It happens in the Vane Tempest Community Hall in Durham, itself an interesting building as it once was the headquarters of the Durham Militia, but has since been converted into a community centre, which, as they say, is nice.
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| The Dread Portal! |
My first game was Coastal Patrol - MBTs and Eboats in the Channel and all that, very much a "happening" period due to the popularity of Warlord's Cruel Seas. The scenario was pretty standard fare, E Boats returning from a patrol run into a pair of Fairmiles who are covering an Air Sea Rescue Launch inserting an SOE agent, all complicated by a patrolling R boat with a previous history of trigger happiness so everyone is under strict instructions to identify targets before shooting.
CP uses an action system - each turn a ship dices for how many actions it has, usually between none (Captain asleep at the wheel or otherwise distracted) to three. These are the usual things like change speed, order a turn, attempt to spot, shoot, etc etc.
The game was a blast, and ended with a fairly comprehensive win for the Kriegsmarine when they managed by sheer fluke to blow up the ASR launch within an inch of making it's escape. German gunnery dice were damned impressive throughout, and two critical hits on the bridges of the Dogboats caused them both to be ineffective at the crucial moment as the crew struggled to replace the COs, cut down in a hail of 20mm cannon fire.
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| Blinds in play |
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| E Boat evading |
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| Contact ! |
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| An E boat "blind" skilfully weaves between the Fairmiles |
So the inevitable comparison with Cruel Seas (CS)? - disclaimer - after just one game of Coastal Patrol! (CP)
Lardies are usually held up as a paragon of "play the period, not the rules" and tend to produce much more "realistic" (tm) rules to Warlord, and Warlord\ Cruel Seas has taken some criticism for this, particularly over their torpedo rules, so I was interested to see how they dealt with the challenges inherent in fast attack games.
Firstly, night. CP immediately assumes the game is set at night, which is the norm for the actual engagements. CS is pretty silent on this, but there is some hand waving going on about the short in game ranges representing the problems of poor visibility and mostly being at night. CP uses a system of blinds to represent this and adds an interesting layer of confusion - "is that a target?" "is it a friend from another flotilla?" etc. This is fun, BUT there is an unavoidable layer of complication in any double blind system tracking who can see what and has identified what. That does make for in interesting game, but also imposes a practical size limit on the number of boats a side as more than 4 or 5 would probably swamp the system. One interesting CP rule is that firing your automatic weapons loses your target in the glare of the muzzle flash, so you have to reacquire taking actions - a nice touch that adds quite a bit of tension. Searchlights - searchlights in CS work in ways that defy logic and physics, it really is just a head shaking moment. CP uses a template that works, if you are stupid enough to use it because although you can see your target, everyone can see you. Nuff said.
The actual firing systems are poles apart. CS uses a number of dice based on each of the weapons firing, CP aggregates firing points devolved by the guns that can bear, meaning an average E Boat was throwing 4 or 5 dice. CS uses a simple hit points system, with possible critical hits, CP a progressive damage system where you basically shoot things off the target until it burns down, blows up or sinks due to flooding. Both systems work, but CS does make your boats extremely short lived where in CP in theory you can take a lot of hits on non essential bits. Dealers choice.
Turning. Another area CS takes some flak for is the way boats turn. There is no real excuse for this - a tanker at 15 knots should not be able to turn twice as far as a E boat at the same speed. CP uses a simple turning circle which takes a lot of hassle out of the game. I hate turning circles personally, but they do work.
Torpedoes. CS takes a LOT of criticism over it's torpedo system, which many feel is too complicated and not realistic, requiring the torpedo to move through the water, dice to hit, dice to explode. CP uses almost the EXACT same system, with one major exception being torpedo hits are pretty much universally fatal, something CS gets very wrong. The similarities between the two systems are striking, which does make me wonder how much the criticism of CS is due to an anti Warlord bias from the naval wargames intelligentsia in their stuffed armchairs (me included)?
Aircraft. CP doesnt have them. This is perfectly sensible. Why would you have aircraft intervening in a night engagement between coastal forces? CS goes all "Hollywood" here, which is fine if you like that sort of thing, or would be if the air attack rules had been better written, which sadly they are not.
On the subject of size, CP and CS both focus on small boats - up to Corvettes and Minelayers, but unlike CS it looks as though the player base has enough understanding not to want to include the Bismark.
Both games have a fair amount of clutter - both use ship cards to track damage for instance, but CP is noticeably "chart heavy", much more so than CS, which is certainly a factor in CS's favour.
So overall? The thing about Cruel Seas is, it is undeniably fun. No matter how much I dislike elements of it, and there is a lot to make you scratch your head in puzzlement, I've not had a game which was not fun. There's a lot to be said for that, even if you have to switch your brain off in places. Coastal Patrol is also fun, but takes a slightly more refined and thoughtful approach.
So either or? - Why not both? I have every intent of giving Coastal Patrol a try using my Cruel Seas models. I assume CP was written with the traditional 1:600 models in mind (which we used today) but there is no reason why it wont work with Cruel Seas 1:300 models, and vice versa.
Coastal Patrol was published in 2011 as part of the TFL 2011 Summer Special, available on line as a pdf for the princely sum of £6.49 from the two Fat Lardies web store. Well worth a look as it contains a veritable boat load of other good stuff https://toofatlardies.co.uk/product/2011-summer-special/.
So that got me through the morning. Next post will hopefully cover the afternoon where I struggle to save Roman Civilisation from the waves of unwashed barbarians.......
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