Cruel Seas in 1-600 Scale

[FierceKitty]

Ave Maria!

Full of Grease.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Excellent.
Your contribution to the 1:300 scale version get undecoated and base painted today.
Will be trying the rules tomorrow (the amazing Mrs D gave me a pass for Valentines)!

[lowlylowlycook]

Nice!

[Ithoriel]

First of four Beaufighters.

German trawler, F-Lighter and 3 Vospers undercoated.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Very nice chap

[Techno]

Very nice, indeed, Mike. 

Cheers - Phil

[Westmarcher]

Looking good. 

[Womble67]

Very nice indeed

Take care

Andy

[Ithoriel]

SET UP AND TURN 0

Played a five player game of Cruel Seas, one boat each, as an introduction for four guys who hadn't played it before. One of them admitted to never having played a game more complicated than Snakes & Ladders!

Everyone seemed to pick up the rules very quickly so we launched into things.

To track damage I was using a home made tracker with coloured cubes. We picked a cube of each colour and chose one at random from the bag. I found myself commanding one of the two Fairmile "D" MTBs and facing off against two S100 class E-Boats and one S38 class (actually one S26 model and two S38s with the armoured bridge upgrade).

So one moonlit night, somewhere out on the North Sea two patrols sighted each other.

Turn 0 - we realised we were starting too far apart so zoomed everyone 40cm straight forward!

[Ithoriel]

TURN 1

Ships move sequence is determined by drawing coloured dice out of a bag. First dice was British and I let my fellow captain take the first action. Instantly regretting it!

He raced his MTB straight forward at full speed and opened fire with the Dog Boat's not inconsiderable firepower (needing 1s to hit on a D10 - eek!).

He promptly rolled two 1s with his 5 dice and chewed lumps out of the leading S100 E-Boat. Two 6s among the D6s rolled for damage knocked out the E-boat's forward gun and rudder.

Second dice out of the bag was also British so I raced after my companion and opened fire on the other S100. Scoring a single hit with my twin 20mm cannon a further 6 among the damage dice perforated the engine, meaning it would be unable to reach full speed for the rest of the game (slowing it to two-thirds of maximum speed.)

The remaining dice all bing German we didn't bother drawing them out of the bag but let the Germans take their turns as they wanted.

The S100 with the damaged rudder wound up making a involuntary hard left turn. The others sped straight on.

All three E-Boats dropped to Combat Speed during the turn, making it easier to hit with their return fire.

Despite which they managed not a single hit.

[Ithoriel]

TURN 1 - The End Of The Beginning? or The Beginning Of The End?

In Cruel Seas rolling "to hit" uses D10s and the lower you roll the better.

Whereas rolling damage uses D6s and high rolls are better, with a 6 causing critical damage.

The British D10s seemed to have nothing higher than a 5 and the D6s nothing lower than a 4, for the Germans it was somewhat vice versa.

[Ithoriel]

TURN 2

The turn sequence for Turn 2 was Brit (me), German S38, German S100, other Brit, chewed up S100

I opened fire on the S100 with the damaged rudder and did considerable damage with my 6pdrs but no further crits.

The S100 with the damaged engine and the S38 fired on the other Fairmile and inflicted a few points of damage.

Return fire from the Fairmile chopped chunks out of the S100 that fired on it, damaging it's rudder.

The S100 with the damaged rudder slowed to Slow speed and attempted a repair - clearly someone on board knew where to "'it it wiv' an 'ammer!" and the rudder was fixed and a few holes patched too. The crew are considered to busy with this to fire weapons.

My ad hoc damage chart seemed to work OK and may become a permanent feature (with some tweaks). What is difficult to see in the pictures is that there are black and dark brown blocks for the two S100s

[Ithoriel]

TURN 3

Turn sequence was S38, S100 with engine and rudder damage, Brit (me), Brit ....

The S38, aware of being the weakest boat in the fight kept it's distance, peppering the sea around my companion Fairmile but failing to hit (three 10s).

The S100 was force to carry straight on by the jammed rudder and scored a single hit with one of it's LMGs - 2pts of damage scored.

The Dog Boats then closed with the other S100 to a point where they were so close they were unable to use their 6pdrs but, struck by two twin 20mm, two twin HMGs and two twin LMGs and suffering multiple criticals, including two fires, the bullet riddled hull of the S100 slid beneath the waves.

Causing a fire on a diesel boat requires a roll of a 6 rather than the 4+ for the British so suffering two fires in a single turn was just the icing on the cake of German misfortune.

With one boat sunk, one damaged and only their weakest boat still intact the Germans decided discretion was the better part of valour.

As one of the German players commented during the game, "There's something wrong with our bloody ships to-day."

Despite that, everyone seemed to enjoy the experience and were keen to play again, even Mr Snakes and Ladders

[paulr]

Sounds like jolly good fun, looks good as well 

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Nice one Ithorial,
For thevrematch, try Vospers, a lot harder game!