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.
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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.
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| 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.
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| DesRon 1 |
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| 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. |
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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!
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| A very nasty Torpedo hit. Japanese Long Lances get a +1 on this table. |
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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.
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| 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.
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| IJN also advancing in three squadrons |
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| 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Yugiri and Amagiri shatter Chevalier. Starting a fire and hitting the bridge.
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USS Portland engages the Mogami getting a magazine hit. Mogami's reply causes a fire.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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