Last Thursday at the club saw me, with my usual coterie of friends, playing another game of Cruel Seas by Warlord Games. This is actually my third game so one would think I would have digested the rules by now, but not so! The game was another learning experience and I was largely playing follow my leader with fellow Kriegsmarine kameraden Matt. I do really enjoy this game, which came as a the first time I played as, having played a veritable prethora of Naval wargames in the past at SESWC organised by Naval historian Angus Konstam; despite the elite company at the time they were not games that really hit home with me.
So, the scenario..... the Germans were to get their tankers across the playing area and to safety whilst the Royal Navy would be doing all they could to stop them from doing so!
The Tankers Set Out
Immediately the British Vospers spring an ambush and start to swarm the Germans.
The German Tankers lumber forward protected by the S100's in the centre and the S38's to their left.
Another view of the German S100 Protecting the Tankers.
The RN Vopsers swarm, moving into position to spring their ambush and set their torpedoes away.
A view of the game from above
Torpedoes away! The British Boats release their load. The British had clearly learned from pervious encounters with the more heavily armed German S38's and S100's. By releasing their torpedoes as soon as they were within effective range and settling on a tactic of letting the Germans try to manoeuvre out of their deadly predicament.
British torpedo bombers screams in and drops their payload. Luckily, neither of the tankers take a hit as the torpedoes fail to go off.
Normally I don't go in for lazers in wargaming (reminds me too much of DBA PTSD) but Neil's toy came in very handy when trying to trace the movement of the torpedoes! They seemed to move every time we looked at the table top!
The Brits Vospers fill The Channel with torpedoes!
All we can do is manoeuvre the Tankers, hoping for the best and plenty of dud torpedoes whilst blasting away with out superior firepower. As for blasting away? We did minimal damage due to some quite crappy dice rolls. This enabled all the British vessels to release at least two torpedoes a piece!
By the time it came to hit the pub; turn three I think(?); I think it had to be called a marginal win for the Brits as the game still leaned heavily on the German Tankers being able to avoid being hit. It would have been interesting to play another turn or two and to have reached a conclusion. I expect we will next week.
Other Club Games....
Another Naval Game- WWII
Bloody Big Battles
Chain of Command; Cold War
Gaslands
Lion Rampant; Crusades
Cheers for now
Looks like great fun was had by all. Good looking tables...
ReplyDeleteIt's a good laugh. You have to be quite considered, especially when you loose off the torpedoes.
DeleteSuper looking games on show, looks like it was a great club night.
ReplyDeleteThanks Donnie. I'm lucky enough to belong to a club where a re large selection of games are always on the go.
DeleteLooked a hoot with boats and torpedoes going every which way!
ReplyDeleteThose speed markers are clever, creating an apparent stern wake.
Best wishes, James
To be fair, I must admit, the photo's are wee bit Photoshopped too as their were two joins in the playing surface that just looked ugly when the camera was focused in a more macro setting.
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