Morschauser Afloat - The Reckoning

At long last I was able to finally finish the ship charts for the naval version of Morschauser’s grid based gaming system. They are a more detailed than perhaps Morschauser would have intended but I have tried to stay true to the basic simplicity of the mechanics employed i.e. opposed dice rolls. Assigning dice to individual ship classes is perhaps a degree of overkill but this is necessary due to sheer variety of types during the period covered. As a long term naval gamer I tend to baulk at ships being lumped together for convenience sake as there are usually many exceptions to the rule in terms of weapons carried, protection and speed etc even within ships of notionally the same type. This is the main reason why I have looked at ships on an individual class level rather than by type. The game mechanics are simple enough and oddly enough, playing the Napoleonic naval game last week made me realise that my thoughts on the movement of ships under power at long ranges is probably about right. I want to give these a final play test before letting them out and this should in the next couple of weeks. The reason for this is simply so that I can get any final wrinkles ironed out. For my own purposes I will be using these rules with my 1/3000th collection of Balkan and Black Sea fleets. The French will make an appearance at some point (I don’t have any models as yet so this will be well down the list!) but I suspect that will be it for the theatre. Mr Fox has the Italians and Austro Hungarians so all that would be needed would be a token RN force which I am sure exists somewhere within the various club members collections. I will also use the Minifigs ships I have tucked away for some hypothetical naval action of some kind – more of which in due course. Again, this is well down the batting order but the models will have the advantage of being much more visible and will make for better photos.

From a practical perspective I will certainly have to change the playing surface I have as it is simply too dark – this will probably also mean ship bases which I am really loath to do! Whilst I really like the blue I have used it does need to be lightened somewhat – in fact, probably using a sky blue with a blue ink wash would be about right but I shall have to see.

It only remains then for me to extend my thanks and appreciation to all that have contributed their comments and encouragement to this project. It is safe to say that this communal effort has made my own task in merely drafting the rules very much easier!