Grid Based (mostly) Naval Goodness

The game on the left is next for the ‘punching and sorting’ phase whilst Submarine is now ready for action - I may have to revisit The Cruel Sea for additional inspiration….

A boot sale bargain - not my usual area of interest but for 50p I could not really turn it down!

As part of my ‘front loading for retirement’ I managed to track down a number of board games from my, well, board game era - and these included the two you see above. Submarine is a detailed tactical level ‘submarine versus a convoy’ style game and was a great favourite of mine from ‘back in the day’. The RN and the Kriegsmarine feature, along with the US and Japan as well as Italy, France and Russia. the rules are very much of the time - the game was originally published by Battleline and was designed by Steve Peek (who worked alongside S. Craig Taylor Jr of Flat Top fame).

Bismarck needs little introduction from me and this version is the second edition published by Avalon Hill. The search system is very good and the game features most of the major vessels for the early war period with a tactical system that covers basic, intermediate and advanced options - the latter uses a tabletop rather than a grid. A couple of expansions were produced - one covering the operation against the Graf Spee and another which covered the ‘pre Bismarck’ period so Scharnhorst and Gneisenau took centre stage against assorted elements of the Home Fleet. All good fun and eminently gameable as relatively few models are needed.

The book you see was a cheeky boot sale bargain from this morning. Not my usual ‘bag’ but I will read it and would happily pass on to anyone with a deeper interest in the period.

On that note I will Finnish….. :-)