Molti Nemici, Molto Onore -Regia Marina Gruppo Due

 "Many enemies, much honour."

The second batch of Italian ships has been launched and finished their shake down cruise. This group included a pair of super detailed Lee McColl 3d designs printed for me by the Mad Padre. These are proper Condotierri class light cruisers.

As you can see there are very fine masts, which I'm sure will break off, thin delicate gun barrels reminiscent of the metal GHQ models and freaking port holes!

Nailed it!

I managed to do a pretty good job copying the camouflage scheme in my Osprey Italian Cruisers of World War Two, which happened to be the Luigi Cardona. A name I'd already given to one of the Capitani Romani ships in the first group of Italian ships.

There's an obvious difference in size between the two classes

So I decided I would relabel the models and give the Capitani Romani ships the proper names of the two ships that actually saw any fighting before Mussolini was overthrown and Italy surrendered. They are essentially destroyer leaders rather than cruisers, and were designed in 1939 to match the French heavy destroyers. With four twin 5.5" gun turrets I'll treat them much like the British Dido class.

Ready to attack allied convoys

This group also includes six destroyers. Five Navigatoris and the stray Soldati to fix the last group's mix up. 

And six escort destroyers/frigates/torpedo boats. Five Spica class and one Orsa class (another bagging mix up....sigh). Of course I had to include the Lupo. But the Regia Marina had a lot of these little ships.

Brett and Dan came over to blood my new ships and try my idea for a scenario I'd like to run at KEGSCon in September. An Italian convoy of seven merchant ships, escorted by three Spicas and one Soldati has to exit the top left corner. Royal Navy enters the table top left table edge. Reinforcing Italian squadrons enter top right and bottom right corners.

Early casualties from long range torpedo launches.

Escorts lay a smoke screen but two of the Spicas are smashed by gunfire.

Turn end, the smoke screen ends and more carnage. Another escort is blown out of the water

It doesn't go all one way. The Zara gets a magazine hit on HMS Orion.

And then gets reduced to a flaming, water logged hulk by HMS Sheffield

Cruisers getting in among the convoy. Sailors wondering how far they can swim right about now.

British destroyers kill my other heavy cruiser

Ships exploding everywhere....

End game. The Italians have one light cruiser and four destroyers left. All the ships with smoke on them are floating wrecks. The British have lost a light cruiser and have a couple of damaged destroyers.

It was fun to get the models in a game and try my ideas out. The guys gave me some good feedback on the scenario to noodle about with. Ideally I'd like a game that could handle four to six players, which means it has to be on the big size. Maybe I'll reverse and have the Italians attacking a British convoy to Malta instead? Make it a night action? Or get my aircraft painted? 

So many options.

Patria e Onore

Motherland and honour!

The first squadrons for the Regia Marina are ready to sortie from Taranto.

Putting to sea

Two Zara class heavy cruisers.

Two Condotierri class light cruisers.

These are technically Capitan Romani class cruisers. But when looking up names for that family of ships I learned that only three of them were commissioned and only months before Italy surrenderd to the Allies. So instead, I've given them names from a group of the large and varied Condotierri class.

That's what I get for buying ships without doing my research or paying attention to the lists in the back of the rules. But having ships named the Pompeo Magno and Scipione Africano seemed too cool not to do.

Next are the first (of many!) destroyer flotillas.

Six destroyers. Five Soldati and one Navigatori class, because someone got into the wrong bag, and I didn't notice until the initial dry brushing. 

Soldati class DDs

Navigatori

With the Italian ships, picking names was less of an issue. Some classes only have two units anyway. I asked Don to "print me 6 of every destroyer", and then it turns out that the Orsa class of torpedo boat/escort destroyer only had four ships. Fortunately they were very similar to a preceding class of torpedo boat, so I borrowed some names from that family of ships.

While waiting to get the lables printed, and fighting with the printer to get it to recognize the juicy new ink cartridges, I also got the convoy of merchant ships painted up. There are two different .stls; the Liberty ship and a German Auxiliary ship. Both were free! The small ship is also a Liberty ship printed at 1:2400 scale by Mike Peterson a few years back when I first started on this nautical adventure. It's lost some derricks, but I'm not sure it matters?

They have generic labels so they can be an Allied convoy one game, Italian the next, and once I get German units, they can be a German convoy in the North Sea as well.

For the merchant ships, I used spare plastic bases from  Warlord Napoleonic infantry sets. 20mm x 100mm and 20mm x 60mm. I've also found the 100mm bases very useful for strings of pack horses.

Ready, Aye Ready!

The first group of Royal Navy units are ready for the table. I'm pretty pleased with how they've turned out. It's surprising how much action or motion can be given with a bit of dry brushed white.

Two Town class CLs, two Leander class CLs, and six G/H class destroyers to get started with.

Picking names occupied a lot of my headspace these past weeks. I chose units that mainly served in the Mediterranean and North Sea. Force H in Gibraltar is great for this, being involved in both the Atlantic and Western Mediterranean. 

The destroyers above include some ships involved at Narvik as well as around Crete, since after my game last weekend I'm pretty sure I want to add some Germans as well.

I make all the labels in Word to fit on a page, then print them all at once on a single page Avery label and cut them out. So trying to decide names for unpainted, or even unprinted (I've decided that I  need more Tribals) ships, takes careful planning. 

The ships are 1:1800 scale resin prints from Ghukek.

The bases are 2mm MDF from Warbases.

I just need to make labels for the first group of Regia Marina to be game ready.

Play Date With the Mad Padre

The Mad Padre began some post-Easter vacation by tootling down for a visit on Friday night. He was eager to give my new favourite game Snorkers! (Good Oh!) a try and brought his 1:2400 scale metal Royal Navy and Kriegsmarine collection.

Game 1: Massacre in the Mist

So Friday night we had a small game with three destroyers and two light cruisers on each side. The British had two Leander CLs and three Tribal DDs, vs two Konigsberg CLs and three M1936 class DDs.

There were a lot of fog banks between us (randomly tossed like a frisbee onto the table by me before we set up), and I maneuvered my units to port to try and get on his flank and sink one of his light cruisers. Mike did the same, moving his light crusiers to his port and screening with his destroyer flotilla.

Flotilla of Tribals moving ahead with a Leander, the Achilles off to port.

 

Germans open the fight by launching a torpedo, which misses

Tribals concentrate on center German, and the Achilles launches a couple of torpedoes 

Devastating barrage! Bridge hit, on fire and now crippled. I'm really liking these 3d printed markers.

After British attacks cripple the tailing destoryer, the lead destroyer moves at flank speed into a fog bank and leaves a smoke screen for the rest of the squadron to retreat behind. Achilles has raced up to launch torpedoes and open fire at the German light cruiser


Oof! The Konigsberg eats two torpedoes!

Smelling blood, the Tribals move at flank speed to race past the smoke screen and also launch torpedoes to finish the two crippled Germans off. The burning Konigsberg disappears into the grey North Sea, but the destroyer in still afloat and the Cossack takes her crew off.

Game 2: Slaughter in the Solomons

The next morning after a breakfast of ham and eggs (if I'd had my thinking cat on, I'd have gotten some sausages so we could say "Snorkers! Good Oh!" at breakfast. Oh well, opportunity missed) we went back to the Basement o'Gaming.

Mike wanted to play more Snorkers, and try my Pacific fleets. I set out a promitory to give us a bit of terrain to think about and again randomly tossed mist down on the table. Mike took the Americans, with a Northampton class CA, a Brooklyn class CL, and an Atlanta CL plus nine Fletcher DDs. Each cruiser was escorted by 2 DDs and then he had a squadron of three DDs as a seperate unit.

The IJN had two Mogami class CAs, six Fubuki class DDs, and four Kagero class DDs. The IJN was divided into 3x destroyer flotillas and a unit with the two cruisers. I deployed the cruisers in the center. The Kageros on the port flank and the Fubukis on the starboard. The 3rd Flotilla with three Fubukis and one Kagero was ahead in a skirmish screen.

View from IJN side. Destroyers all advancing at speed.

Mike's leading destroyer screen has turned and unleashed a salvo of torpedoes and gunfire on my skirmish line

One destroyer is instantly crippled and on fire. It turns into the mist patch and limps away to survive the battle.

The survivors turn to port and launch torpedoes

The USN replies in kind

I bring in an airstrike on his 8" Cruiser

His CAP and flak have whittled my attack down. A Betty dropped a torpedo which was promising, but then missed.

My destroyer screen (under fire) has one sunk. As you can see in the back, Mike is bringing his 8" and 6" cruisers around to bring their broadsides onto my destroyers and be ready to engage the Mogamis when they emerge from the mist.

Mike brings in his airstrike. Because the other cruiser is hidden in the fog patch, we ruled that the flight of SBDs would go after the nearby destroyers.

Things then got very exciting and I didn't take any pictures. The flotilla of destroyers in the picture above got a Queen card (+1 to torpedoes), so I took them through the fog patch to ambush the Americans massed on the far side. Rather than crossing the American T, I turned hard to starboard and charged into the middle of the USN formation, bridge crews shouting "Banzai!" The Atlanta and her escorts were to my port, his destroyer screen to starboard, and the other two cruisers with escorts ahead with the Brooklyn slightly to starboard. Each Kagero destroyer emptied all of their torpedo launchers, putting 24 missiles into the water aimed at six different ships.I then proceeded to roll very hot on the torpedo tracker. His Atlanta CL took two or three hits. The Brooklyn CL took four hits. I also targeted four destroyers (I couldn't get a firing solution on the Northampton, which I was charging directly towards). He failed most of his evasion rolls. After a flurry of dice rolls, his two CLs and three of his destroyers were going down.

Ouch, baby. Very ouch.

Game 3: Destruction in the City of David

After lunch Mike wanted to play his new board game, Storm Over Jerusalem, which is about the great siege of AD 69. It's interesting, especially having read the account in Josephus. There are cards to manage to get things done. Mike gives a good overview of how it works on his Wargaming Blog HERE.

Initial set up

I was fortunate in that I got the two cards to build siege ramps in the first turn and put one against the Temple and the other against Herod's Palace, which are the Roman objectives. I had to take them within eight turns. After a couple of assaults and aided by a Ballista card the Xth Legion stormed the Temple, and I played the Roman Brutality card to destroy retreating Jewish units, including one of his two leaders.

And being a Roman I also played the Deface the Temple card to grab an easy 2 VPs.

I then concentrated on Herod's Palace. Attacks into the lower city to the north were merely a diversion to keep him from reinforcing the Palace. Capturing at least one part of the city is important to deny the Jewish defenders from getting VPs. And since you can only put 5 units into any zone, you may as well attack wherever you can.

As you can see below, I tightened my ring around the Temple and was eventually attacking with a siege tower from the lower city, I had broken into the old city in the south and built a siege tower, the XVth Legion has attacked up the siege ramp again, and finally, aided by a battering ram, cohorts from the Vth Legion made a breach and stormed in, massacring the garrison.

Victory! Titus wins a Triumph.

A clear Roman victory.

But playing 3 games with my bestie, putting my tally to 12 for the year, was a definite victory.