Friday 23 October 2009

DBSA - The Great War at Sea Gridded


One of my ongoing projects, as readers of this blog will no doubt have noticed, is my attempt to 'grid' a version of Phil Barker's DBSA rules. This has been an ongoing saga for a number of months now and I came very close to abandoning the effort as I was getting in a flat spin over some of the mechanics. I think now however, I may have just about cracked it. The latest version incorporates some of the tidying up as a result of the recent playtest (Lepanto 1915) and I am now fairly satisfied that it is about ready. I will give this version a test at home and will persuade the club to give them a spin at some point as well. I will need to rework the ship specs to incorporate the change of movement rates as these are been altered and I have tweaked the turning rules. Firing has changed slightly - or rather I have added a couple of modifiers - and I have clarified LOS and some damage results. I will also need to write them up as a 'proper' set of rules with a playsheet rather than just as an expanded playsheet.


I am quite sure that further tinkering will be needed but probably not anything major. Ideally I would like to extend these rules to incorporate WW2 naval actions as well so obviously I will need to consider air power.


Should anyone want the latest draft of the rules then please let me know and I will be happy to send a copy on. As ever, I would appreciate any thoughts or observations.


The picture is of the German Battlecruiser Seydlitz and she is one of my favourite warships. Note the airship overhead - makes me even more determined to organise the Ottoman Air Fleet!


4 comments:

Paul O'G said...

I must admit that I'm looking forward to seeing how the VSf revsiion comes out too. After playign War at Sea (which i really enjoyed), this griided style has a lot to offer for short fleet scale games.

David Crook said...

The biggest advantage of using the grid is that it removes any problems over move distances and ranges at a stroke as well as making movement more straightforward. naval games are so abstract anyway in terms of scale on a tabletop it seems pointless trying to make it otherwise. The VSF version will be broadly similar and with no record keeping - huzzah!!!

Paul O'G said...

I think it will also ease the complication of playing VSF in three dimensions at once. It will also demonstrate that while traditional surface ships arent as flashy as Aeronauts or Aquanefs, they are hardy, all-round platforms.

cheers!

David Crook said...

Absolutely - I agree with all the observations you have and my next building project will make use of this concept - in all dimensions!