Action in the North Sea

 

  

  For our last Monday morning game we decided to do a WW1 naval game.  While John has a large collection of ships (I think he owns all of the British and German fleets!) we were unfamiliar with any set if rules.  So to the rescue came Peter who managed the game and kept everything running smoothly.  Not sure of the scale, I think 1/2400 but the rules used were General Quarters Fleet Action Immanent.

  The game was based on a historical raid by the Germans in 1915.  A small group of battle cruisers appeared off the shore of Great Britain, bombarded a defenseless town and then ran for home.   Warren and I commanded German.  To avenge this atrocities the British Battle Cruiser fleet (Phil and John) has sallied out and will try and intercept the Germans.  Now let the game begin!

  Sad to say there was a learning curve here.  Not so much for the rules as Peter did a magnificent job running them.  No it was handling the ships.   Phil mixed up his formation and for a number of turns his flag ship masked the fire of his other ships.  It took us a couple turns to realize ships are not like horse artillery galloping about.  There us a very good reason ships follow formations like line ahead.  Also, don't put your oldest and slowest ship in the middle of your column!   That effected the Germans for the entire game!

Racing home, or trying too!

Everyone fire at the first ship!

  So, the game starts with the Germans in line ahead (I think it's called) racing to get off the board on the other side.  The British are racing to cut them off.  Once we all got out of the way we started shooting.  Long range was not very damaging due to all sorts of factors like range wind and more.  Because the British flag ship had turned and marked the other ships all the Germans fired at him.  This threw off our aim as there were too many splash marks  to correct aim!

 Once John and Phil opened up their line we found out another things.  British ships had bigger guns.  And its not a good idea for the Germans to close with them.  Better to stay a distance.  We found that our as our damage mounted.

 Last turn, looked like both fleets would get one more round of shooting before we disappeared off the table.  I got a hit on HMS Lion, which turned out to be a critical hit.  In rolling for damage it was a magazine hit and the ship exploded!

 All in all it was a fun but very different game.  Peter dud an amazing jib keeping everything running smoothly and explaining how the rules worked.   I hope that we can play again.