Naval Wargames Weekend 2015

The 2015 Naval Wargames Weekendtook place a couple of weekends back, over July 11th and 12th, The venue as in previous years was the Explosion Museum of Naval Firepower in Gosport. I've been on holiday in the meantime so I've only just had a chance now to do a brief writeup.

Nine different games were on display over the two days, with six in action on Saturday and seven on the Sunday. This year's games organisers and their offerings were:

• Peter Colbeck - Mediterranean actions in WW2 using GQ1/2

• David Giles and the Portsmouth and Allied Wargamers - Famous WW2 surface actions using GQ3

• Mark Backhouse - Ancient naval using Hail Agrippa

• Derek Stone and the Solent Wargames Group - First battle of Port Arthur

• David Manley - Stingray participation game

• Mark Barker and the Inshore Squadron - Napoleonic Frigate Action

• George Street - Hector Bywater's "Battle of Yap"

• David Fleck - 1/1200 Anglo Dutch action using "Blood, Bilge and Iron Balls"

• Simon Stokes - WW1 Battle of Dogger Bank (the NWS articipation game from Salute this year)

This year's event was slightly smaller than in previous years in terms of numbers of games, but the games there filled the hall nicely and we even expanded in to the boardroom on the second day.

In previous years I've managed to get photos of all the games but this year I seem to have concentrated too much on event organising and running my own game so I'm afraid I've been woefully inadequate and totally failed to do so this year, however NWS members will undoubtedly see a decent selection in the NWS newsletter next month and I will see if I can grab some images for here. In the meantime though some shots from my Stingray game.

As far as the event was concerned another success, with everyone I spoke to enjoying themselves and the opportunity to gather with like-minded naval wargames for 2 days of games and swapping ideas. For my own part running the Stingray game was a blast, the game working well, some new models and sea creatures making an appearance (and some further improvements being identified). I also got to play the British at Denmark Strait in David Giles' game and, despite losing Hood (to a succession of hits rather than a magazine hit) my Prince of Wales sank both Bismarck and Prinz Eugen before returning home for tea and medals - in this case literally as the museum cafe did a very nice cream tea with clotted cream!

The event moved from its usual June date  due to some administrative changes at the museum, so we will probably be back to June next year.

Rest in Peace Ole

Our Norwegian Forest Cat, Ole, was found dead this morning. A very sad day for us all.

Not a mark on him, he looked so peacful on the verge outside the house.

We will miss him

First Run Out

After a few playtest sessions at home the Stingray game had its first "public" run out at the Berkeley Vale club. We played  a couple of games, both of which I would say were good "learning experiences".

In the first the Aquaphibians scored an easy victory. On reflection I think they scored an early lucky hit on one of the Stingrays and that skewed the result. But in any case it did point to a need to make the combat a bit more interactive, so we introduced the idea of an "evade" roll when a torpedo or missile enters the same hex as a target. We gave this a go in the second game, which turned into an easy WASP victory - the Stingrays becoming rather too adept at evading.

We didn't have time for a third game but I picked up enough ideas form the two games we did play to plot a happy medium in terms of an evasion rule (and an idea that a successful evade results in a proximity hit rather than a clean miss).

Other good thoughts on clarifying the order of play, improving damage control, simple record keeping, adding a few bits of "chrome" in terms of  heroic commanders, special effects, etc. oh, and a better way to keep track of who launched what missile!

Tune in next week** for another thrilling episode!

** weekly updates not guaranteed!

Quite a Few Things Happened....

.. in the last half hour :)

My crazy life continued to be as crazy as ever over the last week but I did grab a spare hour to playtest the developments that I made to my Stingray rules after the first game. The rules as I had them first worked OK, but some inevitable tweaking was needed, not least because I was finding the Terror Fish too resistant to damage, and certainly no one shot kills as one so frequently sees in the source material (in fact I think Sting Missiles ALWAYS kill a TTF in one shot, but that would make for a less than interesting game I think).

So, after some minor mods to the damage table and a few updates notes regarding when damage takes effect, number of weapons that can be launched and other minor things we were off for another undersea bash. This time I also introduced "Spiny Norman", a giant anenome with stings that could damage a sub. As it happened Spiny dang near won the game.

The "standard" scenario that I'm working with has two Stingray class subs covering the withdrawl of a civilian research submarine form the palying area, with six TTFs in pursuit. This time the TTFs blew up quite nicely but one of their missiles scored a close proximity hit on the civilian sub which jammed its rudder (only one turn per game turn allowed), which meant it was forced to enter Spiny Norman's "zone of control" in its next movement phase; Norman's stings ripped open the hull (three sixes rolled for damage, taking out all of the sub's reserve of buoyancy) and she sank like  astone to the bottom.

Meanwhile Tigershark had taken a couple of lucky hits which left her dead in the water and ripe for destruction, and a near miss on Stingray damaged her sonar and fire control, leaving her unable to launch missiles. With the civilians stck on the bottom, one supersub ko'd and the other out of bullets and two TTFs still active the World Aquanaut Security Patrol were forced to withdraw.

The whole game lasted about half an hour (handy!)

I made a few more tweaks and set up for another game, this time a rescue attempt to save the crew of a downed World Navy submarine. This was also to have been the debut for "Tangles" the wonder jelly fish. And it was all going very well until two furry denizens of the deep pitched up and flattened the playing area.

Scottie and Ole did a good job reminding me it was supper time and so the game came to a close. I think the main rules are just about there now, now I need to work on the extras and the various "biologicals" "Spiny and Tangles have some big friends!), and a few scenarios, as well as some extra terrain pieces. But all coming along nicely I think.

Stingray!

After a very hectic few weeks I finally got a couple of hours spare to try out my new participation game for the Naval Wargames Show. The subject this time is Gerry Anderson's "Stingray". I started to put together  a collection of Konami models for this some years ago but they all went missing and are now going for silly prices on Ebay, so I've had to replace them with Matchbox toys from the 1990s. That said they are pretty decent as they come, although the Terror Fish benefit from a bit of  a paint job.

Terror Fish move in to engage the accursed Terraneans!

Stingray and Tigershark move to cover the research sub

Titan's best continue their advance 

 Tigershark's Sting Missiles bear in on a Terror Fish - but missile inbound!

I've knocked up a set of quick play rules and begun to think about terrain, so the pictures show what is very much a work in progress. The rules feature torpedoes and Sting Missiles tearing around the board as well as the subs so I needed  a good way to represent them. I've tried cutting white pipe cleaners into short lengths and burning off the first 5mm or so - the result gives I think a decent impression of a torpedo trailing a wake behind it. still, some time to experiment before the show.

The research sub closes in on "Fingers" the tentacly undersea alien 

Anyway the rules seemed to work well for a first try, although the Terror Fish seemed to stand up to incoming fire rather too well (damage rolls tweaked in Mk2) and the various missiles could do with travelling a bit faster. So some mods to make, terrain to spruce up and some bases for the various subs to do and I should be Ok for the next run through in a while.

River Wars

Long Face Games is happy to announce the release of "River Wars", the first of a short series of supplements for the "Steamer Wars" rules of WW1 gunboat warfare.

"River Wars" covers naval engagements on the Danube and other European waters. The supplement includes a host of new rules covering mines and torpedoes, troops on shore, land based features and targets and the riverine environment.  Data tables are included for over thirty new ship and vessel types from the navies of the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Serbia, Romaniaand Turkey.

River Wars can be had for the princely sum of $2.50 from Wargame Vault

http://www.wargamevault.com/product/147483/River-Wars

Two further supplements are envisaged, one covering riverine actions in the Russian Civil War, the other expanding the campaign settings in Africa.

White Line Nightmare

Just a quick post with an update on the developing "Mad Max" collection. I decided I needed some bigger vehicles so I've just completed a post-apoc "bendy bus" and the obligatory petrol tanker.

I'm quite pleased at how they came out, although the corrugated "cardboard" looks a bit too neat so I might distress the edges a bit more. The next job will be to do a few figures from the Caesar plastic figure sets I picked up at Alumwell.

One of my chums, on hearing about the bus, said "why didn't you do a Routemaster?" - looks like the subject for my next model is decided!