Final Enfilade Preperations

The Enfilade gaming convention is this weekend and I’ve just been finishing up the final items I need for my games.

I haven’t talked much about the other game I’m running, The 2nd Battle of St. Leonard's Creek, mainly because there wasn’t a lot of stuff to paint up for the game. The British ships are borrowed and American gunboats were built for last year’s DANG, which only left some land units and ships’ boats needed to move those units around.

I ordered the ship’s boats from Bay Area Yards. They make a lot of nice accessories for ships and forts, including the boats. Here is a shot of some of the boats with a couple gunboats.

Gunboats and Ships' Boats

For the land units I wanted things to be in the same (or close to the same) scale. So I ordered some infantry from PicoArmor’s Napoleonic line. The infantry are pretty small and I had to use my magnifier to paint them up. I think they turned out okay (I won’t win any painting competition, but they are good enough for gaming). Here are some shots of the U.S. and British troops. Unfortunately, I didn’t include anything for size comparison, so you’ll just have to believe me when I say they are small.

A sample of British troops (representing Royal Marines)

A sample of US troops

Enfilade Naval Games 
I was looking over the Enfilade preliminary event list (you can find the full list here) to see what games are being put on that I want to try to play. Overall, it looks like there are some interesting games. As usual, I like to see how many naval games are on the schedule. Last year there were 11 naval games, including the two I put on. This year we are back up to 15, which is nice to see. There are also a good number of air games this year (including the attack on Tirpitz, which I didn’t count as a naval game). As with previous years, I thought I’d keep with the theme of the blog and post the list of Enfilade naval games.

Friday Afternoon 
Iron Castles Afloat (Rules: Fire When Ready) After the battle of Lissa (1866) the navies of the 1870s developed central battery ironclads, armed with rams and forward firing barbettes as well as traditional broadsides. While none of these ships saw combat, this game simulates an encounter between the Austrian and French navies of the period.

Friday Evening
Row Well and Live! (Rules: Row Well and Live!) Roman Proconsul Quintus Arius has tracked down and brought to battle a squadron of Macedonian pirates.

You may Fire when ready, Pierre! (Rules: Perfidious Albion) French and German Pre-Dreadnoughts battle each other in this Fictional "What If" encounter set in the 1890's. Easy to learn system and fast play will have Gamers in fear of the dreaded Magazine Explosion in no time.

Battle of the River Plate (Rules: Supremacy at Sea) Re-enact the classic naval battle portrayed in the movie "Battle of the River Plate" as the Graf Spee first lunges at, then flees from, a small British cruiser force.

Saturday Morning 
In Harm’s Way (Rules: Seekrieg IV) From the classic John Wayne movie of the same name. Can a line of US Heavy Cruisers, a few destroyers and a small flotilla of PT Boats do enough damage to the Yamato to make her turn around and return to base? Give it a try!

Learn To Row - Introduction to the Rules (Rules: Galleys & Glory) Learning Scenario for Sunday's Quest. Learn the rules and mechanisms of Ancient Navel combat with Galleys & Glory.

The 2nd Battle of St. Leonard's Creek (Rules: Sail and Steam Navies (modified)) Com. Barney's gunboat flotilla is trying to break out from St Leonard's Creek into the Pawtuxent River during the War of 1812. This is a mixed land-river action; the US Army and artillery are supporting the breakout from the land side, while the Royal Marines and Royal Navy try to stop them.

Saturday Afternoon
Napoleonic Naval Warfare (Rules: Sails of Glory) Learn to play Sails of Glory. It is a brand new 1:1000 scale naval miniatures game from the same company that makes Wings of Glory. No experience is necessary and instruction will be provided

Saturday Evening
Row Better and Live! (Rules: Row Well and Live!) Hellenistic squadrons battle for supremacy of the eastern Mediterranean.

Thunderboats! (Rules: Thunderboats) Popular hydroplane racing rules creates a certain sense of nostalgia as players design their boats and drivers, take their risks and win the Enfilade Cup.

Jutland +1 (Rules: Supremacy at Sea: Great War) In another timeline the major battle between the Grand Fleet and High Seas Fleet doesn't occur until May 31, 1917. Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt ensures that the U.S. Navy is deployed to Britain in time to play a crucial role in trapping the Kaiser's fleet.

Trafalgar - the good parts version (Rules: Close Action) Command a British, French or Spanish ship of the line in the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar. Close Action is an updated version of the classic board game "Wooden Ships and Iron Men". Each player will command one, or at most, two ships. Detailed 1/1200 scale ship models by Langton Miniatures.

Utsire Island (Rules: Fleet Action Imminent) von Spee bypasses the Falklands and makes it to the North Sea. He is intercepted by RN armored cruisers off Norway on Christmas eve in a daylight fight!

Sunday Morning 
North Sea Rumble (Rules: Victory at Sea: Age of Dreadnaughts) Rumble in the North Sea: Meeting engagement by equal forces of The Royal Navy and German High Seas Fleet. Battle cruisers charge in with dreadnought closing fast.

Galley Quest (Rules: Galleys & Glory) Tournament for Galleys & Glory. Players will attempt to complete a quest from the gods, while beating other players to their goals. Prize to be awarded to winner!

One More Playtest

Last Saturday Kevin and I ran a playtest of the “Hunting the Beast” scenario. Kevin and I set up the board, including some new light flak emplacements from the Fight’s On store. The guys from Fight’s On were kind enough to provide the emplacements, along with some markers to give away to the players at Enfilade. So I want to say a big “Thank You” to them.

A couple light flak emplacements from Fight's On

We were short a player, so there was only two German fighters airborne for the game. The German player chose to add an escort destroyer for some extra light flak, but to keep the flak “tight”, which restricted the range it would attack planes at (for this game flak shoots at any plane that is in range, so the tight restriction allows the German fighters some more maneuver options). The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) chose to make a morning attack with six Barracudas for the bombing, escorted by four Corsairs, and a pair of Fireflys for flak suppression.

After everyone was set up, we made the navigation checks for the FAA and flak manning for the Germans. The FAA ended up missing their check, which shifted their entry point putting them further away from the German fighters, but still in a good position to strike Tirpitz. The German flak was not alerted before the raid and it would take a turn for them to fully man their guns.

The FAA strike enters the map.

The German fighters (a pair of FW-190As) flew off to meet the raid head-on. The high rate of closing speed prevented the FW-190s and escorting Corsairs from engaging each other. Then the German heavy flak opened up.

Heavy flak greets the attackers

The heavy flak showed that it was completely impartial, damaging a few Barracudas along with one FW-190. The FW-190s were able to take a couple shots at some of the Barracudas as they passed, but one of the Barracuda tail gunners was able to hit the flak damaged FW-190 and shoot it down. The heavy flak got a little revenge later by knocking down a couple of the bombers.

The bombers approach the battleship

The Corsairs pursued the other FW-190. It dove away but got too close to escorting destroyer, which promptly shot it down (German flak did a pretty good job of shooting German planes in our playtest). The four remaining Barracudas were able to dodge the flak and drop their bombs on Tirpitz scoring three hits. But that was only enough to damage “The Beast”, not cripple it. So we gave the Germans a marginal victory.

One hit and one miss from this pair of Barracudas

The playtest went pretty well and the players seemed to enjoy the game. We did decide that the flak might be a little too powerful, so we’ll tone it down for the Enfilade game. We also thought that we would give the FAA the option of taking up to eight bombers (instead of six). Overall, I feel pretty good about the scenario and think it is ready to go for Enfilade.

Hunting the Beast Walkthrough

This post is a little late (okay, a few weeks late), but here are a few photos and description of the walkthrough Kevin and I did for the Hunting the Beast scenario.

We started out talking about the general plans and options for both sides. The Germans will chose which fighters are covering the zone, if there is some additional flak in the area and the general orders for the flak gunners. The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) players get to choose the timing for their attack, the approach for the planes and the planes in the mission. The FAA can have 12 planes on the mission and will have to choose from a mix of Corsairs, Hellcats, Martlets, Fireflys, and Barracudas. They will have to take some Barracudas, since those are the only bombers in the game (the Firefly could carry a torpedo, but the German defenses negate the use of torpedoes). The other planes will be there to provide fighter cover and flak suppression.

Tirpitz at anchor

We quickly talked through the German options and then spent a lot of time going over possible FAA options. After coming up with a good mix of FAA planes, we stepped through an attack plan. With the battleship setup, we looked over the ways the FAA can get the bombers in quickly to attack the Tirpitz (assuming their navigation rolls turn out okay) and went through a few things to refresh the Mustangs rules in our minds.

Barracudas approaching the target

The Barracudas start their bomb run

We made a few notes about extra information that is needed for both sides. We then decided to plan a full playtest for May 11. It should be entertaining to see if our plans match up with what players are thinking. We are trying to get some space at The Game Matrix in Tacoma for the playtest. Feel free to drop by if you're in the ares.

Building the Beast

My updates have been a little sparse over the past couple of months. While I've had my reasons for not posting (including work and that I injured my shoulder), I am hoping to have more posts as I get ready for the Enfilade 2013 convention.

To kick this off, I'll post some information about one of my Enfilade projects. The game title for this project is "Hunting the Beast" and covers the Operation Tungsten raid. This is a joint effort with Kevin; he is providing the Fleet Air Arm planes and I'm bringing the German planes and the target for the raid, the battleship Tirpitz.

I started off with the 1/700 scale Tirpitz kit from Aoshima. The kit is a pretty standard naval model and I'm not planning on doing anything too fancy with the kit (no photo-etch parts this year after the trouble I had on last year's project)

I took a couple photos of the construction, but they really weren't that interesting (just a gray kit that you couldn't pick out many details on). I'll just say that I didn't have any problems putting the ship together (even though all the instructions are in Japanese). The model itself represents the 'as-built' version of the ship, without torpedo tubes (added in late-'41) or the heavier anti-aircraft armament featured on the ship during the Tungsten raid. My guess is that not too many of the players will notice the missing items, especially since Tirpitz is only a target and flak platform for the game.

I'm using the paint scheme information from this website as a basis for my paint job. Here is an 'in-progress' photo of the paint job I'm using on the ship.

 I've still got some work to do, but the camouflage pattern seems to be coming through okay. Painting the super-structure is kind of a pain (lots of little parts in the way) and I doubt I will get it to be exactly like the historical version. It won't win any modeling awards, but it will probably get a 'thumbs-up' in the TLAR (That Looks About Right) department.

Kevin and I are going to get together this coming weekend to walk-through the game. So I'll try to snap a few photos of that to give everyone an idea of how the 1/700 scale ship looks with 1/300 scale planes.

Planning for Enfilade 2013

After a short hiatus, I'm back to blogging and finally making plans for Enfilade 2013. This year there is a theme for the convention, "Warfare on the Silver Screen", but I don't think I'll be able to relate any of my games to movies.

Right now I'm looking at running (or helping to run) two games at Enfilade.

For the first game, Kevin and I are going to do Operation Tungsten, the Fleet Air Arm attack on the Tirpitz in April 1944.

Target for Operation Tungsten

We'll be using the old Mustangs rules with some minor modifications. The scenario will have some historical variance; the Luftwaffe didn't oppose the historical raid, but will be available for this one. I'll also add in some more options for both sides.

A photo from the real FAA attack

It will be interesting to see FAA Corsairs, Hellcats, and Martlets mixing it up with Luftwaffe FW-190s and Me-109s.

I'm still undecided about my second game. I'll be doing this one by myself and have been kicking around with the following ideas.

Idea 1: The 2nd Battle of St. Leonard's Creek: This would cover the breakout of Commodore Barney's gunboat flotilla from St Leonard's Creek into the Pawtuxent River off the Chesapeake Bay during the War of 1812. This would be a mixed land-river action with units from the US Army and Marines supporting the breakout from the land side with some artillery, while the Royal Marines try to drive off the land guns so the large Royal Navy blockading ships can stop Barney's flotilla. The game would be 1/600 scale using the modified Sail And Steam Navies rules that I've used for other War of 1812 games.

Idea 2: Vietnam Air Rescue: This idea is a revamp of the game I was planning last year with A-1 Skyraiders leading a CH-53 rescue helicopter to pick up a downed Air Force pilot over North Vietnam. There will be some F-4 Phantoms acting as top cover, but they will have limited ammo/fuel. The North Vietnamese would have a mix of aircraft and ground forces to stop the Americans. The game would use the AirWarC21 rules and 1/300 scale miniatures.

Idea 3: Battle off Vila: This idea has Japanese destroyers, and maybe a light cruiser, unloading supplies to barges off the island of Vila when US forces (probably destroyers and PT boats) arrive to disrupt the transfer. This would be done with 1/600(700) scale ships using the Action Stations rules. This would be a little different from many of my usual coastal forces games in that it would be the first time I've really done a destroyer vs. destroyer game with the Action Stations rules.

Those are my main ideas. Right now I'm leaning toward idea 1, but it would be nice to know if anyone is interested in any of these ideas as games (feel free to leave me a comment about the ideas).

Drumbeat 2013

Drumbeat 2013 was held last Saturday at the Lake City Community Center (LCCC). I think this was the third year at LCCC and I think this one probably had the highest attendance (at least it seemed like more people to me). As usual, there were two gaming sessions during the day, with around seven or eight games in each session. The game slots had filled up pretty early this year, so I didn’t run anything. But that gave me the chance to play some games instead of worrying about running them.

One thing I did notice this year was a lot of the games using rules from Warlord Games, including Black Powder, Hail Caesar and Bolt Action.

In the morning, I played in David Sullivan’s Row Well and Live game. This is a home-brew set of galley rules. I had played a game with an earlier version of the rules, but David made a few changes to the rules since then. It was a fun game (I got to ram another ship and was only set on fire once) and it is always a plus to be able to play with the nice Xyston 1/600 scale galleys.

Galleys ready for action

Time to break out the marshmallows as my ship catches on fire

But at least I wasn't the only one

In the afternoon (after a nice lunch and beer at the Elliott Bay Brew Pub), I played in Ed B’s Supremacy at Sea game. I was going to skip the afternoon session, but Ed did make the trip all the way from Vancouver, so I thought I would try out his rules. The scenario, called Jutland +1, was a ‘what-if’ Jutland had happened a year later and American ships were involved in the action. I ran a British squadron (with Glorious and Courageous in their traditional form and the new battlecruisers Renown and Repulse) and hit the Germans pretty well with my 15” guns. The only problem was I apparently forgot to properly fuse my shells, so most were duds (Ed had figured the problems with early war British shells into the rules and I ran afoul them).

Moving my squadron into action

Overall, it was a fun day and, as I mentioned before, a well attended event. Here are a few photos of some of the other games from Drumbeat 2013.

A 100 Years War game using the Hail Caesar rules

Bolt Action - Germans vs. Americans in Normandy

Black Powder - Napoleonic game

Black Powder - Boxer Rebellion game

Setting up for a Check Your 6 Korea game

NAGS DBA game

Black Powder - ACW Battle of Glorieta Pass

The Sword and the Flame - Indian Mutiny game

Musket and Tomahawks - French and Indian War game

SAGA skirmish game

Regimental Fire and Fury

Some Book Reviews and Last Post for 2012

As part of my last post of 2012, I wanted to talk about a few books I read during the year. None of the books are very new and I'm limiting this post to ones that might interest naval gamers.

Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan's Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe That Ended the Oulaws' Bloody Reign, by Stephan Talty

This book covers the exploits of Henry Morgan during his 30-year career as a pirate/privateer in the Caribbean. The book primarily covers the Morgan's attacks on the Spanish Empire at sea and on land, including his attacks on the major Spanish ports in Panama and South America. It also looks at the general political situation in the Caribbean during that period. Talty talks about the difficulties of organizing pirate expeditions, maintaining control of those men, and what happened after the expedition. Talty also notes early in the book that not a lot of records were kept from this time, but he does a good job of filling in details. Although one thing I didn't really like was that he invented an ordinary pirate character for the book that he would use to explain the difficulties of the common buccaneers. I thought this was the least effective part of the book and could have been explained just as well without the invented character.

Empire of Blue Water is a nice little history of the Caribbean in the late 1600s. For gamers, it gives lots of ideas for pirate raids and what the troops (pirate and Spanish) were like.

Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 by Ian Toll

This is Ian Toll's second book. His first was the wonderful Six Frigates, which covered the early history of the American Navy, so I was expecting a lot. After the wide-ranging time frame covered by Six Frigates, I was a little disappointed that Pacific Crucible was only covering 1941-42 (and only from Pearl Harbor through the Battle of Midway). But that disappointment soon disappeared as I got further into the book. Rather than just covering the same basic military history of Pearl Harbor, the early American responses, the Battles of Coral Sea and Midway, Toll delves deeper into how these historical events came about and the strategic views for each side. There is a really good explanation of the Japanese thoughts and goals, including how the Army and Navy took over the Japanese government and their general lack of cooperation with each other. There are good sections on Admirals Nimitz, King, and Yamamoto, along with the relationship and meetings of Churchill and Roosevelt. The book also draws on a lot of eyewitness accounts for the battles.

I found Pacific Crucible to be a quick and interesting read. Even if you are familiar with the first six months of World War II in the Pacific, I think you will read something new or see events with a different twist. I'm hoping that Toll will continue writing the history of World War II in the Pacific, but I think it will take a lot of time to do that in this level of detail. For gamers, there is some good information on the Wake Island relief force and other early American raids that aren't gamed very much, along with there are lots of little ideas that can be added to your games. Overall I really enjoyed the book and recommend it.

If By Sea: The forging of the American Navy - from the Revolution to the War of 1812. By George Daughn

I reviewed Daughn's 1812 book in another post, but never posted anything about his first book. As the subtitle says, this book cover the American Navy from the American War of Independence (AWI) through the War of 1812. The thing that really sets it apart from the other books on the early U.S. Navy is the focus on the AWI time period; about half the book covers the period from 1775 until 1783. Daughn does a good job covering the wide variety of ships and actions during this time, from Boston Harbor to the Bahamas raids and John Paul Jones. The book is worth reading for those sections alone. Which is a good thing, since the book only covers the next 30 years in broad strokes. It hits on all of the major actions and events, but not in much detail. It isn't that the writing or information is bad, it is just done better in other books.

If By Sea gives a good overall history of the American Navy through 1815 and especially during the American War of Independence. I felt the last half of the book wasn't as informative as the first half, but that might only be because of other books I've read. For gamers, there is a lot of different stuff here, although they are all pretty small actions.

2012 in Review
Looking back on what I posted about plans for 2012 (look at the end of this post), I did get through some but not all of them. I didn't do very much work on my 15mm Age of Sail stuff, but I did complete a bunch of 1/600-1/700 scale ships and some of the 'grab bag' items (the Galactic Knights spaceships and some aircraft). So, it was too bad of a year. I haven't really thought about projects and plans for 2013. I will probably just pick out a few projects here and there without any set goals in mind. I do need to figure out what I want to do for Enfilade 2013(I've already got some ideas kicking around). Drumbeat 2013 is coming up in mid-January, but I think I will just attend and play games rather than running games.

Finally, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year and thank you for reading my meandering posts and adding comments.