I have been working out the scenario for my INWarD 2018 game and have hit a snag with the rules.
In Broadside and Ram each squadron gets an AP dice roll to spend on movement, firing and repairs. For movement, the rules state that 1 AP can be used for one straight line move at cruise speed. At the same time, in the movement rules section, it clearly states than no AP's are spent for cruise movement or when ships are acting independently.
This is contradictory, so I assume that all ships get a free forward cruise move each turn, which makes sense as you can't just stop in the water, but any additional forward movement must be paid for in AP's along with any other manoeuvres, repairs etc.
Alternatively, each ship only gets only one free forward movement, then any AP's to be spent can only be used for turning, accelerating or decelerating, leaving the rest for firing, repairs etc. This makes more sense to me as a way to interpret the rules and prevents ships from moving unrealistic distances.
Any help with this to sort it out would be very much appreciated, otherwise I'll have to work out which approach to take myself, which is never a good idea!
Hi there.
ReplyDeleteWe've not played yet, but I read it this way. Squadrons move straight forward at cruise speed unless an AP is spent to alter course. Moving at a speed other than cruise would cost another AP. The ships are listed with a maximum speed which gives the upper speed, or I suppose they could heave to or whatever. I think the second bullet on page 15 is an error.
Independent ships can do as they wish; note that they are already losing 1 off their defense value for not being in formation (page 16).
I'm looking forward to trying these...
That's how I read the rules, with the AP only required to either slow down, speed up to maximum or change course (before any movement). It makes sense to have the basic cruise forward move as free / mandatory, otherwise the ship's could just stand still. Thanks for helping out. :0)
ReplyDeleteWell, its just me guessing; I had noticed the contradiction. There is a couple of other things I'll note. David Manley's (same guy, I think) rules for the Russo-japanese war has a similar system, with a couple of other things one can spend AP on.. Falling out of and rejoining formation, retiring form battle, for instance.
DeleteI've considered adding them in here as options, depending on how AP expenditure goes when we play it. I suspect also one could make people spend AP to open fire (it would have to be spent the move before, because of the move sequence), cease fire, or maybe even change target (though that would involve having markers for the current target, which might be messy).
I've also considered not allowing independent ships to assist other ships firing, but I think we'll need to actually play the game before messing around with it
Thanks Myles,
ReplyDeleteI thought of looking at some of DM's other rules for clues but he's replied to confirm that we were right about the no cost for cruise movement but AP's for anything else.
I played the first half of a game this afternoon and it worked well using this approach.I'm sure other uses for AP's will crop up e.g. for boarding or spar torpedo attacks etc.
I'm working on the ramming rules to make specialized ram ironclads more effective than normal ships but that's another issue all together.