Mr Huband's wonderful 'pimped' Minifigs ships - in this case the Russians emerging from Port Arthur with the two minesweeping destroyers in the van.
The Battle
There are pictures of the action but sadly my own are rather poor so I will look to get some from Mr Fox at some point. The scenario had a Russian squadron attempting to breakout from Port Arthur with a Japanese force attempting to stop them. A sneaky minefield had been laid more or less on the Russian doorstep by the Japanese destroyers and this was intended to be an integral part of the Japanese plan.
I should mention that Mr Fox was in command of the Russians whilst yours truly commanded the Emperor's finest.
The Russian force consisted of the following:
Sevastopol PB (Flag)
Poltava PB
Potemkin PB
Petropavlovsk PB
Dvenadsat Apostolov Old PB
Tri Sviatitelia Old PB
Rossiya AC
Rurik AC (Flag)
Gromky DD
Grozny DD
The Japanese force consisted of the following:
Shikishima PB (Flag)
Kaga PB
Akagi PB
Asahi PB
Chitose AC
Yoshino AC
Idzumo AC (Flag)
Ikazuchi DD
Inazuma DD
Oboro DD
Akebono DD
The Japanese orders were to prevent the Russians breaking out whilst maintaining the integrity of the fleet - basically avoiding losses where possible. With this in mind the Japanese plan was simple. The cruisers and destroyers were to ambush the rear the of the Russian line whilst it negotiated the minefield - hopefully with some damage inflicted during the transit. The Japanese battle line held back with the intention engaging the van of the approaching Russians.
The Russians emerged with their two destroyers on minesweeping duty whilst the Japanese flanking force raced to get behind them, counting on the minefield to delay and hopefully break up the Russian formation.
Aside from scraping the paint from a couple of Russian ships as they raced by the minefield might as well have not been there for all the good it did! This meant that they managed to get much further forward than anticipated, almost up to the Japanese battle line.
The action that followed was intense to say the least!
The Japanese destroyers flung themselves at the centre of the Russian line and two - the Ikazuchi and the Inazuma - were duly sunk for their trouble. They died honourably. The rear of the Russian line gleefully engaged the flanking Japanese armoured cruisers, sinking the flagship, the Idzumo. Whilst this was happening the Japanese cruisers fought back hard, battering the Potemkin, the Sevastopol and the Dvenadsat Apostolov. They also managed to sink one of the two Russian destroyers, the Gromky.
In the van of the Russian squadron the two Russian armoured cruisers had the misfortune of running into the Shikishima, the Kaga and the Akagi at point blank range who then collectively reduced both ships to a sinking condition in fairly short order - to paraphrase Mr Fox as he drily observed, I most certainly did enjoy destroying both cruisers at point blank range!
Sadly we had to call a halt at this point but it was a cracking action. As Mr Huband observed, the tracks that two fleets took had the feel of an actual battle - which is after all, how it should be. It certainly felt like it!
New Rules
The 'New Rules' alluded to are of course, those that will be appearing in the new book. I am happy to say that I am now at the first draft stage and I will be looking to start play testing in a week or so. There are a few elements borrowed from the Portable Ironclads Wargame as well as Bob Cordery's Gridded Naval Wargames so they will not be too unfamiliar.
Given that the rules will be extensively tested before publication having them ready now is really handy. As an aside it also means that I will need to get cracking on some painting for the Great War portion of the rules, as well as drawing up some ship charts.
Once again my thanks to Messrs Fox and Huband for a most excellent evenings entertainment
2 comments:
Good looking set-up. The game surface in measured by numbers of grid cells looks a whole lot larger than mine, and therefore may contain a larger sized action. Superb! (I wonder if maybe I should grid up my 6'x4' table...)?
At any rate, I'd like to see more of this action!
Cheers,
Ion
Hello there Archduke,
Roughly 6ft by 4ft is the size of the cloth I believe - it belongs to Mr Fox who hexed the grid using a blue permanent marker (and a few expletives during the process I suspect….). They are 4” across the flat sides.
The action really served a better write up and pictures but sadly I was rather at fault for the paucity of them, being caught up in the action and all that!
It was a gripping action though and the rules are working really nicely.
All the best,
DC
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