Post by rflowings on Sept 15, 2015 0:22:27 GMT
Many thanks to Chris for staging the aeronef game this evening. A hard fought victory for the French, I must own that Her Majesty's air admiral blundered in the choice of lead ships for the main battle squadrons. I should have learned from Beatty - never send a battlecruiser to do the job of a battleship!
My final thoughts:
Manoeuvre: This was a good system as limitations on movement were intuitive, the random elements were limited and there was still a major degree of uncertainty when it came to predicting enemy movements. Both the EIC and French fleets crossed the T more than once, with believable consequences for damage. The simplicity of setting up orders was particularly key as one ended up thinking like a Victorian admiral - what the shape of the battle was going to be rather than faffing about with individual ships.
Firing: If the system has a fault it is that there are a few too many dice on the table, although this is to some extent a necessity with the far-from-standardised armaments of the 1890s. Transferring the gun classes to the ship bases as we discussed would be a definite bonus as it would reduce time referencing the sheets and would encourage checking the model rather than the sheet. Having turret arcs is a nice touch, but having a 'standard' broadside per ship would be neater as the same effect could be achieved with less book-keeping.
It strikes me that an alternative might be each ship having a fixed firing value based on the target rather than the type of gun firing - a battleship would have a devastating broadside against another battleship or a cruiser, but would be less effective (rolling less dice) when shooting at smaller vessels - which might eliminate the need for additional rolls when firing big guns at small ships under the current system.
This is not to detract from the system as it stands - it worked well for fast play and I did find a use for fire control systems which I did not expect to - giving unengaged ships a firepower bonus is a very good move, keep it that way!
Torpedoes & rams: Torpedoes are a must but rams were obviously something of a curate's egg at the time, and I see there is no need to include them here. I look forward to trialling the torps in a future game.
Although a flying HMSThunder Child Polyphemus would be a lot of fun...
So looking forward to more of the same, and I'm not looking forward to the Afrikaner military mutiny now John Company is down both the Shah Jahan and the Clive. That's the last time I play politics with a battle formation. Ironic, really, given we often had our greatest successes when we sent the crown troops in first to show the colonials how it was done...
My final thoughts:
Manoeuvre: This was a good system as limitations on movement were intuitive, the random elements were limited and there was still a major degree of uncertainty when it came to predicting enemy movements. Both the EIC and French fleets crossed the T more than once, with believable consequences for damage. The simplicity of setting up orders was particularly key as one ended up thinking like a Victorian admiral - what the shape of the battle was going to be rather than faffing about with individual ships.
Firing: If the system has a fault it is that there are a few too many dice on the table, although this is to some extent a necessity with the far-from-standardised armaments of the 1890s. Transferring the gun classes to the ship bases as we discussed would be a definite bonus as it would reduce time referencing the sheets and would encourage checking the model rather than the sheet. Having turret arcs is a nice touch, but having a 'standard' broadside per ship would be neater as the same effect could be achieved with less book-keeping.
It strikes me that an alternative might be each ship having a fixed firing value based on the target rather than the type of gun firing - a battleship would have a devastating broadside against another battleship or a cruiser, but would be less effective (rolling less dice) when shooting at smaller vessels - which might eliminate the need for additional rolls when firing big guns at small ships under the current system.
This is not to detract from the system as it stands - it worked well for fast play and I did find a use for fire control systems which I did not expect to - giving unengaged ships a firepower bonus is a very good move, keep it that way!
Torpedoes & rams: Torpedoes are a must but rams were obviously something of a curate's egg at the time, and I see there is no need to include them here. I look forward to trialling the torps in a future game.
Although a flying HMS
So looking forward to more of the same, and I'm not looking forward to the Afrikaner military mutiny now John Company is down both the Shah Jahan and the Clive. That's the last time I play politics with a battle formation. Ironic, really, given we often had our greatest successes when we sent the crown troops in first to show the colonials how it was done...
