ImagiNations Dreadnought Wrap-Up

After the battles and losses from the previous month, both sides looked to incorporate what had happened into their future plans.Nordland had won all three of the major missions of the month, successfully controlling the sea between the two nations and getting a troop convoy through to the front lines on the disputed islands. Nordland had 8 battlecruisers (1 in repair) to Tierra Del Sur's 4 battleships (1 in repair).

The Nordland admirals were happy with the results of the first month and felt confident that the fast battlecruiser strategy would continue to pay off. But there were concerns from the fleet that the battlecruisers would not be able to stand up in a sustained fight. At the start of the month, the Nordland Admiralty Board decided to refit the Hurtig class battlecruisers that was still in repairs newly designed guns. The refit would extend the time the ship was in the shipyard, but the new guns would almost double the range and improve the hitting power by another 50%. So it seemed like a good risk.

 

The losses during the first month of war forced the recently installed Tierra del Sur Admiralty Board to rethink how they were using the fleet. The board wanted ships similar to Nordland's, but they had not been in charge long enough to make the changes. One admiral was heard to say "you have to fight with the ships you have, not the ones you wish you had." With only four active battleships, the admirals decided to move up the commissioning and deployment of the first Veloz class fast battleship. They also knew they had to have a victory soon or the war could be lost.

 

The second month of the war had 3 major missions; a sea sweep, a Nordland troop convoy, and a Tierra del Sur troop convoy. Both sides decided that the convoy missions were the most important and only allocated light forces to the sea sweep. Nordland assigned the 4 Rask class battlecruisers to escort the troop convoy and their other 4 battlecruisers (2 Hurtig and 2 Kaftig) to intercept the enemy convoy. With only 5 battleships available, Tierra del Sur decided to concentrate on getting their own troop convoy through. So the Nordland troop convoy would get through without opposition.

Nordland battlecruisers departing port

The sea sweep engagement was indecisive and the real action for the month would come down to battle around the Tierra del Sur troop convoy. This time the battle was played out using the Dreadnought VASSAL module, instead of using miniatures. So there are a lot of screen shots to share.

The Tierra del Sur admiral in charge of the convoy escort was worried that the faster Nordland battlecruisers simply move around his ships without engaging. So he split his battleships into two groups that would be close enough to (hopefully) support each other, but far enough apart to make it difficult conduct the end-around action. He also planned to release the fast battleship Veloz to block the Nordland moves. As suspected, the Nordland admiral did plan on maintain range and trying to move around the enemy battleships to get to the troop convoy. 

Good weather favored Nordland, allowing them to engage at long-range while limiting the number of ships exposed to enemy fire. Each side took some damage, but the Tierra del Sur battleships were able to keep themselves between the Nordland battlecruisers and the convoy. With time to intercept the convoy running out, the Nordland admiral decided to attempt to breakthrough the Tierra del Sur line and then use his higher speed to escape the battleships to get to the convoy. This maneuver put the battlelines in close contact. Luck (and the dice) favored Nordland as they were able to sink 2 Tierra del Sur battleships and damage the other 3. But 2 Nordland battlecruisers were heavily damaged in the exchange.

A Tierra del Sur battleship sinking

The other 2 Nordland battlecruisers were able to complete the breakthrough and scatter the convoy (along with sinking several ships), while the damaged ships continued to pound away at each other.
 

The success of the Nordland convoy coupled with the failure of the Tierra del Sur convoy allowed Nordland to take control of all the islands between the 2 nations. The loss of 5 of 6 missions and only 3 battleships in service put Tierra del Sur in a bad position. At the end of month 2 the del Sur government decided they had enough and request peace terms, ending the ImagiNations solo campaign. 

It was a fun little mini-campaign and I enjoyed trying to design ships and come up with the naval doctrine for both sides. Also, the Dreadnought rules play very quickly and having a VASSAL module saved a lot of set up an take down time.

International Naval Wargaming Day - ImagiNations Dreadnought Battle

Work schedules and my own poor planning meant I would do a solo game for International Naval Wargaming Day (INWAD). For those of you that haven't heard of INWAD, in 2017 David Manley, well known naval gaming guru, kicked off the first International Naval Wargaming Day as a day to "Celebrate the birth of the father of naval wargaming, Fred T. Jane, by running or taking part in a game of your own!" I always play a naval game on August 6, but most of the time it is a solo project.

This year I'm doing an engagement from my solo ImagiNations Dreadnought campaign. So far each side has created their initial fleets, based on the doctrine of their admiralty boards, and with war now declared both sides prepared for engagement. Three missions were set for the first month of war; two Sea Sweeps (basically naval meeting engagements) and a Nordland convoy mission.

 

Nordland assigned two class battlecruisers, plus two scout cruisers and two destroyer flotillas to each sweep mission. The Nordland Admirals expected the Rask class battlecruisers to use their speed to hunt down smaller ships while avoiding larger ones, and these assignments would put that theory to the test. The convoy mission was carrying troops and supplies to a disputed island and would  have a heavy escort of three Hurtig class battlecrusiers, two Kaftig class battlecruisers, two cruiser divisions, and two destroyer flotillas. See my previous campaign post for details on the battlecruisers.

 

Tierra del Sur's Admirals felt that splitting up their slower battleships to cover all the missions would invite disaster. So they concentrated their six battleships into one force and sent it after the convoy. Thinking (hoping) that Nordland would do the same, they sent a token cruiser-destroyer force on one sea sweep while the other would be unopposed. 

 

The weather in the region generally means visibility at sea is good, meaning that most actions will start a longer ranges. This proved to be the case in both the opposed missions. The sea sweep was an unequal match, with the Tierra del Sur destroyers desperately making smoke to try to allow the cruisers to escape. But the Nordland fast battlecruisers were able to use their speed and long range guns to sink the entire Tierra del Sur force.

 

The convoy mission was a much more interesting battle, pitting five Nordland battlecruisers against six Tierra del Sur battleships.  Nordland had the edge in speed and the Kaftig class had the advantage in gun range, but the Tierra del Sur ships had better protection and heavier guns. To make this post a little more entertaining, I played out the game on my ocean mat with a hex grid overlay using some Figurehead 1/6000 miniatures as proxies for the ImagiNations ships.

Tierra del Sur battleline

Good visibility allowed the forces to spot each other at long-range and giving the Kaftig class the opportunity to engage the enemy without them being able to fire back. 

Nordland battleline before the destroyers and cruiser shift to the unengaged side

The Tierra del Sur admiral initially decided to try to close the Nordland ships. But the faster Nordland ships were able to maintain the range, limiting engagement opportunities for enemy battleships. As the engagement continued damage slowed the first and second battleships in the del Sur line, both Fuerte class battleships, forcing the del Sur admiral to make a decision about slowing the battleline or leaving the battleships behind.

Damage to the leading Fuerte class battleships

The del Sur admiral decided to keep his force together and, seeing the futility of trying to pursue the faster enemy, turned his force north toward the estimated position of the enemy convoy. This course change found the Nordland ships out of position. As the Nordland ships raced to get back in front of the del Sur battleships, the range closed to allow all the ships to engage.

 

Both sides took damage in the exchange, which slowed a Nordland battlecruiser and sank one of the damaged Fuerte battleships. The del Sur admiral was again faced with a dilemma - his lightly damaged battleships could now maintain range with the Nordland force, but if he left the heavier damaged battleships behind he would be outnumbered five to three. 

Good shooting bashes the del Sur battleships

Nordland battlecruisers taking damage

Having already lost one battleship, the del Sur admiral decided to break off the action. Destroyers were ordered to make smoke and battleline turned south. The Nordland admiral, knowing that his primary mission was to get the troop convoy through, chose not to pursue the enemy. 

 

At the end of the first month of the war Nordland lost a cruiser division and one Hurtig battlecruiser was damaged. Tierra del Sur lost a Fuerte class battleship, two cruiser divisions, and two destroyer flotillas and had one Fuerte battleship damaged. Victory point wise, Nordland had a commanding lead having won each of the first month missions.

ImagiNations Dreadnought - Road to War (2021 Solo Game part 2)

After coming up with the focus for the Admiralty Boards for my two ImagiNations (Nordland and Tierra del Sur), it was time to design some battleships and start the march toward war. As a reminder from my first post, Nordland's Admirals want fast lightly armored ships, while Tierra del Sur chose heavily-armored slower ships. 

HMS Dreadnought, which does not appear in this game but looks good as the cover photo

Each side started the game by designing a couple batttleship hulls and guns, then placing orders to build battleships and light forces. Nordland ordered seven fast battlecruisers, while Tierra del Sur ordered six heavily armored battleships. I'll provide more details on the ships later in this post. The light forces and half the ordered battleships would be available in the first year of the game, just in case the war started early. The other battleships would be commissioned the following year.

The game started in 1915, with the Great War raging in Europe and the ImagiNations at peace. During the first two years of the game, peace factions (horrified by the war in Europe) worked to keep tensions between Nordland and Tieera del Sur low. In 1917, during a peace and friendship visit by by Tierra del Sur's navy, Nordland's Admrials got a close up look at the heavily protected battleships. This spurred them to order the design of heavier guns and a better protected, but still fast, ship. Two of the new battlecruisers, with better guns and armament, were ordered for delivery in 1919.

In Tierra del Sur, a group of young naval officers began complaining that their battleships were too slow to catch the Nordlanders and that the navy needed a fast battleship or battlecruiser. Nordland's new battlecruiser order and the vocal officers forced the Admiralty Board to design and order two of their own battlecruisers. The new ships were slated to join the fleet in 1920. 

Hardliners in both nations used the new "naval arms race' as a pretense to get into power, while also raising tensions. 

In 1920 the five-year term for the Admiralty Boards was up and new Admirals were installed. For Nordland, the board's ideas only changed slightly. With new technologies becoming available after the end of the European War, they would look build better guns, but the capital ships would still be fast and lightly armored. Meanwhile in Tierra del Sur the was a major shift in the board. The new Admirals on the board supported the faster, lightly armored ships that the young officers had pushed for. As they came out of their first meeting, they announced plans for a major naval rearmament and order the design of a new battlecruiser, along with new light forces. Events quickly spun out of control of the politicians in both nations and in March 1920 war was declared. 

Opposing force descriptions (note all the ship images below are from the Shipbucket site)

Nordland Navy Capital Ships. Nordland has nine battlecrusiers; four Rask class, three Hurtig class, and two Kraftig class. 

 

The Rask class was the first Nordland battlecrusier class and designed withe heavy enough guns to engage the enemy at long range, but fast enough to escape if needed. The class ratings are:
Gun Attack = 17, Gun Range = 12, Ship Defense = 6, Ship Speed = 7

Rask class

The Hurtig class had the same guns as the Rask class, but was more heavily armored, and would form the main battleline. The class ratings are:

Gun Attack = 17, Gun Range = 12, Ship Defense = 9, Ship Speed =6

Hurtig class

The Kraftig class, the class that started the naval arms race, was designed with larger guns to take on the better protected del Sur battleships. The class ratings are:

Gun Attack = 20, Gun Range = 14, Ship Defense = 8, Ship Speed = 7

Kraftig class

Nordland's capital ships are backed up by four cruiser divisions, four scout cruiser divisions, and six destroyer flotillas.

Tierra del Sur Navy Capital Ships. Tierra del Sur has 6 active battleships, four Fuerte class and two Difícil class, and two Veloz class under construction. 

 

The Fuerte class was meant to form the vanguard for the battleline. The class ratings are:

Gun Attack = 23, Gun Range = 12, Ship Defense = 10, Ship Speed = 5

Fuerte class

The Dificil class was planned as the main part of the battleline. But the ships were very expensive to build, so only two were completed. The class ratings are:

Gun Attack = 23, Gun Range = 12, Ship Defense = 12, Ship Speed = 5

Dificil class

The Veloz class was designed to counter Nordland's battlecruisers. The first ship is expected to join the fleet in April 1920 and the second in June. The class ratings are: 

Gun Attack = 23, Gun Range = 12, Ship Defense = 7, Ship Speed = 7

Veloz class

Tierra del Sur's capital ships are backed up by one cruiser division, four light cruiser divisions, and six destroyer flotillas. There are two cruiser divisions and two destroyer flotillas under construction that are expected to join the fleet later in 1920.

Heavy naval activity is expected during the first month of the war. I'm planning to play out the initial encounters as part of International Naval Wargaming Day. 

2021 Summer Solo Game - ImagiNations Dreadnought

It is time again for my summer solo gaming time. I've always wanted to do an ImagiNations type naval mini-campaign, where players take the role of naval leaders to plan, build, and train up their navies on a budget with a random time when the war begins. I usually propose it as an option when players vote for DANG, but they don't usually do very well.

 

Most of my summer solo games are centered around boardgames, since they are a little easier to setup/take down and don't require a lot of space. This year I've selected the old SPI boardgame Dreadnought as the basis for my solo mini-campaign. Mainly because the rules are pretty easy and will play quickly. While it is a boardgame, I could play it with miniatures (although it needs a hexgrid) and there is also a VASSAL module. So I have some flexibility with how I play the games.

 

My plan is to do that as my solo game using the Dreadnought Extended Campaign rules and the Additional Extended Campaign Ship Design rules from Moves No. 24.

For my game I will also use a randomly generated Admiralty Boards for each side that will set some basic plans for ship building and maintenance/training. The first boards get to do an initial build and then plan the annual shipbuilding for the remainder of their term. The boards will be replaced (rolled for again) every 5 years, which could change the buying strategy of the navy over time. The war will start at a random time and each side will see tensions rise or fall and what ships the other is building, which can also affect shipbuilding and maintenance plans.

 

OnCe the war begins things will shift to monthly turns. There will be random number and type of missions that the navies need to assign ships to, which will then turn into scenarios. The war will last 2 - 12 months (yes another random time) at which point a winner will be determined.

With all of my game ideas in place, I'm ready to start the mini-campaign. I rolled up the Admiralty Boards for the two belligerent nations, Nordland and Tierra del Sur (not the most imaginative names, but they will work for the game). 

Nordland's admirals believe the way to win is with fast, lightly armored battlecruiser type ships with medium-sized (10" - 12") guns and good light forces armed with torpedoes. Knowing that speed may cost more more, they have put in place an average maintenance and training program. Across the strait, Tierra del Sur's admirals have chosen heavily armored ships with weapons and speed set to keep the ships at a moderate cost. They also laid out extensive maintenance and training programs for an efficient naval force. 

My next step is to design and purchase the ships for each side. Then I will determine when the war starts, and set up the first missions. I should have that all in place for a later this week for International Naval Wargaming Day on August 6. For those of you that are unfamiliar with International Naval Wargaming Day, in 2017 David Manley, well know rule writer and naval gamer, kicked off the first International Naval Wargaming Day as a day to "Celebrate the birth of the father of naval wargaming, Fred T. Jane, by running or taking part in a game of your own!"

 

Here are a couple posters to help remind you about the event. 

 

2019 International Naval Wargaming Day

In 2017 David Manley, well know rule writer and naval gamer, kicked off the first International Naval Wargaming Day as a day to "Celebrate the birth of the father of naval wargaming, Fred T. Jane, by running or taking part in a game of your own!"

With August 6 being a weekday (and due to my own poor planning), I played a solo naval wargame again this year. My idea was to try out a relatively new set of World War 2 naval rules by the aforementioned David Manley called Find, Fix and Strike. I took a quick look through my ship miniatures and decided to use the Second Battle of Guadalcanal to try out the rules. Here is the setup and special rules I used for the scenario. 

My setup for the battle (click for a larger image)

Before I get to the game, here is a little more about the rules. Find, Fix and Strike is available on Wargame Vault. It is a fast playing set of naval rules designed for use with models from 1/2400 to 1/6000. Bookkeeping is minimal, with damage recorded through a series of levels rather than keeping track of damage points. The rules also include a set of operational level campaign rules that provide a framework for linked battles and club campaigns.

The turn sequence is:
• Initiative Phase
• Ship Movement
• Air Phase (launch and move aircraft, resolve air-to-air combat, resolve air-to-ship combat)
• Gunnery combat
• Surface ship torpedo attacks
• End Phase (Resolve damage control and Remove dispersing smoke screens)

The rules are pretty easy to get into and most naval gamers will have them down in a couple of turns. Gunnery and air attack combat is resolved by competitive D6 die rolls, which are modified by the attacking ship's attack factor and defending ship's defense factor, along with some other modifiers for damage, range, etc. If the defender's modified roll beats the attacker, there is no damage. If they are equal, the defender is straddled and has a temporary negative modifier for attacks. If the attacker beats the defender, the defending ship is damaged with multiples of the defender's roll doing more damage. The levels of damage are Light, Heavy, Crippled, and Sunk, and there is also a chance of special (i.e. critical) hits. Light and Heavy damage still allows a ship to move and fight, but with negative modifiers for combat and, for Heavy damage, movement. Ships with Crippled damage cannot move and shoot with large negative modifiers. Players roll to repair ships during the End Phase. Players can use various methods to track ship damage, from keeping notes on paper to using markers. For my game I used some Litko explosion markers to show each level of damage.

For torpedo combat, the attacking player first rolls for a hit. It a hit occurs; a competitive die roll is made to check for damage. There are special rules for the Japanese long-range torpedoes.

Now, on to the game, I used 1/6000 scale miniatures for the game and my camera had trouble focusing on the small ships. So apologies for the fuzzy photos. Looking at the special scenario rules, I chose to have the Japanese Screening Unit enter on turn 4 at area B and the Bombardment Unit to enter on turn 6 at area C. I was thinking that this would give the Japanese a chance to catch the Americans in-between both forces. 

U.S. battleline ready for action

On the first turn the Americans won the initiative, closed with the Japanese light cruiser and destroyer, and caused heavy damage to both ships in the gunnery phase. 

Japanese light cruiser Sendai takes the first hit of the game

On turn 2, the other two destroyers from the Screening Unit entered, but, seeing the fate of their comrades, decided to keep their distance and move toward the Screening Unit entry point. The American finished off the two damaged ships.

American radar gave them an initiative and combat advantages. On turn 3 they were able to use those advantages to damage the remaining sweep Unit destroyers, putting the out of the fight, and get into position for the Screening Unit. The Screening Unit finally got some hits on the leading American destroyers with guns and torpedoes. But they had no luck against the battleships. 

U.S. destroyers (foreground) take damage while the lead Japanese ships take hits

At the end of Turn 5 most of the Screening Unit ships were damaged or sinking. The Americans left their damaged destroyers behind and moved to intercept the Bombardment Unit.

Japanese heavy cruisers (left and center) and battleship Kongo (right) move in for action

As the two forces engaged, the Japanese attack dice got better, and they were able to hit the battleship South Dakota with torpedoes. But it only resulted in light damage. Meanwhile, the Japanese battleship Kongo took heavy damage from the American 16” guns.

View from the Japanese side as Kongo (foreground right) and Takao (foreground left) take damage, while South Dakota (background left) and Preston (background right) are also hit

The two forces continued to slug it out, but the damaged Kongo and 8” cruiser guns weren’t able to do any more damage to the American battleships.

The view from the American side as Kongo (left background) and Atago (center background) take damage

With all the Japanese capital ships heavily damaged and unable to do anything to the Americans, I decided to call the game in favor of the Americans. The Americans did a lot more damage than they did historically, while taking close to historical damage.

The game played quickly, finishing up in a little more than an hour. The American dice were hot throughout the game, while the Japanese started cold and moved to average. With the limited visibility range, the American radar really helped out with initiative, spotting, and combat. The Japanese used searchlights during combat to negate some negative modifiers, but they could not effectively use their long-range torpedoes.

Overall it was a fun little game and the rules lived up to the fast play promise. I'm a fan of David Manley's rules, so you can take my comments with a grain of salt. The downside for the rules is that they could use a little more editing to clear up some confusing parts and clarifications around fighting night battles. I also wonder if torpedoes are a little under-powered (it seems like it is really hard to get hits), but I'll need some more playing time to really determine that. The rules work well for moderately-sized and large battles, where record keeping can really slow things down, but might not be good for small battles with small ships (although I expect they would play quickly). The campaign rules look like they could be fun to try out. 

Summer Solo Game - London's Burning

An He-111 bomber over East London (Wikipedia)

For this year's summer solo game, I selected Avalon Hill’s London’s Burning game. If you aren’t familiar with the game, it is a solitaire boardgame where you control a couple Royal Air Force (RAF) fighters during the Battle of Britain. The game system controls the German air raids through chit pulls and die rolls. I used the VASSAL boardgame engine and London's Burning module to play the game (mainly so that I didn't have to worry about setting up and picking up the game or storing things between sessions). I really like VASSAL for solitaire games and recommend it for those of you with limited table space or that can’t leave a game out between playing sessions.

I chose to play the standard scenario, which runs from August 13 thru September 6, with random weather. I put my main air base at Kenley airfield and drew 2 Hurricane pilots (Holmwood and Palmer) to start the game and 2 Spitfire pilots (Richey and Clisby) in reserve. My main strategy was to forward base my aircraft at the southeast satellite airfields (Manston and Hawkinge) until the Germans damage the radar sites and then deploy further back. I wanted to minimize the flying standing patrols to minimize pilot fatigue. I also wanted to try to keep both fighters together on intercepts as much as possible for mutual support. With my forces set up, it was time to start the game.

Day 1, August 13, started out well for the RAF with the Hurricanes attacking out of the sun on the first raid, knocking down all the German planes, including an Ace Me-109.

Hurricanes bounce the first Luftwaffe raid and get an Me-109 Ace

A couple more Germans were downed during the rest of the day’s raids, while damage was done to the Dunkirk radar station and Detling airfield. I repaired the radar during the night phase to keep the early warning system up.

On August 14, Holmwood was wounded and put out of action for 3 weeks. He was replaced from the by Richey. The Germans again damaged the Dunkirk radar station and also hit Hawkinge airfield (fortunately, I was using Manston as my satellite airfield when they hit Hawkinge). The damage to the radar and airfield forced me to pull back from the forward deployment.

August 15 was a light raid day, with only one afternoon raid. During that raid Palmer downed a Do-17 for his 5th kill, making him an Ace. But Richey was wounded and put out of action for 4 weeks, essentially putting him out of the game. Clisby was called up from the reserves and I was starting to worry that I would run out of pilots.

Luckily for me, the weather turned bad for the next 3 days. This allowed me to repair all the bombing damage and get another pilot (Stone) in the reserve box.

August 19 saw a raid on Dover that I missed intercepting, but no other action. The tempo of raids picked up on the 20th and 21st with attacks on airfields and the first raid on London.

The first raid on London

On August 22, Clisby downed an Me-109 to become an Ace. But both pilots were starting to feel fatigue, limiting the number of raids I could effectively intercept.

Clisby (in the Spitfire) gets his 5th kill

On the last raid of the day Palmer’s plane was damaged, but, luckily, he was not wounded and could return to action the next day.

At this point things were starting to look grim for the RAF. Both of my pilots would be starting the day with some fatigue and there were a lot of damaged spaces on the map. But the poor English weather (really the random weather die roll) came to my rescue for the next 10 days as the south of England was blanketed in rain storms. This allowed me to repair almost all the bomb damage, rest up my pilots, and get some more pilots, including the Hurricane Ace Kowalski, into the reserve pool.

The Luftwaffe got a couple good days of weather to restart their bombing, but paid a heavy cost as my rested Aces hit the bomber formations. Palmer had to bail out during an afternoon raid on September 3, but he safely ‘hit the silk’ and was ready to go for the next day. Bad weather returned on September 4, but then cleared up for the last two days of the game. However, by this time the game was already decided. Even with some strong raids to do some last bits of damage, I had been able to use the bad weather to repair most of the earlier damage and the game ended with a resounding RAF victory.

Without the weather reprieves, I would have had a much tougher time with the game. 10 days of bad weather allowed me to repair almost all of the damage done by the earlier raids. That coupled with all the Luftwaffe planes I had downed made it an easy win.

The lads chatting about the terrible weather during the summer of 1940 (Wikipedia)

I hadn’t played London’s Burning for many years and it was fun to pull it out again. The system still provides an interesting game with a lot of player decisions. It does make me wonder if the system could be adapted for other World War II situations (maybe Malta, Guadalcanal, or Rabaul). But that will have to wait for another time, as the next thing on the agenda is International Naval Wargaming Day on August 6.

International Naval Wargaming Day 2018

Last year David Manley kicked off the first International Naval Wargaming Day. A day to "Celebrate the birth of the father of naval wargaming, Fred T. Jane, by running or taking part in a game of your own!"

This year, Jane's birthday was on a Monday, which made it really tough to organize a game with other players. But the celebration must go on, so I grabbed some ships for a little solo action.

This year I pulled out some of my Spanish - American War ships for a little pre-dreadnought action using David Manley's Broadside and Salvo rules, which are included in his Splendid Little War mini-campaign. The scenario was an encounter in the Caribbean between heavy ships of the US Atlantic Squadron and Admiral Cevera's cruiser squadron.

Spanish cruisers (L to R - Infanta Maria Theresa, Almirante Oquendo, Viczaya, and Cristobal Colon) steaming to their fate

Two US battleships (Iowa and Indiana) and the armored cruiser New York

The Spanish objective was to escape across the map, while the Americans were trying to stop them.The Spanish cruisers had a little speed edge, but were out-gunned by the Americans, which is a pretty classic naval situation.

The turn sequence for the Broadside and Salvo rules is:

1. Roll for Initiative 
2. Roll for Action Points (these are basically command points to order your squadrons to maneuver and repair ships)
3. Move ships (Initiative winner picks order) and allocate Action Points
4. Gunnery - Initiative player shoots first and firing alternates by squadron with damage effect taking effect immediately
5. Torpedo Phase - conduct torpedo attacks
6. Repairs and Special Damage Phase

Overall a clean and easy turn sequence. Initiative proved to be an important part of the game.

The Spanish won the initiative on the first few turns, forcing the Americans to move first and then ordering max speed to try to slip by. But then the dice turned on the Spanish. The Americans won the initiative on the turn that both sides came into gun range and damaged the lead Spanish cruisers before they could return fire. But the Spanish were able to damage the American cruiser.

Gunnery is resolved by be competitive D6 die rolls, which are modified by the attacking ship's attack factor and defending ship's defense factor, along with some other modifiers for damage, range, etc. If the defender's modified roll beats the attacker, there is no damage. If they are equal, the defender takes a temporary hit. If the attacker beats the defender, the defending ship is damaged with multiples of the defender's roll doing more damage. There is also a chance of critical hits. One level of damage still allows the ship to move and fight, but with negative modifiers. A ship is Silenced with two levels of damage and can move, but not shoot. A ship is Crippled with three levels of damage and cannot move or shoot. Four levels levels of damage means the ship is sinking. Action Points can be allocated to repair Silenced (3 APs) and Crippled (4 APs) ships one level. I used markers to show each level of damage.

Over the next couple of turns the Spanish die rolling was very bad, while the Americans continued to inflict more damage on the Spanish line.

Spanish ships in trouble

The Spanish were able to repair one ship, but things just kept going downhill. In the end all the Spanish ships were sunk and the only damaged American ship was the cruiser New York.

Just before the end

The game played really quick. So quick, that I decided to try another game, but with a different scenario.

During the Spanish American War the American battleship Oregon made a high-speed (for those days) trip from San Francisco to the Caribbean. One of the fears was that Cevera's squadron would intercept the lone battleship. So, I decided to try out the four Spanish cruisers against one battleship.

Oregon, crossing the line (equator?)

The Spanish cruisers had the speed edge, so the battleship tried to put itself in the best gunnery position. The Oregon's heavy battleship armor stopped most hits, while her big guns dealt damage to the cruisers. Oregon did take one level of damage, but was able to silence three of the Spanish cruisers. Just when it looked like Oregon had everything in hand, Cristobol Colon scored a hit silencing the battleship.

Standoff at sea

With almost all the ships silenced, both sides hoped to roll enough Action Points for repairs and the Spanish also hoped for another lucky hit by Colon. But luck was with the Americans. They repaired the battleship first and finished off the Spanish cruisers.

Overall the games were quick, keeping with the fast-play rules, and deadly. The 1-on-1 squadron battles probably weren't as interesting as a multiple squadron action. After playing, I thought I should have created multiple squadrons in the first scenario to see how that would have played out. Another alternative would have been to add some more ships (regular cruisers for the Americans and torpedo boats for the Spanish) to make more squadrons.

The same rules are used with the Russo-Japanese War campaign and I think they would work well there, since both sides have more ships.

Tomahawks and Tankers

I had a chance to get in some gaming this weekend. On Saturday, I got together with Kevin and David Sullivan for a game using their Flint and Feather figures and the Song of Drums and Tomahawks rules. The figures look great and my photos don’t really do them justice (I recently got a new camera and I’m still learning how to use it, even on Auto settings).

Moving onto the board

It was planned to be a four-player game, but we only ended up with three people. David had envisioned a three-way battle, but Kevin and I didn’t really hear that part and ganged up on him. Kevin and I had eight native warriors with a mix of muskets, bows, and “primitive weapons.”

My troops with their stat sheet

David had a mixed force of natives, with mixed bows and hand weapons, and French, armed muskets and swords.

Frenchmen, with a big stick, in the distance

The rules have some interesting mechanics that is shared with other Song of … games, but also has some period specific rules. I like the activation rules, the combat rules seemed to be a lot of pushing and shoving with some surprising lethality mixed in to keep you on your toes.

some ineffective skirmishing

David and I started close together and engaged in some skirmishing. Kevin had some horrible rolls during the game and it took him a long time to get his warriors to engage. My bow fire proved to be mostly ineffective. I did have some luck with my muskets and by the end of the game I had killed a couple of David’s Frenchmen. My melee figures turned out to be pretty ineffective and unlucky. All my melee battles ended with my figure getting whacked by David’s primitive weapons. One of the special rules for the era is that if the player with a primitive weapon rolls a natural 6 and wins the melee, they automatically kill the opponent. This happened to three of my warriors, at which point I decided to focus on long-range shooting.

My bowman misses his shot while my hero tries (and fails) to bash a Frenchman

More skirmishing

After everyone lost half their forces, we decided to end the game. I lost five figures, Kevin lost four, and David lost four. Since Kevin and I had ganged up on David, we declared him the big winner.

My survivors limp off the field

I like the rules and look forward to trying them out again. You can read David’s and Kevin’s reports of the action on their blogs.

On Sunday, I had a little free time and decided to try a solo game of What a Tanker. I pulled out my 1/285 scale Desert War tanks (from a previous summer project) for the game and used centimeters for range instead of inches. I didn’t want to do a 1 vs 1 battle (that seemed a little boring, even if I was just learning the rules), so I decided to match a British M3 Lee and Honey against a German Panzer III H and Panzer II F (the points matched up nicely for these tanks). 

The British tanks ...

and the Germans

I wanted to include some basic terrain, which in the desert is mostly dunes and scrub. But because there aren’t any rules for hills in the game, I decided to treat dunes as minor obstacles. If two were stacked, the second would block line of sight. I felt like this gave me some decent terrain to try to hide behind and kept the battlefield looking like the desert.

The rules are pretty straightforward, but it still took me a little while to get into the swing of the action. Both sides moved forward and took a few pot shots, without inflicting any permanent damage. As the tanks closed, the Panzer III got off a good shot at the Honey hitting with four dice. But the Honey rolled four saves and only ended up falling back.

Lucky Honey

Once the tanks got closer I started getting more permanent damage on both sides. The Panzer III was caught in a crossfire and reduced to two command dice. But then the Panzer II, which had been slow to move all game, suddenly sprang into action. It closed on the Honey’s flank and blew it up with some rapid fire shots.

Not so lucky Honey

The next turn, the M3 Lee finished off the Panzer III, making it a 1 on 1 battle. The Panzer II tried to maneuver to get on the Lee’s flank, but the British tank was able to get the right combination of command dice to acquire, aim, and shoot. That was followed by goods rolls of the 6 strike value dice, which turned out to be too much for the little Panzer.

The M3 Lee is the winner

It was an interesting little game. There are a more decisions (and frustrations) than I originally thought there would be. Additionally, it seems hard to get an outright kill with the early war tanks (that may change with later war tanks) and the battle seems to be more about whittling down your enemy. I’m looking forward to playing the rules some more.