Tinker, Sailor, Oh but why..................

After much soul searching and careful deliberation I have decided that I shall attempt to translate the playing rules from Axis and Allies: War at Sea into something a little more traditionally rules based in its approach. I am most emphatically not rewriting these rules; rather I am attempting to make them into something a little more recognisable as a naval set. I think that the additions to the core set will be actually be very low key but will make an enormous difference to the all important ‘feel’ of the rules. At this planning stage I intend to tackle the following:

Ship facing and the effect of this on combat
Combat modifiers
Strategic movement – especially in respect of aircraft
Surface and Air search
‘Hidden’ movement.

These are the probably the easiest areas to tackle and certainly the first two points have been looked at by a number of gamers with varying degrees of success. The most significant challenges though are in respect of:

Damage
Special effects

I am not looking to replace the damage system but I would like to expand on it a little – primarily because I feel it is too easy to sink ships. Primarily I would like to introduce the D1, 2, 3 or 4 system, as used by the US Navy. Each level of damage correlates to a reduction in capability of the vessel in question and I will make use of the existing hull points used to measure damage. Basically, if a ship has three hull points then when it has lost all three it starts off at D1. The next three hits will take it to D2 and so on. As most destroyers currently have 1 or 2 hull hits you can see that this will serve to give them a hopefully a longer life. In effect it means that ships can sustain four times the number of existing hull hits. The existing effect of instant destruction when scoring successes equal to a target’s vital armour would be replaced with perhaps a critical damage roll of some kind. I think that this extended damage regime will serve to ensure that players are mindful of damage and its effects – especially in a campaign setting. At the moment, ships fight at full effect until crippled which is hardly realistic although I dare say hardcore naval enthusiasts will let me know of the umpteen occasions when this did happen!

Obviously this is an approach I need to experiment with and so this will provide much food for thought over the next few weeks.

The whole issue of model specific special effects is valid as a game mechanic but does skew the results somewhat. My own feeling is that it would be best to cherry pick the most ‘sensible’ special effects and apply them to the models by type e.g. the ‘sub hunter’ special effect should be for all destroyer types, not just the selected few. This will need a little research but should not be too onerous.

I hope………………………………………;-)