Naval Gazing Part 2 - the rules - first impressions

OK so I mentioned seeing the VAS (Victory at Sea) demo set at our FLGS. Sadly I didn't have a chance to read through the rules at the time, but since then I seem to have quite a bit of time on my hands.......

Sadly what I don't have at the moment is ships, or an opponent, so this is going to be a bit "blue sky". or possibly "blue sea". I also have to say I have not played any WW2 naval other than Coastal Forces for quite a while and am quite set in my ways - "if GQ2 was good enough in 1980, it is good enough now" sort of thing. I didn't play the original Victory at Sea either, so bear that in mind.

However I do now have a copy of the starter rules and here are my initial thoughts.

Firstly these are the starter rules, not the full thing. They don't contain any stats for ships other than a couple of battleships. The stats are usually on the data cards provided with the models, however I understand there is a compendium of ships to follow which includes all the stats you will need. I appreciate this will be seen as an attempt to tie players in to Warlord models, which to some extent I think it is, however that's just modern gaming and will take about a minute to resolve if you want to use third party models or a different scale. They're also NOT a straight  lift from the previously published VAS v1 from Mongoose - there is clearly quite a bit of development and polish applied.

On scale, all measurement is from (and I assume to) the ship's bridge, which seems eminently sensible, so there is nothing in the rules that prevents you from using other scales if you already have them.

The actual layout is very good - which we have come to expect from recent Warlord releases. What did strike me immediately is that these rules are not full of Osprey plates, instead they are illustrated with some very nice photo-shopped images of the actual models, plus some artwork that I suspect has been commissioned for the job. There is one glaring and frankly unforgivable picture on page 4 which is in a very different style and appears to show HMS Warspite firing her "A" turret to starboard and simultaneously firing "B" turret to port. I have no words. This is so out of character to the rest of the illustrations I suspect it is a carry over from an earlier Mongoose version - but I digress.

The rules seem simple and straightforward. Initiative followed by alternative movement with the loser going first (not very realistic but a common game mechanic, which means no manoeuvring by squadron) with the shooting phase following the same alternating ship by ship but with the winner shooting first. As damage is applied immediately this could make for some interesting and tense decisions - always a good thing. Gunnery is a "bucket of dice" system which looks perfectly serviceable - normal range being out to 30" - if you want to shoot further you need some spotter aircraft or similar and can only hit stationary targets. Torpedo are just treated as another weapon system, usually one shot but devastating (I suspect a carry over from the sci fi roots of VAS but not unreasonable). Damage is assessed as cumulative damage points lost with a "Crippled" threshold, plus a critical hit system, again nothing new but nothing to suggest any problems. There's is a simple but easy to use damage control system for tracking the ongoing effects of fires and floods with the chance of fixing or the situation worsening, which I liked.  All the rules are clear and well explained and have illustrations to help - at least I found them clear (!)

There is an interesting crew order system to allow you to get your ship to do interesting stuff , some of which are automatic, some are based on a crew quality check which is usually 50/50.

Aircraft are covered in depth, but the stats in the starter set are very restricted - only one type per nation except the Germans who for some reason get the carrier borne versions of the Bf109 and Ju87. It seems strange to include these in the game at all given the number of German aircraft carriers operating in WW2, which was none, to several decimal places.

The second half of the rules covers scenarios, and these are interesting. It's clear that Warlord are aiming for casual "points" based games rather than re-fighting North Cape, but the scenarios provided do look well thought out and will generate interesting games. Having said that these are not totally disconnected from historical reality - you don't need to put your carriers on table for instance, which was refreshing.

Lastly there is the inevitable National fleet sections with special rules for each nation in the initial release, plus some passing mention of French and Italians. These are going to cause some comments, particularly from the historical naval players out there, but I think they do add flavour.

So I can't in all honesty say much about the rules til I play them properly a few times. That being said, my first impressions are broadly positive. I think these rules will give a fast and fun WW2 naval game. I'm 100% certain these will not appeal to everyone, particularly the "Old Salt" naval gamer, but for the casual gamer I think these are going to be worth a look.

Cheers