Fleet actions in two ages

Past and future.

Firstly from a couple of weeks ago some shots of more War at Sea tabletop action. Myself Phil and Chris managed two 150 point games, beginning with an American Battleship group encountering a Japanese Carrier group. Here Japanese spotters catch sight of the USS Iowa and escorts.

The Japanese fleet was fat with air power, whilst the Americans relied on land-based fighters. It would not prove enough however.

The Iowa was the main problem however, its long range guns playing merry hell with the Japanese ships, the Akagi had to negotiate a narrow straight simply to avoid the Iowa's guns.

The Americans ultimately sunk pretty much the whole Japanese fleet, for nominal losses.

Game two was a convoy scenario, and an opportunity to use my scratch-built merchant fleet. I played the British, opting for lots of air cover, destroyers and cruisers. On reflection a Battleship was needed. Phil and Chris split an Italian-German fleet with several cruisers, submarines, Stuka aircraft and a German battle cruiser.

Mid way through the game and the Royal Navy was reduced to shrouding its' carrier in smoke. The merchantmen tried to escape, but motor boats and coastal submarines were playing amongst them. The Allies concentrated on a phyrric victory in sinking the German flagship. Soon the merchants and the remains of the allies were scattered and I was defeated again.

Not for the first time the Ark Royal was sunk.

As written the Convoy scenario in the main rulebook needs adapting; My 8 foot long table made the potential journey50% longer than it should've been, and the 150 point fleets gave too much ability to sink the convoy, I think you should increase the convoy size and victory conditions proportionately to the points. This game should've had 8 convoy boats with 4 or 5 making it for a victory.

Anyhoo.

Rather than make another post, here are some snaps from a game called 'Full thrust' we played at the Leeds club last night. Me and Chris commanded a "Russian" fleet (the bronze ships) in a massive battle. We were allied to a Japanese fleet, with support from "Germans". Against us were Franco-Italians with alien mercenaries. The aliens tore through both me and the Japanese ships, thanks in part to their powerful beam weapons, but mostly due to our losing the initiative every turn!

Beer, paperwork, dice and dozens of painted models, a geeks ideal night out?...

Germans swarm French, to no great effect...

Aliens trash the Russian super dreadnought.

Entertaining, but skewed by the outright power of the alien fleet and the missiles beloved of the Frenchies in the game.

Spartan civil wars

Like a doofus, I forgot to take the camera with me last night to the Leeds club; which is a shame as not only did myself and 'Lon' have a very pretty game of Warhammer Ancients, with two well painted Greek armies (mine and his) across the table, but also - and this was remarkable - there were three other figures games in progress. A 15mm American Civil War refight, a 15mm WW2 Pacific island landing and a 'kinda looked like 20mm' Terminators vs humans sci-fi game.

As for my own game, it was a close affair not least as the two armies were virtually Identical. I ended up seconding in a few of Lon's numerous Greeks to bolster my as yet incomplete force. I ended up with:

2 units of 20 Spartans, one with the general in light armour
2 units of 24 Matineans
A unit of 15 Thracians
A unit of 10 javelinmen
A unit of 8 Cretan archers

Lon had basically the same, I think all his Hoplite units were 24 strong, but his skirmishers were weaker than mine, lacking the Thracian/Cretan edge.

The result was a classically Greek grind; both sides brushed the skirmishers aside and then lock horns for a couple of hours. Both sides had phalanxes break, but pursuits failed to wipe anything out. Up until the last turn we played I had the upper hand, having caused 50-60% losses in Lon's army. My losses were around 30%.

Alas, and as ever, my general eventually got killed; in this game it was still all to play for, as most of my army stood after news of his death; and the enemy was in only a marginal position. But as time was rolling on, I conceded the field, and withdrew in order.

A good balanced game; restores my faith in Warhammer!

The less said the better

My game on Thursday at Harrogate was another disgraceful defeat.





I lieu of any discussion of how not to deploy for a Warhammer game I will instead leave the reader to draw his own conclusions on the wisdom of offensive units deployed in cover.

Overall I didn't tax my opponent too much, though I did manage to knock off a couple of units. I was generally impressed with his gentlemanly conduct and attractive army.

One of these days I may learn the subtleties of Warhammer as a game; but I think I'll always prefer the play style of 40k and scenario led - problem solving or narrative wargames in general.

War @ Sea: Costal Convoy Scenario

In the Med it was often the case that Axis forces would convoy military equipment down the coast of Italy and the Balkans to avoid the limited surface routes.

In principle it was direct and fast, but of course it could be opposed by Allied naval forces, especially as motor torpedo boats became readily available. In response the Germans in their turn would employ the F-Lighter, or Flak lighter armed landing barges to get critical materiel to the front. They were respected enemies amongst PT boats, as they packed a considerable punch. Even more so if supported by the AFP gunboats.

This scenario represents a typical convoy attempting the trip down the coast. One player, normally the Axis player will be acting as a convoy escort; the other player will attempt to intercept it. Although the scenario is written principally from the standpoint of the Mediterranean similar actions were frequently carried out in the pacific.

Fleet Selection

Each player may pick a fleet of upto 50 points only. No vessel that costs more than 10 points may be selected*.

Carriers may be included, so long as the separate cost of each component (carrier, aircraft) is 10 points or less.

Additionally the convoy commander (nominally the axis player) has a transport fleet of 5 vessels to escort. These are either standard merchant vessels using the stats provided in the normal convoy scenario, or F-Lighters as detailed below in an earlier post. The advantage of F-lighters is they can hug the coast for much of the game, safe from most enemy fire. Merchant vessels however have more durability.

Axis players may wish to include AFP's as part of their 50 point naval force as well.

*At present some of the fleet options are limited with such low point limits, especially the Japanese. I would offer an optional rule of permitting any cost of surface vessel so long as it is either noted as a Destroyer, Submarine or Auxiliary; or costs 10 points or less. This would give the Japanese the ability to use their destroyers. And allow all forces to use their submarines.

Deployment



The map above shows the initial dispositions available to forces. Axis vessels may queue off the table to come on in subsequent turns; if so they must be placed behind the sector they will initially enter at deployment, and cannot shuffle around until they have moved onto the table.

Sectors marked L can only be entered by vessels with the Shallow Draft SA.

The Allied player MUST split his forces between the two deployment areas, with at least one third of his surface force in each area.

Mission Objectives and Winning

The Axis/Convoy controlling player wins if Three of his transports make it to Axis Objective. The Allied Player wins if all the transports are sunk. Any other result is considered a draw; in which case total up the value of the (non transport) vessels (surface and air) destroyed - the player who has destroyed the most can claim a Phyrric victory.

The game lasts a maximum of 18 turns.

Special Rules

Coastal Waters

Vessels in a sector marked L cannot be attacked by, or attack any vessel, including aircraft. However, this does not apply if both attacker and defender are in the same sector and both have the Shallow Draft SA. This reflects the ability of shallow water vessels to hunt one another down where deep water vessels dare not go. Note that as per the rule clarifications, torpedoes cannot target Shallow Draft vessels.

Night attack

Friend and foe are limited in visibility by the cover of darkness that was favoured for these operations. This effects play in two ways:

Aircraft may fail to locate any declared target in a turn. Once all aircraft targets are declared, roll a D6 for each aircraft, on a 4+ the plane finds it's target and may begin an attack. If it fails its turn ends, though similarly its target will get no chance to fire on it; however, if an interceptor was trained on the attacker and still rolls a 4+ it will find and engage its target, which may defend itself if able.

Surface ranges are limited to 2 sectors due to the poor visibility.

Trenka Bridge 1943

Wednesday night's game saw my Germans facing Ken's Russians once again. I did my best to set up an appealing table with the available resources; and add a plausible scenario.


Using Alzo Zero's "Operation Overlord" rules I fielded a 1500 point mixed reconnaissance force, running ahead of the main army in the southern Caucasus, attempting to seize crossing points. Ken was given the Russian supplement (downloaded from Alzo Zero's website) to form a 1500 point force, including at least some engineers, attempting to blow the crossing before the Germans arrive. He had a screening platoon forward, but no idea what would face him. Fortunately most of his men had cover, including some nice Snapdragon studios trenches.

The Germans advanced cautiously at first using kubelwagens for speed. This vehicle wasn't just used as a staff car, and was more analogous (if over engineered) to the US Jeep. A long straight road through flat arable terrain led to the bridge, and orchard is on the left.

The Russians had no difficulty stopping the first car, ambushing it as it approached a ruined farm on the right, but drawing attention to themselves would unleash the deadly wild card in the German patrol...


A quad 20mm flak gun mounted on a half track. Conscious of soviet air power, and aware of it's potential against infantry formations, the Germans had attached one of these beasts to the patrol; the murderous fire from it's position on a low rise would cover the movements of the German recon forces for the rest of the engagement. It's first blow was dealt to a squad of infantry advancing across open ground, who took losses of around 50% and promptly broke; then it concentrated on the trench lines.

Additionally, the Germans had access to a SDFFZ 232 armoured car, with another deadly 20mm cannon and a machine gun. In defense however the Russians were stalwart, and whilst the entrenched troops stalled the limited infantry at German disposal (only 10 men in three cars, 6 of whom became casualties), their engineers wired up the bridge.

Some then tried to advance, but the flak gun did its terrible work once again. Nonetheless as the Russian main line crumbled and withdrew, the bridge was blown, stopping the Germans in the nick of time. It had been costly, the Soviet forces lost some 25 men from an initial complement of about 45. Most of these were to the cannons and so hopes for them were slight. The Germans had several wounded and a couple of dead, but had not approached fast enough to take the crossing. It would now fall to their own engineers to try to resolve the problem the Soviet commander had given them...

Update alert!

Just a quick note to say I've tidied up a couple of inconsistencies in my War At Sea tabletop rules. Enjoy!

Scratchbuilt Mediterranean Fleet

I'd honestly like to have something land based to write about; but lately it has all been my new obsession with Axis and Allies - War at Sea.


I the week myself and Chris took the game to the Leeds club and managed three games; it attracted a lot of curiosity, as most of the members had heard of or seen the game, but few had seen the models before. Obviously opinions were divided, some thought there was a fundamental problem with a random supply of models; others understood the logic behind that one (it's cynical logic, but excellent as a business model). Many liked the look of the models though and I was pleased with how the game went.


But two of the games came down to a battleship led turkey shoot.


So I'm intending doing a coastal convoy scenario, largely because I want to expand my options in the Med, and fancied introducing some smaller vessels (it shouldn't ALL be about capital ships, now should it?) I figured building my own ships wouldn't be too hard! I started by doing three vessels:

• The F-Lighter Armoured Transport/landing ship (Germany)


• The AFP armoured gunboat variant (Germany)


• The Gabbiano Class Corvette (Italy)
  

The Internet provided plenty of evidence for the dimensions and looks of these ships; details that were obviously essential to working out the stats too.

Here are the unpainted models:





And here they are painted up:



Models were painted with Vallejo acrylics, and given a dark grey glaze (coloured varnish) to wash into the recesses and show the detail.


The observant may notice that the AFB has had the hull and one gun swapped round between building and painting. Photo's I found after building them showed a different layout to the regular F-lighters.


The models are from 27-40mm long, and made from modellers styrene sheet and rods (with the exception of the torpedo tubes, made of plastic brush bristle!).


So, Then they needed some stats. These are my proposed cards (no fancy graphics mind):


F-Lighter


Class: Auxiliary 1941 Points: 4
Speed: 1
Main weapons: 2/2/-
Air defence: 3
Armour: 2 Vital Armour: 4 Hull: 1


SA:
Vital Cargo 4 (Historically they carried 4 Tiger tanks as transporters)
Shallow Draft


Historically the F-lighter carried a 75mm or 88mm gun and several AA guns, armour was only 20mm or so thick. Some 800+ were built.


AFP


Class: Auxiliary 1941 Points: 5
Speed: 1
Main weapons: 3/3/2/-
Air defence: 5
Armour: 2 Vital Armour: 5 Hull: 2


SA:
Shallow Draft


AFP's carried two 105mm guns, a 37mm AA and eight 20mm guns. Armour was 20mm of steel plus 100mm of Concrete. About 160 were built.


Gabbiano


Class: Destroyer (Corvette) 1942 Points: 6
Speed: 2
Main weapons: 3/2/-
Air Defence: 4
Depth Charges: 4
Torpedoes: 1/1/-
Armour: 1 Vital Armour: 4 Hull: 2


SA:

Close escort (as Z20 - allows an extra vessel in the sector)
Sub Hunter - may move into adjacent sector containing sub at end of turn


Gabbiano class corvettes carried a single 105mm gun, 7 AA guns, 8 depth charge racks and two launchers; plus sometimes two torpedoes. around thirty were built.


A mighty 37 points of fleet!


The scenario will allow a decent use for PT boats and other little vessels, a destroyer will look like the Bismark amongst this lot! Building boats is fun, I've already started on a fleet of merchantmen, and may try to add some other Italian and British assets to my Med fleets.

War at Sea - Tabletop report

I got the opportunity to play test my rules with Phil on Sunday, and hence a few tweaks have been added to the tabletop rules below.

Phil selected a force of 150 points (about the most my fleets would muster on a realistic footing); his navy was:

Task Force Turnbull:

HMS Rodney
HMS Ajax
Gloire
Javelin
Samuel B Roberts
Le Terrible
Motor Torpedo Boat (PT) squadron

HMS Truculent submarine operating as an interceptor

Devastator dive bombers based in Malta
Two squadrons of Hurricanes based in Malta

To Counter this I fielded an Italian Led fleet:

Grouppo Alfa:

Vittoro Veneto
Duca D'Aosta
Z20 Destroyer
Motor Torpedo Boat squadron

Grouppo Beta:

Bolzano
Three Soldatini class destroyers (Luca Tarigo's)

Two light submarines operating as interceptors (Ambra's)

Two squadrons of Stukas based in Sicily

At first it went well for the Axis, the Stuka's proving quite effective. However the Axis then suffered a terrible setback, when the Rodney, although damaged in the exchange, sunk the Vittoro Veneto with it's opening barrage!

The Axis forces were able to control some sea lanes by merit of having two operational groups, and concentrating submarines and aircraft on denying the allies objectives. But really it was only a matter of time or out manoeuvring the lumbering Rodney. Her inability to turn gave the Axis a glimmer of hope.

Alas the Ajax proved too much for a group of crippled Italian destroyers to handle, and the Bolzano proved luckless in its own firing.

The game ended as a solid Allied victory. More over, Phil and I both felt that as a 'Game' the rules worked well, and managed to transfer the concepts of the original game to a tabletop effectively, without over complicating matters.

Can't be bad.

Axis & Allies – War at Sea: Tabletop Conversions

Ok; so these are my rules for converting W@S to a tabletop environment. They may not be complete as yet, but I feel they meet the basic needs of the game as it stands. You will need a copy of the game, obviously, to play these adaptions.

I would add that the major diversion from the original rules is an effort to make submarines work more realistically. This makes them more effective, so as a consequence they are limited in availability.

General

All normal rules apply, including the official clarifications of July 2007 (available here); except where they would clearly contradict the adaptions for the table top listed below.

Sectors conversion

*You may select to enlarge the effective battlefield by using a smaller table dimension scale for sectors; using the 6 feet scale on an 8 feet table increases the play area by 50%.

Army limits

Due to their higher efficiency (read: bias) American ships work out significantly cheaper than other navies, as a consequence for balanced games, a fleet including more than one third of its points as US vessels /aircraft, is capped to 90% of the maximum fleet value (e.g. 90 points in a 100pt per side game; 180 in a 200 points game, and so on).

Submarines are limited to comprising 25% of available points values.

Deployment

Fleets may deploy upto one sector depth in to the short edges of the table, normally on opposite sides. Submarines may begin forward of this point but must be at least one sector from the centre line of the tabletop.

Unit Cohesion

Vessels may not be less than 2cm from each other, regardless of sector scale.

Movement

Each sector of movement equals one move sector listed on the table above for the table scale in use, e.g. a Fletcher class destroyer on an 8 foot scale may normally move up to 30cm (2x 15cm sectors).

Movement is measured from the prow. The front of the ship may not travel more than its permitted movement from its last position; and may travel less.

Turning: if a boat turns over 45 degrees it must have first travelled forward its own length; and then at least its own length in the direction it intended. If a boat turns 90 degrees or more it must do two 45+ degree turns in effect.

Turns of less than 45 degrees total for a full move are done without penalty.

Ships may not go within 5cm/their own length (whichever is greater) of land without the shallow draft rule on their card. Ships using shallow draft rules may attack other ships in shelter of same coast, but otherwise apply core rules.

Special movement rules on cards such as ‘sub-hunter’ are applied in as close a fashion as possible on the table, following any dictated restrictions.

Submarines (new rules)

Submarines are deployed as normal at the start of the game, but count as hidden; for each turn they are hidden they remain stationary on the table but their card is given a counter/marker die. When found (see below) or first declaring an attack they may move their normal turn of movement, plus any distance up to the sum total of moves saved by being concealed. E.g. an Italian sub remains concealed for 4 turns before declaring an attack, it first gets its normal move (1 sector) plus up to 4 more sectors of saved movement towards its declared target. Once a submarine actually moves, it may not become concealed again.

Submarine hunting (new rules)

If a submarine is hidden it may be searched for by any vessel which can by use of flying, normal movement or special abilities come within its ‘0 Sector’ range. Once in this range roll a D6 to try and find the submarine needing as follows:

> Aircraft other than Patrol Bombers: 6
> Normal ships: 5+
> Patrol Bombers, Ships with ASW weaponry: 4+
> Ships classed as sub-hunters, with ASW and sub-hunting special rules: 3+

Once discovered the submarine may be allowed to move. If found by aircraft it may move as normal, but the aircraft in its sector ‘0’ range all move with it to its new position. If found by ships; it may move up to the speed of the discovering vessel, if able. But the discovering vessel may choose to pursue for free (maintaining the same relative position), or remain where it was. If forced to move as a result of discovery the movement need not be towards a declared target.

Air attacks

Carried out as per core rules. As well as the targeted ship, a single friendly ship whose conning tower is within the Sector ‘0’ range of the conning tower of the ship under air attack may fire on aircraft involved in attacking a vessel. Vessels with the 'Close Escort' Special ability may perform antiaircraft fire on a target that two other ships have fired on, providing it is within 'Sector 0' of the target ships conning tower.

Carrier based aircraft now get rearming counters. Land based aircraft get two rearming counters. Therefore aircraft can be caught on deck (q.v. Midway).

Naval attacks

Carried out as per core rules. Excepting that ranges are measured between the conning towers of the vessels involved. The conning tower is normally to the front of the ship and represents the highest point of the superstructure. Where no conning tower is obvious, (e.g. PT boats or the Shoho carrier), measure from/to the centre of the model.

All ships may fire about them in a 360 degree arc, with the exception of Sumarine torpedoes. These may only fire forward in an arc 45 degrees either side of their centreline (i.e. a total of 90 degrees, forward only). This restriction reflects their need to carefully line up a target and balances some of their other advantages.

Shallow draft vessels (as defined on their cards) may not be targeted by torpedoes.

Ships, including all destroyers, cruisers and Battleships, receive 2 rearming counters after firing torpedoes. They may only remove one rearming counter per turn; and may not fire torpedoes whilst rearming counters are on the vessel. Submarines and Torpedo boats do not receive rearming counters.

Objectives

In a conventional game, objectives carry the normal value. To seize an objective a vessel must make contact with the objective whilst no opposition vessel has any part of it within Sector ‘1’ range (e.g. 20 cm on a 6 foot table).

Well that's all, if anyone tries them I'd appreciate feedback.

Celts in Turkey; 800bc?

Well, as promised, here is a review of my defeat at the Harrogate club, using Warhammer Ancients!

The opposing forces were my Celtic 'Barbarians' against Pat's Hittites; therefore a largely unhistorical match up, but the closest we could get in 20mm with the forces we have. My Celts have been on here many times but for the purposes of showing my force here they are again:
I deployed two blocks of 48 infantry, two of 27, a block of fanatics numbering 28, some skirmishers, 14 light horse and 5 chariots.

Pat fielded two units of 35 spear men, a unit of 28 mercenary sea peoples, rather more skirmishers, and three units of five chariots - the elite arm of his force. The figures are largely Caesar and were painted using an ink wash base. They were very nice, though I remain unconvinced by movement trays...

The opening moves saw the Celts swarm forward, whilst Hittite chariots covered the flanks. From the first turn Pat was afraid of the sheer size of my units! The terrain ended up blocking the centre of the battlefield, so far as I was concerned that was to my advantage...

A close up of Pat's centre:Early on it was all looking good for the Celts, armed with javelins we easily could out shoot the Hittites at the range we were operating. Pat was putting all his efforts in to destroying my cavalry so he could out flank me.
As it was the chariots on his right did chase off my cavalry, but not with the resultant advantage he may have hoped for. On his left it was a disaster, as the least enthusiastic melee ever saw his chariots rout straight off the table side when he misjudged the ability of my faster chariots to charge him.

Then the usual disaster befell me, slowly I'm learning how to win, or how NOT to lose at Warhammer, and high on the list of "Don't's" should be "Don't throw your army General into a melee at the start of the game." I did, he got killed, the bulk of my army started running.

Surprisingly it took another hour or more for Pat to seal the deal. A sprinkling of my troops stood, and I was still able to beat a few of his prize units, but with my forces hemorrhaging from the field it was only a matter of time. My fanatics could not arrive in time to save my last large unit from a 3 on 1 assault, so I conceded the victory to Pat.

Compared to other recent forays, I did more right here than usual, I was suitably aggressive with an attackers army. I covered my flanks and held a reserve. But throwing my general in at the first was just too risky a manoeuvre. As ever I couldn't have made a morale test of '12' on two D6 on the night, whilst the Hittites rolled on average a '4' for all of theirs (though to be fair the way he rolled armour saves, it was apparent the Hittite regulation kit that day was a paper bulls eye for every man).

Elsewhere there was plenty going on in the club, again; but my photo skills were not good this night, so the only reasonable photo, is of one of my next opponent's armies. Some Ancient Chinese of some sort or other:

Well, it was a fun evening. My next trip to Harrogate is in a month, for what looks like being a rare old slogging match. My Vampire Counts versus a Tomb Kings army. Two forces of undead? I don't expect it'll be a quick game...