Regiment of Foote 2nd edition

[paulr]

I did wonder about whether we were going too off topic when I posted my most recent response

[Zippee]

In the interests of closure, I thought I'd report that the playtest of the opening battlecruiser encounter (1st Scouting Group v 1st & 2nd Battlecruiser Squadrons) saw both sides heavily engaged - possibly too much so.

Ultimately Hipper got away, albeit with Lutzow as little more than a floating hulk, and Derfflinger and Seydlitz heavily damaged, Moltke and Von der Tann barely scratched.

Beatty was not so fortunate, pushing too hard, he allowed Hipper to turn into him and close the range, in a series of savage close range and accurate salvos Lion and Princess Royal were sunk, and Tiger and Queen Mary reduced to burning shambles unfit to maintain contact.

Packenham attempted to close with the rear of Hipper's line but lost the duel with Moltke and Van der Tann. Although he doggedly attempted to maintain contact he couldn't maintain the pace, effectively engage or endure the pounding of being outgunned and outnumbered and so broke off the fruitless pursuit, by which time both Indefatigable and New Zealand had sustained extensive superstructure damage and were limping badly with damage control working overtime.

It's hard not to think that Beatty was too rash, too eager and too impatient. And Hipper judged his moment well, bringing his 12" and 11" batteries inside the long reach of the big cats' 13.5"s. Anyway Beatty had plenty of time to think it over whilst being rowed away from his sinking flagship!

To answer the rules questions - yes the high level of abstraction and lack of granularity of GQ2 led to quick play, quicker that GQIII/FAI (but not quicker than our modified GQIII/FAI) but I was correct that the flow of the game was constantly interrupted by the mental effort of calculating ratios - not so much the maths being horrendous but just the hurdle being too much 'rule administration' and not immersion, so it broke the rhythm noticeably.

Still a fun game for a Saturday afternoon and the first of a series of practice games.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Sounds like quite a scrap!

[paulr]

That sounds bloody

But I suspect bloody good fun as well

To answer the rules questions - yes the high level of abstraction and lack of granularity of GQ2 led to quick play, quicker that GQIII/FAI (but not quicker than our modified GQIII/FAI) but I was correct that the flow of the game was constantly interrupted by the mental effort of calculating ratios - not so much the maths being horrendous but just the hurdle being too much 'rule administration' and not immersion, so it broke the rhythm noticeably.

Interesting feedback

The odds breaking the rhythm was the reason I came up with a look up table, look up attack and defence and it gives you the odds.
To me that doesn't break the rhythm as much as 21:13 => 3:2 (Lutzow firing full broadside at Lion)

[d_Guy]

Zippee,
Enjoyed your report very much! As a solo operation I get vicarious enjoyment from reading battle reports. Can't possibly do everything!
You need pics, however - didn't see any WW1 naval in your Flickr albums.

FWIW I finally did find my Battlecruisers!  Panzerschiffe 1/2400 - unpainted but being epoxy resin look reasonably OK. Basing is pretty plain.
https://leadenshipsandtinmen.wordpress.com/2016/02/07/jutland-centenary/

[d_Guy]

My grandad was at Jutland on HMS  Tiger - took a bit of a pounding there.

He must have had some amazing stories! Did you have a chance to hear them?

[Zippee]

Zippee,
Enjoyed your report very much! As a solo operation I get vicarious enjoyment from reading battle reports. Can't possibly do everything!
You need pics, however - didn't see any WW1 naval in your Flickr albums.

FWIW I finally did find my Battlecruisers!  Panzerschiffe 1/2400 - unpainted but being epoxy resin look reasonably OK. Basing is pretty plain.
https://leadenshipsandtinmen.wordpress.com/2016/02/07/jutland-centenary/

I know, I know, my Flickr pages are woefully out if date - I have real sympathy for all those manufacturers who have to defend themselves as too why they don't have pictures of everything. It's incredibly time consuming. Basically I can choose: Play; Paint; Photograph. . . any given evening or weekend is essentially one or the other, which would you pick?

Although in this case it was a roughly put together playtest so pictures wouldn't have been glamorous.

Well done - all my stuff is Navwar 1:3000, my mate has a bunch of the 1:6000 which if I was to be starting now is what I would go for, alas too much investment already to even consider changing.

[Zippee]

That sounds bloody

But I suspect bloody good fun as well

Interesting feedback

The odds breaking the rhythm was the reason I came up with a look up table, look up attack and defence and it gives you the odds.
To me that doesn't break the rhythm as much as 21:13 => 3:2 (Lutzow firing full broadside at Lion)

It was bloody - I think Hipper had two turns of gunnery where basically he rolled a consistent stream of treble 2's - utterly wrecked Beatty's day in 12 minutes! After that it got a little dull as no-one was able to apply sufficient force to finish it as all vessels were heavily worn or couldn't find an arc through the sinking hulks, smoke and fires. So basically drifted apart, Beatty was hugely frustrated that he couldn't get a bead on Lutzow which was disabled with repaired power and lurching along at 5 knots screened by Derfflinger and Seydlitz and wrecks.

That would be nice to see - I have one that looks up the appropriate straddle and damage with mods and random dice roll generator, but that's the easy bit. Most of the time its a glance at the dice, and instant decision straddle : no straddle. Even the damage dice are quick: straddle with a 5 and 6: forget it. It's the straddle with a 2 and 3, what's the AF? That's when the game lurches. Possibly because the rest is so quick and cursory but it do break the rhythm.

[Leman]

He must have had some amazing stories! Did you have a chance to hear them?

He never talked about Jutland other than the fact he was there. He served on four other ships, three of which were sunk while he was on board. The only story he really liked to talk about was how on one of the ships that was sunk he saved the ships pet monkey. It must have been pretty awful for him as he was an engineer and used to refer to it as going to sea in a sardine can. He was born in 1888 and first went to sea in 1904 on a sailing vessel, doing his 'two years before the mast.' He transferred to the Royal Navy in 1914, married in 1915 and became a landlubber after the war, when he went to work as an engineer  in one of the London waterworks, working on the steam pumps. My uncle followed in his footsteps as a marine engineer and ended up as a hospital engineer in Australia (he's still there).

[paulr]

It was bloody - I think Hipper had two turns of gunnery where basically he rolled a consistent stream of treble 2's - utterly wrecked Beatty's day in 12 minutes!
...
That would be nice to see - I have one that looks up the appropriate straddle and damage with mods and random dice roll generator, but that's the easy bit. Most of the time its a glance at the dice, and instant decision straddle : no straddle. Even the damage dice are quick: straddle with a 5 and 6: forget it. It's the straddle with a 2 and 3, what's the AF? That's when the game lurches. Possibly because the rest is so quick and cursory but it do break the rhythm.

Ouch, that has got to hurt

I've sent you a PM, happy to share. The quick fire resolution is one of the real pluses for GQ 1/2 for us as well

[d_Guy]

He never talked about Jutland ...

Amazing to think what he must have experienced! And to be in the engineering section - blind to the outside world - and half deaf too!
Frightening!

[Leman]

Having seen Titanic, it's not the part of a warship where I would want to be. Bought Regiment of Foote 2 at Vapnartak yesterday. Quite a bit different from first edition and much more like Square Bashing 2. Quite a lot to get through with over 100 pages, but that does include a goodly number of scenarios, and an extensive section on siege rules. I'm still not keen on the suggested basing, which looks a little sparse to me, and I am much more likely to go for the basing style of Fat Wally (there is a link to him on the Peter Pig ECW site). I hope they will fit in the 6" squares, although on a 6'x4' table I could get away with making them 7" squares. I will be using grey and green adhesive dots with some of the PP sprinkles as square markers as well - scarecrows, tree stumps, pebbles as rocks etc.

[d_Guy]

Leman,
I'll be interested to get your take when you start playing through RoF2 - I am finding them fun but still sorting a perceived contradiction here and there, plus making stupid moves out of shear lack of understanding. Because many things are so abstracted the size of the squares would not seem to matter. I put three of my 6 figure bases (1p, 2m) plus three 2 figure command bases in a sabot - so foot looks fairly dense.
Horse not so much with my basing system. RoF2 won't replace what I normally do but plan to use it for quick, fun games - particularly when I have a live opponent!

[Leman]

I find these kinds of games are also great for campaign battles, so that a campaign moves along smartly.

[Zippee]

Agreed, the basing isn't doing it for me either. Fat Wally's is for Baroque which unfortunately is different to Impetus, grrr!

I particularly don't really like the whole half-base thing, I suspect units of 6x20mm (or 25mm) bases will probably work better than 3x30mm. In fact the whole base counting and casualty thing seems a touch inelegant compared to Martin's other rules. Still they look like the concept works it just needs some finesse applying to the basing.

Whatever I go with I'll need it to work with Baroque - I've been holding off any re-basing or new for ages waiting and waiting 

[d_Guy]

In fact the whole base counting and casualty thing seems a touch inelegant compared to Martin's other rules.

Yeah - I have zero appetite for making a whole slew of different half-bases just to keep track of casualties within a unit - easier just to mark a base with something - I use a garish pink cube - aesthetics not my strong suit.  And the the casualty markers I normally use for - amazingly tracking casualties - are used to tally potential morale hits. 

My other beef so far is I don't agree with the musketry rules. I get that close range firing is abstracted into close combat, that's done in a lot of rules for pistols and carbines, but a one square range translates to about 40 yards (a 6" square = ~35 meters). Effective range is easily twice that (and probably three times). The design notes say that close combat is the decisive issue (and it does justify the presence of pikes which some rules don't) but the ECW is near the tipping point for musketry becoming the desicive factor. I will try a two square range at some point.

Still and all, I am having fun with it and now sure it will join my toolkit for certain applications.

[Zippee]

I think the ranges thing is completely abstracted due to squares, units could be at the rear of both squares, we really don't know. if it offends thee then sue bigger squares 

Also have you spotted the volley rules in the options?

I think it will give a good game, it's just not as slick as I was expecting for a new version - Martin's had a lot of practice with rules now, I just hoped for more than scattergun text, unnecessary sniping and assumption of gamesmanship and shoddy attitudes backed up by dodgy black and white pictures that quite frankly look rather poor (and I'd swear uses unpainted figures and terrain). 

I still await Baroque with hope 

[d_Guy]

I think the ranges thing is completely abstracted due to squares, units could be at the rear of both squares, we really don't know. if it offends thee then sue bigger squares 

Also have you spotted the volley rules in the options?

Good point about being in the rear of the squares - OK - 80 yards then. 

I had looked at volley fire option which allows you to translate some or all hits to a 66% change of hanging up to 2 morale check die on your opponent (at least I think that's what it means). Will have to get my head around it - I would have preferred lower the opponent's chances for a save.

The "fierce shooting" marker may be another way to "tune" musketry.

The pike differential rule is interesting - just had two conscript (1:2 M:P) units drive off two trained (2:1 M:P) units due mostly the the pike differential remove 5 of the attacker's dice  (some good  rolls were involved however)

Overall - I still like RoF2 well enough - will have live opponents this weekend - so I'll learn more.

And since this is also a Jutland thread - have you used any 1/6000 models?

[Zippee]

All fair points - and nice to see actual siege rules included, and as always the pregame mechanics add variety without a lot of heartache.

1/6000 yes - but not Jutland, Tsushima though not mine a friends. Mine are 1/3000 of course 

I think they look great, they allow a better feel of space on a decent sized table - I use a 8' x 6' which is Ok for 1/3000 even if big guns can pretty much cover the whole area, but it does look and feel better in 1/6000

I've said it before - if I didn't have so much invested in 1/3000 I would go for 1/6000 in a heartbeat but as I have all the (ie ALL the) RN, KM, USN, IJN, RMI, MF, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Greek, Yugoslav, Rumanian, Soviet WWII, sizeable WWI British and German, as well as pretty comprehensive Russian, Turkish and Japanese 1880-1925 fleets (plus a couple of convoys of merchants, fishing boats, trawlers and lighters) it would be a tad silly to swap scales. . .

[paulr]

I also have 1/3,000, only a large chunk of the US & Japanese for WWII and some Dutch

I have seen 1/6,000 and much prefer the look of the bigger ships, each to their own