Regiment of Foote 2nd edition

[Leman]

Amazing the way this went from ECW on land to WWI naval faster than you can say Llanfairpwllgwyngyrchgogerychwrndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch!

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Or you can cut and paste Leman!

[d_Guy]

Amazing the way this went from ECW on land to WWI naval faster than you can say Llanfairpwllgwyngyrchgogerychwrndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch!

I took it as a sign and am now rooting through boxes trying to find my dang battle cruisers!

[Zippee]

I put together a a printed spread sheet that lets you look up the attack & defence factors and gives you the ratio, saves a lot of the maths
Let me know if you want a copy

It certainly sounds like you have removed a lot of the time consuming stuff from GQIII 

Thanks for the offer, I found an interactive excel calculator on the old yahoo group - just say yes to the necessary modifiers and hey presto instant calculation.

Well it works for us! 

[Zippee]

Amazing the way this went from ECW on land to WWI naval faster than you can say Llanfairpwllgwyngyrchgogerychwrndrobwllllantisiliogogogoch!

to be fair that's not a very high bar you're setting there.

I thought we were doing well, we're still talking wargaming, no-one's mentioned centurions or French howitzers or totty - pretty on message I thought!

[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