Boating about in mess (WW2 1:1200 coastal naval)(battle report, 18 April)

[Wirelizard]

Having done a Workshop thread on my coastal terrain, I figured I should start an actual thread over here on the WW2 forum for the actual games we're playing with tiny boats!

All of my boats so far are from Last Square, the really beautifully sculpted and cast Figurehead range of 1:1200 scale coastal warfare vessels.

Some of my Royal Navy, trawlers in the foreground and various flavours of Fairmile D MTB/MGB behind.


...and some Kreigsmarine Schnellboote and Raumsboote.


I threw everthing onto temporary cardstock bases with bluetac before the game. Here's all my boats sailing across our breakfast bar countertop...


This last Sunday we ran a test game of Narrow Seas by David Manley, with four Kreigsmarine S-boats attacking a British coastal convoy of a tanker and a freighter being escorted by four RN Fairmile D MGB gunboats.

I didn't get many photos during the game and we got a bunch of rules wrong (and deliberately ignored others to keep the first ever game from bogging down), but it was a good game overall.

This is fairly early, with S-boats approaching from the top of the photo and the Fairmile Ds and their merchant charges right down at the bottom near the coast.

The game ended in a Kreigsmarine minor victory, with one sunk freighter, one sunk Fairmile traded for one S-boat scuttled by it's crew in utterly wrecked condition.

We'll be running more games of Narrow Seas, and trying some other rules options as well.

There's a bit more over on the blog: http://www.warbard.ca/2020/02/09/an-actual-game-of-tiny-ships/
More painted ship pics here: http://www.warbard.ca/2020/02/05/tiny-ships-painted/
...and lots of scenery pics in that thread over in Workshop I linked to at the start of this post.

Any other Narrow Seas (or other coastal naval rules) players out there in LAFland? Curious to know what more experienced naval gamers think of the rules, the entire genre is utterly new to me!

[Wirelizard]

So we had our second game of coastal warfare this afternoon, two games in fact, using the TooFatLardies-published Coastal Patrol from their Summer 2011 Special.

Quite a bit faster playing than Narrow Seas, much less dice rolling overall. The turning circles/turn arcs are smaller so the boats feel a bit more agile, and I really like the TFL-influenced "roll for number of actions per activation" thing, which forces some quick and hard decision making.

The rules have some definite gaps, though. Smoke rules are missing entirely, chunks of the rules could definitely have done with a bit of further polishing, but the overall feel is good. I like the damage modelling quite a lot, more so than either Narrow Seas or Warlord's Cruel Seas (which is overly simple, just being "mark off check boxes until you run out, then you sink" as far as I can tell) as it's light on bookkeeping and dice rolling but works well.

No new pictures, because I managed not to take a single photo during either game we played.

More verbiage over on the blog: http://www.warbard.ca/2020/02/16/tiny-ships-a-game-of-coastal-patrol/

[Wirelizard]

Bringing my own WW2 coastal naval thread back from hibernation, we're getting back into some boating about in mess later today so I've been painting some of the second Last Square/Figurehead order I did back in March, finally.



The niftiest things in the new round of painting were a pair of German Vorpostenboote or patrol trawlers. Lots of neat detail on them, and the two ships are subtly but noticably different from each other, which is cool. I'm also really pleased with the disruption camo grey-on-grey paint scheme and how it turned out. I'll probably do one more round of weathering and highlighting, but they're tabletop ready now.

There's a few more photos and such over on the blog: http://www.warbard.ca/2020/07/25/new-ww2-tiny-boats/

[Wirelizard]

Painted up a half dozen impossibly tiny WW2 airplanes this weekend, including doing freehand (recognizable!) national insignia, because wargaming is insane.



Three RAF Coastal Command Beauforts/Beaufighters (the minor differences being totally invisible at 1/1200 scale!) and a matching trio of Luftwaffe Ju-88s, all chosen because they did maritime strike stuff for most of the war in all the relevant Western European theatres.

More pictures, painting details, and such over on the blog: http://www.warbard.ca/2020/07/27/tiny-boats-and-even-tinier-planes/

Curiousity question: I can tell this is series of posts is getting looked at, but I feel like I'm talking to myself. Is there that little interest in coastal warfare here on LAF?

[robh]

...... but I feel like I'm talking to myself. Is there that little interest in coastal warfare here on LAF?

 
Don't take it to heart, your boats and shorelines look great but small scale games don't get much love on LAF, and as far as WW2 coastal gaming goes, if it isn't the new shiny junk from Warlord it doesn't seem to count anyway.

We play coastal battles in 1/3000, so even smaller than yours and too small to bother with pictures. Using David's old "Schnellboote" rules, the forerunner of Narrow Seas. I have not picked up the new ones yet so am interested in seeing your thoughts on how they play.

You could do with a decent blue cloth rather than the pale grey though!

[Plynkes]

I'm sorry, brother, just not my cup of tea, I fear. I think something like this is always going to struggle for attention against some of the more photogenic scales and genres to be found on LAF. I don't think there's much to be done about it, really. Those flashy 28s are always going to hog the glory.

But don't give up. I do like your little planes. Do you have any Sunderlands? Suppose they aren't really "coastal", or are they? Anyway, I'd like to see a Sunderland. After the Mozzie it is probably my favourite WW2 plane.

[Elbows]

It happens all the time in various sub-forums.  The smaller the scale...the less interest there is in photos, etc.

You'll occasionally stumble into someone who's also a die-hard fan of your scale and game, etc.  I pop into threads like this to take a look, but I rarely have anything to say - short of "nice work", which seems a bit...lazy?

Generally speaking, even scales like 3mm, 6mm, 10mm etc...really struggle to captivate someone who doesn't play the game/scale.  As stated above they just aren't particularly photogenic or awe-inspiring in photos.  Naval games suffer even more because of the general lack of terrain.  Even my 15mm WW2 thread gets scant attention because I don't have pretty models or tables most of the time.  My other threads where I post more nicely painted minis and crazy tables...they get far more "traffic".

My blog doesn't get a heap of traffic, but it's a fair amount.  I just use the blog to motivate myself - the lack of comments etc. doesn't bug me.  Just keeping plodding along!

[BeneathALeadMountain]

Only just seen your thread and seems excellent. Off to check out your blogs posts. I’m pleased to see small scale ships as I have recently become interested in WW2 naval and have General Quarters 3 for big stuff but would like to do some coastal. Have you played Action Stations? I believe it’s a more complicated and earlier version of narrow seas but don’t have any real experience of either.

Keep it up,
BALM

[emosbur]

I own Action Stations. Is it very different from Narrow Seas?

And another question, not directly related, but...

Who makes torpedo boats and the like at 1/600?

Milo.

[flatpack]

We’ve played Narrow Seas, and had good fun.

[Wirelizard]

OK, I no longer feel like I'm talking to myself. 

I hadn't actually heard of the Action Stations rules before, might have to snag the PDF off Wargame Vault to test and add to the collection. Having just looked at the sample rules visible on the WV site, I like the fact that it has Crew Morale rules front and centre.

I've also just rediscovered The Quick and the Dead over on WV, which looks like an interestingly different system. Any opinions?

We found Narrow Seas to have a really dice-heavy fire resolution system that slowed the game down significantly, although I really like just about everything else about it as a rule set.

Coastal Patrol has a really elegant fire resolution system but is woefully incomplete in a bunch of other ways.

There is no such thing as a perfect rules set.

Nice looking boats, flatpack. What scale are they? 1/300? 1/600?

[jambo1]

Just stumbled my way onto this thread, really interesting, love the planes, great work on them! Just getting into small scale wargaming myself, 2mm stuff, so this is a very interesting thread.

[flatpack]

Thank you for the nice comments on my boats. They are 1/600th.

[Commander Roj]

Only just seen this. Hmm, very tempting. I like this size for coastal forces action. I see they are available from Magister Militum in the UK. I have a lot of 1:600 aircraft, but I could use those in forced perspective...

[BeneathALeadMountain]

Cmdr.Roj there is always Heroics & Ros that do a coastal range in 1:600 and is one of the few ranges that they have available currently.

Flat pack: being new to this bit of WW2 can you recommend a small selection of ships for Germany and Britain to get me started.

BALM