The Battle of Cape Odamonte - Further, further thoughts

I spent yesterday evening refining the Battle of Cape Odamonte scenario details for the game this evening including some minor changes to the orbats and finalising of the victory conditions. The biggest difficulty I experienced was in the initial deployment on the tabletop as the action will be underway almost from the first turn. This is critical for the success of the scenario as if the ships are deployed too closely then the fight will be short, but desperate. If too far apart then the forces will be able to concentrate and form up at a distance which will skew the overall effect I am trying to achieve. In a nutshell, the Italian heavy cruisers will be engaged with their RN opposite numbers almost from the start – 4 Italian heavy cruisers versus 1 RN heavy and 3 lights – but will have their heavy support further away than is the case with the RN. Hard on the heels of the RN cruisers is both Renown and Valiant so the expectation is that the Italians will probably take some damage early on before either extracting themselves from the fray or being reinforced by their battle squadron. The key issue with this scenario is how the players interpret their individual victory conditions – the Italians need to avoid too much damage whilst sinking at least one RN capital ship (including the carrier) whilst the RN need to sink both Italian battleships.

Air power will be used as per the rules rather than the modified version as I have had a rethink on its effects within the game and am now leaning more towards it being about right in terms of impact.

I will post the full scenario details together with the after action report over the next couple of days. I am really excited about this action and hope that it leads to further interest from the club and perhaps even some more players will take the plunge and start acquiring some fleets.