Momos? Good Oh!

I took Snorkers! (Good Oh!) down to Chatham for KEGSCon this year, naval games being very light on the logistical burden and I wanted to promote it a little. I stayed Friday night at the Comfort Inn and while doing a route recce noticed that The Gurkha Restaurant was very close by. I didn't want to dine alone and Keith and his wife Tam volunteered to join me. It's tucked away in a rental hall on a small industrial road and needs better signage, but it's worth the adventure to find it. Service was very friendly and we shared a platter of steamed momos as an appetizer and then I had a positively gianormous bowl of shrimp biryani, which I took half of it back to my hotel for next day's lunch. The hostess was very nice and packed me some plum sauce to go with it, I guess that is a traditional way to eat it cold.

Saturday arrived bright and early and I set out a scenario from the Rising Sun Over Java far east early war supplement. I modified it for my Mediterranean fleets and used the standard card deck so new comers would have a better sense of the rules, but pointed out that modifying the card mix was a useful scenario building tool.

In the morning I ran it with 4 players. The Italians were trying to intercept a Malta convoy.

Italians moving from left. RN is pushing forward with destroyer flotillas.

Italian and British destroyers clash

First kill. HMS Kipling is lost to torpedoes.

HMS Kashmir from the same flotilla is limping off table with flooding damage, lower right corner. I had the player do some damage control checks and she eventually sank.

After getting heavily embroiled in the center and drawing off the RN Covering Force, but losing the Zara (she ate three torpedoes!), and a Condotierri CL, the Italian DE flotillas dash forward on either flank.

Convoy successfully attacked. All four targets sunk. 

So that was a rather pyrrhic RM victory. They lost the Zara (CA), the Luigi Cardorna (Condotierri class CL), and two DEs (Lupo and Sagittario). The RN lost two destroyers.

After my lunch of left over shrimp biryani I reset the table and had the RN attacking a convoy running from Sicily to North Africa.

RN advancing from the left. The RM still arriving from the upper right, although the Zara has pushed ahead to engage the British. She's going to keep all four RN cruisers busy until she goes down flaming.

RN destroyer flotillas breaking left and right to try and get to the convoy. RM units trying to cut them off.

Bottom of photo flotilla of J class DDs getting intercepted by the Condotierri CLs and some Navigatori DDs.

Js dieing bloody but putting a bit of hurt on the Italian CLs.

RN player remembers his objective and pushes forward on his left flank, eventually sinking all four transport ships.

A bitter victory for the RN. They successfully attacked the convoy but lost three DDs doing it. Although killing an Italian CA and seriously damaging a CL was perhaps a fair trade.

In both games the RN didn't lose a single CL.

I managed to do a quick survey of some other games. There was quite a variety.

Pillage

Midgard. I think the skulls are Keith's measuring sticks.1 spear throw x 2 spear throws. 

General d'Armee in 15mm

Xenos Rampant

The Full Nelson

something with pirates

Sharp Practice

I didn't get a pictures of some Check Your 6!, Chain of Command, and more Xenos Rampant. In total there were 15 games and 50 or so people.

After I packed up,  I headed home, giving Big Dave and Son a lift to London. Big Dave offered to buy me dinner and while talking food, and how much I enjoyed the momos the night before, he mentioned there was a place near his that he went to all the time. Fortunately, I was still full of shrimp biryani, so we eschewed highway rest stop burgers and pushed on to Hakka Momo House. I let Big Dave guide me and had a sumptuous meal of Malai Momos, Hakka Chow Mein Noodles washed down with Massala Lemonade. He insisted I take the large quantity of leftovers home to share with Mrs. Rabbitman for Sunday (and Monday's!) dinner.

Another picture of the really lovely 1:700 scale ships in The Full Nelson game.

A pretty good adventure all told. Hakka is my new favorite ethnic cuisine. 

One Weekend Two Games

Two very different games this weekend. 

Romans on the right. Palmyrans on the left. Both starting with 11 Reputation

Saturday Evening, Game 28

Pasha Dan messaged me on Thursday to see if my Romans wanted to face a Palmyran army in a game of Midgard. I tweaked my army list a bit to make it more shooty, and hard hitting, since I'd be facing a nasty combination of cataphracts and archery.

Palmyran center. Their one unit of heavy infantry is just to the left.

Cataphracts

So many cataphracts. That's Zenobia following along behind on her camel.

Weirdy-Beardy was on my side with my 3rd century army. Electical Pete and Handyman Huw ran the Palmyrans with Pasha Dan giving colour commentary from the sidelines. I failed the roll and had to set up first. I decided to keep my cavalry all together on the left wing and anchored my right on some low hills and brush. I put more centuries of infantry in the front line, only keeping two back in the second. My eastern archers were depoyed as four units of skirmishers across the front to increase my shooting.

Carolianus Silex in the center

The Palmyrans faced my cavalry and center with a mix of horse archers, massed archers and skirmishing archers, and one unit of heavy foot. Five units of cataphracts ("knights" armour 4, hit on 4+ in their first combat) with the general braved the rough ground on my right to try and ride down my infantry.

Archers fail to evade! But they used up that unit's 4+ initial attack.

My cavalry had a good day, getting in several good charges and eliminating the opposing light horse before smashing the sole unit of heavy infantry. My cavalry leader was wounded by Palmyran arrows, but held onto his Today We Fight to Win Mighty Deed until that final charge so that the Roman cavalry rolled over the Palmyran heavy foot.

Meanwhile, Weirdy-Beardy has been getting pushed back by the tide of iron horse, and things were getting tense. My Prefect, Carolianus Silex and Centurion Primus both put in local counter attacks, using Today We Fight to Win. Weirdy-Beardy charged into the opposing General's squadron who rolled three 1's on the Risk to Heroes, a Roman spear thrust obviously finding a fatal chink in his armour and putting him in the dust. That coupled with losing a unit of Cataphracts caused the Palmyran Reputation to be at 0 by the end of the turn.

Both sides are hurting. If not for this Risk to Heroes roll, I'd have probably broken first.

Sunday Evening, Game 29

Big Pat has been busy painting all of the 1/2400 scale WW1 Starter Squadron Packs from Dobbie's Hobbies that he got at Hotlead. 

He's got enough done that he was ready to try a small game of the fast playing Dread Not! rules.

Russian pre-dreadnought coastal battleship 

Turkish pre-dreadnought 

Turkish dreadnought (formerly the SMS Goben)

Russian torpedo boats

Russian battleship, the Rurik I think

The set up is interesting.  Pat had to deploy first and a die roll determined how far from the center of the table and in which direction. 

I then rolled for my bearing and got to set up on the Turkish starboard quarter! Presumably our fleets were steaming around blindly when the weather cleared and we sighted each other at very close quarters!

Of course battleships have a maximum range of only 20", so we were probably several kilometers apart.

Opening moves. My cruisers (left) are moving behind the Turks, while my torpedo boats move in for an attack. My battleship squadron (foreground) is steering to try and bring their broadsides against the Turkish battleships. 

Firing is general. My torpedo attacks roll very well, sinking a cruiser and a pre-dreadnought.

The Turkish dreadnought Sultan is still crossing my T (my battleship is in foreground)

End of game. Torpedoes and guns sink the Sultan, but my cruisers (left of frame) are both torn apart by Turkish torpedo salvos.

That took an hour to play. Of course if my deployment roll had put me further away there would have been a few additional turns of maneuvering.

This was quite a small game for these rules I think. Gunnery is to simply add up firepower brought to bear by all ships engaging, compare with target armour to get odds, and roll on an old fashioned Combat Results Table. 

Damage is mostly ticking off boxes until you sink. Not nearly as detailed as Snorkers, but Snorkers isn't trying to do fleets actions. 

Gunkan Kōshinkyoku

The Gunkan (Warship) March

IJN Surface Action Group conducting high speed sea trials

The first 1:1800 scale units for the Imperial Japanese Navy are painted and undergoing sea trials until they get their labels. 2x Takao class heavy cruisers, 2x Tenyru class light cruisers, 6x Fubuki class DDs and 6x Kagero class DDs. 

Japanese heavy cruisers were very much the same in profile, so this one stl will do for many of them.

Takao Class CAs

Most Japanese CLs were intended as Destroyer Division Leaders, and they also looked much the same. At least the early war ones used around the Solomons up until 1943. Although the Sendai class had a different arrangement of more guns and torpedoes. But for game purposes their profiles aren't much different.

Tenyru Class CLs

IJN paint schemes are very simple: dark grey hulls, linoleum brown decks for anything smaller than a battleships. Tamiya helpfully makes IJN ship colours.

There are different shades of grey depending upon the shipyard, but I'm not getting into the weeds that deeply! I used the darkest grey for the hull and the lighter shade to dry brush the upper works. Successively lighter greys are used to drybrush the upper works some more and paint the boats.

Fubuki class DDs

The big difference in the IJN destroyers is with the torpedo load out. The Fubukis have 3x triple torpedo launchers, the Kageros have 2x quadruple launchers.

Kagero class DDs

Like the USN I have some other types of destroyers getting printed. Once they arrive I'll print everyone's labels.

These models caused some problems. Some supports from the turrets were stuck to the deck and I caused some damage trying to clean them up. These prints also had quite noticeable curving at the bows. I applied liquid putty to try and remedy both issues. I don't think anyone will notice mid-game.

Note odd little bits sticking out from torpedo launchers and turrets, and the big ding in the fo'castle