Navwar WW2 Late War Japanese Starter Set

Another project that I've forced myself to finish off as dark vengeance arrives (which it has, and very good it is too) is my Japanese Late war starter set from Navwar, as usual in 1:3000 scale.  The ships have actually been finished for a couple of months, but I just hadn't got around to basing them.

The japanese are very good in victory at sea and benefit hugely from the poor points system as in each of the 5 brackets they can field efficient ships.  It also helps that the Yamato class battleships are the most powerful in the game.

As all the Navwar starter sets this one is good value, although I'd have prefered one less carrier and another battleship, but thats just me, I like battleships a lot.

 The big boys of the set the Battleships, from left to right the Nagato, The Ise and the Yamato.  Although as I already have a Yamato this model has been christened the musashi.  The Ise is a fascinating ship that is half battleship and half aircraft carrier!

The set also contains 3 full carriers of various sizes, the Kaiyo, the Shinyo and the Unryu.

On the left we have two Takao heavy cruisers and on the right we have two oyodo class light cruisers. 

 And finally we have 4 akitsuki class destroyers and 4 kagero class destroyers.

Royal Yugoslav Navy In Victory At Sea

As well as the main navies covered by the victory at sea rules Navwar (my ship maker of choice) also produce fleet packs for many of the smaller navies of the era.  Some of them have had rules published over at David Manleys website, but I've gone and bought the Yugoslavian pack which doesn't and had a stab and converting their stats into rules myself.

The Yugoslav Navy was pretty small in 1941 and the Navwar pack contains the only 5 vessels that were of any real size, an ageing ex-German light cruiser, a British built destroyer leader and 3 french built destroyers.  The cruiser was very old and not much use for anything but training, the four destroyers however were modern and effective.  Yugoslavia was quickly overun by the axis and most of her fleet ended up serving with the Italians.

First up the light cruiser Dalmacija, of German origin where she was known as the Niobe.

The Destroyer Leader Dubrovnik

And the three destroyers of the Beograd class: Beograd, Zagreb and Ljubljana

And finally here is the link to the PDF I've done with the stats for the above ships.

Navwar WW2 Early War German Starter Set

As a bit of a change of tack I've gone and bought some Axis ships for use in Victory at Sea, As usual I went for Navwar's 1:3000 range.  I bought the early war Germans (shown here) and the late war Japanese (coming soon) starter sets.  This set's pretty good and contains pretty much all the German surface ships I'd heard of inlcuding all 4 of the proper capital ships the germans possesed, 2 of the pocket battleships, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugens, 3 light cruisers and 8 destroyers.  I might pick up the other 6 cruisers and a few U-boats at some point, but even if I never get around to that this is a pretty decent fleet and allows me to play the historical scenarios in the Victory at sea rulebook.

I've played against the Germans quite a bit and they are let down quite a bit by the lack of a proper points system in victory at sea.  The Bismarck for exmple is a fine ship, but you get one for the same points as two Queen Elizabeth class battleships, and they're not that good.  The battlecruisers are tough, but lack firepower, and the light cruisers and destroyers don't match upto the British ships of the same points either.  The only area the german fleet is strong is in Heavy cruisers, with the Pocket Battleships and Admiral Hipper class ships being fine ships and point efficient.  Still I'm up for a challenge and am looking forward to trying to make them work.

The power of the fleet, the Bismarck class battleships Tirpitz and Bismarck

The Scharnhorst class battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, if only they had bigger guns!

The two 'Pocket Battleships' Admiral Graf Spee and Admiral Scheer and the Admarial Hipper class heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen.

3 K-class light cruisers Koln, Karlsruhe & Koingsberg

And finally 4 Narvik class destroyers and 4 Maas class destroyers

The Ninth Wave - A Bit of Fantasy

My first wave of reinforcements for my WW2 Royal Navy Fleet in a while today.  This is a wave with a difference though as none of the ships actually fought in the war, five of them were never finished and one carrier was finished post war.  They do have rules in victory at sea though so will be useable in 'what if' games or if I'm just trying to be competative (as they're all rather good).

First off two N3 or Saint class battleships that were cancelled due to the limitations of the washington naval treaty, they're very powerful game wsie and I'm looking forward to trying them out.  I've christened mine HMS St. George and HMS St. Andrew

These are two Lion class battleships, an improved version of the King Goerge V design, mine have been christened HMS Lion and HMS Thunder.

These are two large fleet carriers, on the left is HMS Malta, a very large carrier cancelled at the end of the war, if she were finished she would have been even bigger than the American Essex class carriers.  On the right is HMS eagle which formed a core part of the post war fleet.

I've also painted a couple of other almost random ships, first off HMS Victory, Nelsons famous ship.  I've painted this as she's technically still in comission so I need her in my aim to collect the current Royal Navy.  It was a pain to assemble and paint and doesn't even look that good, if I ever move to Napoleonic naval wargaming it will have to be in a bigger scale.

And finally the Italian cruiser Bolzano, after her projected conversion to an air defense ship.  My freind bought this for his Italian fleet and I thought it was so different and interesting that I had to have one too.

Islands In Victory at Sea

I had a game of victory at sea today, but we decided to try something different, the simple change of adding some islands to the sea.  There's no rules for islands in the book, so we simply said that islands blocked line of sight, and the shooting line between the centers of the two ships couldn't cross land (not entirely realistic, but it worked out fine), and that obviously you couldn't sail over them.  I don't actually have any islands, but my warhammer hills stood in nicely.

The battle was set off the Norwegian coast with my Royal Navy facing down the German Kriegsmarine.  The RN had the heavy cruiser HMS Norfolk, the light cruiser HMS Belfast and 4 destroyers, whereas the Germans had the pocket battleship Lutzow, the light cruiser Nurnburg, 2 destroyers and 2 torpedo boats.

Click to enlarge

The deployment:  The Kriegsmarine all deployed as a single squadron in the corner, the RN split itself, with 2 destroyers on the left near the Germans hoping to use the island to pounce on and torpedo one of the bigger German ships and on the right the 2 cruisers with a escort planing to sweep round the top island to get close enough to the pocket battleship so that they could at least return fire when it starts pounding them.

Agian click to enlarge

After a few turns of manoeuvering a British destroyer torpedoes the Lutzow crippling it as the Belfast and Norfolk round one of the islands to bring their guns to bear on the German fleet.  The british lost 3 destroyers, but neither of the cruisers suffered more than a couple of points of damage, the German fleet consisted of a single lone destroyer when the Germans conceeded.

A resounding victory for the British in the end despite the pocket battleship being by far the best ship on the board.  In the post battle analisys it was clear that the Germans where just massively outplayed and had no real plan (the cruiser and pocket battleship barely moved 12" all game), whereas the islands allowed the British to close to torpedo range easier, unfair to the Germans? well not really, after all they have torpedos too, but they made no effort to close with and target the British cruisers and the pocket battleship was never really put to any use.

The islands really helped add more manoeuvre to the game (which is what we were hoping for) and added a pleasing visual aspect as well, next week we're hoping to do something similar, although this time with Japanese and American Battleships somewhere in the pacific,

The Eighth Wave

The latest additions to my WW2 British fleet for Victory at Sea today.  As always all models are in 1:3000 scale from Navwar.  My fleet has grown at quite an astounding rate since I started buying these ships back in the late spring, my British fleet alone now has all 20 capital ships in service with the Royal Navy during the war, plus numerous cruisers and destroyers, in fact the total number of vessels in my fleet is now 94 (thats for the Royal Navy only, since the Spring I've also painted 12 convoy ships, 33 Free French and 18 American), which is far more than I could ever use in a single battle, but I don't regret it at all, in fact its been a really refreshing change in both painting and gaming.  The only question is where to go next, I could go for more cruisers or go for the battleships/carriers that where designed but cancelled, a sort of fantasy fleet for a war continuing into 1946 against my friends Japanese, or I could expand my US fleet, or even start another new fleet, I haven't decided yet, but I'm leaning towards expanding the Americans, but only time will tell.

The large fleet carrier HMS Indefatigatable (Implacable class) and the light carrier HMS Colossus (Colossus class), I've always found it really odd that HMS Colossuss isn't that colossal at all and is very much a mid-sized carrier.

Here we have the last 4 WW2 battleships for my fleet, on the left you have the King George V class ships HMS Anson and HMS Howe, and on the right the old Revenge class battleships HMS Revenge and HMS Resolution, the revenge class were outdated by WW2 and don't match upto other British battleships in the Victory at Sea game, but I still try and use them occasionally.  I recently saw one of the 15" guns off of HMS Resolution on my trip to the Imperial War Museum.

On the left is the county class heavy cruiser HMS London, the moving across we havd the anti-aircraft cruisers HMS Delhi and HMS Curacoa.

These are all light cruisers, on the left and in the middle are the swiftsure class cruisers HMS Swiftsure and HMS Minotaur, and on the right is the crown colony class (ceylon group) cruiser HMS Uganda.

And finally a flotilla of destroyers, the front four are S-Z class, the back four Battle class with two hunt class escort destroyers on the right.

Free French Naval Forces - Part 4

The last few additions to my Free French fleet today, all leased from the British.  They're not in the French fleet list but come from the Royal Navy list, so I will need my opponenets permission to use them, but they're all minor ships so I can't see it being an issuse.

First up the Avenger class escort carrier Dixmude (ex-HMS Biter) and the Hunt class escort destroyer La Combattante.

Next up 3 flower class corvettes, the Free French fielded 9 of these ships, origanally I planned to get seperate ones for the Free French and RN, but in the end I've decided that they can be multi-use, as at this scale they're so tiny so as not to be really distingusihable.

And finally 3 ships that aren't part of my Free French fleet, but are French vessels that came in packs with ships that I needed for the Free French.  We have the two Duguay Trouin class cruisers La Motte-Picquet and Primauguet along with a Bourrasque class destroyer.  I've painted them up in case we do a battle set before the fall of france where they could be used with my other french ships.

A New Fleet - The United States Navy

I've bought yet more 1:3000 scale WW2 ships from Navwar, this time the USN late war starter set.  Like all the Navwar sets its really good value for money, for a tenner (plus a pound postage) you get 4 battleships, 2 aircraft carriers, 4 cruisers and 8 destroyers.  Theres not many games out there that you can get a playable force for a new faction for that kind of money.

These are the two Iowa class battleships USS Iowa and USS Missouri, the second largest battleships ever built, behind the Japanese Yamato class.

The two South Dakota class battleships USS Alabama and USS Massachusetts

The two carriers included in the set, on the left the very large USS Essex and on the right the much smaller USS Independence.

Now for the cruisers on the left we have two Baltimore class heavy cruisers and on the right two Cleveland class light cruisers.

The destroyers thsi time, at the front we have 4 Gearing class destroyers and at the back 4 Fletcher class.

And finally heres the whole set.

One thing that really struck me with this pack compared to the British was that I can see the same design philosophy on the various battleships/cruisers, you can tell they're from the same faction (reminds me of the design links in the spartan games starter packs), whereas the British ships seem a bit of a hodge poge with several design evolutions going on.  It may also be that this is a late war pack so the ships were designed later.

The Seventh Wave & My First New Ship Rules

Today we have the latest couple of additions to my WW2 Royal Navy fleet in 1:3000 for the Victory at Sea game, but also my first ever houserules that I'm putting up on the web.

I'll start with my new minis.

First up the Revenge class battleship HMS Ramillies, they were very much second rate by the time of WW2 and the rules reflect that, but we're trying to conciously use some of the lesser ships in our fleets as you rarely get everything you want in war.

Here we have HMS Smiter, an Ameer class escort carrier, and HMAS Perth, a modified Leander class light cruiser.  The Perth is the first Commonwealth ship to find its way into my fleet.

 And finally the two Abdiel class minelayers HMS Abdiel and HMS Manxman. 

The Abdiel class above and the French Pluton minelayer (that I featured here) don't have rules in victory at sea, so I found some rules for minelaying by David Manley and then worked out what I think that stats should be based on the real life characteristics and what stats they correponded to on other ships.  The link will remain in the sidebar (or click here).  Although its only a small thing this is the first time that I've ever put any rules out on the web, which makes me kind of pleased and nervous at the same time, if anybody does use them please drop me a comment even if you think they suck (I won't learn otherwise). 

Free French Naval Forces - Part 3

A few more ships for my Free French fleet in victory at sea today.  As ususl all in 1:3000 scale from Navwar.

First the Bretanage class battleship Lorraine.  The Lorraine is the second most powerful ship in the Free French fleet and will add some much needed punch.

Next the light cruiser Duguay-Trouin, one of three ships of her class but the only one to join the Free French

And finally the two Bourrasque class destroyers Mistral & Ouragon

A Great Afternoon's Gaming

It's been a lovely sunny day and It's been my day off (two things that don't normally coincide), but instead of spending the day strolling over the countryside a couple of friends came over for a few games.  We started off playing the new Dwarf Kings Hold scenario from Mantic Journal 4.  I like Dwarf Kings Hold a lot and am eagerly awaiting delivery of the second installment, and this extra scenario didn't disappoint.  It's a big scenario and took us around an hour to play, and what really got me was how close it was, the dwarfs started well, but then got bogged down, started to break out and then got cut down due to a couple of mistakes right near the end.  This balancing is the true strength of DKH, and just because the undead won this time, there is nothing to say that they will again.  It introduces a couple of new ideas as well in linked secret passageways and the recovery of a dwarf 'playing dead'.  I've got a few ideas for a scenario of my own, which I might even get around to writting and testing one day.

After that we moved on and played three games of Victory at Sea.  We started off with a fantasy battle between of the Yamato facing off the Bismarck and the Tirpitz, the Yamato kicked but and sank both ships with ease, we plan to do this again adding more ships until the Yamato finally sinks.  We then moved on to the historical scenario for the Battle of the River Plate, we've played this 3 times before but had a new player and have found its a good introduction to the game, but as ususal the British won.  Finally we moved on to a convoy scenario between the Germans and the Free French, the Germans lost horredously again, which seems to be a common theme from all our games, I'm wondering if the list is really that weak or if we need to develop different tactics.

Free French Naval Forces - Part 2

I've just put the finishing touches to my second batch of WW2 Free French Naval forces in 1:3000 scale today, which means the fleet is nearly complete, I think I'm missing the Battleship Lorraine, the cruiser Duguay Trouin and two Bourrasque class destroyers, all of which I will add to my fleet in a couple of weeks when I put my next order in.

I've also posted a 'page' today with my list of which French ships I'm allowing myself to use in my Free French fleet for Victory at Sea.  It's a work in progress and currently just lists the ships in each class that joined the Free French (mainly according to wikipedia, if anyone with more knowlege than me spots an error please drop me a comment), hopefully over time it will expand to include a brief history of what each ship did in the war and the dates which each ship served with the Free French.  A link to this will remain in the sidebar.

The old battleships Courbet & Paris

The Duquesne class cruisers Duquesne & Tourville

The Fantasque class destroyers Fantasque, Malin, Terrible & Triomphant

The Charcal class destroyers Tigre & Leopard with 4 Diane class submarines

And finally a shot of my whole Free French Fleet.

Free French Naval Forces - Part 1

As I mentioned in my last post the bulk of my latest Navwar order was made up of ships to represent the forces of the Free French Naval Forces (mainly late war).  This is my second fleet after the Royal Navy.  I decided on the Free French as it's small enough that getting every major ship is a completly attainable goal (something I wouldn't even contemplate with the WW2 Royal Navy) and it could serve as allies to my Royal Navy in a campaign or even fight them as a lot of the ship classes also fought with Vichy France.  Researching what ships the Free French had hasn't been easy, wikipedia has a nice list of the ships of the German Kriegsmarine that my freind has used to collect his German fleet, but I've been unable to find a similar list (On wikipedia or elsewhere) that contains all the major ships of the fleet (there is a list on wikipedia, but it is woefully incomplete).  Still I think I've got there in the end and I've seem to have only missed a couple of large ships and I've finished painting the first half of my order:

Here we have the battleship Richelieu and the heavy cruiser Suffren

 The aircraft carrier Bearn and the submarine Surcouf.  The surcouf is a very interesting vessel, classed as an 'underwater cruiser' it even carried a spotting aircraft.

The cruisers Emile Bertain and Jeanne D'Arc

The three La Galissonnière class cruisers Montcalm, Gloire and Georges Leygues.

Thats it for now, on the painting table I also have another couple of cruisers, 2 obsolete battleships, 6 destroyers and few subs, and I need to order another cruiser and the battleship Lorraine, and as far as I can tell that will be about it for my Free French fleet.