First Game with Torpedoes and Tides

 When Cruel Seas first came out we played it a lot and Colin and myself invested heavily in additional boats. But after a while the rules became more complicated and less fun, so we stopped playing. My little ships have sat on the self for a few years and every now and then I've thought about getting them out, but never bothered.

So, I got very exited about Torpedoes and Tides, the new WW2 costal forces wargame by Thomas Brandstetter (published by Ganesha Games). The rules use the same mechanisms as Galleys and Galleons, which in turn is built on A Song of Blades and Heroes (both also published by Ganesha Games). This makes the game somewhat more abstract than other rules systems, but also provides for a truly fast-play rule set. Reading through we both liked the very clever way that spotting and the strength and position of the moon played important roles, after all, the majority of small boat encounters took place at night.

Colin came over the other day, so that we could try the game out with my old Cruel Seas boats.

We started off with a historical scenario from the book, Making a Beginning, which the author suggests as a good place for players to familiarise themselves with the basic rules.

It's a simple scenario, 2 S Boats are returning to port and ambushed by 3 RN gunboats.

Nothing much happened for the first move, the Germans ran for home and the British closed in. In turn two one of the British boats revealed itself and fired a star shell, which made spotting the S boats easier. Boats cannot fire, or be targeted, whilst they are moving on a blind.

Here is the situation at the end of turn 2, one S boat has been spotted, the blue splash marker represents the star shell (getting to reuse some of the Cruel Seas gubbins!).

                                               

In turn 3 all of the gunboats pounded the closest S Boat, which took heavy damage and had a gun knocked out. With 3 hits it was now battered and now activated with 3 red dice (or in our case black dice). I rolled two 6s and a 1. Rolling a 1 on a red die means taking an All At Sea test (a sort of panic test). My result was to fire blindly at the closest target. 

Fortunately I had already moved my other S Boat out of the way, so I blasted the closest British gunboat, not causing any damage but suppressing it.

In turn 4 my damaged S Boat took more hits and exploded! The other S Boat managed to slink off table, unharmed. An easy win for the RN, but fun to play and it gave us an understanding of the rules.

Our second game was a convey mission. The Germans had two freighters escorted by a Vorpstenboot and 2 Kriegfischkutters pounced on by 2 RN MTBs and 2 RN MGBs.

Turn 1 didn't start well for the British, the first blind rolled one activation and 2 fails, so moved forward alone and passed the turn over to the Germans. For activations, players roll 1 to 3 d6s per boat/blind, if they roll 2 or more fails its a turnover and the initiative passes to the other player.

I had the British so, once I got going, I threw the MGBs forward to engage the escorts and try and spot the freighters, whilst the MTBs hung back, waiting for targets!

This tactic worked brilliantly as the German escorts broke formation to engage the MGBs and Colin moved one of his little Kriegfischkutters (I need to find an abbreviation for that!) into the path of his Vorpostenboot! Both boats took damage from the collision, combined with the gunfire from the MGBs the Kriegfischkutter was now battered (3 hits) and the Vorpostenboot not much better (2 hits).

I saw a gap and one of my MTBs sped forward and launched 2 torpedoes....which both missed! The rules say that torpedoes that miss the target are taken off, but we decided to let them run after missing the target. We marked the launch point and the full extent of the torpedo's run, if anything crossed the line until the next British turn, we would roll for another torpedo attack on that target. This is something the author originally thought of including, laying a stick on the table to mark the torpedo's run, but decided to reject in the end.

Colin now failed his first activation in two consecutive turns (he started with a freighter both times which are difficult to activate). This did mean that the first freighter crawled forward (an activated ship must move, if a player doesn't use any actions to move it, it makes a compulsory short move straight ahead). This allowed my boats to swing around the convoy like Comanche around a wagon train! As the MTB pulled itself around to make a second pass it blasted the other Kreigfischkutter, scoring a lucky hit and setting it on fire!

The second MTB launched two more torpedoes, also missing the freighter! The MGBs were now the other side of the freighters, blasting them with all they had. the light weaponry on the small boats meant that I needed lucky dice to effect the bigger ships, but it was worth a chance and I did some damage! The MGBs were safe from the torpedoes, as their shallow draft meant that the fish just passed underneath them. The battered Kreigfischkutter now rolled a 1 for one of it's activations and the skipper panicked and fled. The boat must now use at least two of it's activations to leave the table.

The first MTB had now moved around to make a second run, launching it's last 2 torpedoes, missing again!

Fortunately for me, the second freighter ten moved into the path of the torpedoes and I rolled a hit, at last!

I rolled well on the effects chart and the freighter was wrecked!

At this point the remaining German vessels moved off the table edge, so it was game over. I has battered all three escorts, sunk one freighter and badly damaged the other with gunfire, for just some scratched paintwork on the MGBs. However my Victory Conditions were 3VPs for a sunk freighter and VP for a battered one. Colin got 3 VPs for each escaped freighter, so it was a draw!

We loved the rules, each game was under an hour and really was fast play. the simplicity of the basic mechanisms allowed tactics to be more important, rather than the minutia of  different weapons charts and whether a particular boat travels at 30 knots or 35.

First impressions are a well thought-out set of rules that get a superb and fun game. I'm looking forward to trying the rules out with larger forces and more players.

VSF Ottomans on land and sea!

 I picked up a couple more of the PMC VSF resin kits on Ebay, another tracked steam tractor and a steam landing craft. Sadly all the VSF kits in the range are still OOP, but I keep my fingers crossed that Minifigs might get around to restoring them to production at some point.

Of course, I needed some crew (and I still had an Ironclad electric cannon that required manning), so when my sister-in-law asked what I wanted for Christmas, I gave her a small list from the Tiger Miniatures Balkans Ware ranges!

Taking a break from fantasy I decided to to get my new Ottoman kit table-ready!

First up the PMC steam landing craft. I couldn't see me having a lot of use for a landing craft, so decided to make it an armed barge instead. I'd got a deck gun in my Christmas gift package, but unfortunately the gun's barrel came just below the top of the barge's side. I made a gun platform from a couple of circular mdf bases I had to hand and now the gun can be fired without fear a blowing a hole in the barge's side!!!

I can always take the gun and platform out if I need a troop transporter at any time for a game.

Now the crew for the two steam tractors and the electric cannon.

A useful bunch of additions to my VSF forces for the Balkans. I'm looking forward to getting them on the table now!

More New Toys for VSF

 Oh Dear!

I've picked up various new toys for my ever-expanding VSF collection!

Firstly a couple of new buildings from TT Combat. These are actually intended for WW2 France, but I though with an appropriate colour scheme they should fit in with my Streets of Venice stuff.

I wanted to dress up some of my buildings to give them more of a VSF buzz, but I still want to use my Venice set-up for Fantasy or Historical games, so I don't want anything permanently attached. I'd already got some gas lamps and postboxes for the streets and a set of power generators from Frontline. I then discovered a German company, Ziterdes, who produce some supeb resin bits and pieces at a very reasonable price.

And a close-up of one of the sets.

Finally I've started work on a new faction, can you guess what it will be?

I found the boats on Ebay (seller  https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/actualsizeminiatures). They are reasonably detailed resin hulls with 3d printed weapons and fittings. The boats are intended for WW1 Africa, but do the job nicely for late Victorian/VSF. The launch is a motorboat, but I will add in one of Ashio Models' nice little upright boilers and turn it into a steam launch. That came with a stern mounted maxim, but the seller also does a nice set of Gatling guns so I'll swap them around. I will magnetise the weapons so I can remove them when in storage, to save in breakages.

The naval ratings are from Tiger Miniatures and the boarding party from Ironclad.

Keeping Myself Busy 9

Not many figures painted at all this week. I have been spending more time working on the new Sellswords & Spellslingers campaign book, and when I did get to the painting table I got distracted by some 1/300 ships!

Four more Alfar for my Jotunheim project, these are old Phil Lewis elf sculpts from Heartbreaker. That's "old sculpts", not "old Phil Lewis".

This is a skirmish project that still hasn't really got beyond "a vague idea" in the planning stage, Considering I've already painted 72 28mm figures for it, I really should progress it, perhaps once I've finished the Sellswords book.

Way back last year sometime, I picked up a shedload of 3d printed 1/300 WW2 little ships for Cruel Seas, unfortunately, they all came without weapons. I had a few spares kicking around and thanks to the kindness of a couple of chums on the Pendraken Forum, I have gathered together most of what I needed. I painted up some Fairmile Bs and a HDML for a scenario idea, undercoated a bunch more and stuck them all in a drawer next to my painting table.
I am currently reading "Flag 4" by Dudley Pope, which rekindled my interest so I opened the drawer and pulled some little boats out!

The first batch, a small tanker, a couple of freighters and a RN Steam Gun Boat.

 A surfaced U Boat, not a lot of used in a coastal forces game, but could come in handy for a scenario.

Finally a F-Lighter. I was going to paint this up as an Italian Motozattera MZ800 and the start of my Italian fleet, complete with the red/white stripes for aircraft identification. But I decided to make it a bit more generic so I can also use it as a German vessel in the Channel or in the Adriatic/Aegean after the Italian armistice.

Cruel Seas Final Game Against the Japanese

Colin came over so we could finally get around to playing the third scenario in the mini-campaign set in the Far East.


Scenario 3 Resupply
The Japanese must move their sampans and barges out of one river mouth and across an area of shallow water to a second river mouth.

Japanese
3 gunboats (replacements are Inexperienced).
4 x Barges
2 x Sampans
Ground support 2 x 57mm guns with inexperienced crews
Air support – 1 Dive bomber arrives from the Japanese starting edge (Turn 1 roll 1-2, Turn 2 roll 1-4 Turn 3 automatic) once a bomber has left the table/been shot down roll again in the next turn for a second bomber. 
NB, if the tanker was sunk in scenario 2, only one bomber is available.
A dive bomber will only come on on a roll of 1-2 and once an aircraft has left the table the Japanese must wait one turn before rolling for the next aircraft. If the aircraft is shot down there are no replacements. 

British
3 x Fairmile ML (replacements are Inexperienced).
3 x Vosper MTB (replacements are Inexperienced).
If the support ship was sunk in Game 1, replacement MTBs do not have torpedoes.

The water between the sandbanks and the coast is very shallow.  If any medium vessel (ie the Fairmiles) moves into the area it has a chance of running aground.
At slow speed it gets stuck on a 6, at combat speed on a 5+ and at full speed on a 4+. Once stuck the boat must make a command roll to get itself free.

After the two previous games the Japanese had one inexperienced gunboat and limited air support. The British had two inexperienced Vospers by a full load of torpedoes.

The end of turn 1. The Japanese are just emerging from their starting river in the bottom left hand corner (they have a 57mm gun placed at each river mouth). The British  Fairmiles are moving forward to engage the far 57mm whilst two of the Vospers are moving up to position themselves in front of the Japanese convoy. The last Vosper is cutting back to try and get a torpedo run in whilst the Japanese are still bunched up in the river mouth.

Colin got air support in turn two (he seemed to roll a lot of 1s and 2s for air support, he got at least 5 bombing runs in) but it failed to hit the target!

Having got behind the Japanese the Vosper launches torpedoes, just in time as a gunboat scores a direct hit, knocking off half it's HPs and inflicting a Critical Hit on the crew.
At the far end of the table, my Fairmiles neutralise the land-based 57mm for no loss.

As the Japanese move forward the inexperienced gunboat pulls across to engage the daring Vosper.

One torpedo runs straight through the Japanese, missing everything. The second hits the aft of a gunboat, but runs under the hull without exploding. Small boats are much harder to hit than tankers, I was starting to think my torps would not be of much use in this game.

With the crew unable to change speed or direction my damaged Vosper runs into a cross fire from the Japanese gunboats and, as expected, gets sunk!
I lose a second Vosper to combined long range fire from the second land-based 57mm and the leading gunboat. I also have to fend off repeated dive bomber attacks, but the Japanese bombardier seems to be having a bad day.
Overall it's not looking good for the British.

The Fairmiles move closer, engaging the gunboats in a head on duel. My leading Fairmile takes damage from two hits, but one of the little gunboats explodes under return fire.

One Fairmile attempts to bring all it's guns to bear on the oncoming Japanese by moving closer to the shore, but runs aground. It takes another hit from a gunboat and now badly damaged, but fortunately is just out of range of the land-based 57mm.

A broadside from the grounded boat and a lucky shot the the 3 pounder on a second Fairmile take out another gunboat.

The grounded boat switches to target the sampans and sinks one, while the other two Fairmiles gang up on the last gunboat, sinking it.
Joined by the Vosper, the now defenseless transports are rapidly taken out.

The end of the last turn. With just one barge still afloat we called it a day.
It is not as one-sided as it looks, two of the Fairmiles are down to only 1 and 2 Hit Points apiece. Just one more hit with even a light mg would have sent them beneath the waves.
And of course if just one of the dive bomber's attacks had hit it would have been a different story.

Cruel Seas Two Games Against the Japanese

Colin came over for a gaming day to fight through a mini-campaign I'd put together. The scenario is based around a Japanese invasion of a British colony. It was an opportunity for Colin to get all his various Japanese craft on the table. Unfortunately he forgot the box that had his little gunboats in!

Game 1: Dawn attack
Japanese small craft, with air support, launch a surprise attack on a British naval base.

The unsuspecting British base at dawn, 4 Fairmiles and a support ship are moored up, whilst a little Harbour Defence Motor Launch patrols up and down. The gunners of the two shore batteries are dozing by their guns, looking forward to their relief.

The view from the Japanese scout aircraft.

The sneaky Japanese boats approach the target undetected (despite appearances, it's actually 3 MTBs and two gunboats with 57mm guns). But where's the air support, there isn't a plane in the sky, apart from the scouting aircraft? Colin had rolled for when his 3 dive bombers would turn up, turns 5, 5 and 6!

AS the British sound the alarm the first MTB launches it'e torpedoes.

Just in time, as the first shot from one of the shore batteries hit's home. When a 3" shell hits one of these little boats there isn't much left by way of wreckage even!
The inexperienced shore battery crews were outstanding in this game (I mean I kept rolling 1's for their shooting!).

Some British vessels get underway, others are still waiting for their crews to show up.

Two more MTBs launch torps, to catch the British in a crossfire.

Meantime the Fairmile crews try desperately to get out of the way of the incoming steel fish.

The second shore battery fires it's first shot, who would have believed it!

And the first spread of torpedoes pass harmlessly between the Fairmiles. Relatively harmlessly, they are probably going to make a mess of the dock in a few moments!

Now things are looking dodgy for the British, in trying to get out of the path of the torpedoes the HDML is on the verge of colliding with the leading Fairmile.

 Two torpedoes hit.................

..............one misses, passing under the hull of the target, but the other hits. Boom, scratch one Fairmile!

Now the Japanese gunnery is improving and a second hit from a 57mm gun sinks the little HDML.

 The first two dive bombers turn up and target the escaping support ship (belatedly Colin realised that as I was trying to protect the ship, it might be worth sinking).
One bomb is a near miss, but the second hits!
A critical hit takes the rudder out, so it's just as well no-one has any torpedoes left.

As the last MTB heads for home, one of the covering gunboats takes a hit from a 3" gun and heads for the bottom.

The final blow, the last dive bomber hits the stricken support ship, but the damage isn't enough to sink it.

End result, not a shining success for the Japanese. They lost 3 boats and the British lost 2, but the support ship is still in play and that will help the British in the third scenario.


Game 2: Invasion.
A minesweeper, MTB and a gunboat are escorting two troopships and a tanker to the invasion beaches, when a cobbled together British task force (a Flower class corvette and 3 Vospers) try to intercept them. The Japanese objective is to get the troopships and tanker across the table.

As the British are sighted, the convoy scatters and the minesweeper moves forward to engage the enemy.

The last time I encountered Colin's minesweeper I lost three Vospers in two turns, so two of the MTBs launch torpedoes as soon as they can.

The first salvo from the minesweeper knocks out the runner on the corvette, then to add insult to injury a dive bomber turns up and scores a direct hit! The corvette is still in the game, but not looking healthy.

The first wave or torpedoes close in on the minesweeper. Can the Japanese ship outrun the fish?

The Japanese MTB has a worrying encounter with another torpedo, but it passes harmlessly underneath it's hull.

By increasing speed the minesweeper not only outruns the torpedoes, but pits itself in a position where the Vosper cannot avoid a collision. 

The Vosper takes a dive, barely scratching the minesweeper's paintwork.

A torpedo lines up on the tanker........

................Boom! It's a hit. The tanker is still afloat, but it's taking on water and it catches on fire!

The Japanese MTB launches it's torpedoes at the corvette, which was stationary, fixing it's rudder. Fortunately I got to activate first in the next turn and somehow maneuvered between the two torpedoes (I really don't know how). We had to resort to the laser pointers for this one, but they both missed me.

Can't say the same for one of the troopships, but the torpedo missed!

But the second torpedo did hit the other troopship. It took heavy damage and also started to take on water.

At this point the minesweeper took a lucky hit from the corvette (I rolled high dice!).....

....and with accumulated damage started to sink.

The tanker crew failed to put the fire out and it too started to disappear beneath the waves.

A second dive bomber hits the corvette, but it's still afloat!
Interestingly it would have sunk if I hadn't taken the time to make repairs. We don't normally take the time to repair damage in our games. I only did it this game because it's rudder was gone, but perhaps I'll have to think about repairs in future.

As the last Vosper tries to make it's escape the damaged troopship sinks. But a blast from the Japanese MTB, just out of shot, finishes the already damaged Vosper off before it can get away.

Game end. The corvette and two of the Vospers have escaped. The Japanese have lost the minesweeper, tanker and one of the troopships.

I think that was an outstanding win for the British.

We ran out of time at this point, so our third game will have to wait for a while.

The next scenario will be Japanese gunboats trying to protect barges moving supplies alone the coast to the invasion beaches, whilst a force of Vospers and Fairmiles are hunting them down in and out of islets and sandbanks (with a risk of the larger boats running aground!).
Any losses from the previous games will be replaced, but with inexperienced crews.
Because the British support ship survived, the Vospers will have been able to replace their torpedoes, but the lose of the tanker means that the Japanese will not have air support in the last game.

I'm looking forward to it!