste to get at the French

And just as they turn the corner the wind drops, changes in the wind are governed by the initiative roll each turn. This really broke up the British fleet just at the point the French can start to get underway.

The French open up at long range but to no effect

But soon the British fleet drives forward into the french 

The first french ship is blown to pieces immediately. Blue markers indicate destruction, yellow markers are actual damage, you can remove these but if you get more than 4 you strike your colours or sink.

The two fleets get stuck into each other and the French have some lucky rolls ! Pretty soon a couple of British ships are burning too.

The wind changed again but both fleets are desperately trying to get into the best firing position. The victory goes to the fleet which can drive the enemy’s morale rating to zero. This neatly balances the fact that fleets may not be quite the same size, although at the Nile they were pretty close. Initially the french get the better of the fighting and the British morale drops quite quickly. But thanks to some fortunate initiative rolls when they were needed the British slowly pull the battle back, in the end it was remarkably close with both fleets within a couple of ‘ships’ of their morale failure.

But the British held out, their slightly better gunnery winning through. Nelson wins another victory, hoorah ! Although I think they lost roughly half their fleet. A very enjoyable battle played out over a couple of days, the benefit of having it setup I could play through a turn then come back to it later etc. I will certainly be playing some more. For larger battles I have bases to allow the fleet to be combined into groups or divisions to bring the number of active elements to a manageable number.

Next up some painting ….

A couple more ECW cavalry regiments. These are Peter Pig castings, helpfully some of which are single casts so less fiddly. Nice figures although it is hard to look at them and not think cowboys ? On closer inspection they are definitely ECW cavaliers.

As mentioned previously we visited Battleground show at the weekend. A very enjoyable days, catching up with a few folk, checking out some excellent games and squandering my retirement fund ! First some of the battles which caught my eye

Martin was putting on a  lovely Barbarossa battle in 10mm all Pendraken figures

A Sicily Bolt action game, well I was bound to have a close look at this one. I like the vineyards the hills are nice but challenging for storage.

I was particularly taken by this Waterloo battle ( there were a couple) using preprinted 6mm figures etc, it looked excellent to my eye and something to think about for the future, very nicely done

Another small scale C17th  battle. Do I need one of these forts I wonder ?

Teddy bear fur in abundance on this Little Round top battle, I did feel the setup here slightly odd as the battle effectively is only in about 1/4 of the table ?

A modern Afghan battlefield very nicely turned out, another interesting idea for the future as I wouldn’t need any terrain and only limited numbers of figures ?

An air battle which I have seen at a couple of shows I think, the main draw being the map/mat, I would like something similar for my 6mm WW2 planes but in a different scale I guess as these were much bigger.

Finally a massive flats battle, I think SYW , old school but still looks very effective.

The shopping was excellent with a very busy and active bring and buy. I had a taken a list of things to look out for and nearly all of them came up. Dash it I couldn’t help myself  !!!

Lots of ECW stuff but mainly because it was all being sold in job lots, a harbour for Cruel seas, tanks for the railway, some kit to build better wound markers and I couldn’t resist the castle. I came back so excited  I’ve already been working on some of this stuff 

By popular demand I have been trying to take some photographs of the railway but it is proving very difficult due to adequate access and lighting. Anyway here is a shot of a GWR Dean goods 0-6-0 pulling a small mix freight load.

I have also tried with perhaps only moderate success to take a couple of videos of action on the track, if you are interested in railways click the link, if not just go back and look at the lovely Wargames above.

Once gain thats it for now, sadly my game with George has had to be postponed , but I should be gaming at the weekend.

Thanks as always for checking in, please let me know if people are interested in more train photos it is a whole interesting new challenge for me?

Thanks again Matt ♥️