Time for a little gaming

Rather than spending time working on my stuff, I spent part of yesterday helping my friend Kevin playtest his Battle of Sluys scenario for Enfilade. we were joined in the playtest, by Mark and Joe Waddington. You can read more about Kevin's work on this project on his blog and just click the "cogs" label to see the whole story.

The English and French Fleets square off at Sluys.

Kevin is using David Manley's Quick Play Medieval Fleet rules for the game and yesterday was the first chance to test out the ships, terrain, and rules. The rules are somewhat like DBA, in that a turn consists of one side rolling for command points, allocating them by formation, moving, and then conducting combat (artillery, missile, and close combat) followed by the other side doing the same. Overall, pretty easy to understand, but with enough decisions to keep players in the game.

We set up the forces, with Mark and Kevin as the English and Joe and I playing the French. The French set-up in the middle of the channel between the mainland and an island. We also started the game chained together and can't unchain until 3 turns after the first French ship takes damage, so there really wasn't a lot to do for the first few turns but wait. Joe ran the French front line, while I took the third squadron in the back, which was a mix of mercenary galleys and medium cogs. 

The initial setup for the French fleet.

Before the start of the game, Kevin sprang a little surprise on us. He told us that overnight the French fleet had drifted toward the island on our right. So, all the sudden there was a big gap on our left flank. The English moved up with two groups to engage the French front squadron with artillery and later missile fire, while the third group tried to move through the gap on the French left. Unfortunately for them one of their cogs kept running aground in the shallows, forcing the group to stop before pushing ahead.

The fleets locked in battle as an English squadron tries to move through the gap (at the top of the picture).

This delay allowed time for my third squadron to unchain and move to block the gap. I was able to defeat the first group of English cogs in close combat.

My galleys plug the flank gap.

Then I pushed on into the flanking squadron taking out the squadron commander. 

The galleys counterattack!

This was the schedule time for the Flemish fleet of small cogs to appear in the French rear. However, by this time things weren't looking good for the English and the Flemish had to sail into the wind to reach the French line. We stopped the game, ate some pizza, and talked about potential changes for the scenario. Kevin took a few notes and after he sorts things out, I expect we will give it another play through.
In addition to seeing Kevin's cogs, I got a chance to look at ships Mark is scratchbuilding. It was around a year ago that Mark was thinking about scratchbuilding some ships for the Great Lakes during the War of 1812. I think he was originally planning to do the ships for the Battle of Lake Champlain, but I talked him into working on ships for Lake Ontario. He has been cursing my name ever since, but the ships look really nice. They are 1/600 scale from wood, with metal masts, and I'm looking forward to getting a chance to play with them.

Mark's Lake Ontario War of 1812 ships.

A Break for Opening Day

From time to time I take a break from gaming topics and this post is one of those breaks. As always feel free to skip over this post if you just aren't interested.

Today is opening day for my hometown team, the Seattle Mariners (Major League Baseball Opening Day was yesterday, but the M's first game is today). For me Opening Day is the breakpoint between Winter and Summer, good weather is on the way (although it is raining here today), and there is optimism in air (even when you know your team does really have a chance).


I expect that it will be a rough year for the hometown nine (I think they will be lucky to win 70-75 games this year). But it is hard not to feel positive on Opening Day. One of the local baseball writers posted the following a list of great things about Opening Day and I thought I'd share it here.

10 Great Things About Opening Day
By Larry Stone, The Seattle Times

1: Everyone is 0-0, .000, 0.00 - a tabula rasa, the whole world of possibilities awaiting

2: The pomp and circumstance - dignitaries, celebrity anthem singers, flyovers, bunting

3: The pre-game introductions of the entire team, even the equipment managers

4: The excitement in the eyes of the rookies doing it all for the first time, as they stand on the base line

5: The stats count - for your fantasy team, too

6: When someone homers, you get to say, "He's on pace for 162,'' and it's funny every year.

7: You know there's 161 more games ahead, the six-month soap opera and reality show about to commence

8: At least 161 more. Eternal hope, and the sense that anything is possible. Pirates fans can dream of contention and Cubs fans can believe this will finally be the year. Mariners fans, too.

9: Even people who don't care about baseball are paying attention today.

10: Baseball is back. For real.

Now back to your regularly scheduled naval gaming posts.

My Other Enfilade Game

The past few weeks I've been concentrating on getting ships done for the Operation Morvarid game for Enfilade 2011. With the missile boats done and the LST in the paint shop, I started looking at what I need for the other game I'm planning on running.

My second game will be a WWII Pacific coastal forces game between the Americans and Japanese. The basic plan is for the Japanese to be on a resupply mission, while the Americans are trying to recover a Marine Recon team in the same area.

PT Dockyard Japanese (from L to R) Type C armored gunboat, 46' Dihatsu barge, Armored Dihatsu gunboat, and lugger 

The Japanese forces will mostly be armed and unarmed barges (landing craft), along with some luggers. Although I think I will let them trade up to some larger ships, but there will be fewer of them. So, the Japanese players will have to decide if they want to go with more smaller ships that can stay close to shore or fewer larger ships that have big guns (but can run aground). I'm probably going to put together the LST from the Tamiya Japanese Military Transport kit as one of the possible Japanese ships, even though those ships were around until 1944 and the South Pacific battles were pretty much wrapped up by then. I think it would be fun to have it on the table and sometimes you just need to twist history a little. 

Tamiya Japanese destroyer and subchaser

The American forces will primarily be 80' Elco PT boats. As with the Japanese, they will be able to trade the PT boats for other types of ships, such as a subchaser or LCM gunboat. I might even pull out some Fletcher class destroyers as options (although those won't be able to get too close to shore to help pick up the Marines). 

PT Dockyard American LCM gunboat, 110' subchaser, and 80' Elco PT boat

I'll be using the Action Stations rules for the game. These are one of my favorite set of naval rules; they are easy for players to pick-up, play fast, and are really flexible so I can use them for a lot of different situations.
Things are getting a little busy at my day job, but I'm hoping to have some pictures of the newly painted ships next week.

Missile Boats and LST updates

I finally finished painting the two Osa II and converted Matka missile boats. They still need to be mounted on bases. But since I'm trying to put up a new post each week, I thought I'd show off the painted ships.

Project 206MR Matka (top) and two Project 205 Osa II (bottom) missile boats

The deck color should probably be a little lighter and redish, but I think it will pass. It also give a little variation from some other ships I've done.

Overall, I think the Matka conversion turned out pretty well. When I base it I'll need to figure out a way to show the extra spray when it is foil-borne. I'm not exactly sure what I will do, since I would like to show when it is going slower too.

Project 206 MR Matka profile

A little higher view of the ship

I went for a pretty standard Soviet era paint scheme for the Osa II boats. The boats paint up well, although there really aren't too many details to pick out on the Skytrex models. That said, the boats are pretty sturdy and I expect they will see a lot of service in various games.

I finally finished up the basic work on the LST. I spent about a half-hour with an electric hand-sander getting the hull down to the right size and then began working on the superstructure. I used the styrene strips to create the superstructure, bridge (including the wings), exhaust stacks, and mast. I then added some light guns, a crane, and a ships boat to add some character to the LST.

Profile view of completed LST

3/4 view with a better look at the superstructure

The right side of the LST got scuffed when I was sanding, but a little putty will fill it right in. I think it will give the ship a used look.

Completed LST showing a little scuffing

Here is a low-level profile picture so you can see how big the LST is compared to an Osa II.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the scratch-building job I did. It would have been nice to make it a little bigger, but the size should work with most of the games I'll be playing.

I'll post more photos when I'm done painting the ship.

LST Scratchbuild Update and a New Ship

I've been a little slow in finishing up the LST for my Enfilade scenario, but I wanted to post a short update with a few picture of my work.

First off, just a short review. I'm scratchbuilding an LST based on the Iranian Hengam class, but my version will be a little shorter. A real 1/700 scale ship would be over 5 inches long, while I'm cutting mine back to 4 inches. So the final version will look a somewhat squished.

I'm using 1/4 inch basswood as the base of the hull. I originally glued two pieces together for the hull, but later figured out that would make the ship too tall (I had to go back and revise the design a little after these pictures were taken). Below you can see the original base hull design.

LST base hull design from basswood, with a cutout area for under the helicopter deck

After getting the base hull done and sanding it to be a little smoother, I added some sheet styrene for the main deck and the raised forward part of the ship.

LST- main deck in place

Now I was ready to add the side of the hull, which will be done with very thin sheet styrene. I used a continuous piece of styrene that wrapped around the right side, the bow, and then the left side. I will cover the aft end later.

LST - sides of the hull added

It was really at this point I decided the ship was too tall (I should have figured this out earlier, but didn't). I need to reduce the height by about 1/8 inch. It will still be a tall ship, but I think it will look better. Right now I'm working on reducing the height and I'm building the superstructure for the ship.

I will have some more photo updates of the LST and the painted missile boats, including the modified hydrofoil, next week.

Finally, I decided to buy a few things during the PT Dockyard's Winter Doldrums Sale. I got a few Taiwanese missile boats (those are for a later project) and I got a USS Independence LCS-2 ship. I had procrastinated on ordering my ships and Dave had removed the LCS-2 from the website just when I was sending my order (if you check the website you will see that it is no longer there). After a few e-mails back and forth, he said he would make one last ship for me. I thought I would share some pictures of the ship.

USS Independence LCS-2 hull

It is a really big model (and uses a lot of resin), especially when compared to most of the missile, PT and gun boats PT Dockyard makes. It measures almost 7 inches from bow to stern and the back end is around 1 3/4 inches wide. There are a lot of panels and doors on the sides of the ship (I'm not too sure how they look in the photo, but you can click on it for a slightly larger view). Here it is in comparison on to some of my bigger 1/700 scale ships. 

LCS-2 and OH Perry FFG size comparison

LCS-2 and OH Perry 3/4 view

LCS-2 and Burke DDG size comparison

LCS-1 and Burke DDG 3/4 view

The LCS-2 is a nice looking model, but because of its size and amount of resin that goes into each one, I can see why it is being retired from the PT Dockyard line. I'm looking forward to working on the model, but not until I finish my Enfilade projects.

Hydrofoil Conversion Update

My real job has been keeping me busy lately, but I wanted to post an update on my building efforts for my planned Enfilade games.

 

I'm cutting and shaping the hull for the Iranian Hengam class LST for the Operation Morvarid scenario. I'm using 1/4" thick basswood as the basis for the hull. I'm going to apply some thin sheets of hobby styrene to the hull to smooth it out (so that I don't have to worry about the wood grain). The final version won't quite be 1/700 scale and I'm sure I will miss some of the details, since there aren't a lot of great pictures/drawings of the ship, but will be pretty representative of the class. There isn't much to see right now, so there aren't any pictures.

 

I've just about completed the conversion of the Project 206 hydrofoil from a torpedo boat to a missile boat. While I talked through the conversion in my last post, I decided to cobble together a couple side view drawings so you could really see differences between the 206M and 206MR

And here is how my version looks.

Modified Project 206  Turya profile view

All things considered, it is turning out pretty well. I might add a few more details and shape some parts a little more, but basically the conversion is complete. The major changes from the base PT Dockyard Turya kit were:

• The bridge structure was reworked slightly.
• The forward 76mm gun is scratch-built from some styrene and wire.
• The superstructure was lengthened with styrene and filled in with putty.
• I modified the mast and added the rear gun and missile tubes (which were left over from another kit).

It was a fun little project and it should look better once I get some paint on it. Here a picture of the Project 206MR with a Skytrex Osa II for some size perspective (each square on the mat is 2 inches).

Osa II and Matka size comparision



Thinking about Enfilade

Registration for Enfilade, the NHMGS gaming convention has opened up and it looks like it is time to figure out what games I want to run at the convention. There are six gaming periods at Enfilade (two on Friday, three on Saturday, and one on Sunday) and because I want to get some gaming in, I only thinking about two games this year. Although I have offered to help out with Keivn's Sluys Project, which I think will happen on Friday night.

Right now I'm thinking about a couple games, one game will be a missile boat action loosely based on Operation Morvarid from the Iran-Iraq War (more boat action and fewer aircraft) and the other game will be a WWII Pacific PT Boat action. I think I have, or can borrow, most of the ships needed for both of these games, which will allow me to direct my limited gaming funds for this year into the on-going Age of Sail project. Even though I keep hearing PT Dockyard's LCS-2 model calling for me to buy it (maybe later this year).

To start off with, I'll talk about the ships I'll need for the Operation Morvarid scenario. For the Iranians I'm thinking of the following: 2 Kaman class missile boats (I'm going to borrow these), 1 Cape class patrol boat (I'm using a stand-in for this one), and a Hengam class LST (I'm going to try scratch-building this one). I will also have some helicopters for the Iranians.


Iranian Hengam class LST

On the Iraqi side I'm looking at the following: 2 P-6 torpedo boats (from PT Dockyard and already built), 2 Osa I missile boats (from Skytrex already built) and 2 Osa II missile boats (from Skytrex, which are not built).

I've put together other kits from the Skytrex Seastrike line (I used these ships in the 2007 DANG Arab-Israeli War game). The Skytrex Osa boats, both the type I and II, are both pretty basic. There isn't a lot of detail on hulls or other parts. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, since there isn't any flash, as you can see in the picture below, and the parts all fit together easily.

A pair of Skytrex Osa II ships

I'll post more pictures as I assemble and paint the boats.

As I prepare to scratch-build the Hengam LST, I've pulled out another modification project to hone my skills a little. I'm starting out with a PT Dockyard Soviet Turya Project 206M torpedo hydrofoil and converting it to a Matka Project 206MR missile hydrofoil. I've been thinking about doing this for a while, basically since the Russian-Georgian Conflict when there were rumors about a naval engagement between missile boats in the Black Sea. So, I'm really trying to turn the Turya kit into the Georgian missile boat Tbilsi. 

Project 206MR Matka missile boat

The PT Dockyard Turya is pretty nice, but there are a lot of armament difference between the Turya and Matka. 

PT Dockyard Turya with torpedo tubes removed

The Turya comes with 4 torpedo tubes a forward 23mm gun and an aft 57mm gun. The Matka has 2 SSN-2 missile tubes, a forward 76mm gun and an after 30mm gun. So about the only thing that will be used from the kit is the hull, mast, and Bass Tilt radar director. The missile tubes and 30mm gun will come from some leftover parts from a Dragon Soviet Missile boats kit, but I have to scratch-build the 76mm gun.

I'll start the conversion process by cutting the torpedo tubes off the hull, filling and flattening out the area above the bridge, and lengthening the superstructure. Then I'll scratch-build the 76mm gun and mount all the weapons on the hull. Hopefully this will be as easy as it sounds.