The Big Reveal Starts Here…..

A Borodino class Russian battleship, Wofun style.

To be honest this post is not going to come as much of a surprise but I wanted to ‘put it out there’, thereby putting a ‘line in the sand’ so to speak!

I am writing a naval wargames book for Pen and Sword which will cover the period from the start of the American Civil War and ending in 1918. The rules - currently under development - are grid based and the plan is to include battle reports from the ACW, the Russo Japanese War and finally WW1. The core rules will cover the entire timeframe with some period specific adjustments as required.

I am hugely excited about this so keep an eye out for the end of 2027 which is when it will hopefully be published!

So, lifting the bonnet of this undertaking what will be appearing? Aside from the usual ‘flam and paradiddle’ normally associated with a wargames book - the why’s, wherefore’s, how’s and assorted other bits and pieces - I am planning on including three battle reports, one from each, dare I say it? Sub-period.

For the American Civil War game I shall of course be using my scratch builds - scaled at around 1:600th - with some Tumbling Dice 1:2400th models for the Great War. For the ‘middle’ period I am planning to use my newly acquired WoFun Battle of Tsushima pack, scaled at 1:1200th and more of which later.

The rules in the book are designed with a 6ft by 4ft playing area in mind although this is my own preference and determined by my available playing space and using a hex grid measuring 4” across the flat sides. You can see from the choice of model scales that as gun ranges and speeds increase so the models get progressively smaller so as to ensure the ‘look’ is maintained within the confines of a tabletop.

It is very early on in the writing process but I am relatively advanced in terms of developing the rules. Indeed, I hope to begin testing as early as October all being well.

We shall see.

Wofun and Games

The Tsushima battle pack contains both the Russian and Japanese fleets that took part in the battle although as far as I can tell the order of battle in not quite complete but more than sufficient for my needs. The models are based using Wofun’s own bases which has given me a few things to think about. To begin with, the bases are only 15mm deep - I would have preferred 20mm - and in many cases are the same length as the model. The destroyer and some of the Japanese cruiser bases are smaller than the ship sprue which is less than ideal. I raised the issue with WoFun and to their credit they are rectifying this for me. Essentially the bases that are 60mm x 15mm were too small for all but the Japanese torpedo boats so by using a new size of 75mm x 15mm all should be well. WoFun’s customer service is excellent and so a new set of bases for the ships I mentioned to them will be on its way next week.

The bases have the ship name printed on and are painted in what I would call a tropical sea colour. This is different to the sea colour that that the ships have along the waterline (you can see what I mean in the close up of the Borodino at the head of this post) which, to be frank, is a little vexing. I am still debating whether or not to paint the bases to match my Hexon blue tiles and prepare my own ship labels or to just edge the MDF in a suitable colour. I will give it some thought.

I realise this all sounds a little ‘picky’ but in spite of the challenges presented by the bases I am really pleased with the collection. There is more than sufficient variety of ships included from battleships down to transport types so I could fight a whole range of differing naval actions. I will post a detailed review of the collection but for now here are a few pictures.

Russian Borodino class battleships - well four of them!

Japanese destroyers and a cruiser - note the infamous overhang on the bases

Three sets of smoke, explosions, fires and shell splashes

A top down view so you can see the width

A trio of Japanese battleships along with the ex Chinese Chin Yen

All being well this little lot will be seeing action very soon along with the after action report.

Let the games begin!