Disaster at Trafalgar!

This weekend I was invited by Tim Moore to take part in a refight of the battle of Trafalgar at the Staines club. The draw for me was that Tim and his cohorts are fans of "Form Line of Battle", a set of rules which I love (for obvious reasons) but which the demands of time have meant I've not had a chance to play for way too long. So I was more than happy to spend 4 hours on the M4 and A419 for a day's gaming. Being the shy, retiring chap that I am and not wishing to impose on my hosts' hospitality by grabbing a glory-bound command I settled for the rar of the Allied line and Admiral Gravina's squadron. A full report will appear in the NWS newsletter, "All Guns Blazing" in the not-too-distant future, but suffice to say that, for the British, a disaster of near biblical proportions occurred as both the Royal Sovereign and Victory managed to get themselves well detached from their squadrons (Collingwood and Nelson both being extremely keen to close with the enemy) - both flagships were lost, Royal Sovereign admittedly to a series of VERY unlucky die rolls during a  frantic boarding action against one of my Spanish 74s. And so, as Collingwood and Nelson enjoy a dinner in Cadiz as "guests" of Admiral Gravina the inquiry into the disaster begins in the Admiralty.....

The game was a whole load of fun. Excellent models, good company and fought out in extremely good spirits (and with a fine pub just down the road for lunch). I'm so glad I went.

 Tim's "Oil Rig" play aid - must try making a few of these myself....

Two of my 74s in a spot of bother.....

The captured Royal Sovereign is spirited away....

Sails of Glory (1)

Probably THE most anticipated naval wargaming releases this year has to be "Sails of Glory", the new age of sail game from Ares. Now, you will be familiar with Ares as the publishers of the astoundingly popular and playable "Wings of Glory" game, which rose from the ashes of Nexus' "Wings of War". The "USP" of these games are the pre-painted 1/144 models which makes the game a truly "play out of the box" experience. Well, the same goes for "Sails of Glory" - or at least it will do come August when the Kickstarter supporters around the world (me included) get their copies and the game is released.

I got hold of a pre-pub set of components and models last monday for my demo/parti game at the Naval Wargames Show. This set is obviously more pre-pub. than the set I saw at Salute (see earlier pictures) as the counters are made from foam core, as are the ship bases (the Salute set had plastic bases) - problem with the foam core is that it is way shallower than the plastic bases and so the peg sticks out along way through the bottom and makes the models "teeter" on the table (no real matter as they are pre-pubs after all, so I'm tempted to trim the pegs slightly to make the models "sit" better for the NWS game). Also, no box included in this demo set, which will lessen the impact of the game and display, but I guess we'll cope.

Anyway, now that I have a set of models its give me a chance to take a decent look at them, and to compare them with my existing 1/1200 models. I must say I'm quite pleased. The detail is good, slightly heavier than a typical 1/1200 model but not noticeably so, and certainly not when viewed from more than a foot away. The paint jobs are pleasing - perfectly good for the majority of wargamers, and a good basis for those who want to add detail; I should imagine that painting in the yards , some shading around the infill between the masts and the sails, and a light brown wash (GW "Devlan Mud" or equivalent) should have them looking superb.

So, the big question - how do they fit in sizewise with 1/1200 models? I'd say "pretty well". I've added some photos to give you an idea, plus some general shots (apologies for the quality but I'm stuck with using a camera phone just now).

Into Darkness

Today was "Star Trek D-Day" here. Liz and I had the day off to go and see the morning showing down in Bristol - but then last night  I kind of ended up going to see the 00:05 showing too. What can I say? Amazing. Loved it! plenty of scope for spoilers so I'll shut up now, but just to say Benedict Cumberbatch is the best Trek villain bar none!

Oh, and for the record - saw the early show in 3D and the later one in 2D. 2D was way, way better.

Cod War at Salute

So I ran the "Cod War game at Salute yesterday on behalf of the Naval Wargames Society. And the event was a blast (although of course not literally as in the game no-one is shooting at anyone). We played four games over the day, with about 30 punters taking part driving Icelandic Coast guard Vessels (ICGVs), warships and defence tugs. We left the trawlers as umpire controlled, which worked well. It was mayhem from the start, with collisions both accidental and deliberate on a regular basis.

Highspots included a "jolly" discussion between opposing players in the first game over the interpretation of the IMO Collision Regulations in trying to determine who's fault a particularly vicious ram had been, a defence tug that seemed to be working for the "other side" as it rammed a friendly tug, cut his nets and then took out the side nets of a second trawler, and Cdr "Bumpy" Hewitt's "red mist" charge at the end of the game that saw him drive HMS LEANDER head on into the ICGV Tyr at high speed with "porcupine" rails deployed; a combination of circumstances that, when coupled with a maxed out die roll left the poor coastguard ship in a sinking condition (and which turned a drawn game into an instant British loss!) So, over the day the score was 3:1 in victories to the plucky Icelanders.

 Of course the other high spots were all about the people we met. In one game we had the joy to meet a US Navy veteran and former sailor in the destroyer Charles F Adams, and he'd been based in Keflavik during the final Cod War in 1976. And it was great to meet "Decapod" and his children who took part in Game #3; I hope he thought I'd done his lovely Shapeways models justice.

Extreme thanks to Drew Jarman who made an excellent "Master of Ceremonies", and to the rest of the NWS team who turned up to help with the game.

As always I came away thinking of various tweaks and adjustments that'll make the running of the game better and easier, and we got some useful pointers in designing scenarios to maximise the playing area and increase the action - very important for a game at a show where the aim is to go from explaining the rules to ENDEX in an hour or less.

An added bonus for the day was that I was able to see the demonstration set and the models for Ares' new game "Sails of Glory" (on which I shall be posting in the future) in the flesh for the first time. For those that don't know the game uses prepainted 1/1000 scale models - very nice. Also had a chat about the new Zvezda "Armada Invencible" game, probably hitting our shores in the Winter.

Alas, and as usual the coverage of naval gaming at Salute was thin, with only one other game there, based on the 1942 battles around Guadalcanal. Something for dedicated naval fans to think about for next year....

Something Fishy!

A set of Cod War models on Shapeways and a chance remark on TMP and now here I am busy looking to adapt my "Cod War" rules for the Canadian-Spanish "Turbot War" of the mid-1990s. Yes, there really was one:

Wiki Link

Yes, back in 1994 Canada and Spain nearly came to blows over fishing rights on the Grand Banks. The EU staunchly backed the Spaniards, In true EU style the UK and Ireland came out in favour of the Canadians and for a while British and Irish fishing boats flew Canadian flags in sympathy with their friends across the Atlantic. Although the extent of the confrontation was fairly limited there is considerable scope for Cod War style "engagements" between the Canadian Coast Guard, Spanish (and other European) trawlers and OPVs of the Spanish Navy.

Provided I stick with the simple coast guard / trawler / OPV kind of "action" this should be fairly straightforward to do. Sourcing the models may be a bit more tricky without having to spend gazillions on something from Navis or another of the European 1/1250 collectors manufacturers. Still, its a challenge!

I'm also hoping that, since that nice Mr Decapod is making a couple of sets of Cod War ships to use with my rules for that conflict, that he might also decide to do some Japanese whalers and a Greenpeace ship or two - fingers crossed!

Steamer Wars (1)

As is pretty normal for a wargamer, my attention has been drawn by an old project and a long-lost book in the book case. In this case the book is "The Phantom Flotilla" by Peter Shankland, and the project is the set of Lake Tanganyika steamers and gunboats available via Shapeways from North Head Miniatures. Over the last few weeks I've painted up the models and scratch built a few extra craft, including the Belgian gun barge "Dix Tonne", the Belgian motor gunboat "Netta" and a variety of small craft.

 Over the last few days I've been sketching out a set of fast play rules, the aim being to be able to run a small one day campaign for 2-3 players. Today I gave the rules their first outing. The scenario was based on the encounter between the German gunboat Hedwig von Wissman and the British motor boats Mimi and Toutou. I played this as a surprise encounter, and things went pretty much according to reality. In my refight the Wissman decided to open her arcs so as to bring her bow guns into play as well as a machine gun. range advantage meant she opened fore well before the British boats were able to respond, but the small size of the targets meant she was unable to secure any hits in the opening phase of the action. As the range closed both sides scored hits and near misses. Toutou suffered minor hull damage from a near miss, and both boats were showered with splinters on several occasions. But a shell from Mimi hit the German's engine room and slowed her considerably. Toutou scored a lucky machine gun hit on the hapless German's engine which left her dead in the water and at this point the nimble British gunboats got in behind the German's stern. The German engineer was not giving up the ship though, and managed to restart the engines, although only making a paltry 2 knots. The game was up shortly thereafter though as a shell from Toutou knocked out the Wissman's machine gun, whilst  a burst of MG fire from Mimi cut down the crew of the port bow gun. With the ship slowed, damaged and unable to keep the British boats away from her vulnerable stern the captain of the Wissman decided that discretion was the better part of valour and struck his colours (morale test failed).

The rules seemed to work well, with a few minor amendments made as I went along. Next plan - to knock up some of the larger Belgian vessels that were on the lake in 1914 and try out some "big ship" actions and actions against shore batteries!

A long time ago, in a pub far, far away.......

We gave X Wing a bash at the Berkeley vale club last night, with Shaun, Alan, Graham and myself fighting through three battles. A little later than planned due to various domestic incidents at Chez Pony, and I did forget to bring a cloth for the table (which led to a few minor "slippage" issues) but eventually we got going.

Mission 1 - A straight fighter sweep - Graham and Shaun taking Luke Skywalker and Biggs Darklighter in a pair of X Wings against Alan and I driving some bizarrely named basic TIE fighter jocks. A closely fought battle that led to the eventual defeat of the Rebel Scum (poor Biggs!).

Mission 2 - As with "Wings of War" I think the game works better if there is a proper mission element to it. So this time we added a ship needing escort.
In this case an Imperial shuttle, stolen by the Rebels, which needed time to get its hyperdrive up to speed before it could make the jump to lightspeed ands safety. To do this the shuttle had to survive for five turns. this then gave the Impy players a choice - concentrate fire on the shuttle and risk destruction by the X Wings, or blow away the fighters but risk the shuttle getting away. In this action we went for a combination of the two, but with the shuttle as the primary target. Nearly got it too, by the end of turn 5 its shields were down and it was down to a single damage point. But it was still structurally OK and had  a working hyperdrive so it escaped to victory. Graham's "Biggs" not so lucky though, blown away for the second game in a  row.

Mission 3 - we swapped sides for this, with Alan taking Luke Skywalker's X Wing (I can see the resemblance, really) whilst I drove Biggs' "laser magnet" (he has a special ability which allows him to draw fire away from other friendly ships)  and the shuttle, and Shaun and Graham took on the role of the evil empire. and it looked as though the Rebels were going to do it again, especially when Shaun's two TIE Fighters were blown away in quick succession by Biggs and the shuttle (damage dice from all players was pretty darned good in this game), but alas the close confines in which the battle was fought forced Alan Skywalker away from the action for  a brief time.
brief, but just enough time to allow Graham Vader's fighters to get in tight behind the shuttle and vaporise it with some spectacularly good last-turn shooting.

Post battle analysis - everyone seemed pretty happy with the game and it looks like we may be on for a rematch next week. The shuttle escape scenario looks like it works well with a 5 turn limit. we had  a better appreciation of the special abilities that pilots have this time around - they can certainly make a difference! And there was  a call for more ship types, which I am happy to oblige.

Steve will be pleased to see that, at no time, did either a Y Wing or an Ion cannon make an appearance :)

Thanks to Alan, Shaun and Graham for coming along.