Off the Finnish Coast

Have been working on my Russian and Finnish navys.  My tactical rules are done.   So work can progress on Flotilla Forward.   Tonight is a report with my MO4 squadron. 
Capt Lt Marinesko scanned the horizon ahead.  His eyesight was legendary in the russian coastal forces since he had been a petty officer before Stalin's purges.  Dmitri had benifited from the sudden openings for trusted patriots to become officers in the People's Navy.  Tonight he and Lt G were to disrupt traffic to the Finnish held islands.   They had a Tral minesweeper as backup.  He hated going out with big ships as they slowed him down but if they ran into Finnish gunboats they would welcome the extra firepower. 

Characters

Capt Lt   Marinesko    glum/wealth      mustang    Eagle eye
Lt Giehorovcev       Generous/position 

                                               A MO4  patrol boat at speed 
                                               (Actually a Clyside Japanese MS)

                                              Unsuspecting Finnish convoy transporting cannon to several islands.


There!   He sees a Finish VMV ship!

                                                       The russians close on a Finnish vessel.

The two russians manage to wreck the Finnish boat through shear weight of shell; (4 45mms vrs 1 20mm). 

                                              Meanwhile the Cheka  arrives on the scene


The Russians dash ahead and notice a Finnish PG moving in from port.  The Cheka opens fire from a mile. 

                                            The Finnish gunboat Uusimaa.   ( Too thick with
                                              an extra stack)  I actually found a Japanese MS
                                              that plays this part better. 



 
 

The finns deploy a smokescreen between the MO4s and

the 2 merchant ships

 

 

As he plunges through the smoke  Lt Giehorovcev barely

avoids a collision with the Finnish gunboat.  The Finnish

Bofors knock out his aft 45 mm gun and cause heavy damage

to the ship. 

 

 

 

A "long range" gun duel devolps

between the Cheka and the Uusimaa

Range 1 mile

 

 

At this point the two MO-4s sink one of the VMVs. 

 

Cpat Lt Marinesko finally sees the merchant ships but then they are quickly obscurred by smoke.  Lt G signals his boat is too bacly damaged to go on.   (failed a morale check.)  The Cheka looses the gun duel when her 4 inch gun is destroyed.   Capt Lt Marinesko, his own ship heavy damaged with a gunmount destroyed, conceeds defeat and heads for home.

Great mission.   Played well and I got my Finns and Russian coastal forces on the table.   My VMV boats are just VAS boats  (Figurehead) with the torpedo tubes shaved off.  

Post mission one of the two MO-4 boats will be fixed for the next mission.  Lt Giehorovcev meet Capt Lt Ivantsov and buys him several drinks.    The Capt Lt is a mission planner so it can't hurt right?! 

For those of you that want to try this the Finnish forces are:
3 VMV boats
1 Uusimaa
2 unarmed 100ton trawlers.
the convoy has to traverse the board.  Once they do they will be under the protection of coastal artillery. 
Special rule:  If the Cheka sustains heavy damge (50%) it must break off the engagement.

Enjoy

Joe

 

  

Star Wars, Gaming and ice cream

My son will be starting his third year at University this fall; he is home for the summer.  We have always had a good relationship, some ups and downs while he was in high school, but he is a good kid. One of the reasons there have been few posts this summer is that I am consious that there will be few summers left with him like this and I am trying to make the most of it.  Soon grown up life will interfer.  It is a good thing and my wife and I ( mainly my wife) have  spent many years preparing him for it but I still cherish the little boy holding my hand waiting for ice cream. 

Unfortunatly he doesn't share my love of gaming but he will play SAGA and Bag the Hun occasionally and does like baseball.  My son likes Star Wars, has Legos.  He came up with an idea-- why not use Lazy TW&T with his Legos?

(I don't know much about Star Wars other than watching the movies.  So forgive me if the details are wrong.)

The Imperial and rebel forces meet on the planet Dantooie (sp?) over a very important foot bridge!

Rebels on the far side of the Map!   
I am told by reliable sources that the planet's surface is striped.

Rebel scum cross the foot bridge!!!   ( Why don't they realize they are revolting against a legitimate governement elected by the people!)

Imperial MMG sets up in a house that looks very much like a Harry Potter house.   It sends the Rebel scum fleeing back across the bridge. 

Some rebels cower in the rocks while other cunning jammy wearing rebels (Though I confess they do look stylish)  try to flank the mighty forces of justice!

Two squads of imperial troopers lay down fire into the rebel scum.  Sgt "Bad Ass" McGinnus is 5th from left. 

With the rebels supressed, the Empire, I mean the Republic, makes it's move across the stream!!

Ferocious hand to hand combat occurs in the rocks by the stream.  Losses are heavy to the Imperial 1st squad.   Sgt BA McGinnus manages to push most of second squad through horrendos fire to the rocks to tip the balance!
With that the rebel survivors slip away across the striped landscap, the forces of justice to weakened to follow. 
The rules worked great!
For those of you that would like to try this the Imperial forces were:
3 Squads of 8 men each   2 Gr I leaders, 1 Gr II leader and a Gr III LT + a MMG
The Rebel Scum had
2 Squads of 10 men each with 1 Gr II and 1 Gr I leader and a Gr III Lt + a MMG


Most importantly we had a blast.   It was as good as getting ice cream.

Enjoy

Joe

An Eastern Convoy

Sorry for the long brief between posts.   I have been busy!    Work got in the way and my son is home from University so we have taken a couple of short trips including one to Hastings!  (They have a well done walking tour but expected a little more from the museum.)  
Played Hastings last night with him a la SAGA with a great battle where the English held on with a win by killing William! 

                                                        My Saxons await the silly Normans!
WI published my Sailing to New Horizons in their July's issue in which I talk about air and naval gaming and why you should do it.   I also have two more articles in the works. 
David Manley sent me his quick play coastal rules Schnell rules for Schnellboote.   They are very good and I recommend them.  I like Release the Hounds better except his damage system was simpiler and more fun!   The only thing was it wasn't made for destroyers (go figure) and I wasn't keen on the way critical hits were done.   Over the last 3 weeks I have tweaked the damaged system  A couple more playtests and I will send it to him to see what he thinks. 
The other good thing about having a set of tactical rules I like is I can really start turning my attention to Flotilla Forward.   What follows is a playtest of both the tactical damage rules and FF.

The Channel November 1940.         night (call it 0200)  sea state 1   Visability  2400 yards


OberLeutenant zur See Schwartz heard engines in the distance; good-- they were in the correct spot.  He signalled for his S boots to start up and head towards the convoy lanes.  He had with him OberLt Walther, a bit cautious but an experience sailor who had come up through the ranks.  Lt Bareuther, from the privliged class but Schwartz had to admit, a natural born leader.  And Lt Jennewein, always down but another experience sailor up from the ranks.  Tonight he would let the british know they had just moved down into their area!!

OLt  Schwartz   Fanatic/wealth       gunnery
OLt  Walther     Careful/ govt         mustang
Lt zur See Bareuther    Cultured/ govt          leadership
Lt zur See  Jennewein   Glum/ govt      mustang

                                                 Schwartz in 312 moves towards the sound of engines!

The convoy was rolled up to include 6 merchants and 3 class A escorts and 6 class B escorts.  they are noted on the table by inverted markers.   Each hex is 200 yards but you do not need to play any of these games with hexes.      The S boots approached from the convoys 2 o'clock.

Mist must be swirling despite the stated visability because both sides find it difficult to spot.  One of the B markers on the flanks turns out to be a small ASW trawler.  The germans are after bigger fish and speed by raking her with 20mm shells.  She scores no hits but alerts the convoy.

A larger ASW trawler is also on the flank and starts to shell the boats but they are difficult to hit with ancient guns!   OberLt zur See Schwartz continues blindly forward but can not spot the convoy through the mist.  The S-Boots split into pairs to widen the search. 

Schwartz stumbles on the convoy at 1000 yards.  (A random event dropped visability to 2000 yards)  He rakes the unarmed ships as he passes causing minor damage.

Walther isn't as lucky.  He stumbles upon a Flower class corvette at 1500 yards.  A 4 in shell finds his boat and does moderate damage and taking out his 20mm gun mount aft.

Schwarts orders his boats to line up for a torpedo run at the transports.
(The corvette is just to the left of the picture desperatly trying to prevent this.)

                                            A S-boot level view of the torpedo run!

                                            Paydirt!   OberLt zur See Walther's fish strikes home!

                                           The Flottila make their escape!


The merchant ship, 1,800 tons goes down so the S-boats get their first victory!  Both S- boots are repaired for next mission.  The Flottilla meets OberLt zur See Ankiel who is a planner on the navy staff.  He is a mecurical and religious and has a run in with Jennewien who promptly ticks him off. 

I was happy with the damage system and after a couple of more play tests will pronounce it done and send it to Mr Manley.    The FF went well also.    I really like these games because they play quickly, this game took 90 minutes.  For those of you that would like to attempt this at home, the british forces ended up being
1 V class DD
1 Flower Corvette
1 large ASW trawler  4in gun
2 small ASW trawlers  3 in gun
DD and corvette are considered elite, trawlers are average.
S-boats are considered average.

Enjoy

Joe



 

Lt Ronald's third mission

It has been very nautical here lately.   Have been painting up my naval crew including Lt Ronald and have played several battles of Beat to Quarters .   Progress in "In the Service of the King" continues at a fast pace as it is almost writing itself.   I thought I would share with you the third mission I ran this weekend.  Naval purists, look past the ships, I am still intimidated to order metal ones!  Look instead at the story!  That is what this site is about.

Orders arrived!  Lt Ronald's ship, HMS Seawitch at 10 gun cutter, was to be part of a 3 ship squadron that would go out to the area when he had unsuccessfully encountered two Spanish merchants several days earlier.  (ouch)  The other ships were the HMS Greyhound (18 gun brig) and the HMS Gull (10 gun cutter).  Lt Dawson (cheap/family)aboard the Greyhound was the senior officer.  Ron had never met Lt Thurston, captain of the Gull before.  Would he become a friend or a rival? 

Before this mission Lt Ronald's luck had not been good.  ( You can read about his first mission in the last post.)  His second mission, they had come upon two armed merchantmen flying spanish colors and had been unable to catch them despite all of Ron's and the Master's tricks.  The Adrimal had not been happy again and he had gotten a " We expect more..." lecture.  The only good thing was his Bos'un, Jeff Fishback had grown to respect this young Lt.  (Game event)  He had gone to the Navy club but not much happened their  (Choice event) and had decided to throw a party for several senior officers with some of the money he had picked up from Sneaky Pete.  He invited the Admiral, Capt Lemmon from the HMS Bulldog (32 gun frigate), Lt Dawson from the HMS Greyhound and his politically connected midshipman Robert Waterman.  The Admiral declined sighting a previous engagement (not good) but the evening was a hit as conversation was lively and he gained influence with both Capt Lemmon and Lt Dawson.  (2nd Choice event  These events took less then 10 minutes to resolve.) 

Lt Dawson's plan was to have both Cutters out on the wings forward looking for ships.  Once the enemy was sighted, the Cutters would close to slow them down and the Greyhound would finish them off.  Lt Ronald was glad he had hosted the dinner as he felt he would get a fair shake from his commander.

Lt Ronald's ships were the first to sight sails.  He signaled he was closing to investigate.  Two spansish 10 cutters and a 32 gun frigate but the Tars held the wind gauge.   Lt Ronald raced toward one of the Cutters as the Greyhound closed.

                                           HMS Seawith center, Greyhound left and Gull top
                                            La Colera to the right

                                             Seawitch closing on the Cordoba

                                                     Seawitch opens fire!

The Seawitch and the Cordoba started to trade fire and the Cordoba started to move back toward the protection of her frigate.   Meanwhile the Greyhound bravely closed. 

                                                    Seawitch and Cordba trade shots with the Tars winning!


Lt Ronald saw the trap and started to pull away from the Spanish frigate...

                                             All three british ships fire at the Cordoba (center) and she strikes.
                                             La Colera gets a stern rake on the Seawitch!


Lt Ronald had one eye on the Spanish cutter and one on the frigate.  He saw the Spanish flag start to come down and turned to say something to Mr Waterman, his midshipman, when his ship was shattered by what he would have thought was a freighttrain had he know what one was.

With both of their officers badly wounded, Master Jon Price (Agressive/family) thought of his wife and children and sought safer waters. 
  The Gull and Realidades (Other spanish cutter)  traded shots causing a fire to break out on the HMS Gull.

                                              Not a good thing!

Moments later an explosion racked the Gull and she was destroyed.

The Greyhound eventually managed to drive the La Colera away. Survivors of the Gull were few but Lt Thurston (Careful/Govt) was among them.  A prize crew was put aboard the Cordoba and the Tars set sail for home. 

Great battle that didn't take long.   I had to roll boxcars to have the Gull blow up, who knew? 

Post mission Lt Dawson wrote up a very favorable report about Lt Ronald who survived his wounds along with his midshipman.   The report along with being wounded earned him a "Good Lad!" from the Admiral and a Glory point as well as a little (very little) prize money.  Midshipman Waterman is promoted to Lt and transfered to the frigate Bulldog.  A new Midshipman Rob Atkins (Naive/family) joins the Seawitch. 

Hopefully this gives you a sense of where I am going with ITSoK.  I am having great fun with it so far.  For those of you that want to play this scenario the british crew ratings are:
Seawitch   Avg
Gull   Avg
Bulldog    Elite
Spanish
Cordoba  poor
Realidades  poor
LaColera   Avg


Enjoy

Joe

A New Project

It is rare for me to take on a new period.  I have been wargaming forever but only started in miniatures in 2006.  I limited myself to WW II land sea and air.  When I moved to England I became interested in the Dark Ages with so much history here so started that in the same scale, 15 mm.  Then I visited the HMS Victory several weeks ago, what an inspiration! 
I purchased Kiss Me Hardy for Age of Sail and Sharp Practice years ago from TFL and had toyed with them from time to time.  KMH has too much book keeping for me.  SP is a great game, I just have no interest in the Napoleonic period hailing from America.  Then a unifying theme hit me-- Pirates!  Just needed to find a set of AoS rules.  
I had settled on Form Line of Battle when I came across Beat to Quarters by Don Gifford at freewargamerules.co.uk     They aren't perfect but are 80% there and I can fix the rest.  Thank you Sir for a great set of fast play rules!  Here  is a test game using my son's Pirate ships.

                                          6 Spanish SOLs vrs 5 British SOLs using Nick Skinners
                                           optional Command rules from one of the specials.

                                                The Dons double the Tar's line!

                                              The Brits  cut the Spanish line due to poor sailing by
                                                the Spanish. 

So my new projects?
1.  Paint up land forces for the caribean for SP
2.  Come up with a Platoon Forward type game for my Naval officers.   Don't know if I should call it Captains Forward or In the service of the King.  I will probably do a pirate version too. 
3.  Fix up  Beat to Quarters
4.  Maybe purchase some ships but I have to say my son's ships did pretty well.   I am intimidated by the 1/1200 scale ships as no one has every accused me of being a modeler. 

So my first Naval officer for CP or ISoK is Lt Ron Ronald  RN.   He has just been given the 10 gun Cutter HMS Seawitch.  His first mission is to transport some soldiers and Lt Thompkins to capture Sneaky Pete who has been smuggling goods to our fair Island.    Lt Thompkins is in charge of the operation once on land.  (This generated some discussion on TMP) 

                                           Sneaky Pete's hideout is top center.
                                           He can escape with good off the dock to the top left.
                                           He can just escape into the wilds off the top.
                                           The goods are in the Barn. 
                                            Lt Thompkins' plan is to tkae his force to the dock.
                                            Lt Ronald to take his force around the camp and
                                            block retreat into the wilds.
                                            Sentry on the hill has just fired a warning shot.

Lt Thompkins    Gr I     Hesitant Leader  Fanatic/ Govt     8 Rifles
Lt  Ronald   RN   Gr I  Scholarly/Avarice           7   Muskets   poor shots
Bos'un  Fishback  Gr II  Pessimistic/Glutton        8   sailors

                                          Lt Thompkins men get ready to fire.
                                          This is as far as they got.   The hesitant CC card came up
                                          every single turn after this!!!

The navymen started to work their way around the camp trading musket fire with the theives.  Lt Ronald wondered why the Army wasn't moving.   Sneaky Pete would get away! He blew the whistle to get Fishback's attention and ordered everyone to charge for the King!  (and his career)

                                          The Pirates wonder who all these silver Martians are?

I didn't take anymore pictures because I decided not to post this because of the unpainted figures. Fishback was great as he pushed the pirates back.  But Sneaky Pete lived up to his name and got 16/23 loot points plus a cannon loaded onto a boat along with 10 men and made it off the map.  Ronald was furious with Thompkins!  Lt Thompkins' explenation was that he was moving cautiously as he didn't know what he was up against and he carried about his men's lives.  Lt Ronald then mentioned casually that they need not mention the 6 points of loot that the pirates had left but the fanatic Thompkins would hear none of that. Ron was barely able to conceal any of it for himself!

The system generated 15 Pirates for Sneaky Pete plus a Gr I leader who is Dumb Doug.   Half the pirates have muskets and are poor shots.  Sneaky Pete is a Gr II leader but is Dynamic. 
 
Lt Ronald told the truth in his report but the Commodore would hear none of it.   Sneaky Pete got away and Ron was blaming the Army.  He was dressed down and lost a Glory point.  (You can win by Glory, Power or Wealth, I think) 

To drown his sorrows he went to the Navy club where not much happened.  He then went to a brothel where we don't discuss what happened except he didn't get robbed.  (Once a quarter you have to have female companionship to disprove all those things Rich says about the Royal Navy.)

Lt Ronald's next mission is a solo patrol.

Needless to say I am excited about starting these new projects.  It is rare for me so I don't think it will be a flash in the pan.  The campaign game is almost writing itself as this period really lends itself to the forward treatment.

Any suggestions  on any of the 4 let me know

Enjoy

Joe





    

Salute 2013

Went to England's biggest wargames show over the weekend and had fun.   As I stated last year, very different from a US show.  It is one day ( 10 to 5 but by the time you get in it is really 11 to 5 and you have to eat as well) so it isnt about playing games; there isnt time.  It is about shopping and seeing the games and people that you havent seen since last year.

It was packed!  I understand that they want you to buy tickets in advance but both lines had a choke point at the door that was easily correctable.   I met Robert Avery (Quadrent 13) before I stood in line and he assured me if I sat with him it would go down in 20 minutes.  We had a great chat about our projects (including a late war east front WW II book he is gong to do for IABSM) for about 30 minutes when much to my dismay the line hadn't shortened ONE BIT!   Take home point here is never trust an Englishman!

Once in the show was well organized.    Here are some pictures I took:

                                              Battlefront was pushing their Vietnam stuff with
                                              a beautiful basecamp board.     Unfortunatly they
                                              haven't released their ANZAC dice yet.

 

 

You all know I have a soft spot for air and sea games.   Only saw one WW I air game and 3 sea games.   Here was a game in "the slot" put on by some london gamers.

Have seen Sails of Glory talked about on TMP and got to see it in action.  It looks like fun but the ships move very slowly.  I also don't like collectable stuff; it was fun when I was 10 years old.

Lastly the ships looked cheap; particularly the plastic sails.   I guess for me while the rules look interesting the game for me will be a no go.   Still looking for the perfect AoS rules I guess.  I did look at Tumbling dice 1/2400 ships and they looked nice with minimal fiddle factor. ( sorry no picture)

I apologize I can't remember which group ran this game but it was a skirmish game with a downed german aircrew in Britian.  Everyone seemed to be having fun with this one. 

There was also an escape from Pompey game!

Bolt Action had an impressive Berlin 45 table.   While I don't care for the rules and I game in 15mm their table looked great and people seemed to be having a good time!!!

Sorry for the blurry picture.    This table almost makes me switch scale!

Gripping beast had a huge stand with many boards.

I was pleased to learn they will be moving into the First Crusade with Arab and Crusader dice! 

My main shopping quest was to find naval crew in 15mm to fight my peter pig pirates.  I found there aren't any.     I brought a PP fig to the show and found that the Mini figs are actually about as big as the Captain figures.   So I went with some Captain figures above.  I also bought som Blue Moon Pirates which are a little bigger than PP so I think I will be okay.  (One great thing about Salute is you can actually compare figure sizes.)

Speaking of Pirates, I stopped by the Too Fat Lardies booth and saw Rich, Nick, Egg and Sid!  It was good to catch up with the gang.  Rich was busy demo'ing Chain of Command and it appeared well recieved.  But I had learned my lession from earlier in the day-- never trust an Englishman.


Cheers

Joe