2025 games count.

[T13A]

Hi Chris

A general question: are most naval wargames too bloody, with too little incentive to break off early and preserve the fleet?

Coincidentally I have played a lot more naval games this year with friends than land based games, very much inspired by the 'Crusty Colonels' YouTube channel and I must admit the ease of organising, setting up a game and the time required to set up the 'battlefield' (   ) compared with a land based game.

The Napoleonic games we have played, using Osprey's 'Fighting Sail' rules have been mainly scenario based, e.g. attacking a port or beating a blockade. The last game we played a few weeks ago involved my French squadron of five ships escorting a convoy of merchant ships from one side of the table and off the other, whilst being intercepted by a squadron of Royal Navy ships. Fortunately the French were successful only losing one ship 'crippled' in the process. The British admiral is now facing a court of enquiry. All very enjoyable and much fun.

Certainly using Sam Mustafa's 'Nimitz' WWII naval rules you can certainly 'win' by causing enough damage to the enemy and then escaping off the table (not necessarily easy) which I think very much reflects the German Navy's surface fleet tactics.

A friend and I are also dipping our toes into the naval side of the Russo-Japanese war (1904-05) with a game planned for tomorrow.

Cheers Paul

[Last Hussar]

I have loads of ships for both Atlantic and Pacific (dunno scale - 8 cm long or so I think)

How is Nimitz?

[T13A]

Hi

How is Nimitz?

I like them. Well written with few if any ambiguities (important for me at least) as you tend to expect with rules written by Sam Mustafa. Just the right level for me these days in terms of detail, sophistication v 'fast play' and with lots of free downloadable support. They come with the added bonus of the 'Halsey' campaign system (which I have yet to try but looks very good) and a series of mini campaigns such as the German Invasion of Norway or convoys to Russia but with other ones set in the Mediterranean and the Pacific.

It's probably worth pointing out that the main 'Nimitz' rules only cover surface actions; submarines and aircraft are only used in a very abstract way in the Halsey campaign rules. That said the number of times that submarines and/or aircraft were involved in an action where opposing surface ships were shooting at each other were vanishingly rare in WWII (actually if ever).

Cheers Paul

[Ithoriel]

I'll second Paul's view on Nimitz though I will caveat it with the observation that it is a set of rules that "gets the right result for the wrong reasons." Or, to put it another way, some of the mechanisms are counterintuitive but work.

[Chris Pringle]

Thanks for all the replies to my naive question about bloody naval games (I don't really do boats).

My sense from two games of Nimitz and my position of relative ignorance was that it was a pip too easy to hit and damage ships (perhaps to make the game faster and more fun). That probably also makes the prudent withdrawal a less viable option - you'll be sunk as you leave anyway, may as well fight it out.

I feel that naval games generally come down to a dicefest anyway, with the key decisions being the ones at the campaign level more than on the tabletop. Not that we didn't have plenty of decisions to make, but it felt like the dice were a bigger element than any plan.

Yes, it is the scenario designer's job to give players realistic incentives if we want realistic behaviour.
Yes, I recognise the "last-turn charge" syndrome - saw it again at Antietam last night!

[Chris Pringle]

ACW: Antietam (BBB rules).
A real tense one.
Full AAR here:
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2025/11/cant-beat-em-at-antietam.html

[Chris Pringle]

Napoleonics - Peninsular War - Valencia (1811).
BBB rules.
AAR here:
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2025/11/peninsular-war-valencia-1811.html

[sunjester]

Wars of the roses using Midgard.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Last week: Burrows and Badgers

This week X Wing
Bloody draw, but I still love that game.

[Chris Pringle]

This week X Wing
Bloody draw, but I still love that game.

Only played a few starter games a few years ago but I liked it. How many craft per player do you reckon is a good number?

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Three or four

[fred.]

I've got a bit behind on this log!

Going back week by week

Armoured Clash - Enlightened vs Alliance - first outing for the Alliance player, but rather smashed by my Enlightened.

Midgard - Elves vs Undead - eventual win for the undead (though we found out after we had played their special rules wrong, which could have been significant). No one was particularly enamoured with these rules. Which was disappointing as I had had them since the last Xmas.

Armoured Clash - Enlightened vs Union - a D-Day esque scenario - the Enlightened tripods stomped out of the sea, and overwhelmed the Union defenders in an asymmetric scenario.

Then prior to this several more games of Armoured Clash!

As might be detected Armoured Clash is our current favourite - it's probably my first true 'boxed game' where the rules and the figures are tightly linked together. Really nice hard plastic figures and vehicles - and my Enlightened certainly paint up pretty quickly.

If I had worked out where to host photos I'd share some!

[pierre the shy]

Yet more messing about in boats last night.

We played Actium again to try a couple of new changes to the rules (and some small things we missed last time  )

Another very entertaining evening with much hilarity and more than a few Monty Python quotes 

Beattus Maximus, one of Octavian's admirals was heard to say "There's something wrong with our #**%^$^%& triremes today".

Personally I really love these rules, despite our recent results.
     

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Beattus Maximus, one of Octavian's admirals was heard to say "There's something wrong with our #**%^$^%& triremes today".   

Hate to take my seat in pedites corner, but
Octavian's fleet had approximately 250–400 mostly smaller, faster ships known as liburnians, while Antony commanded a larger fleet of around 500 ships that were generally bigger, including numerous quinqueremes.

[pierre the shy]

Quite right m'lord, should have said ships not specifically triremes. 

Paul's scenario does account for the various sized vessels on both sides. In our game Octavian's laburnians tried to manuvere around the larger Antonian ships to attack Cleopatra's valuable squadron of merchant vessels with mixed results. 

The Antonian squadrons are centred around large vessels armed with stone throwing artillery. If these hit they can cause a lot of damage, as one of my admirals found out to his cost when he failed to save and was seriously wounded.   

We played a final game last night by swapping sides, it was looking like a narrow Octavian victory till the very last turn when Mark Antony's squadron completely blitzed their opponents and the Octavians ran out of victory medals.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Excellent WSS game yesterday using modified Rebels and Patriots rules. Photos will no doubt appear on the club facebook page, Beacon Club.

[sunjester]

2 games this week:
A historical game of Wars of the Roses using Midgard and fantasy, Reign in Hell.

[Chris Pringle]

Played the same game twice at the Warfare 2025 show:
Sagunto (1811) (Napoleonics, BBB rules).
This was our Oxford Wargames Society participation game. We had a number of good guys join in and I am happy to say we entertained them well. First game was a clear Spanish victory, second one I think a French win. It's a nice scenario: both sides have to attack if they want to win, both sides have options and different possible plans etc, plenty of replay value. It will feature in the Peninsular War scenario book to be published next year.

[Chris Pringle]

And tonight it was
ACW: Stones River (BBB).
A great punch-up and a classic tight finish.
Brief photo-AAR on the BBBBlog here:
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2025/11/acw-stones-river-1862-1863.html

And one from the Warfare 2025 Sagunto game as well:)
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2025/11/peninsular-battle-at-warfare-2025.html

[sunjester]

Just one game this week, as one my planned games didn't happen

Guards of Traitor's Toll (Fantasy) I think we are getting the hang of these rules now, it ran a lot smoother than the previous games had!