'The Road Goes Ever On and On....' (Or should that be I?)

Bilbo Baggins was little prepared for the hallucinatory effects of 'Old Silverleaf'...."Like wow preciousss...."

I have decided to in effect expand and convert the tactical rules from the Avalon Hill game Jutland into the fast play set of naval war game rules I have been striving towards. It sounds like a big deal but is in reality quite a subtle shift from what I have already been attempting. The rules themselves are virtually the same as in the original board game. All I have done for my own purposes is to 'hex' the movement and ranges and to greatly expand the coverage of ships represented. Secondary batteries are now included and 'light ships' (in the game these are light cruisers and destroyers and they handled in a grouped fashion) have been assigned combat factors based on the type and so are no longer 'lost in the crowd'.

The rules are pretty much finished and are a fusion of what I was attempting in the Portable Naval Wargame and its predecessors - the Morschauser based set and the DBSA variant. The only thing I will need to do is to tweak a few of the ship specs (not with wholesale changes I am happy to say!).

As an aside from this part of the project I am going to press ahead with a long held idea about creating an electronic database of ship types detailing all the major data needed - weight, armour speed and weaponry; together with launching dates and names of the ships in the class -in a series of spreadsheets. This will be a huge time saver although no substitute for browsing through a copy of Conways or Janes!

In the meantime the swampy bayous have not been neglected and so yesterday evening saw a few small tasks 'squared away' prior to the resumption of the paint fest.