Christmas Snorkers!

A quiet Christmas Day and Boxing Day meant I could run a few games of Snorkers! (Good Oh!)  to learn the rules.

The first game was 8 Fletcher class DDs against 4 Fubuki and 4 Kagero class DDs to get the basics of the turn sequence, activation, gunnery, and torpedoes down. 

The No 1 Bonus pack with lovely full colour card mounted player reference sheets, torpedo mat, laser cut turning and gunnery protractor and damage chits.

Americans in three squadrons advancing from the bottom. Japanese in two squadrons upper corner. The squares of fuzz are areas of mist, haze, squalls or otherwise poor visibility that block lines of sight.

The turn sequence uses a deck of cards. 7-10 activate a squadron. Face cards activate a squadron but with a bonus. Jack is +1 to gunnery. Queen is +1 to torpedoes. King is +1 to guns AND torpedoes. Ace you can reactivate a squadron that has already activated. Joker is for Special Events.

DesRon 1

Oof! That hurt! USS Strong gets hit by a Long Lance and sinks. The torpedo mat is how you calculate torpedo hits. Roll a dice for each torpedo then move it up and down the track with modifiers until you get to a 7/hit.

US destroyer flotilla getting hammered. IJN get another activation & close for the kill. The Sullivans takes gunnery damage & is on fire. Charles Ausburne evades a torpedo. 
USS Fletcher takes fire from IJNS Amagiri & Miyuki & TWO torpedo spreads & catches 1 Long Lance from each!

A very nasty Torpedo hit. Japanese Long Lances get a +1 on this table.

IJN 2nd sqdn threads the channel to come to 1st sqdns aid. Oyashio leading engages The Sullivans with guns. Crippling her.
Hatsukaze in 2nd position engages O'Bannon with guns. Hatsukaze has optimal angle so fires spread of torpedoess at both. The Sullivans explodes. O'Bannon evades 1 hit but 2nd hit floods a compartment.

For Game Two I introduced heavier units. The USN got both a Brooklyn and an Atlanta class CL, plus a Northampton class CA. They also had some air support from Henderson field or a carrier Task Force over the horizon; three flights of Dauntless SBDs and two flights of Avenger TBFs covered by six flights of Wildcats. 

USN advancing in three squadrons. Aircraft are off table, upper left corner of photo.

The IJN got a Kongo class BC, a Mogami class CA and a Tenryu class CL. They got some air support too, from distant Rabaul; three flights of Zeros, two flights of long range Betty torpedo bombers and two flights of Kates.

IJN also advancing in three squadrons

The Kongo with escorting destroyers

The American plan is to hit the Kongo with air power and then concentrate a couple of squadrons with the gun cruisers on the Mogami.

To bring aircraft on the table requires a card. Then a second card to move to attack. Dice are rolled to see how many of the on table flights join the attack. Another roll determines if any flights get distracted and go after another ship in the target ship's squadron.  This all makes air strikes very disorganized and you can get a Strike Package from a Carrier dribbling in over time if you roll badly.

Airstrike! The Americans have managed to bring on all their attack aircraft, but they are a bit scattered, two flights of SBDs are going after the destroyers. They've been bounced by covering Zeros and between them and the defensive AA one flight of SBDs is damaged and one flight of TBFs is damaged reducing their bomb/torpedo attacks by one dice each. The aircraft got one bomb hit on the leading destroyer. Everything else missed.

Once aircraft (Attack or CAP) are used they are removed. There isn't time for them to return, rearm, refuel and come back. So if your attack is disjointed, the defender might use up all of his Combat Air Patrol on the first wave, leaving the second unmolested.

Asagiri takes a full broadside from USS Brooklyn. 6" shells shred it's hull and penetrate the magazine. USS Chevalier fires a spread of torpedoes at Mogami who evades both hits. 

Mogami gives Brooklyn a devastating broadside causing multiple critical hits and 20 damage (she can only take 12!). Brooklyn's return reply gets some hits and starts a fire.

Yugiri and Amagiri shatter Chevalier. Starting a fire and hitting the bridge. 

USS Portland engages the Mogami getting a magazine hit. Mogami's reply causes a fire.

Portland has moved up to cover the stricken Chevalier. But IJN 2nd sqdn moves up on other flank. Tenyru and Kuroshio both launch torpedoes. Portland is hit by 2 of 7! Taking on water she goes down. 

This got me to the end of deck where some administration happens, like checking Force Morale. With 2 cruisers sunk including the flag, the USN Task Force is under 50% rolls poorly and withdraws. The IJN have lost a Cruiser and a destroyer, but their Force Morale was pretty high so they stay in the fight.

Two cruisers lost and a destroyer crippled, and probably lost later, is a heavy price for sinking the Mogami and a destroyer plus damaging another. But the USN could absorb the losses. So even though a tactical defeat, I think this was a strategic victory.

I am really really liking these rules. They are doing just what I wanted when I started my WW2 naval project a couple of years back with Victory at Sea and then Nimitz.

I am now seriously thinking about asking Don to reprint my ships at 100% or 1/1800 scale. Hopefully the "banana boat" effect on many of my hulls will be fixed with bigger, thicker prints.

Snorkers! (Good Oh!) is available from In Which They Served Games and now Caliver Books.

The Mogami evading the torpedoes (the two 6s on the yellow dice)

The grandchildren should be arriving in an hour, so hobby time will be in short supply until after New Year's now.

Gothic Metal!

No, not loud music.

Instead, I've painted some actual metal figures this time! (Shocking!)

I got these Pulp Figures Saxons from his 1066 line three Hotleads ago, to supplement my Dragon Rampant Rohirrim. 

Midgard has prompted me to push them ahead, because I need Goths to fight my Romans! Especially mounted heroes to lead the cavalry and some skirmishers.

Three mounted heroes. 

Isobel of Conches (with a different shield) and two armoured mounted Saxon warriors

One was obviously intended to be a not-Eowyn. Gothic warrior princesses are certainly a thing in legendary works, and Norse women of the warrior caste seemed to have been capable of leading their own warbands, so it's not too big a stretch really for high born Gothic women to have also been warriors. 

Just ignore the Medieval saddle. Which now I can't unsee, so she'll be used in extremis. I'll need more troops before I have the points to put three mounted heroes on the table.

A  unit of slingers. One pack of 5. This saves me trying to source a sixth figure for a Dragon Rampant unit.

Some baggage. As faithful readers know, I do love baggage elements. Although the very Norman looking casks maybe anachronistic. I've got some ox carts to refurbish as well. A migrating horde needs a lot of baggage. 

Growing Gothic Horde

After a bit of a hiatus where other things were distracting my attention, I've gotten two units of Gothic warriors finished for Midgard.

I realized that if I added 6 old Wargames Factory Germans that I'd painted for the Rohirrim, I could squeak a 4th unit out of my box of Wargames Atlantic Goths and utilize the two figures that would end up left over.

Tunics and trousers are pretty simple. But this time I've added some coloured embroidery at cuffs, neck and hem on a few.

Mostly WGA with a couple of WF mixed in

Mostly WF with a few WGA mixed in

To indicate that the warriors have an integral missile capability I've put an archer in the back of each unit. This was apparently something the Goths did and Simon McDowell in his books touching on the Gothic campaigns mentions Roman writers speaking of Gothic archery causing problems for the Romans.

A muster of finished troops shows I'm close to a respectable little host. Five units of warriors, four units of cavalry, four dismounted heroes.

I have the figures on hand to make two more units of warriors, two units of skirmishers with bows and slings, one more unit of cavalry and three mounted heroes are almost finished.

Snorkers, (Good Oh!)

I have been following the development of these oddly named rules for a couple of years as Desmondo, in his Shed of War, shared destroyer actions set in the North Sea and Java Sea on Bluesky.

Well, this looks jolly good I said to myself. Exactly what you've been looking for.

Nimitz is certainly fast paced,  but it is set at a bigger level with carrier groups throwing air strikes at each other. Trying to have a half dozen destroyers a side skirmishing is very quick and bloody. 

The title, Snorkers (Good Oh!) is a reference to the movie The Cruel Sea. 

You can buy your own copy here, at In Which They Serve Games.

I certainly have more than enough ships.

I suppose I might get tempted by North Sea or Mediterranean actions next.

Tank, Anti-Tank, and Anti-Air Assets

Some more additions to the Royal Mantovian Army, all printed for me by Don.

First up some replacements for the Sherman Fireflies, which honestly aren't doing badly, except because they are on attachment from my WW2 Canadian army, they are in plain olive green instead of the NATO Three Colour the rest of the Mantovian vehicles are sporting.

I settled on the Comet because of it's visual similarity to the Centurion, and British armoured units were still using them up to the early 50s as well.

In most rule sets it compares favorably to the Firefly, so it's more of an aesthetic switch than an  upgrade in capability. 

I can't decide if they are from entirely separate light armoured battalions, or a light squadron in a battalion of Centurions, or from a heavy squadron in an armoured recce battalion to support the Ferret armoured cars. Since the names I give my units are more reminiscent of a Napoleonic army than anything modern, it doesn't matter I guess. 

I added some camo netting made from cheese cloth soaked in white glue before priming.

To protect the battlegroup from marauding MiGs I got them an AA tank. Because I like coherency in my AFV formations I opted to add the Centaur AA tank (based on the Cromwell/Comet chassis) to the Squadron HQ troops. If there had ever been a Centurion AA tank, I'd have gone with that. Sadly there never was, not even in prototype. Which is too bad; a Centurion turret with four 20mm cannon jutting up to shoot down MiGs would look cool.

I have a second print that needs gun barrels in reserve.

Finally, the Battalion Armour Defense Platoons for the infantry get recoilless rifles. I couldn't find a 1/100 scale. stl for the British BAT1, but Don found this little gun.

On both prints, the carriage was so swarmed with supports I lost both, barely salvaging the wheels and the rotating bit the gun barrel attaches to.

But I clipped some T shapes out of left over plastic windows in the Bits Stores and glued everything on.

They're so tiny I boosted them up on some thick card so the wheels are even with the tops of the crew puddle bases. The crew are kneeling command figures and mortar men holding mortar bombs, which are close enough to look like a shell. 

Of course within 10 years everyone was putting these on Jeeps and Landrovers, but for now they're towed.

British Army ca 1959. 

The barrels are shorter than normal, but my excuse for that and not being on the bed of a Jeep, is so that they can be hauled up the side of a mountain.