Wednesday 27 April 2011

Posties Rejects WW1 Naval Game Report and Pictures.

The Rejects met up on Saturday for a WW1 Naval Game hosted by John and played in Posties shed (man cave), the rejects were Richard, Smithy, Ray, John, Postie, Lee and myself, the game was already prepared and we were using John's home made rules.

Myself, Richard and Smithy were playing the British fleet, I started off with 4 capital ships, the Tiger, Warspite, Inflexible, Indomitable and the destroyer Pettard.

Ray and his 4 german capital ships steam towards me.

A closer view of the lovely models used.

Ray http://onelover-ray.blogspot.com/ laughing like a hyena with Richard in the background.

Smithy and John (umpire), apologies to John for the pits picture but it was bloody hot in that shed.


Contractual and obligatory Postie shot hard at work doing paperwork which was a big factor in this game.

If your ship had 28 knots in speed that meant you could travel at 7" as 4 knots equalled 1" but you could increase your speed by 8 knots (2") per turn or decrase per 4 knots per turn (1"), this caused problems for everybody.

Capital ships could change their direction by 45 degrees by turn as long as it was written down but destroyers could change direction by 90 degrees.

At the end of your movement and everybody moved at the same time, you could then write down the target you wanted to fire at, capital ships had to wait a turn to switch to another target with their main arnament unlike destroyers who could target anything within range.

Things are getting close and interesting, the closer the better for capital ships but especially destroyers as they had little chance against capital ships except for their torpedoes.

The charts every player had to keep track of their speed, damage and targets. 

The water explosion markers were used to show what ships are been fired at, they are just the tops of cotton buds on a counter (brilliantly done and very visually effective).

You will notice in the top of the picture a little bit of ramming between destroyers which was another effective way of destroying ships and this time it worked but resulted in a lot of damage to the rammer but the object of the ramming was sunk.

Lee http://bigleesminipaintingblog.blogspot.com/ who was overall german commander surveys the battle from a safe distance, he and smithy spent the game exchanging fire at great distances until the end when they got into better range.

The oil slick markers bear testament to the damage being done at the other end of the table.

Another oil slick marker bears testament that destroyers should not try to ram capital ships because the outcome was a sunken destroyer and the capital ship only lost 4 knots of speed in damage.The destroyers were lethal when they got into torpedo range though.

A better view of one of the excellent water spray markers, the game ended after twelve turns with the british fleet victorious with 5 german ships sunk (3 to me, 2 to Richard) including the only capital ship sunk to only 2 british ships sunk, there were a lot more ships in trouble and would have difficulty reaching dry dock but I had never played these rules or period before and I thoroughly enjoyed the game and the day except for the bloody heat in that shed and my suggestion to Postie about an air conditioning unit was met with abject derision and scorn.  

59 comments:

  1. i would so love to see a video of you guys in action! :D

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  2. Excellent write up of the game. I thoroughly enjoyed it even if my side did lose. I'd happily play this system again, especially now we all have a better idea how to organize movement/turning.

    One small issue was that it was not made completely clear that battleships could use their secondary guns to fire on a different target to the main guns. The question was asked early on (by me) but the answer wasn’t clear enough. The consequence was that both myself and Ray hardly used our secondary guns at all during the game and missed an opportunity to target the smaller destroyers. Whether this would have made a difference or not is a mute point but its something we would rectify in any future games.

    Overall I think everyone enjoyed the game, which is the point of it after all. Your right about the heat though; it was hotter than the devils jockstrap in that shed!

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  3. I forgot to include a link to my own pictures of the game. No shots or peoples pits in my photos, no sir!

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  4. Really great looking game - lots of action & fun! Regards, Dean

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  5. Ok nice, something different, look like fun.

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  6. I agree with jay! Would love to see a vid :D

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  7. that looks awesome, i didnt think of navy based sea wargames

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  8. Nice. Was that big ocean fault line an in-game hazard? ;)

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  9. awesome! a vid would be nice, with some WO1 war songs on the background.

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  10. WW1 naval is one of my favourite periods so this was an excellent read from my point if view and of course with the right outcome of Britannia ruling the waves

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  11. Well Bravo and Splice the Mainbrace! After that very enjoyable report, I'm sure the Admiral will approve a double ration of grog for every man!

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  12. Nice post, interesting game! I hope I can have those miniature ships too.

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  13. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  14. Great post. I always love reading game recaps, especially with lots of good photos like this one.

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  15. The sea boards seen in the game belonged to John and had got a little warped, we put it down to choppy seas.

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  16. Great post Fran, I've gotta agree, even though my side lost the game it was still very enjoyable. As Lee said, know we know the rules, things will be different in the next game. I was expecting a bit of a Ray bash in this post as I lost two ships, what happened to the usual mean spirited Irishman I know??

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  17. Looks great. Just had some Dystopian Wars stuff delivered by the postman this morning and am lookign forward to a little waterbourne gaming myself.

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  18. very nice!!!!
    very very nice....

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  19. To be honest ray you did well to survive as long as you did. With that large destroyer group on your ass from the get go and British Capital Ships closing in from the other side, you were in for a rodgering from the start.

    If our whole fleet had concentrated on the destroyer group, at least you would have had some protection. But I think you would then have had both groups of British battleships pounding you like last weeks beef by the end of the game.

    What I'm trying to say is it's not our fault we lost. Disadvantageous deployment, poorly explained rules, crappy dice rolls. Honestly, we were robbed!! LoL

    The truth is the British fought well and we made some mistakes. But next time...

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  20. Ray I only bash you when you deserve it (which is normally a lot) but you are my friend and it would be unjust to do it always.

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  21. A navy battle? Thats a new one for me. Still pretty awesome though! :D

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  22. That looks like a lot of fun. Wow, pretty in depth. I'd love to see you map out other games like this one. Very very kewl! Good post!

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  23. That is awesome.

    I am lucky that I live really close to the USS Texas which is a battleship that served in both WW1 and WW2. It is the only US battleship that is left which served in both wars.

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  24. ah never really collected these myself, i can imagion it being a lot of fun once you get into it though

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  25. for a second, i thought i read 'pasties', anyway you should do a post about pasties and how they distract intellectuals like myself.

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  26. If not a/c, maybe a fan or two? But would that cause a typhoon of sorts?

    This looks fun. More fun than the hasbro version of battleship, at least...

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  27. game looks pretty technical

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  28. Those cotton balls are awesome. :P

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  29. Looks great! I'm actually really into turn-based model strategy games!

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  30. Great stuff, love naval games.

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  31. I'm loving the layout and the ships!

    @Kicking Rocks
    You sir are a pretentious muffin

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  32. thanks. lol this game looks fun. it looks like a bigger cooler version of battleship.

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  33. That looks like good fun actually, well done for winning and keeping the British naval forces on top ;)

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  34. Cool looking miniatures, always liked the naval stuff

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  35. the most legit game of battleship....ever.

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  36. The speed thing sounds complicated...reminds me of Star Fleet Battles

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  37. i agree with a vid of it, i would check it out. Looks like its very fun.

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  38. It looks like a great time. Always nice to see gaming with paper, rulers and pencils.

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  39. Choppy seas indeed. Looks like you have a lot of different miniature warfare styles covered.
    This looks a hell of a lot more exciting than Battleship.

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  40. I'd get confused 10 seconds in to that, lol
    I'm not sure why you can't see my posts, i'll try to get it worked out, thanks for letting me know

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  41. I agree with Rorschach, and Colin. I'd pick that over Battleship, but I'd probably give up and watch others because I'd get too confused.

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  42. That is freaking sweet! Never heard of this type of thing but man would i love to see something like that in person!

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  43. Love the blog style! Keep up the great work!

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  44. I've struggled to get into naval battles, beyond the kid's fare like Broadsides and Boarding Parties. I guess I need more shiny objects to hold my attention, and maybe a dwarf or two.

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  45. Is 50 comments normal? This post was like a depth charge fishing. More naval battles seems to be the message, and I'll go along with that.

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  46. you should definitely make videos

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  47. That sounds like a great game. It's a pity about the lack of air conditioning. I once switched churches because the one we were attending didn't have A/C. Stand by your guns, Fran. A/C, A/C, A/C. Or just skip deodorant next time. Then you'll get some A/C. :)

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  48. that looks like soooo much work. awesome job.

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  49. Creative minds, looks fun!

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  50. I've never tried this type of game! I think it's interesting

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  51. Glad to see you guys had so much fun. Go you for winning :-)

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