Save the Whales!

Around about 25 years ago I kicked off my Cod War project with a set of rules for an NWS participation game at the naval museum in Portsmouth. In 2006 I wrote a variant set covering the "whale wars", as Greenpeace and (more latterly) Sea Shepherd's attempts to frustrate Japanese whaling fleets hit the news. This was a fun, if somewhat controversial set but it was fun to play and I even had a marine biologist in New Zealand send me some feedback on how to make the whales (controlled by the game process) more realistic. I think they played it at the university in Auckland.

The big problem was models. Nobody made wargaming models of the ships involved. There were one or two 1/1250 collectors' models but they were hellishly expensive and of such fine construction that they would never stand up to the rigours of the wargames table. The release of Decapod's "Cod War" range on Shapeways gave me hope that perhaps some Whale Wars models would follow but alas not. Cardboard counters for ships and whales would have to suffice, as they had for many years. And so this part of the project languished.

Until now.

With a half decent 3D printer on hand the way was open if models were available. Whales - not a problem, loads of them out there. Some of he more unusual Sea Shepherd craft were available as well, notably the Ady Gill and the Brigitte Bardot. Further hunting around revealed a 3D graphics model of a Japanese whaler available for a very reasonable price. Downloaded, the model was converted into a format that I could work with by a good friend and was set up for printing. I wanted at least one of the larger Sea Shepherd ships and I found that Decapod had posted his "St Giles" trawler on Thingiverse (an online repository for free 3D models). Not white the right ship for what I had planned but I used it as a training opportunity in basic 3D modelling, cutting out the middle quarter of the ship and reattaching the bow, adding a flight deck and adding boats and davits to the working deck to make a rough approximation of the Steve Irwin.

So now off to the printer and after a few days (I was burning off Jem Hadar fighters and German R Boats in 1/600 and 1/300 at the same time) I had a decent collection of whalers, protester craft and whales, and the project is back on. The models aren't to a consistent scale - the whalers and the Steve Irwin are roughly 1/850, the smaller craft printed to a slightly larger scale to give them more presence, and the whales similarly larger. I'm quite leased with the results and I'm fairly certain that what I have just now is a pretty unique little set.

I need to make a few additional bits and pieces, some icebergs and one or two helicopters, but the main bulk of the collection is done.

Japanese whalers close in on a pod of whales as Sea Shepherd craft move to intercept

A trio of Japanese whalers

The Sea Shepherd fast craft fleet

"Almost" the Steve Irwin

Another view of the Steve Irwin

The Ady Gil - like something out of a science fiction film so I added the red light bridge windows

Th Sea Shepherd squadron

Another view of one of the Japanese trawlers

3D Fun

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to make a few pennies selling on some GHQ modern Germans that had been sitting on my shelf for too long. Just for one I decided to spoil myself and so a few days later I took delivery of an Anycubic Photon 3D resin printer. This is a nifty device that uses UV light to cure very thing layers of resin (down to 0.02mm) that form the subject of your model print. Since then I've been learning how the thing works, tweaking settings and arrangement of models on the print bed (which rises up out of the resin tank, quite remarkable). I've had quite a few failed prints bu I'm getting the hang of it and I must say I'm very pleased with the results. Obviously the main subjects have been ships and coastal forces models. With the release of Cruel Seas there have been a number of 1/300 scale 3D models put up on free download sites. I've made a few in 1/300, but the joy of 3D printing is that you can scale the models just as you can print a paper document at a reduced or enlarged size. So I've printed out a few new flotillas of 1/600 craft, as well as all seven of the Red Sands "Maunsell" forts that are in the Thames Estuary (essential for a CF campaign, they did trade shots with S Boats on several occasions)

A few examples of printed and painted models below; as I type the machine is working on a set of Star Trek ships, and the Moon Base from Gerry Anderson's "UFO" TV series is in the paint shop

SHADO Interceptors from "UFO"

The seven elements of Red Sands Fort

1/300 MGBs and an RAF rescue launch

1/200 Cessna O2

1/600 R Boats and SGB

1/600 MAS and MS boats

1/600 ASRL and HDMLs

1/600 MGBs

 

Stingray at Salute 2019

Saturday saw me and Stuart Machin making our way to the Excel Centre in Docklands for Salute 2019. Joined by Rob Hutton, Drew Jarman, Dave Sharp and Simon Stokes, we were running my "Stingray" participation game on behalf of the Naval Wargames Society. Salute is a long day for people manning stands or running games and this year was no exception, so after nine hours we were set to drop, but we'd had  a great day. We ran seven games with players young and old, all of whom had a great time. Many kind comments were received, and I picked up some good ideas for future developments. A lovely day out and, as usual, one of just a small handful of naval games at the show.

I even got interviewed for OnTableTop's live blog :)

As well as running the game I also got to catch up with loads of friends that I'd not seen for ages, and to chat with John Stallard at Warlord about future plans for Cruel Seas, and the forthcoming Black Seas age of sail game. I'd love to say more but alas an NDA prevents.....

I tried to get along to the bloggers meetup but alas it occured mid game and so I missed the chance, again (I've failed every year so far!)

I also got a bit of shopping done, some 10mm Vietnam figures from Pendraken to replace the rather old figures I currently have, a 28mm steampunk mermaid from West Wind (looks like a giant mermaid will be making an appearance in future Stingray games), some 1/300 early S Boats from Heroics and Ros for small scale "Narrow Seas" games, and some of the nicer mugs from recent Salutes to bolster my collection.

So, a fun day out, much enjoyment had and lots of happy gamers who enjoyed finding out what could happen in the next half hour :)

Denmark Strait

One of the things that I have had in mind to try sometime is to fight a particular battle with different rules and to compare results, having seen the Society of Ancients do something similar over the years. It would seem to be an interesting group project, so I suggested this on the Facebook "Naval Wargames" group, but since there are many who don't use Mr Zuckerberg's site I thought I'd repeat it here.

The idea is to refight the 1941 battle of Denmark Strait, ideally around May 24th this year, play out the battle and then for as many people as possible to compare notes. Nothing to stressy, just play out the battle with your local chums, then post a brief AAR to the FB group, on your blog or to me listing the rules used and the result of the game. A few people on the FB group asked about a common scenario so I'm working up a simple one page sheet that has the "core" starting points for an action commencing at 0552 on May 24th, and which lists various possible options (such as including the Suffolk and Norfolk in the action, optional rules for defective shells and turrets, etc.). I'll plan to post that here once I've had a chance to work it up properly.

Is anyone interested? For starters I'll be doing it with "Find, Fix and Strike", and I might try GQ2 as well.

Of course this is just a precursor to INWarD 2019, taking place in August :)

Torpedoes in Cruel Seas

One of the things that has struck me about torpedoes in Cruel Seas is just how ineffective they are. The chance of hitting is low, and that fine (the RN's hit rate with torpedoes from coastal forces craft was about 26%). Rolling for dud takes out a few more successful interceptions and then on to the damage....

At this point it gets a bit strange, with trawlers and minesweeepers often surviving two and sometimes three hits, from weapons that would routinely put a fleet destroyer on the bottom. Rolling 16d6 gives an average damage score of 56 and a maximum of 96. With average die rolling it is quite likely that the destroyers in the game will be able to take 3, possibly 4 hits. And whilst doing so they suffer no ill effects other than damage point loss because torpedoes don't cause critical hits.

In actuality a torpedo hit on anything smaller than a battleship was a REALLY BIG DEAL, and on a destroyer or smaller warship the chances were more than likely that the ship would sink outright from one hit. I appreciate that to help the "game" aspect Warlord didn't want players to have their large models killed outright and hence the damage effects were toned down, but in a game about torpedo boats I feel they have been nerfed way too much. MTB and S Boat players need to be rewarded for getting their boats into the right place to execute their attacks, hence I'd like to propose an amended damage resolution system.

If a torpedo hits a medium or smaller sized vessel that vessel is sunk immediately.

If a torpedo hits a Large or Huge ship roll a D6, add 1 if the ship is Huge.

On a 1-3 the ship sinks. Her back is broken and the ship slips quickly beneath the waves

On a 4 the ship is crippled. She loses 90 DP and stops dead in the water

On a 5 she is critically damaged; she loses 70DP, takes 2 engine critical hits and suffers a rudder critical hit on a D6 roll of 4+

On a 6 or more she is heavily damaged, losing 50DP and one engine critical, and a rudder critical on 5+

In addition, roll a D6 for each weapon mount and accessory. If the roll equals or exceeds the damage die roll above that weapon or accessory is damaged by shock and is out of action (so if the player whose ship was hit rolled a 5 - critical damage - they would roll a D6 for each weapon and accessory an it would be lost on a 5+)

As with my previous house rules these are a starting point, comments and suggestions welcomed

Pacific Coastal, 1/700

One of the byproducts of getting wrapped up in Cruel Seas - and also in continuing the development of my own new set of coastal rules - is that my interest in coastal actions in the Pacific Theatre of Operations has been piqued. Oh, and also from picking up a cheap copy of "They Were Expendable" on DVD just before Christmas.

The PTO was actually one of my first areas of coastal interest back in the late 1980s when I picked up a couple of boxes of the 1/700 Skywave fast attack craft set. This has a Vosper 72'6, German S100 and an 80' Elco, each in a stopped and high speed version. I had a few 1/700 Tamiya, Hasegawa and Matchbox bigger ships as well. When Action Stations took off in the mid 1990s the first demo game that I ran at the old Bristol wargames show was a Pacific game with these. But by then I was also hard over on games set in the North Sea, the Channel and the Med, and these using 1/600 models. The Pacific theatre stuff was consigned to a storage box where it has stayed pretty much ever since, until now.

Going through that box and a few boxes of "odds and sods" revealed quite a few damaged or unmade models that, with a little work, could revitalise my collection. So in the last days of 2018 and over the last couple of weeks I've set to getting them all sorted out. The results can be seen in the following few photos. I must say, I'm quite pleased at how these have come out in the end. Only 30 years in the making! 

The Plan, 2019

Happy New Year dear friends, I hope you have all made plenty of New Year resolutions which of course you will all stick to. I have only one resolution - 1366 x 768 :)

Anyway, in time-honoured tradition, here are my plans for 2019 which I shall of course achieve fully, and will not get side-tracked by new periods, shiny things or other guff.

1.  Burma Skirmish and Eastern Front 15mm - I will finish off the USMC 20mm force, sort out a set of rules and then get some games in. as a stretch I'll sort out the extra Australian, Gurkha and Japanese troops I have uncovered

2. I will format and finish my WW2 squadron level naval rules and my WW2 coastal set, and at least get a working draft of my age-of-sail set completed.

3. "Action Stations" and "Iron and Fire" - I will complete a set of ship cards for both so that I can set up games from scratch more quickly

4. Stingray - as the NWS game for Salute this year I will renovate the game, add some new things I have been thinking about and generally get everything sorted for an excellent showing at ExCel

I'm only going for four main targets this year as I want to be able to focus. But I have a few "optional extras":

a) Sort out a 1/300 demo version of the new coastal rules. Nothing too fancy, just a few fast attack craft, gunboats and "targets"

b) Ensure that my elements of "project X" are up to scratch and ready to go once a suitable set of models are available

c) Review my 6mm "Fire and Fury" collection and get some games in. I shelled out for 2nd edition and the regimental rules last year, I damned well need to use them!

And finally, I promise I will try to get down to the club more often. And I'm hoping Alan will give me hell if I don't :0

Happy 2019 everyone