Monday 3 August 2009

The Story So Far.........Part 2

You know how it is, you sit down with the best of intentions to tackle a job (in this case the ACW Ironclads sitting on the paint tray) and somehow, you just cannot seem to get started and when you do, disaster usually strikes. Well it was hardly a disaster but the painting was a little on the sloppy side and so I gave up after twenty minutes or so. Unfortunately, whilst my painting is firmly in the ACW at present my head is still wrestling with the new set of 1890 to 1918 rules that are going to replace DBSA - The Great War Gridded and so I guess this is the problem.

I felt that I had gone about as far as I could with the DBSA derived set and whilst it was enormous fun with the research and play testing sadly they do not tick enough boxes for me. The new set are a country mile away from the mechanics I used previously and are similar in two respects only - they are on a grid and no book keeping will be involved.

Thanks to the kind auspices of both Borja Sierra and Mark Dudley from two of the Yahoo groups I belong to (Naval Wargames and Old School Wargaming) I have a couple of (photo) copies of a set of Skytrex WW1 Naval Rules by John Hammond that made use of Fred Jane's Gun Rating for naval ordnance. This data will be used in the new set and I will be using a dice per barrel for the basic gunfire hit mechanic. Most gamers enjoy rolling great fists of dice so this will be a welcome addition. These rules are in fact pretty close to the play testing stage so I will report on progress as it occurs.

4 comments:

Paul O'G said...

Your all-too-familiar inconsistency gives me hope for myself!

David Crook said...

I am not so sure that inconsistency would be the correct description - nearest comparison I could think of would be like celebrating regaining the ashes on the back of two draws and a win i.e. before the series is finished! The WW1 naval rules are an extension of the attempt to wring out some extra life from the DBSA set but I have thought further along the lines of an original set so really it is just revisiting an existing item of interest........if you believe that....;-)

Have the WaS Aussies had a run out yet?

El Grego said...

I've never seen the Skytrex rules so this will be interesting... no book keeping can be a good thing.

If you're so inclined, I'd like to see your DBSA mods.

David Crook said...

Hi EJ, No problem re the rules - I will send you over the final version and the ships specs I lovingly crafted whilst on holiday in Turkey (usually by the pool and with a cool glass of Efes - the legendary Turkish Lager!)