Another Victory At Sea Battle

This game pitted the Japanese with three heavy cruisers, one light cruiser, and three destroyers. Will had three Fletcher class destroyers, and one Iowa class battleship. Guess who one? I did manage to sink all his destroyers, but he annihilated all of my ships mostly with the battleship. Trying to damage the Iowa was like trying to kill Superman using a pellet gun. Even my long lance torpedoes could not penetrate the Iowa's anti-torpedo belt. It didn't help that he got the initiative for all but one turn. Initiative not only determines who moves, but also who shoots. Some pictures:

Sinister grin on Will's face

My cruisers valiantly engage the Iowa

Float plane view shortly before the carnage

Couple of things:

First, Will failed to tell me that if I launched my torpedos at his battleship at an angle to its broadside, there were lower odds of hitting, but I could have bypassed the Iowa's torpedo belt if they hit.

Torpedoes are crap in this game. The Japanese really weren't all that effective, but the American's are even worse. You have to be point blank to hit anything with a torpedo. In a duel between my destroyer and his, we only hit each other when we used our guns.

As I said above, initiative also determines who shoots first. I don't think I would have had a chance anyway, but at least one of my cruisers was quickly sunk before it had a chance to fire back at the battleship.  

I had a good time anyway. I had just given a final exam earlier that morning, and there was some drama regarding a student who failed to show up for it. This entire semester has been, as my son calls it, "scibbiddy." Due to financial issues, not of the faculty's doing, we have been bearing the brunt of things, which has culminated in a whole lot of calamity, including the resignation of my department chair in anger.  Any time I can get away from work issues and dive into something fun, I am a happy camper. 

Victory At Sea

I got to play a test Warlord Games' Victory at Sea naval rules at Will's gaming shop. It was SO nice to have a game and interact with others. It was a quickie set up. I had a Japanese heavy cruiser and two destroyers. My opponent, a friend of Will's, had the USS Northampton heavy cruiser and three Fletcher class DDs. Will acted as umpire. 

It was a pretty crazy battle. Ships were constantly circling each other, particularly the destroyers to get a torpedo launch in. Torpedoes have a very short effective range. Only my cruiser had the Japanese long lance torpedoes. Bottom line, the Americans sunk all my destroyers and heavily damaged my cruiser. I badly damaged his destroyers and sunk the Northampton with my cruiser's torpedoes. It  was decided that it was a minor victory for the Japanese in terms of points. I suppose the American destroyers could have pursued, but all of them had already launched their torpedoes. I had a reload of torpedoes ready to go, and probably would have taken down at least two of the destroyers before their guns got close enough.

The rules seem ok. I would need to play a few more games. It seemed like torpedoes are not at all effective particularly in terms of ranges. I'd have to compare it to other rules. I'm not sure if I want to buy the models. They aren't bad, but frankly, at 1/1800 scale, they could have better detail. I think GHQ's 1/2400 figures have a lot more detail to them.