Game Night with Luke, 25th April

I headed over to Luke's and we played a little Hammerin' Iron Naval. I played the confederates again and Luke took the Union with plenty of Ironclads while I favoured smaller ram ships. It started well for the south as USS Benton suffered a mishap before it arrived on table and was already damaged and failed to bring the damage under control until it was rammed and sunk by USS Manasas. Meanwhile heavy fire from a usefully placed fort was causing issues for the remainder of the Union fleet, while the Confederate rams prepared to pounce from behind it.

In the end with two Cairo class sunk and the rest of the fleet severely battered, despite the loss of a few Confederate ships it was a decisive Southern victory. I am really enjoying these rules and must get my ships painted!

Club Night 23rd March

Steve and I decided to try out the Trafalgar rules from Warhammer historical, using some modifications that David Manley had published in Wargames Illustrated. It was never going to be as detailed as Signal Close Action or similar rules, but for me it was far more satisfying to play. I am not a sailor and so the more complex rules often baffle me or I spend more time fighting the rules than my opponent. With these I could move my ships more freely as if I did know how to sail them and spend far more time fighting with them than against them.

For me it felt realistic enough and played as what I think of when I considered Napoleonic Naval warfare. My only disappointment is that they are still line of battle rules and I would like a simple set f rules for frigate actions so I can play at being Hornblower!

Club night 13th January

Steve and I decided to play a Dystopian wars game. I have not yet used my new Dreadnought, and the 1.1 version PDFs re-inspired us to play again. Steve had to knock out my big ships to win, while I had to destroy more than half of his fleet, including all the larger vessels. I started with most of my fleet on my right, with a small element on the left.

Above: Early moves

Both fleets moved forward and opened fire.My AA proved remarkably effective against the incoming rockets thanks to some jammy dice rolls that would continue for most of the game, while my return fire caused some serious damage to the FSA battleship. The fleets continued to close and I concentrated my fire on the enemies left, destroying all the support frigates and inflicting more damage on the battleship.

On the other flank I managed to bring my destroyers and frigates to bear in combination and destroyed the enemy frigates opposing them. They then began to sweep towards the centre, despite some heavy losses from enemy bombers.

I was then able to move most of my fleet towards the centre and bring my heavier short range fire-power onto the cruiser occupying the centre of the FSA fleet, destroying them and then turning my fire against the airships, bringing them down. I was then able to board and capture the severely battered enemy battleship.

Although my big ships were damaged they were not out of it, and all the FSA really had left was their dreadnought on their far left. I pulled my air fortress back as it was beginning to suffer against the rockets from the dreadnought.

At this point we called it a day as the FSA fleet was defeated and my Prussians managed to claim a victory, thanks to a bit of luck and a finally better grasp of how to use my fleet effectively and maximise its strengths.

ACW Naval 30th December

For the last game of the year Luke and I planned to play our Warhammer league game, however Luke's work delayed him, so by the time he got to mine it was a bit late, so we rolled my Hammerin' Iron mat out on the floor in my flat rather than going to the club and played a ACW naval.

Luke again took the Union, while I took the confederates. I had more luck with the placement of my fort and the forces I started with getting CSS Arkansas right up against two of the Union Ironclads from the start and a fierce firefight started immediately, me forcing the Union to move by releasing a fire raft into them.

Combined with the fire from my fort, I exploded one of Polk's turtles, and then rammed another with CSS Van Dorn, before she was crippled herself. The massed fore of a surprisingly resilient Arkansas and the Fort pushed the Union fleet to navigate a narrow strip of river on the opposite bank between the bank and a line of river pilings (we use these to represent sandbanks).

As my final ships turned up, there was no sign of the last Union ironclad and the final floating ship was the third of the Union Cairo class, and was already badly damaged and facing the might of the whole Confederate flotilla, so Luke conceded a major victory to the confederates.

Club Night 16th December

Although I have not got them painted yet we decided to risk the mockery of other club member and try out Hammerin' Iron. I umpired/learnt the rules while Luke and Steve concentrated on rolling dice. First of all we played a version of the demo game Martin runs at shows, tweaked to fit my vessels just to introduce them to the rules.

Once we had done this we leapt into a full game and it was great fun, even if I was mostly watching! Luke cunningly used his army support to bombard one of the objectives, while in the river his fleet engaged CSS Arkansas which fought long and hard and took a real pounding, but somehow was still afloat at the end of the game.

The union also took heavy losses, but managed a minor victory. This game really got me enthused again and I am keen to try and find the time to finish adding all the masts and details to the ships so I can then get on and paint them!

Club Night 25th November

Steve K and I dusted off his copy of Victory at Sea for some WW2 Naval combat. We decided for a change to pick fleets using the points system and play a standard scenario and see how it went. I continued my love affair with the Italians and took a battleship, a trio of cruisers and a destroyer squadron. Steve took the British and decided to try out a carrier, with some cruisers and destroyers in support.

Our game quickly focused on just one flank of the table, I think mainly as we were sitting nearer that end and wanted to keep our forces concentrated. I sent my destroyers steaming out ahead and tried to close to torpedo range. The first shots were exchanged to little effect. Meanwhile overhead my spotter plans were easily despatched by the massed British fighters and these then moved on to escort the torpedo bombers in.

By now my destroyers were in among it and the cruisers of both sides began to exchange fire, with the Italians having the better of it. The my Battleship came into action. In one massive salvo (with more 6's in one dice roll than I have see from my for quite a while), I changed the landscape of London, by sinking HMS Belfast. It then began to deteriorate for the British.

They lost another cruiser to combined gunfire and torpedo attack, and most of their destroyers were lost as well. I managed to weather the aircraft strike. This HMS Illustrious and a surviving destroyer against the majority of my battle fleet so they turned and fled, while I hunted down and sunk the last British cruiser.

A decisive victory for the Italians, with my Battleships opening salvo being almost as noticeable as yet another set of shocking dice rolls from Steve.

Club Sunday 2nd October

As the club met for our usual Sunday I decided not to game but to take advantage of our Indian summer and the outside space to get some painting done in the sun so I sprayed the base colours on Steve K's infantry tanks and primed my next wave of Dystopian wars.

I managed to actually get the Dystopian wars ships not just primed but painted to completion and army painted then when I got home, ready for basing and flat-coated. They are looking good and I will bring some photos when they are finished.

Club Night 27th May

Steve K and I headed up early to do some club maintenance. Once we were done we played a game of Dystopian wars game with Luke joining us using a scenario generator from the Spartan Games Forum.

We rolled up the caught at anchor scenario with my Prussians being caught. The FSA swept forward and then sped into range and unlashed a devastating opening salvo, destroying the majority of frigates.

Although some of my ships then managed to get under-way and a viscous fight started in the mouth of the harbour as my battleship demonstrated its awesome short range firepower by returning the favour and wiping out the enemy frigates, while the cruiser from both side suffered in a mutual exchange.

The enemy battle ship and its supporting scout airships bombarded my sky fortress from range with rockets leaving it badly damaged and aflame and as the game proceeded the situation did not improve and the Prussians were defeated.

In the evening we played a Napoleonic Naval game with Langton Miniatures Signal Close Action rules. The purpose was to try out proper squadron orders and the increased strategic movement,. With all this it was not massively exciting as there was little fire exchanged but I liked some of the rules mechanisms. The multiple dice rolls for the entire turn was nice, but I felt some of the tasks seemed overly complicated for something intended for multiple vessels, they would appear more appropriate for single ship actions. I'd like to play them again before I pass judgement now we know what we are doing properly.

Dystopian Prussians - Finishing Touches

I gave the Prussians their anti-shine varnish and I am really pleased with the finish. Hopefully I will get them out and use them soon.

Above: Cruisers and Frigates,
Below: battleship and Frigates

Above: Sky Fortress and Scout Ships,
Below: Bombers and Tiny Flyers

Dystopian Prussians - Decals

I have finally prepared my decals for my Prussians. I drew them up in AutoCAD as I use this professionally, so although it may not be designed for graphics I know I could draw them accurately and size them precisely. I then printed these out at best quality and had them copied onto white laser decal paper. I chose white as I needed the trim to the crosses and though it would be easier to cut them accurate than have to paint on the trim. I used laser paper since I managed to order the wrong stuff! However this worked out well as copying was cheap and I didn't need to use any kind of fixative spray.
I applied them using both Micro Set and Micro Sol to get these tiny decals into place accurately. They all went on perfect with the exception of one of the crosses on the cruisers which took three attempts, but that is exactly why I printed more then I needed. Just need to anti-shine spray these and they are all finished.

Above: The decals, Below: The fleet with decals applied

Dystopian Prussians - Continuing Progress

Having picked up some new Scout Zepplins for my Prussian Navy I found my self all inspired, and since I had my Airbush stuff out to do my Sanguinary Priests I decided to pant them and finish off the rest of the vessels. I started by painting the last two fighter stands and the planes of the Sky Fortress deck.
I then decided to base my sea going vessels. I have been trying to decide if I wanted to do this for a while, and went for it as some of my frigates has some slight chips so I felt needed more protection. I used some off cuts from the Citadel custom movement tray kits, nice and sturdy and easy to cut to size.
I then started on the newly released Pflicht class scoutships. Cleaned up and primed with Gesso, I then sprayed them and after changing the green a dozen times to match the larger sky fortress I painted them too.
I then added some medium grain texture gel to the bases, and painted them blue again, dry brushed the textured bow and stern wakes and added some blue ink to add some depth and tone to the bases. Now I just need to do Army Painter, and decide if I am putting ship names somewhere on the bases and source some decals for Maltese crosses on the vessels, especially the Zeppelins.

Club Night 18th March

We decided to try out Steve K's new Federal States of America fleet against my Prussian navy. This time I had a better grasp on how to use my fleet and kept them closer together and had all the initial success by destroying a number of the enemy frigates.

However the long range rockets began to take their toll and I lost a number of my Cruisers. But as the fleets closed I got my major piece of luck as I hit the FSA battleship with some long range fire and shredded its defences. Taking advantage of its vulnerability I sent in waves of dive bombers on the defenceless ship, followed by boarder and took the battleship.

However my battleship was also heavily damaged by now and was struggling to defend itself against the surviving enemy frigates.

As the early hours of Saturday morning dawned we called it a day and after totting up the victory points it was a narrow victory to the Prussians. The FSA has lost all their support vessels, their carrier was damaged and the Prussians held their flagship, while the Prussians still had their Airship and 4 frigates left, and a heavily damaged, but still floating battleship.

Club Night 19th Janaury

Steve K, Luke and myself gathered down the club mid-week to have a try out of the Dystopian wars rules. Although my fleet is only half painted, Luke's isn't even started, but since no one else was about we didn't feel too embarrassed.

A simple sea scape with a few islands was all we needed. I started with my cruisers and some frigates on the right and my battleship, bombers, Zeppelin-carrier and a squadron of frigates on the left. As I steamed forward we quickly found the strength of the Britannians as their massed torpedoes devastated my frigates. On the other wing I smashed his frigates for slight loss.

My cruisers rushed up the centre towards his immensely powerful carrier. Consisting of two battleships side by side with a deck non top the amount of torpedoes this could fire was immense, but an opening salvo proved decisive as a lucky round penetrated the hull and exploded a magazine destroying the flagship in as single volley.

This was a major blow for te Britannia fleet, but they still had their battleship and were beginning to damage my cruisers. I quickly realised the secret was to close quickly and get too close for torpedo launches, so this I did, combined with a dive bomber strike and seriously damaged the battleship, but at hefty loss to my self, especially one the cruisers came up to support the enemy.

By this point it was getting very late, so we totted up victor points and found that the Britannia navy could claim a minor victory, which was probably fair, although they would have had really difficulties in attacking my Zeppelin.

The rules were really fun to play and I look forward to doing them again soon.

Dystopian Wars Prussain Navy 4

I have finished off my Prussian air fortress using the same techniques as the naval vessels, it now just needs army painter to complete it. The aircraft on its deck are just white for now until I decide on my colour schemes. I have painted some of the fighters in colour schemes inspired by the WW1 jastas but they seem a bit too busy so a rethink may be called for,

Dystopian Wars Prussain Navy 3

I have continued work on my Prussians, trying to make the most of the Bank Holiday before back to work tomorrow. I have painted all the metal work Vallejo Natural Steel with any gun barrels in Gunmetal. The engines, Tesla coils and any interesting bits of pipe got a coat of Old Gold. This has a bit more sparkle than any bronze colour I had, but is still dark enough not to look too shiny. The tops of the funnels got a coat of dark grey. Ultimately these will get some coloured stripes as well as I read about the Germans using this in WW1 to identify squadrons so I think this has a precedent and will be quite useful.

I also painted the windows. This was easier than I had feared. I painted the whole window with natural steel, then painted the centres with a thinned blue (about 2 paint to 1 water). As the window is recessed this worked well and left the raised trim in the steel. I am really pleased with how these are coming out. I have done the battleship, 2 cruisers and 6 frigates. I will complete the last cruiser, frigate squadron and the bombers. Once they are done I will look at doing the Zeppelin and the fighters.

Dystopian Wars Prussain Navy 2

I have continued working on the Prussians. I painted all the decks a mahogany sand from Vallejo. Already this has improved the look of the ships immensely.

After I had finished this I stepped away. When I came back I decided it was too dark, especially as I plan on using army painter which can darken the colours slightly so I gave it a rough dry-brush with a deck tan - mahogany sand mix, and then on the carrier down the flight paths a pure deck tan.

I then painted the dazzle pattern camouflage on First the black, then the white, covering a l0t of the back so it is just a fine edging to one side of the white. The think to remember about dazzle camouflage is unlike land camouflage the intention is never to hide the ship as this is virtually impossible at normal engagement ranges. Instead he aim is to make predicting speed and direction harder so targeting becomes more difficult and I think this succeeds quite well.

A final note is that you will notice that I have painted the bombers the same as the ships. Since they are essentially the same as the ships in design (a bow, decks, funnels) I decided they would use the same scheme and just do my fighters in the flying circus colours of WW1.

The whole lot is coming together quite quickly and I like the way the models look.

Dystopian Wars Prussian navy

For my Birthday and a thank-you for painting his extra Flames of War bits Luke got me a Dystopian wars Prussian fleet from Spartan game with an extra air fortress carrier. He has got some Britannian forces for himself. Apparently they are about 1/2000th scale which make the battleship about 144m long, which seems reasonable. They have a really nice look about them, steam-punk but realistic. The only really 'mad' bits is the carrier on a Zeppelin about the same size as a battleship and the bombers the size of frigates but it is supposed to be sci-fi so I guess its all OK. The casting are really crisp, although it will be interesting to see if the moulds are as sharp in a few years time.

I am going to try and keep you up to do date on my painting with some pictures so you can see how I do it. However I have failed already as got too excited and assembled them and base-coated them with white Gesso primer before I even remembered. I then got out my airbrush and my new spray booth (thanks mum and dad!) to lay down some base colours. I did everything a medium grey except for the Zeppelin body that is green. The plan is to stay quite close to the Spartan games own schema as I like the black and white dazzle patterns on them. However the aircraft are going to be more WW1 with each squadron having its own colours so I can distinguish them (and a Red Baron ace somewhere mixed in!) . The bombers I am still undecided about, I have sprayed them grey but might try and look for some pictures of Gotha bombers and go with their colour scheme. The only thing I had any problem with is the little frigates that are so light they kept taking off when I tried to spray them, even at low pressure!!

Above: The whole fleet,
Below: The battleship, with frigates in front and cruisers behind

Below: The Zeppelin flying one way and the bombers in the opposite direction

Club Night 3rd December

Due to the sever weather we have had here (lots of snow if you didn't know) the Haywards Heath team (myself, Luke and Steve K) decided we would game here rather than try to get up to Crawley so we decided to try out the Uncharted Seas rules look had bought on Steve dining table.

Steve and I took the Bone Griffons (undead types) and Luke took the Iron Dwarfs (who are, well, dwarfs!). Lukes fleet was the typical naval dwarf force of steam driven ironclads with plenty of artillery, some in turrets. Out force was a little different. We had oared galleys which we chose to fit with trebuchets and undead Orcas which we could use to tow out vessels for a turn of speed or send into ramming and boarding (by spreading disease) enemy vessels. Another key part of the rules is a card system. The decks are fleet specific and consist of a predefined mix of cards, some common to all fleets and some specific and add a nice little change to the style of the game.

In the first game Steve and I scored a decisive victory, with some cards that enhanced our shooting we hammered the enemy battleship with long range trebuchets fire while we attacked the small frigates with the Orcas and sank them easily. We then turned our fire on the destroyers and destroyed them before laying the Orcas along side the damaged battleship and the last crew succumbing to disease from the animated carcases.

We had time to play a second game so we swapped our trebuchets out for gun decks (a craft piece of magnetising Luke and I had done) and the Dwarfs took some submarine and an airship. Disaster struck from the off. The Dwarfs went first and used there enhanced gunnery card to target one of our cruisers with the combined fire of a squadron of frigates. With a lucky roll it exploded taking its sister ship down and damaging the battleship.

As the battleship limped forward to close the range the Dwarven destroyers and frigates closed and destroyed the other undead cruisers. Although the Orcas dealt wit the submarines the battleship was damaged heavily and under the combined cannon fire of the opposing fleet was smashed to drift wood. 1 game all!

These were fun rules and it will be nice to start tweaking the fleets and trying some different scenarios and adding some terrain to manoeuvre around. Luke has also ordered their Dystopian wars, a steam punk Victoriana game with blimps and airships, presumably with a similar mechanism that should be fun.

Club Night 10th September

Steve K and I played a WW2 Naval set inthe Mediterranean using the Victory at Sea rules with Luke commanding the first elemnts of the British till he had to go to work, and Steve commanding the rest, while I commanded the glorious Italian Navy. Since I have recently set up a club forum and Steve posted an after action report there I will cheat this week and repost his report here. I will add though that it was great fun and a really good scenario from Steve.

At 20.00 12/9/** a British force comprising 3 J class destroyers supported by the Leander class destroyer HMS Ajax were patrolling west of Crete when they sighted a force of 4 Navigatorri class Italian destroyers that had previously been reported in the area. The British immediately gave chase and Ajax opened fire with her forward turrets, the only guns in the force that would bear and were in range. Notwithstanding the superior composition of the British force, the Italians, displaying the gallantry most often seen in their lighter forces, immediately turned to fight and sought to close to torpedo range. The heavier gunpower of the British force quickly told and left one Italian crippled but, nevertheless, the gamble paid off, two of the British destroyers falling victim to the Italian torpedos.

Despite their initial success, with their most effective weapon now spent the Italians chose discretion and turned away westward at their fullest speed. An accurate salvo from Ajax accounted for one of them, but this proved only to be the one that had already been crippled.

After the pursuit had continued for some time with the British fire failing to take any further effect at the long range and high speed, it became apparant that the Italians were in fact falling back on a strong supporting force, comprising a further 4 Navigattoris supported by the heavy cruisers Pola, Zara and Fiume. Now heavily overmatched, the British force reversed its course and made away towards the east, at the same time sending out urgent sighting reports, The Italians joined up and pursuedmaking copious amounts of smoke. This probably hindered them more than it did their enemies since it meant that only the Pola in the lead could shoot while the surviving British destroyer was unable to fire effectively at the range and the Ajax, which could, could fire only on the leading cruiser anyway.

However, the British flight was not without purpose. To the north-east, a force comprising dorsetshire, Norfolk and Belfast screened by a further J class and two Tribals had received the sighting report and was hurrying to the relief. By good fortune, they arrived on the disengaged side of the Italian force without being sighted due to a surface mist. Hampered by their own smokescreens, the Italians were unable to take proper advantage of their superior concentration whilst the British, concentrating on the Pola as leading ship, caused considerable damage. Worse was to happen for the hapless Italians. Although a lucky shot brought the Ajax, which had previously led a charmed life, to an abrupt halt with catastrophic engine damage, leaving it easy prey for the Italian destroyers which still had torpedos, the arrival of Norfolk and British concentration of fire overwhelmed Pola whilst Zara, perhaps lulled into a false sense of security by the British failure to use torpedos up until then, offered herself as a perfect target for the last survivor of the J class (her sister having now been sunk). The heavy torpedo armament and powerful torpedos of the J class reduced the Zara from a powerful and untouched fighting machine to a sinking wreck.

Two more Italians had by now succumbed to the more powerful guns of their British counterparts and with true adherance to the Italian ideals, the Admiral decided that he should not risk his surviving heavy unit and sought to make his escape. The British heavy cruisers turned in pursuit but were too far in the rear to gain an aggle of fire past the smokescreen he generated whilst still maintaining gun range and the tribals could not close to torpedo range and arc. The final act of the drama occurred when the Belfast fell victim to the torpedos of the last Italian destroyer that had not fired theirs.

At the end, the Italians conceded a narrow victory to the British, with 4 Italian destroyers and 2 heavy cruisers lost to three British destroyers , one heavy and one light cruiser. Honours, however went to the Italian destroyers for their initial agression and for their clever use of the fact the the British could not be sure which of them still had torpedos.