There are no rules for boarding actions in Broadside and Ram, which came up as a thing in the game last night, so I have roughed out a possible system.
A ship will need a boarding factor (BF) which is calculated by taking the crew complement, dividing it by 100, halving the result then rounding up to a minimum of 1. For example, HMS Agincourt, with a very large crew works out this: 800 ÷ 100 = 8 ÷ 2 = 4.
To board, two ships must be in base to base contact. The boarding step takes place after ramming / collision step in the sequence of play. I did think about making boarding only possible after a ramming attack, as this would mean the two ships would be locked together, which is the only time it would conceivably take place.
To resolve boarding, the ship that is in its active phase (the attacker) and the defending ship both roll a D6 and add their ship's BF. This is modified by -1 if damaged, -2 if silenced and -3 if crippled (shattered ships cannot board but may be boarded unopposed if desired). The final total is reduced to a minimum value of 0. The winner with the greater total number wins the boarding action.
If there is a draw the action will carry on in the next phase or turn, in which case counter boarding will be attempted by the defender. Neither ship may disengage, move or fire while a boarding action is underway, just to keep things simple.
After a successful boarding action, when a ship has been captured, a prize crew will take over the ship. This prize crew cannot use the captured vessel in combat but may conduct movement actions as an independent vessel, unless it subsequently attaches itself to a division. If the prize ship is boarded, the prize crew has a BF of half the of original crew BF rating. The ship from which the prize crew is drawn will also have it's BF halved for the rest of the game.
If a prize is recaptured it will move as an independent ship until it can rejoin a division. It may move, fire and manoeuvre normally, subject to existing damage. However, its BF will be halved due to crew casualties in the preceding boarding action for the remainder of the game.
I'm not sure this will work but it's worth a try out. I've tried to keep it simple but also to mirror the existing mechanics of the rules, while taking account of the possible outcomes in an actual game. I'd be interested to hear your opinions and suggestions.
A very enjoyable game of Broadside and Ram at the club tonight. It was a pretty close game until the last few turns, when the Royal Navy managed to cripple or shatter enough of the French fleet to gain an upper hand. Good fun!
I'm starting to look at terrain for the 2mm ECW project and cane across these resin woodland sections from Battlescale Miniatures. They are just what I'm looking for, even if I can probably scratch build something similar using bobble bath mats or scenic foam. Very nifty!
I've been working out the orbat of the Royalist army for the One Hour Wargame solo project today. The core of the army is the five regiments of foot raised in 1642 including Sir Nicolas Slanning's, Colonel John Trevanion's, Colonel William Godolphin's, Sir Beville Grenville's and Lord Mohun's regiments of pike and shot.
These varied in size, so I will use a mix of three and four pike and shot blocks on each regimental base. In fact, Grenville's regiment was twice the size of sone others, so I may well model that with four of the larger pike and shot stands, rather than three. I will also include a least one base of the less reliable and rather grumpy Cornish Trained Bands, who were under equipped and less enthusiastic than the regiments raised by the landed gentry.
I've have included two regiments of cavalry to represent Sir John Berkeley's and Sir Thomas Digby's horse, although both commanded foot units at various times as well. There is a further mounted unit of dragoons under Sir John Digby which will act as skirmishers. The artillery is only one base in strength, as the Cornish army was quite weak in this respect.
This lot adds up to about twelve bases from which up to six can be selected or randomly chosen for each game, the default number in the One Hour Wargames rules. I'm also going to use the Horse and Musket variant of the rules, at least to start with, so that I can include skirmishing dragoons and the artillery, both of which are not featured in the Pike and Shot set up for some inexplicable reason.
I have no idea what family relation I have with this nan but there is on, as all of my father's family come from a small area of Suffolk. He was younger than both of my sons when he was killed in action in October 1915. Rest in Peace.
I didn't fancy painting today so instead I based up the rest of the Royalist army for the One Hour Wargame solo project. These represent the five Cornish regiments of the 1642-43 campaign, as well as the Cornish Trained Bands, Cavalry and Dragoons. I've added a second artillery base, which will probably be used for the Parliamentarian army, as the Royalists were very short on guns. I may well add another pile and shot regiment but otherwise I think this is more than enough for the moment.
I have a game of Broadside and Ram at the club next week. Luckily, I have a tried and tested scenario waiting in the wings for this, with everything ready to go, having prepared the sheets and fleet lists for a game back in April that didn't happen for various reasons. All I now need to do is brush up on the rules and get the bits and bobs packed up for the club. Jolly good stuff!
Here's the first test base of pike and shot infantry for the One Hour Wargame project. It took me a while to figure out the way to paint these tiny pike blocks but I think the regiment turned out looking okay. Next thing to do is painting a cavalry regiment and a battery of field guns, then I'll have a think about basing up the rest of the Royalist army.
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I think I've found the holy grail of air wargaming rules for club games, in the shape of Lacquered Coffins, a set of simple air combat rules designed for hex less games in 1/600th scale. This alone ticks two of my boxes but, in addition, the system uses square bases, fixed height flight stands with two dice and a simple but comprehensive set of flight manoeuvres. It also includes extensive aircraft data tables and is suitable for use with historical scenarios, something that is definitely up my street. I've had a copy for ages but never really considered these rules for club games, which is a bit of an oversight on my part. I need to give it a try out a home but, if it's quick and easy to play, I'll work toward a club gane at some point next year.
The latest addition to the workbench is a trio of Royal Navy warships for a "What If?" scenario set in August 1914. Here we have the battlecruisers HMS Indomitable and. HMS Inflexible, accompanied by the light cruiser HMS Dublin. I thought it would be a nifty idea to paint these up alongside SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau, so that I can actually play a game at some point, rather than have to wait until the Russians have been sorted out. I'll get these ready at the weekend.
A refreshing nautical breeze is wafting across the workbench today, with the WW1 Ottoman fleet now based and ready for undercoating. I've added a single UB-III submarine to represent the UB-II flotilla that operated in the Black Sea, even though submarines don't really appear in most rules involving surface action, aside from convoy games or one off tactical scenarios. I'll crack on with the painting as soon as I get some free time, which may not be for awhile.
After the lacklustre MiG Alley game yesterday I realised it's probably not the set of rules I'm looking for for a club multiplayer game. It's too confusing in terms of energy management for an enjoyable game, with more time spent clarifying the finer points of the rules than actually having fun. To put it simply, it's fine for solo games at home but not as an evening's entertainment.
Instead, I'm looking again at Bombers Over Germany, a free set of rules based on a simple system from the Junior General website. It's themed around the daylight bomber campaign in 1943-45 but could be adapted for other things, including B-29 missions over North Korea, for example. I discovered this set of rules a couple of years ago and thought it would be ideal for a big club game but didn't do anything further than an initial feasibility study. It's now looking like a very attractive alternative to Wings at War and a potential project for next year.
http://jimswargamesworkbench.blogspot.com/2020/08/bombers-over-germany.html
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A frustrating and disappointing game of MiG Alley at the club tonight, made less enjoyable by some confusion over the rules due to my failure to explain them properly. I've been playing this game for years but not for a long time, so I was a bit rusty and this showed in the way the game played out. It was the longest game I've played as well, for some reason, so we only got to finish one game and didn't use the ground attack rules at all. I'm a bit fed up it didn't go as well as I wanted and will be sticking to Bag the Hun and other rules for club games from now on I reckon. Bugger.
Against my better judgement, I started base coating the Tumbling Dice 1/600th scale Curtiss P-36 / Hawk 75 fighters for the Continuation War Bag the Hun scenario project. I thought it would be a shame not to get at least some of the Finnish aircraft painted, particularly as most of the scenarios only involve Llv32, which was equipped with this particular fighter. I've given them a base coat of Vallejo Russian Green which is pretty much spot on for the fuselage colour used up to 1943, before any black camouflage pattern was applied over the upper surfaces. I'll carry on tinkering with these over the next couple of weeks, while I get on with kit bashing the WW1 stuff.
The decals were a right pain in the back side but I've finished the F-86A Sabres and F-51 Mustangs for MiG Alley at last. The decals were fiddly and I've realised that the wing roundels are at the wrong angle, but I can fix that another time. I still have more things to add to the MiG Alley line up but, for the moment at least, I'm moving on to other wargaming projects.
There's often a bit of head scratching over energy management in Wings at War, so here's a simple reminder of how it works. The key thing to remember is it is primarily at the end of a sequence of moves, when action point expenditure equals starting energy, that any energy problems are resolved (apart from stalls, which can occur during a turn as well as at the end)
1. Action Points = Energy at the start of a turn.
2. Don't change your Energy dice during a turn but do keep a separate track of Energy loss / gain (using tokens or counters is a good idea)
3. Aircraft are allowed to exceed their Energy rating during a turn, but....
4. If energy falls below 1 during a turn = STALL (the turn ends after this has been resolved using the stall diagram)*
5. Otherwise, the turn ends when all Action Points have been spent.
6. If Energy at this end point is less than 1 = STALL
7. If Action Point/s spent for the final manoeuvre in a turn cause Action Point expenditure to be greater than starting energy = SPIN.
8. If Energy at this end point is greater than Energy Rating = AIRCRAFT BREAKS UP.
9. If Energy is equal to or less than starting energy (but obviously greater than 0) = Action Points available for next turn.
10. Flip the dice to the new Energy level on the model's base at this point.
*Try to avoid making manoeuvres with a random energy modifier (D) as this can cause a significant loss of energy during a turn and is unpredictable.
The MiG Alley extras are almost finished, with the painting sorted and the decals ready to be applied tomorrow. The black and white invasion stripes are far from perfect but, at arms length, don't look too bad. I'm happy with the end result but want to wrap these up ready for the game on Tuesday at the club.