Battle Stations! First Game of Victory at Sea

Got some hobby time on Canada Day and finished basing my fleets. 

After dinner I tried a small game to learn the rules. Each side got a cruiser and four destroyers.

USN approach in line

IJN in a more complex deployment 

After a couple of tedious turns alternating movement, the Honolulu opens fire with her forward turrets 

Mogami takes some hits but Damage Control gets the engines working again (Litko shell splash markers are a gift from the Mad Padre. Not at all necessary, but Rule of Cool) 

Everyone starts trying to cross Tees a turn too late.

Everyone begins maneuvering and finds themselves in torpedo range! (Litko torpedo markers also from the Mad Padre)

Honolulu took a torpedo aft, knocking out the X turret. But her guns keep getting hits on Mogami, who doesn't roll as well in return.

Gunfire from Honolulu starts several fires on the Mogami. Torpedo hits from Strong and Taylor start more fires and critically knocks out Damage Control. Honolulu takes a second torpedo in the stern.

Mogami limps away, fires raging out of control. Honolulu is taking on water. 

So a bloody draw. Although I wasn't keeping as close an eye on the Damage as I should have. Both cruisers passed the "crippled" threshold before I was aware. Need proper ship rosters to track torpedoes fired and Damage thresholds.

Victory at Sea seems very focused on classic big ship actions in the Mediterranean and Atlantic. Night spotting and radar are quite basic which is unfortunate since many of the small naval actions in the Solomons occurred at night. Destroyers are treated very basicaly as well, with one fire dice and may as well be throwing marshmallows around once they've launched their torpedoes. The torpedo rules seem odd too. But that might just be me.

Still something to toodle around with until I find a better set of rules. A chap on Twitter is helping with a set of rules that seems just perfect, focusing on destroyer/cruiser actions.