Thoughts on the Recent Battle

The Russian cruiser Oleg beginning to have a bad day….

I have been fortunate in that so far the testing of the rules for my new book has been conducted using real players. This makes for a pleasant change as when I was writing the Portable Ironclads Wargame nearly all the testing was conducted on a solo basis. There is no doubt that having real players attempting to break one’s rules really helps to focus the mind!

Having said that, the last battle I fought was a solo effort and was played with a specific aim in mind that would probably not have happened using live participants! 

It threw up one key issue which was easily fixed. You may recall that I had a procedure in place for determining the location of any damage points inflicted. Basically for each hit a D6 was rolled to locate where the damage was inflicted. I must admit to being a fan of such a system although I prefer to keep it limited to hull/superstructure and weapons rather than everything including the ship’s cat or the wardroom drinks cabinet. The system worked but it did mean another round dice rolling and it felt very much as though it unbalanced the flow of action. It needed changing or something.

I opted for the ‘something’ option and have dispensed with it entirely - or have I? Hit location adds to the feel of a set of naval rules and such an honourable process cannot be easily discarded - so I have not. The system I am now using is determined by the number of hits scored - essentially, the more hits scored the greater the ‘spread’ of damage. This is not new, and anyone that has played Wooden Ships and Iron Men, Air Force and many other games besides will recognise the similarity. This approach works well for ‘normal’ hits so the exciting and exotic damage is reserved for the Critical Hits table. This was the other thing that caused me a few issues - Critical Hits, ore more specifically, what triggers them. I have changed this ever so slightly based on the new damage/hit location system. In a nutshell, flotation point damage is the key - not guns etc and before anyone says ‘what about magazine hits etc?’ These are included in the Critical Hits section so fear not, if you want to see an exploding battle cruiser the potential is still there!

With these various ‘soupcon’ changes the biggest single advantage though, is that for firing guns only a single round of dice rolls per calibre firing is required. This balances out the process immeasurably and adds to the flow of the action.

I feel far happier having done this!