Some more Shapeways!

I'm really on a roll here, these ships took some more time because of the wooden decks which required some more detailing.

HMS Renown (WotC) and HMS Galatea (Shapeways)

New IJN Ships (shapeways)

Heyhey,

Last week I finished up most of the IJN ships I ordered from Shapeways:

Shoho (WotC repaint), with her escort, Furutaka, Kako, Aoba and Kinugasa

Preview of Naval War, my WWII Naval Miniatures game

So, finally it has come to this point… I’m proud to be able to present to you guys the outline of my own WWII Naval ruleset: Naval War

What kind of ruleset is Naval War? Why is it
different from other rulesets?

Naval war is a fast-playing, action packed wargame that will really blow you away… ‘wink’

...Right, now that we’ve got that over with and further trying to avoid the compulsory superlatives, let me take you on a cruise down the ruleset so you can make up your own mind about what makes this game unique:

Naval War AAR: Norway 1940

Last saturday, I've been able to play another playtest game for my Naval War rules. My opponent has been very kind to write a very nice battle-report of the encounter; Enjoy!

* My apologies for the fuzzy pictures, but the lighting was pretty poor for taking pictures.

5 April 1940
Saltfjord, Norway

During the preparation for the assault on Narvik, the Kriegsmarine high command receive reports that the British carrier HMS Glorious has been sighted making emergency repairs at Bodø. Hoping to catch the ship defenseless and strike a decisive blow, Raeder dispatches Konteradmiral Oskar Kummetz’s I Kreuzergruppe to the area. His forces comprise three squadrons:

Admiral Hipper (Hipper-class heavy cruiser)
Blücher (Hipper-class heavy cruiser)
Lützow (Deutschland-class heavy cruiser)

Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp (Zerstörer 1936)
Z10 Hans Lody (Zerstörer 1934)
Z11 Bernd von Arnim (Zerstörer 1934)
Z12 Erich Giese (Zerstörer 1934)

Albatros (Typ 23 Torpedoboot)
Möwe (Typ 23 Torpedoboot)



Upon arrival at the Saltfjorden, however, it becomes apparent that the situation is much less favourable than anticipated. Glorious is nowhere to be seen, and instead a Royal Navy cruiser division emerges from the fog:

HMS Devonshire (London-class heavy cruiser)
HMS Berwick (Kent-class heavy cruiser)
HMS Sheffield (Southampton-class light cruiser)
HMS Galatea (Arethusa-class light cruiser)

HMS Janus (J-class destroyer)
HMS Javelin (J-class destroyer)
HMS Codrington (A-class destroyer)



Although the German cruisers, and especially the pocket battleship Lützow, theoretically outgun their British counterparts, this advantage is soon rendered moot: a large squall is drifting West out of the fjord, between the Bliksvær and Nordarnøya islands, and hides the fleets from each other before they can exchange fire. Only HMS Sheffield can be seen by the heavy cruisers and, with poor visibility and rough seas, the opening salvoes all miss their mark...

Naval War - Designing the gunnery mechanic (part 2)

In the last post, I wrote about the thought process on how to create the gunnery mechanic for my game. We will continue by reviewing the result and see if we can bring it in line with the limitations set:

Naval War - Designing the gunnery mechanics (part 1)

One of the hardest things in designing a ruleset in my mind is the mechanics. Designing mechanics is as messy as most of the battles we are portraying and without any guidance the process really can get out of hand.

Of course there are the usual brainstorm sessions first, then the endless writing down of possible mechanics and then trashing them one by one and starting all over again. There are literally hundreds of ways of gaming the process of naval gunnery and for every way to do it there are pro's and cons. It is also very useful to check any benchmarks already used by other sets and check if they contain anything of value to the effect your looking for.

So after checking many different approaches and trashing one idea after another I figured I needed some boundaries set; if you don’t, you might end up with a mechanic that works perfectly well, but completely ruins the game because it does not align with the objectives of the game itself.

So I started out by listing my basic game limits:

-          Medium amount of detailing

-          Fast play

-          Minimum amount of bookkeeping

-          Involvement for both players

-          Mechanics encourage historic play

Then I continued by elaborating on those basic limits by adding relevant context on how these principles will influence the mechanic:

Naval War: Playtest requests

It seems my posts about my Naval War ruleset have put the project into second gear. I've received several playtest requests by now and I was caught a bit off-guard by that.

I think most of the ruleset is playable in its current form, so playtesting is something I want to encourage. At the same time, it is most terrifying to have people looking at the rules and cards without me being there in person to explain everything and show the thought process behind the mechanics etc. Of course I hope that they recognize the rough diamond that is in there (in my own humble opinion) and not discard it like a lump of coal (which is also bound to happen because no ruleset can cater to everyone's taste). Still, since I've taken the leap of letting outsiders look at and give feedback about the set, I thought it would be handy to put a little post here detailing the application process.

Soooo, if you like to give Naval War a try and provide me with some valuable feedback, here's what you need to do:

You can send me an e-mail to hjseijm at gmail dot com. In the mail, please tell me some things about yourself, your name, maybe age, country, what miniature games you have played before (if any), and if you have any prior playtesting experience.

If you want to playtest my set you need to include the following piece of text: 

"I will respect that the ruleset being provided to me by the author (AKA Ecclesiastes) is only for the purpose of playtesting them and offering critiques and comments. The ownership of the ruleset belongs to the author and I will not offer for sale or disclose them to others for the purpose of sale."

I have no means of issuing or enforcing an NDA. Still, the rules and addendums are copyrighted and I request that that is respected by everyone that participates in the playtesting.

I'll then give you access to a shared folder on my Onedrive where I store the PDF's which will provide you with everything you need to play (except ship miniatures ofcourse). I'll also include your e-mail adress on my mailing list to give notice when I've published updates etc. I wont use the e-mail adress for any other purpose.

I hope that covers it all, I want to say to everyone who has already enlisted for playtesting that I'm honoured that people are interested and willing to invest time in my little rule-set.

Thanks!

Naval War: Cruiser action, a battle report

Well, I finally got to some more Naval War playtesting. So for the occasion I made my first Naval War Battlereport!

The game setting is 'pickup' game, so no historical scenario. This also gives me the opportunity to see if my point values make sense and provide a somewhat even matchup.

Order of Battle:

Germany

Officer: Konteradmiral
- CA Admiral Graf Spee
- CA Admiral Scheer
- CA Prinz Eugen

Officer Kommodore
- DD Z-24
- DD Z-26
- DD Z-27

United Kingdom
Officer: Commodore
- CA Exeter
- CL Leander
- CL Achilles
- CL Neptune

Officer: Commander
- DD Jervis
- DD Jackal
- DD Kipling
- DD Kelvin




The mix of forces left the Germans with fewer ships but better range and firepower while the british had more ships but they really need to close the range to win this battle.

Deployment: