Cruel Seas models - Terry the Tramp Tanker

I know a few of you are buying into Cruel Seas, and I thought a few words on what the first steps at expanding your collection past the S Boats and Vospers in the starter set should be.

If you have played a few games and you are British, the obvious choice is Dog Boats. The truth is that in a straight shoot out the Vospers will almost always lose. This is pretty much spot on historically, so what you need are Motor Gun Boats. Sadly at the moment this is a non starter as noone makes a suitable model. The Dog Boat is therefore your friend, as it basically is an MTB on steroids and can happily shoot it out with S Boats and win.

There is another option however. Warlord make a tanker model, and this really opens up your game play options for just about everyone. In theory it is the same as the card one in the Starter Set, but noone really likes playing with card in what is basically a model game, so picking up the tanker is a good idea, particularly as it has a number of attractive features - 1) it is universal, it can be used by all sides, and 2) it allows the Vospers something to use their torpedoes on. This is quite important as the real advantage of MTBs is they carry torpedoes (doh) and the 73 foot Vospers actually have twice the number of ready use torps as S Boats, making them very potent in this respect.

I picked my tanker up at Warlord when I was through doing some playtesting for BRS before Christmas as a prezzie for myself. RRP is £18, which seems reasonable on the whole. I'm not sure if it comes with wake marker or data card - mine didn't, but that may be because there were none on the shop shelf and a very helpful member of staff went around to the resin room and grabbed one off the production line for me rather than disappoint - which was nice (Cheers!). Not having the card etc is no great loss anyway as there are copies in the starter box.

The model consisted of a resin hull, separate resin bridge, and a selection of metal accessories - 2 winches, 2 masts, 2 lifeboats, 5 small vents, 2 large vents, 4 sets of companionways, a spare crane boom, funnel  and a gun and crew. Everything was crisp and broadly flash free. There were no assembly instructions - again I can't say if this is standard but I suspect so. Working out where stuff goes was not that hard, although I tried to follow the pics on the website this did cause me a problem as they have the companionways shown leading up to the forecastle when in fact I think two of them should connect to the bridge wings. I didn't help myself at this point by losing one companionway to the carpet monster that lives under my painting table - ah well. I also didn't make it easy for myself in a couple of other ways. Firstly I stuck everything down with enthusiasm - starting with the winches, which match up with two areas on the decks. The problem is this leaves no real space to mount the gun. I suspect the solution is to only fit the front winch and mount the gun aft. The second mistake was to stick the lifeboats and davits on - I really should have thought this through because it made painting around them a faff on  - top tip - paint them separately and glue them on last. To compound my problems with the gun I decided the best way to get most bang for my buck was to magnetise it so I could use it armed or unarmed. To this end I sunk a 2x1mm magnet into the deck and stuck another under the gun mount. I really should have positioned this where the aft winch was, so on mine it is a bit cramped - ah well.

Other than that the model went together quickly and smoothly. Here she is - after taking this pic I decided to move the front companionways to the bridge. You can also see the magnet for the deck gun.

I decided to paint it up as a rusty and worn out coastal tramp rather than anything nice and shiny. I may have got carried away but I (and apparently Papa Nurgle) are pleased with the result.

All in all a very nice model of a small coastal tramp tanker, and a great addition to your collection. I would happily recommend it. 

Cheers

Cruel Seas Battle Report - Scenario two - Torpedo Run

This afternoon we (me and Paul D) decided to try out one of the starter scenarios from Cruel Seas as Asgard Wargames in Middlesbrough (purveyors of the finest toy soldiers and models). Coincidentally Ste who runs the place does a nice cup of tea, which is most welcome. If you are in or around Middlesbrough or need some stuff online I would heartily recommend you look them up (plug over).

Scenario 2 is a simple 1v1 mission set in the English Channel, with the defender trying to get a tanker across the table, the attacker is trying to sink it. The recommended forces are an S Boat vs a Vosper MTB, dicing to see which is the attacker. As I ended up as the defender and had just finished painting some Soviet boats we decided to mix that up a bit by swapping the scene from the Channel to the Baltic, and replacing the Vosper with a BMO.

The BMO is a small armoured patrol boat \ submarine chaser used extensively by the Soviets in WW2. It gets several mentions in the "fluff" section of the Cruel Seas rules, but in one of the many "omissions" doesn't appear in the stat lists. Even so it is not exactly a challenge to make up something close. The BMO is about the same size as a PT boat, so we used the hull points from that. Weaponry consisted of an automatic 37mm in the bow, a 45mm on the stern and a couple of AA HMGs amidships, plus depth charges, but no torpedoes. Cruel Seas doesn't list the 45mm as a weapon, so we decided to class it as a 57mm for this game. They have some armour so we classed it as having an armoured wheelhouse like a late S Boat. They're a useful little boat but a bit slow, with a top speed of about 21 knots. Perfect for an escort scenario. Warlord don't make a BMO, or at least there are none listed in their release plans, but Heroics and Ros do for £4, and it is a quite nice model. The only thing missing is gun crew, but I think I may try getting some suitable figures from H&R.

The real one - this one has replaced the rear 45mm with another AA gun

My Heroics and Ros version - sorry for the blurry pic 

We're using the paper map from the CS starter set - it's a bit shiny but will do for now, until we can get a better replacement.

Junior Lieutenant Dolguruki was pacing his very small bridge. Slightly to starboard was his ward for the day, the coastal transport P P Ledbedev, carrying a month's supply of Vodka for the troops on the Front. (Model is Warlords Tanker - £18) Both were cruising along.

 Unbeknown to the Soviets, there is an S Boat lying in wait, Commanded by Lt Prum (model Warlord S100 class late S Boat from the Starter Set)

 Turn 1 and the Soviets spotted the lurking S Boat. The BMO immediately turned to close the range, also attempting to put themselves between the transport and the S Boat. The S Boat, realising it had been spotted, opened the throttles and tried to bring it's guns to bear.

 Turn 2, and initiative went to the Soviets. The BMO continued to close and opened fire with her two bigger gins - both missed. The S Boat accelerated and returned fire on the BMO. A lucky long range shot from the 37mm hit the BMO but did little damage.

 Turn 3 and Prum has the initiative. He continued to engage the BMO with little effect, and launched his "Fish" at the transport from a range of around 50 cm.

The Soviets landed a hit with their bow mounted 37mm, which did limited damage, and the 45mm missed.

Turn 4 and the Germans held the initiative. Their torpedoes were running hot, straight and true. It was looking a bit scary for the Ledbedev. 

Luckily the crafty old Captain had been biding his time, and at the last moment swung the wheel so the torpedo ran harmlessly past the bow. Sadly that brought her closer to the S Boat and it's heavy weaponry started to chew up the vulnerable old ship. A 20mm hit to the engine room slowed the top speed. The crew looked worriedly at their Captain. Back on the S Boat Prum ordered his torpedo tubes reloaded but the crew looked at him blankly - the torpedo reloading rules are one of the things mentioned in the rules book but actually missing. Ah well.

Dolguruki had a bit of a brain fade at this point, forgetting he could turn 45 degrees for each move segment, he hauled his ship around rather slowly and continued to engage the German, but with no effect.

Turn 5 and Prum accelerated and turned to put the transport between him and the closing Soviet boat. Ok he couldnt reload his torpedoes due to poor editing, but he still had a lot of firepower with his 37mm and 20mm cannons. He raked the transport with all his guns, hitting again and again. The Soviet return fire was again ineffective.

Turn 6 and Prum held his turn, putting the tanker between his boat and the BMO, and continued to pour fire into the damaged transport. The BMO tried to put some hurt on the S Boat, but accuracy was now suffering as the Soviets were at full throttle and the target was partly obscured by the transport. They missed with everything except a HMG which caused minimum damage.

Turn 8. The two warships continued to circle the stricken transport. German fire proved fatal, and the transport stopped dead an the water and started to sink. Those S Boats can really dish out damage. Which raised another issue, as we could find no explanation as to what happens when a ship sinks. Does it go down straight away or sink over time? There is a mention of sinking ships blocking line of sight, but no rules about what actually happens when you start to sink. We decided to leave the marker in place for a turn or two.

Turn 9. All that was needed now was for Prum to make good his escape. He opened the throttle and his ship surged forward. For a moment it looked like he would get away scot free, but then a 45mm shell hit him in the stern, damaging his engines and taking out his aft 37mm. Dolguruki may well have lost the precious vodka, but this must have galvanised his gunners who were hitting the fleeing S Boat hard.

Turn 10. Prums luck ran out. Another series of hits ripped through his boat, hitting him again in the engine room and wrecking the bridge, and she started to sink. Prum ordered his crew to abandon ship, but some of them were caught as the Soviets raked his ship from stem to stern.

So a phyrric victory to the Germans.

It was a good game and we had quite a bit of fun. The rules work, but the problems of omissions and editing are annoying. Warlord are currently getting quite a lot of flak for the problems with the CS rules, deservedly so, but I would not let that put buyers off - this is a good little game. Hopefully they will learn the lesson and get future rules sets properly proof read and play tested. Even so I'm sure we will be playing again soon.

I'm planning a couple more posts on Cruel Seas. If you would like to get notified of any new blog posts just hit the "follow" button up there on the right.

Cheers

Christmas break - Fallout 76 and Cruel Seas

Out of Office on - check
Work phone switched to answerphone - check
Time to relax :-)

I'm guessing a measurable part of my free time over the holiday period is going to be taken up with Fallout 76, and Cruel Seas. Surprisingly they seem to have a lot in common. 

Fallout 76 is a long awaited computer game from Bethesda that launched a month or so ago to much fanfare, which rapidly turned into a cacophony of criticism a the game was riddled with bugs and errors. I won't go into details on those here, because life is too short and you can spend a wasted couple of hours googling "Fallout 76 bugs" if you really want to. Cruel Seas is the much anticipated tabletop wargame from Warlord Games set in WW2 based around coastal forces. And it is riddled with bugs too.

My wife works in adult education. She has explained to me the "sandwich method" of giving feedback, which is always give negative feedback between two sets of positives, as it is better received and more productive. Here goes.

I've had enough time to read the rules and play some games of Cruel Seas. And I rather like them. The style of writing is interesting and engaging, and the layout is first class, glossy and beautifully illustrated. The game also plays well, and has a very nice fun feel to it. Other than a few issues with quality (more later), the supporting material in the box is excellent. On the whole the game mechanics are solid enough, and the use of a "wake marker" on each ship to track speed is actually quite novel, reduces record keeping and makes it easy to see what speed a ship is travelling at. I liked that. I also liked the ruler with the common shooting modifiers printed on the back - very good idea, even if for some reason only one of the three in the set has it.

The problem is there are rather a lot of errors and omissions. Chief of these are rules that read one way, but are explained in a totally contradictory way such as turning, or rules which just seem to be incomplete or missing,  such as how a ship reacts after a collision, or how minefields actually work - there is a "roll on the mine table", but no actual table. These really should have been caught by anyone proofreading the draft, but clearly were not. There are also some very strange situations created by the rules mechanics and which should really have been caught by playtesters, but again seem not to have been, such as searchlights which are invisible to anyone other than the person using them and the target, or the way a loaded tanker can turn inside a motor boat, or that it is easier to hit an E Boat moving at 14 knots than a tanker moving at 12 knots because the tanker is going full speed, where the E boat is just idling along. There are also some problems with the various statistics listed for some ships, and a points system which fails to take into account the speed a ship can travel- quite a problem with a set of rules where your speed has a significant impact on your combat capability. Similarly all ships have a "hull rating" that equates to damage points, but no explanation of how this is arrived at. Lastly there are some plain historical errors, such as giving Japanese MTBs "Long Lance" torpedoes, or Soviet Bronekaters 57mm guns, and they don't get the names of the Vosper boats quite right. These are, in truth, not going to register to most players I would think, but should really be corrected.

I mentioned the quality of the supporting materials. The counters and islands and similar bits are all of good quality thick card, but there are two items that are clearly going to fall apart quickly. The first is the damage trackers that are supposed to clip on to the ship stat cards, but in reality are so flimsy that you would be well advised to throw them straight in the bin and use small plastic paperclips or similar and save yourself the stress. The other issue is the wake markers. I feel for Warlord here. The wake markers are a good idea but because they need to be placed underneath the model they have to be thin or the model will not sit on them. The card they have used is so thin as to be almost paper, which feels as if it will not last long or take any rough handling. Reminds me of the city sector markers in Dropfleet Commander which were kept thin to allow ship bases to be placed on top of them, and were loathed by players because they were so flimsy. Lastly, the rule book itself has some quite flimsy covers more akin to a magazine than a set of rules. Mine are already curling up at the corners, but it is a minor issue really.

A fortnight after publication Bethesda released a patch to fix some of the bugs in Fallout 76 ,  and coincidentally a fortnight after publication Warlord released a ten page errata that addressed some of the layout and editing problems, but not the rules issues. In some ways they shot themselves in the foot here because they went for exactly the same lavish and well illustrated style of errata as they used in the rules, so what could have been half a page turned into ten pages, which sounds a lot worse.

So back to the sandwich. The one thing I have not mentioned is the models, which are VERY nice. The starter set has six Vosper MTBs and four E Boats in plastic, and these are first class. The expansion fleets are mostly resin models with metal detailing - I have the British set and a tanker and again these are very nice models.

I think Fallout 76 and Cruel Seas both have a lot in common. They were highly anticipated, released to much fanfare, and were both clearly rushed out before they were ready, I suspect to hit Christmas deadlines. The other thing they have in common is I think that they will both recover and do well in the long term. I certainly expect to play them quite a lot.

So on that note I will leave you with two pics that sum up each game. Firstly, this is a screenshot of my Fallout 76 character who has fallen through a "hole" in the games terrain mesh and cannot get out.

The second is taken from the Cruel Seas errata, which shows a Vosper MTB launching a torpedo, sadly the torpedo seems to be leaving the tube backwards! I don't think that will end well.

Merry Christmas

The Way Home - New Blood Red Skies scenario

 Andy Chambers is working on some new rules and scenarios for Blood Red Skies which are designed around attacking ground targets. This includes not just the actual attack but also the often dangerous bits between the attack and getting home for well deserved tea and cake (or in this case as will become more apparent later - coffee and pancakes). Andy has kindly let me have a look to playtest some of them, and I had a run at one last night with James* at Asgard Wargames (our very Friendly Local Games Store and plastic \ lead supplier, in Middlesbrough - well worth a visit if you are in the area). So here is a quick report on the scenario called "The Way Home" - sorry about the pics - I had forgotten to pack the pretty neoprene game mat so we just flew over some nondescript greenery...

Firstly the setting. After fighting their way through and attacking the target the bombers have turned for home. They are not in great shape, with one engine out, and need to get out of the area quickly - then a gunner spots some dots closing fast from below.......

The scenario starts with a bomber force half way across the table. Escorts are split, with one element on table and the rest in High Cover. The interceptors similarly have one element on table and the rest in High Cover, but as they deploy second they certainly have the drop on the Escorts or the bombers. The actual number of bombers depends on the size of the game being played - each pair of elements of escorts generates either three single engine, two twin engine, or one four engine bomber. This is a nice touch as not everyone has a collection of heavy bombers. The bombers already carry a boom chit to represent damage they have picked up on the way. As James was flying as Escort had four P51s rated 5, 5, 3, 3 this meant I could get one of my B17s on table for him to look after - Hollywood demands it! I was intercepting with four Me109Gs - my 109E models standing in for their more advanced relatives. Their pilots were rated 5, 4, 4, 4. With hindsight I probably should have went for a bit more quantity over quality but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

And so it began. B17 DF-B "Bad Penny" of the 324th Bombardment Squadron, 91st Bomber Group was having a bad day. After bombing the target she had been hit by flak and lost an engine. That caused her to drop out of formation - and as everyone knows, that's when The Bogeyman comes to get you. Luckily she picked up a pair of P51s who were going to try and shepherd her home.

Initially it looked pretty bad for the escorts too, as a pair of 109s seemed to have got in behind them on setup, however when we rolled for starting advantage both 109s blew it and were Disadvantaged, even after their Radar Support. Turn one saw the P51s head for some cloud cover as the 109s climbed for position. Both sides called in their High Cover supports

Turn two and the Germans went after Bad Penny. However as the lead 109 lined the B17 up in his sights James played "Poorly Trained Opponents" on me, and my pilot forgot he had his safety catch on. This left us in an interesting dilemma because the bomber would only shoot if attacked, but the 109 had not technically done so due to his inability to find his arse with both hands. We decided the intent was enough - and Bad Penny's rear gunner hit the 109 causing a boom chit.  The second 109 of the pair wisely held off to cover his leader, as the P51s were swinging around, but the lead 109 of the High Cover element used his Great Dive to get a beam shot into the already damaged B17, taking out the top turret in the process. It was looking a bit bad for Bad Penny.

Turn three and the P51s threw themselves into the fight. A head on pass hit one 109 and caused a boom chit, and a deflection shot got another - the 109s were at 3 boom - not great. In return a P51 was also hit, but the wolves were closing in on the stricken bomber.

And then the German luck, which had never been great, went bad. In an attempt to get the bomber one 109 got too cocky. His cannon raked the B17, but the tail gunner shot back (note - the B17 had lost 2 boom chits so was at 0 FP for her defensive guns, EXCEPT for the rear arc, which had the +2 bonus- those tail .50 cals are a bitch). The 109 staggered under the impact and went down, inflicting 2 Boom chits on the Germans and causing them to break off.

Bad Penny staggered home, full of bullet holes and wounded heroes.

It was a great little scenario. A bit quick but that's probably down to our decisions and dice rather than anything in the scenario. Hindsight is wonderful and we probably should have used some twin engine bombers, but as the saying goes, if you've got it, flaunt it, and B17s are bloody lovely to look at at this scale. Looking at the other scenarios it looks like we may have the opportunity to play a connected series, with the approach to the target, the actual attack, then the run for home. I'm up for some if that!

We have a couple of queries and feedback to pass back to Andy, but this is certainly looking like another nice scenario for Blood Red Skies when it gets published properly next year.

* James Farquarson, not the infamous "Traffic James" for players of Andy Cs previous game "Dropfleet Commander" 

Balance, and Bombers in Blood Red Skies

Morning everyone!

Yup it's just gone 5am here in Renkoville and I can't sleep so I thought I would try and get a blog post out. I've been slipping of late, mainly due to some work\life\game balance issues, so I thought I would try and kill 2 birds with one stone, and look at some new scenarios Andy Chambers is working on for Blood Red Skies. First up is "Transport Hunt" - which can be found in it's beta form here on the  Ready Room Facebook Group (where all discerning BRS players meet) or here on the Warlord Games BRS Forum for those who prefer not to sell their soul to Facebook. Transport Hunt is one of a batch of interesting new scenarios Andy is developing for a future BRS expansion, and he kindly agreed to allow me to publish it early to give players something to do with their Ju52s and DC3s.

The scenario is based around an offensive sweep of fighters through an area being used by transports, with some escorts thrown into the mix. It's an interesting game because the transports only appear when the sweep finds them, and then they head for safety as fast as possible. However there have been a couple of  queries raised about balance, and rather than pop a quick answer on FB where it would probably be lost in a week, I thought it may be better to give a fuller version of my thoughts here (where it will be lost in a fortnight). So - balance and bombers in BRS.

The fundamental issue with bombers (and transports) in BRS is that the game is about fighters. Andy Chambers made a decision early on that bombers and other non fighters would really play secondary roles, basically as targets or objectives. The scenarios are all written with this in mind, and to me it makes a lot of sense. The problem with bombers is, they're not fighters (doh!). Their role in the air war is pivotal but essentially passive - they go from a to b, do their thing, then go back (hopefully) from b to a. Enemy fighters will try and stop them, and friendly fighters will try to protect them. So, point 1, bombers are not fighters :-)

Point two is about players and game styles. BRS was written with a large audience in mind. Parts of it are pure historical \ scenario driven, but it also tries to include a more casual \ tournament style of game play, where you just turn up with 500 points and get stuck in. It is extraordinarily difficult to get the two to mesh because the historical features of bombers are not the same as fighters (see point 1) so working out a "points" value for them using the same formulae for fighters is not going to work. The way Andy is trying to get around this is by broadly assuming that most bombers are functionally similar, so a Blenhiem is broadly equivalent to a Do17 or SB2, and adding elements to bomber missions based on that broad type, so a mission will include up to six single engine bombers, or three twin engine, or two four engine bombers. It is broad brush, but it does work. A fighter pilot really doesn't care if the target is a Do17 or a Ju88, and nor should we.

However where there is a problem where the broad brush approach does stutter a little, and that is is pilot (in this case crew) skill.  In "Transport Hunt", and indeed all the bomber scenarios, there is no mention of crew skill levels. Partly this is my fault - I asked Andy to trim the scenario down to a manageable size for publication on The Ready Room. It is part of a bigger document and some bits are still in development, but also when written I suspect Andy didn't think crew skills were that much of an issue, but players sometimes have different viewpoints and questions about crew skill have appeared. Anyway, here is my solution to the "what crew skills should my bomber have" question. It depends!

Option 1 - use the random crew skill option. Page 3 of the BRS Scenarios booklet has a random pilot skill table you can use. This is mainly designed for the historical scenario players, and can result in some wild variations. There are some problems with using this option in games with lots of bombers as it is easy from a management point of view that all the bombers move together as far as is possible within the advantage system, but with relatively small numbers involved it works.

Option 2 - rate all bombers the same. The KISS option. Assume all bomber crews are reasonably experienced and rate them as Skill 3 (or 2 if the scenario is about rookies).

Option 3 - use an average skill rating over all the bombers in a Squadron. For instance three twin engine planes could all have skill 3 crews, or one could be skill 4, another skill 3 and the last skill 2 - they average out at skill 3 so overall should balance. This is more interesting for the mini-max players out there.

So there is my insomnia dealt with, plus some ramblings and suggestions. I'm hoping to try another playtest of Andy's draft scenarios this evening - "The Way Home", a battered bomber formation struggling back to home and under attack, and then on Friday I'm at Nottingham where we will be having a go at trying to sink some ships with Mosquitoes - watch this space :-) 

That sinking feeling - Fallout 76 and Cruel Seas ramblings

Loads of real world "stuff" has kept my gaming limited, plus Fallout 76.

For those of you who may be interested F76 is the latest pc (and console) game set in the Fallout \ Post Apocalyptic world. Unlike the previous versions it is multi player, which is certainly different. It is also bugged to hell and on balance should never have been released in the state it is in - but it is clear the "suits and accountants" have rushed it out. The reception has been hostile and the reviews brutal, and mostly justified. The problem is, behind all the damned stupid bugs, disconnections, stability issues and plain screw ups there is a rather good game lurking underneath. I have been playing it quite a bit. It will be interesting to see how it develops, or if , as some suggest, it is fatally holed beneath the waterline.

Which smoothly segues into Cruel Seas, which should be out in a few days time. CS is Warlord Games' foray into WW2 Coastal \ Fast Attack. Still not a lot known about it, other than it is John Stallard's (who owned Warlord) pet project. Warlord are throwing the kitchen sink at this. The first two plastic frames have been given away free on the front of Decembers Wargames Illustrated, and another two in January's issue. As I mentioned before, they're in 1:300, which is a bold choice. Initially I was a bit sceptical as this is a big scale, but having painted one of the boats I can see the appeal. One other (I assumed) unplanned side effect is this game isn't going to suffer size creep - anything larger than a gunboat or corvette will be too big to put on a table. Warlord are not trying to tie ground scale (sea scale?) into the models or weapons ranges - pretty much like Bolt Action this is TLAR (That Looks About Right) so we will have MTBs moving further than some of their guns can shoot - which is a bit strange. I do have some misgivings about the rules, but it is a bit difficult to articulate - there seems to be a lot of dice rolling - in fact it seems very "traditional" - in fact that is the term that has been used several times when in discussion with people who have played. That may not be a bad thing, but we will know at the weekend when they hit the shelves - assuming there are no last  minute delays - something Warlord seem prone to at the moment. The ranges thing may not really be that much of an issue - you can justify it by saying it is all happening at night - as no MTB or S-Boat would be running around in daylight unless something very strange was happening.

Anyway, here is the first MTB painted - a Vosper, and I think it's a 72 footer but more knowledgeable heads may correct me. I do think it looks rather nice - even accepting the massively overscale mast 

Meanwhile I have ordered a couple of models from Heroics and Ros who also do a small 1:300 range of Coastal Warfare stuff, so I can compare the two.

Anyway, enough for now - hope to have something more informed on CS at the weekend. Cheers