First Salvo - Russo-Japanese Naval rules try out

I mentioned a couple of posts ago how I got mugged in Memory Lane by Dave Manley and his White Bear Red Sun (WBRS) campaign for the Russo-Japanese War at Sea. Dave is very much the doyen of British Naval Wargaming (at least in my eyes) so I tend to view anything he produces with a certain reverence. He's also a thoroughly nice chap.

WBRS is bundled with Dave's "Broadside and Salvo" (B&S) fast play rules. After my first reading I was a bit sceptical because B&S were clearly very fast play and missed many of the elements I had come to know and love from my previous pre-Dreadnought rules sets. Long tables and calculations to establish if your 6" of Krupp armour was superior to 9" of Harvey steel, and just how much better or worse are those 1898 10" guns compared to the 11" of 1899? This is all gone, replaced with a simple broad classification - so all Battleships are Battleships and all have the same factor, and speed, and there are no multiple fire arcs or even turning circles - Madness! how can this work?

The combat system is also very recognisable as a DBM style modified opposed roll \ compare result system. I was prepared to look for another rule set and just use the campaign system, but I thought in fairness we could at least give it a try, so last night that's what we did. I set up an imaginary meeting between a squadron of Russian Battleships supported by some Protected Cruisers and Destroyers, and faced them off with a slightly smaller squadron of Japanese Battleships with Armoured Cruisers and Destroyers in support. And we "Had at it!"

And we were very pleased with the result. It turns out that binning all that minutiae allows the players to concentrate on the important tactical stuff and have fun without too much book keeping. OK it is nowhere near as much fun as Fred Janes' gunnery system but then I can't ever see myself going that far for any game (not to mention the logistical and Health & Safety implications of walking around with long pointy sticks!)

So here we are with our quickly thrown together scenario. A Russian Battleship Squadron with Protected Cruiser and Destroyer support against a Japanese Fleet of what we hope was comparable strength - the Russians had one Battleship more but the Japanese had Armoured Cruisers rather than Protected Cruisers.

Initially this went well for the Russians, who scored some early hits on the Japanese Flag and drove their Destroyers off at the cost of one Protected Cruiser (the squadron Flag) crippled by a torpedo. Then, as if scripted , the Russian luck ran out. The Flagship was heavily hit and started to burn as coincidentally the rest of the fleet had some awful command results.

Still burning, the Russian Flag hauled out of line to try and get the fires under control, and the Japanese tried another torpedo attack. You will notice in this pic there is no sign of the Russian Destroyers or Protected Cruisers. The Destroyers had missed the attack signal and were as a result still steaming AWAY from the main action, while the Protected Cruisers were still out of range to do anything and their poor Command dice, made worse as their Admiral tried to find a boat to transfer him to another ship in the squadron meant they would remain ineffective.

Insult was then added to injury as the now leading Russian Battleship came under concentrated fire from both Japanese Cruisers and Battleships and was silenced. With two of their four capital ships now out of action the Russians turned for home and we called the game there.

We were very happy with the rules, and they are a lot more nuanced than they first appear, with the added advantage they play fast. So assuming the order comes from Navwar and I get it painted we will be Heading East in the New Year to play out the drama of 1904.

Gaslands - Quick Gates

We are tooling up for "Gaslands" - the new Osprey Post Apocalypse racing \ Mad Max game. It is a perfect fun game, can handle a lot of players, a bit brutal, and cheap as chips to buy into  - whats not to like?

The cars themselves are simply your bog standard "Hotwheels" from the toy shop or a child's un-watched toy box, suitably tricked up with the odd machine gun from the spares box.

The movement templates and stickers to make the special dice are available as free downloads from the website here http://gaslands.com/downloads/

So after that you just need a track. Actually you just need some way of marking the track, and here I got a spark of inspiration.

So without further ado - here are my cheap "gates"

Yup grab a bit of sprue from your last unwise or impulse purchase - you know, the one you will get around to painting "soon" (in my case from used Shadespire stuff I rescued from the bin) - it helps if they're the same size. Strip them down, cut the bottom off and stick them to a suitable base (again old FoW ones in this case from the spares box) , and, jobs a good one - instant gates. I left the round "stubs" on at the top to look a bit like lights. It took about ten minutes to make three, and a further five minutes to spray them and splosh ink to weather them a bit - post apocalypse and all that. . These are the Mark 1 versions, but I'm planning some more with suitable signs to make them look a bit more glitzy and allow the sale of suitable advertising for the race organisers :-)

Oh, wicked, bad, naughty Zoot! - Russo Japanese War

"She has been setting a light to our beacon, which, I've just  remembered, is grail-shaped.  It's not the first time we've had this problem.."

Or how it is easy to become distracted from your planned path

You may recall I mentioned attending Battleground 2017. What I didn't mention is that my friend Mark who runs the excellent blog Geordies Big Battles was part of a demo team on the day, with a game representing the Battle of the Denmark Straights, where HMS Hood was sunk by the Bismark. (as an aside, why do we say HMS Hood but never KMS Bismark?"

Anyway in the run up to the show Mark asked me to pop over to run through the scenario to see if there were any issues i.e. play with his toys while the associated wives were not around. This was of course irresistible.

So we played the game as is traditional in these cases on the floor in his lounge, and I enjoyed it - good old General Quarters before the bloat set in, with 1:3000 Navwar \ Davco ships. As it was going to be a demo we also discussed some options "prettifying" things which reminded me I had some "shell Splash" markers I had made 20-25 years ago when I was playing a Russo Japanese War campaign (more later).

A diligent search failed to locate them, but did manage to locate the Navwar 1:3000 fleets I had painted back then for the campaign. At this point I was mugged in memory lane. The campaign in question was a "quick play" one by David Manley which Dave kindly sent me a copy of after he read something I wrote in a gaming journal about the RJW. This campaign has special significance to me because it was one of the only ones we managed to run to the conclusion - or near enough anyway. On a nostalgia trip I searched Dave's site and discovered he had produced an updated version that was available from Wargames Vault and was available for less than a tenner, so I thought "why not?"

So that's why 2018 will see these guys making a reappearance, and why I'm spending some more £££ with Navwar just to be sure I have everything needed.

I would normally provide a link to the Navwar website but there is little point - for whatever reason he has decided to be an "oak of his generation" and only accepts orders through the post. Still if I want nine Divisions of Torpedo Boats I will just have to write him a letter.