Back to Jutland

Hidden under the seven boxes of block armies - two block navies!

The 5th Battle squadron steaming across the recently acquired Magister Militum hexed cloth. These hexes are 2” between the flat sides - just large enough for one of my three quarter sized ‘not quite Jenga’ Jenga blocks.

 Jutland by Avalon Hill was one of my favourite games. It was more of a miniatures game than boardgame as the ships were moved on any flat surface with nary a grid in sight! Way back in 2016 I planned to refight the battle using 1:2400th scale models and indeed, I got as far as painting all the capital ships for both fleets but the realisation that acquiring everything else - destroyers, light and armoured cruisers - was an undertaking too far for me. The whole exercise was a lot of fun though as trying to tweak the rules for Jutland to bring them up to date was a good grounding for developing my own rules.

The Jutland collection of models has long gone, along with the boardgame and the additional bits and pieces I acquired, but one part remained. The box of blocks you see above. I should also mention that I own in PDF format copies of everything Jutland related from the game itself and the various articles and variants published in the old Avalon Hill General and also the Boardgamer magazine. This is significant because it means that have the wherewithal to print all the material I need to, in effect, resurrect a copy of Jutland if I wanted to.

Which of course I do!

Joking aside, The blocks you see above will be invaluable for testing purposes when I get to the Great War section of the rules for the new book. I can also make use if the cloth with the 2” hexes  - it is six foot by four - so the potential for a large action is certainly there.

I think I may have just talked myself into an idea…. ;-)