Today I Learnt
...how to play this wonderful tabletop game. My and my regular gaming partner will play just about any game around... once. After that we're pretty selective and will junk a ruleset if it doesn't suit us. We had previously played Victory at Sea by Mongoose Publishing, after some fairly hefty house rules had been applied. Both games are on the simpler end of the scale and I was concerned it was going to be "too basic".
Sadly I didn't think to take any photos of us playing the game. That said, picture this. A hex grid made of 1 inch hexes, 1 ship each - represented by a paper rectangle to fit inside the hex. The Invincible from the Royal Navy (me) and the Blücher from the Imperial German Navy (my friend).
Movement was easy, upto 5 hexes in a straight line or 3 hexes and a single turn of upto 180 degrees. After you take damage that speed goes down and you're a lot easier to hit if you travel 2 hexes or less.
The initiative roll (because we were playing with equal crews) determined a lot, he who got the initiative moved last and fired first, though there were separate initiative rolls for movement and firing. Things started out well for the Royal Navy, taking the initiative solidly and out-ranging the Blücher quite a bit. First blood to the Invincible.
The worm turned though, the ships got closer and closer - I wanted to try out secondary batteries, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it! The Germans took the initiative and pounded the Invincible, knocking out half of her main battery. With no simultaneous firing that was a huge disadvantage, the return fire was meagre.
The slippery slope continued and next turn I was slipping below the waves... but we learnt a lot about the game. While it was "slightly" simpler than Victory at Sea, it was MUCH faster and, we suspect, it can handle far more ships without slowing down. The most we played with Victory at Sea was 6-7 ships a side and that took a while. We think that 25-30, even 40 ships per side is doable in Grand Fleets without issue.
The only problem we have is the firing arcs are 90 degrees and it's played on a hex grid, though it doesn't have to be. Do we alter the firing arcs to suit hexes, or drop the hexes and "sail manually" despite the hit to the speed of gameplay?
The basic rules are available free here if you want to have a go too, or you can buy them fairly cheaply from DriveThruRPG
I'll keep you posted and I'll take some photos next time! In the meantime I'll be cutting out more counters and maybe having a game with my son before he's back to school (and I'm back at work!).
This was TIL (Today I Learnt), a series I'm hoping to expand on as I learnt lots of new things throughout 2018.