The rules are drafted and a few sample ship charts are now ready for me to test them at some point over the weekend. Overall they can best be described as a fusion of Jutland, Paul Hague's Sea Battles in Miniature, Morschauser and with a dash of Charles Grant (senior) thrown in for good measure.
Movement is based to a large extent on Barry Carter's short move/long move idea - this models speeds on a grid far more accurately - and has been helped considerably by my realisation that a knot equals 2,025 yards. Given that a Hexon tile is 4" across the flat sides and the nominal scale of the game is 1" equals 1,000 yards then you can see that to move one hex or 4,000 yards requires a speed of 2 knots (2 x 2,000 yards (rounded for ease) equals 4,000 yards). Calculating ship moves based on this rationale then was pretty straightforward.
Combat requires 1d6 to be rolled for every pair of barrels or tubes being used with scores from 4, 5 and 6 to a 6 being needed to score a hit depending on the range. Range also effects the number of hits scored as hits are halved at extreme range (5 hexes or 20,000 yards), doubled at ranges 2 and 3 (8 to 12,000 yards) and tripled at 1 hex. In combination with the increased chance of hitting as the range comes down the multiplying of hits scored serves to represent the shorter range and higher rate of fire of lower calibre weapons and the increased accuracy. A fudge I know but it works well and is in fact the system used in Avalon Hill's Jutland.
Damage or hit points are scored at the rate of one per hit and these are then recorded on the ship's hit record chart. The player owning the ship can choose where the hits are scored - either flotation or weapons - which will lead to some interesting choices needing to made based on the tactical situation.
That, in a nutshell, is a basic overview of the rules and following on from the testing I hope to tackle at some point over the weekend I shall be looking to upload these for general usage.
Is the last time I shall have to post describing yet another set of homegrown naval rules for this period?
I hope so!
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