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.

 

Battleground 2017 - pleasantly surprised

It's all been a bit "doom & gloom" at Chez Renko in relation to conventions recently. Derby was "sub optimal" and our local show "Battleground 2017" has been a bit "meh" - not actually bad but it felt lacking in both footfall and major traders. Combined with the fact this happens on the Black Friday \ Cyber Monday weekend I was not expecting much this year but...

I was pleasantly surprised. The venue and organisation are excellent - due no doubt to the diligence and hard work of Leon Pengilly (from Pendraken\Minibits) who does the organising and associated donkey work that goes on behind the scenes. The venue is at Queens Campus Stockton, which is certainly a bit "out of the way" but nothing as rural as Derby, and here there was plenty of free parking and entry was also free.

Obviously the show was much smaller than Derby too, and there weres no competition games, but there were plenty of traders including Dave T and Warlord, plus some of the more locals - particularly worth a mention was Cozzmic Cakes who do, well, cakes. OK not something you would normally expect at a games convention but they are very nice cakes and available with a geeky slant if required. There was also a busy "table sale" area. I tend to be not too keen on this idea, where punters hire a table for an hour to sell their wares, as I prefer a bring and buy where you can make one sweep and see everything on sale, whereas a table sale means you have to call over every hour or so just to check on the rotation, but this one seemed to be busy and popular so what do I know?  One definite bonus was there was plenty of room to circulate with none of the crush we got at Derby.

Lastly there were a good number of demo games. None were what you would call Salute level showstoppers, but all were solid and interesting.

Crucially footfall seemed to be up this year - in fact most stalls seemed positively busy up to 2pm when I had to head off to another appointment, and in my usual round pressing the flesh and chatting most traders seemed upbeat on the whole.

So well done to Leon and his team. I'll finish up with some pics of just some of the demo games, including the popular Cozzmic Cakes "Imperial Knights vs Cup Cakes" (I kid you not). Looking forward to next year.

 

Only one day late.... weekly Wednesday update

I had planned to have a Blood Red Skies update, but for a variety of reasons that hasn't happened yet.

In fact the last week has flown by but without a great deal of progress. Actually there has been some progress. I finished painting another half dozen AWI Militia and I can now go ahead and play another Sharp Practice campaign game in confidence - or rather I will once the next batch of movement trays arrive from Warbases but they tend to be fast and efficient.

No progress on Shadespire - actually a bit of a retrograde step as I bought the Ork expansion to get to the non orkish cards in the pack , which is as good an example of why you should avoid this sort of game (I'm looking at you X-Wing) like the plague.

The big news I suppose was the game of Zombiecide, which my non gaming non geek wife actually enjoyed and was interested in having another go. After 20+ years of marriage this is something of an eye opener - who knew?

Other big news is I pre-ordered by set of Blood Red Skies. Getting too close to release date to miss out.

So the big picture is the "Pile of Shame" aka unpainted figures has reduced by an aggregate of 2 figures this week.

That's all for now folks!

Wednesday update and some progress

I'm planning to do a bit of Blood Red Skies stuff in the near future. To do that I've started a new paint queue with the idea of clearing the decks of other projects then having a serious look at BRS. Basically I'm hoping to get my AWI project done before moving on to VBCW then BRS. At least  that's the plan.

And progress has been made. In the last week or so I have painted another six VBCW guys and six AWI Militia. I didn't particularly enjoy the AWI stuff - not great on painting civilians, but the VBCW was easier and helped out by watching the first series of Peaky Blinders for inspiration. That only leaves about six AWI Militia and the unit is complete. The VBCW stuff is more open ended and there isn't really any time pressure so that could be moved back on the queue, but there's also another couple of series of Peaky Blinders on Netflix so there is plenty of inspiration if I need it.

Then again there is the thorny subject of Shadespire. I went halves on a starter set with Paul D and got another expansion (undead). I've already painted the Shadespire warband (5 Khorne Berserkers) and the undead can wait.

So in the last week I've increased the painted score by 17, and added another 7 figures to the unpainted side of the equation. Progress of sorts.

On the gaming front I've got a slot on the playtest group for Impetus 2, and we had a trial session Monday night that went very well. Looking forward to more of that, particularly as Santa has dropped a hint that there may be a Warlord Games Successor starter army in his sack if I'm a good boy :-). Also I have been requested by a non gaming friend to set up a game of Zombiecide for the weekend - each to their own :-)

Spitfire vs 109 in Blood Red Skies

The basic starter set for Blood Red Skies has probably the most two iconic WW2 Fighter planes included, the Supermarine Spitfire MkII and the Messerschmidt Bf109E “Emil”, both at their Battle of Britain zenith. I thought I would give a quick and dirty run down on how they match up in BRS, and my thoughts \ opinions on how that is reflects the historical record (or doesn’t). This should be clearly filed in the "initial assessment \ pinch of salt" folder as it's based on only half a dozen games and the information already released, but I think it still has some validity.

In BRS the two aircraft share the same basic stat line –  Firepower 1, Agility 3, Speed 7. The Spitfire has a marginal advantage in the initiative “tie break” of 357mph to the Emil’s 354mph. This means that in all circumstances except one, they are equal.

Speed first, because it has probably the most impact on how you play. Speed is one of the tie breakers when working out who has the initiative. Being faster is therefore important. This nicely segues into the first area I would like to mention – the idea of hard statistics. The problem with any statement about top speed or similar is that in “real life” this could vary quite a bit. Some factors are easy to understand such as speed varies with altitude, so when comparing speed data you really should have comparable altitudes. This is usually just not possible to do with any accuracy. Other factors are frankly bordering on the arcane – some Spitfires were faster than others because the factory that made them used flush rivets rather than mushroom headed ones for instance, and something as simple as a good coat of wax could add a couple of mph, which is why the Photo Recce Spitfires were waxed and polished before missions if they could help it. A good ground crew really did make a difference, even though they never flew in the plane. What I’m trying to say is we need to remember the figures given are estimates, and in all probability sources will be contradictory. In this case there is also a need for some sort of differentiation, so Andy Chambers has given what seems a marginal advantage to the Spitfire which really only counts as a tie breaker for initiative. One of them needed it, so dealers choice. I suspect this "speed" thing is going to rear it's ugly head a lot when BRS is released and discussed, but you just have to accept that in reality there really is no "correct" answer and the best we can manage is "x" aeroplane was usually faster than "y" aeroplane. Usually.

Secondly, Firepower. Here I think there is some room to raise an eyebrow at rating the two planes the same. The Emil has a pair of 20mm cannon and a pair of rifle calibre machine guns which are usually considered as vastly superior to the Spitfires eight .303 rifle calibre machine guns. The fact the RAF tried to switch to cannon as fast as possible tends to bear this out. On the other hand against smaller less protected single seat fighters there is something to be said for having a lot of fast firing guns with lots of ammunition (the 20mms on the Emil had only 60 rounds each). Andy has decided to group them all into the lowest firepower category. Again this is really going to cause some discussions when other aircraft are compared. It is a complicated area because not all guns are the same. This is particularly true of Soviet guns which tended to be just "better" in every way to the others, so when you look at apparently under gunned Soviet fighters, just remember their cannons and MGs are probably throwing out twice as much lead as their German counterparts, and often at higher velocities. In the end to keep it simple Andy went with three broad categories, and both the Spitfire II and 109E are in the lowest one. Its a game designers decision.

Lastly Agility. Both share the same Agility rating of 3 – the best there is. I can here various shouts from the audience about how the Spitfire could out-turn a 109 or the 109 could out dive a Spitfire, and the same as the idea of speed, the issue is more nuanced than first it seems. Firstly note it’s “Agility”, not “turning”, and so this rating includes a basket of general factors such as turning but also rate of roll etc. Could a Spitfire in real life out turn a 109? Actually the jury is still out. The Spitfire has a better wing loading and famously sweet handling. The 109 has a higher wing loading due mostly due to the small and narrow wings which continued to plague the design for the whole of its life. The 109 turned tight but as it did so it got harder to control. To compensate the 109 has a set of automatic slats that deploy at low speed, snapping the nose around, but the physical act of deploying those slats was not something the pilot had control over, and when they did deploy, they did so suddenly and did horrible things to the airflow. A seasoned 109 pilot probably could stay with a Spitfire in a turn, but it was far from comfortable and took a lot of experience and faith to hold your plane in a tight turn with all the problems that involved - and getting it wrong could and would be disastrous. Most pilots simply didn’t risk it, so a Spitfire in a tight turn would lose the 109, usually. On the other hand there is the Spitfire’s much examined lack of direct fuel injection. When a 109 went into a steep dive, because it has fuel injection the engine runs normally. A Spitfire (or Hurricane) has a normal carburetor feed – stick the nose down steeply and the engine is momentarily starved of fuel and stutters, power is lost and then you get an ominous belch of black smoke. Pilots could attempt to avoid it by rolling into dives, and anyway once in a dive the Spitfire would gradually catch a 109, but as with the 109 turning, it took a very brave and experienced pilot to try and get through the initial rather worrying coughing and spluttering, so most didn’t. These “facts” quickly became self-reinforcing – Emil pilots found they could usually dive away to escape, Spitfires could snap into a tight turn. 

So on the whole the stats are even and I think that’s the right choice.

In the advanced game however we get some further options by the addition of Trait Cards.

These are special cards that can be played to “break” the normal rules. In the case of our pair of aircraft the cards reinforce the operational differences I mentioned. The Spitfire has the “Tight Turn” trait, which allows the British player to make his turn at any point in his move, not just the end. In reality this means a Spitfire with a “Tight Turn” card can turn inside a tailing 109.

The 109 has two traits, “Great Dive”, and “Great Climb”. These are a little more complicated than the Tight Turn, but what they do in play is allow the 109 to dive away from a Spitfire, or prevent a Spitfire from gaining a height advantage. Both are a bit more situational than Tight Turn, but once you get the hang of it they will really help keep the Spitfires off your tail.

Lastly: The One That Got Away – Firepower. If you really do feel the need to boost the 109s firepower, there is a way to do it. There is a Theatre Card you could add (more on those at a later date) called "Superior Armament" that allows you to add an additional dice to your shooting attacks, but risks losing the effect when you uses it –like shooting off all 60 rounds of cannon ammunition for instance?

So to sum up, I’m rather impressed at the way BRS manages to represent not only the similarities in these two iconic opponents, but also with the addition of the Trait Cards encourages players to adopt historical tactics. This is starting to look like a set of rules that really hits the target.