Black Seas: Out of the Fog, Alone

Sailing the Black Seas Alone 

Since I am stuck at home, I have decided to play through a few of the Black Seas scenarios solo so that I can get an idea of the rules and what I like and don't like about them.

Because I only have US ships painted at the moment, I will imagine these battles taking place during the Civil War -- even though on checking the only ship on the Confederate side (of this type) was the United States (they didn't change the name which I have always found a bit odd) and it was stripped down and used as a harbour defence vessel. The Union had more ships of the vintage covered in Black Seas but even there they were regarded as obsolete. As an aside, I do hold out hope that Warlord will eventually do some Civil War vessels in this scale (there is a fair bit out there in 1/600 anyway but it is nice to have the common ships in plastic)

Scenario One -- Out of the Fog

This scenario is basically a duel between two ships. There is a bonus of 4 victory points for the first ship to exit if it is undamaged (and 2 if it is damaged) with each ship getting 1 victory point for each point of damage inflicted on its opponent. Since the windward ship always moves first it makes sense that it go to battle sails and move across the board as fast as it can (there is a -2 penalty to hit for the firer is under full sails so there maybe a cost to this when combat starts)

Here are the ships ready to go. The windward ship (further from the island) is going to sail as fast as it can across the sea and the leeward ship will turn as close to the wind as it can to get into combat as soon as possible. I will be using all the advanced rules particularly the More Realistic Wind Effect on Movement and the Fire as She Bears rules.

A roll of 6 indicates the wind does not change and the windward ship sails speedily across the map moving 3 times its 5" Rate of knots.

The Leeward ship moves a single multiple of 5" and turns to be as close to the wind as allowed.

The Leeward ship has the enemy in its firing arc but the Light Cannon bow chasers are just out of range (14")

The wind remains constant so the Windward ship carries on at Full Sails -- it will take a penalty to hit but will get the first shot. It is also going to sail off the table next turn barring catastrophic damage or a collision

A Frigate normally gets 2 Heavy Cannon, 1 Light Cannon and 1 Carronade but because this is its first broaside it gets a bonus of an extra Heavy Cannon and an extra Light Cannon. The only modifier that applies is the -2 for shooter under Full Sail so a 3 or less will hit

The 1 on the Carronade die indicates a critical hit and there is one other hit from a Heavy Cannon. This does 5 points of damage to the target (3 from the Carronade and 2 from the Heavy) A D6 roll of 1 gives a Quarter Deck critical hit meaning the ship will need to make a skill check to change sail level or direction.

Fortunately the Leeward ship can get its target in its broadside by continuing straight at light sail. The same dice will be rolled this time needing a 5 (It could fire high with a -2 hoping to slow the enemy with mast criticals but the odds of that working seem worse that just hoping for lots of damage)

One more hit than the enemy for 6 points of damage. The light cannon critical rolls a 6 for the critical setting the Windward ship on fire. A D6 roll of 2 causes 2 additional points of damage.

Right now the Leeward Ship has 8 points and the Windward ship 5. The Windward ship will only get 2 bonus points for exiting so it will lose if it leaves the play area this turn.

The wind remains steady and the captain of the Windward ship decides to concentrate on the battle rather than devoting crew to putting out the fire  A skill check of 2 means the fire continues this time doing 6 points of damage. By dropping to Battle Sails and turning as sharply as possible the ship remains barely in the play area (using the island to indicate the edge of the play area is wreaking havoc with the narrative at this point!)

The ship has not taken half damage yet so still fires its regular broadside

But it looks like the crew are distracted by the fire and the guns miss their mark.

The Leeward ship starts to tack across the wind to get to its target.

The carronades are out of range but the other cannons hit twice for 3 more points of damage and another critical from the light cannon

The critical is a rudder hit on the the stricken Windward ship (which is no longer actually the windward ship but I will stick with the names)

The Leeward ship is now moving first but becuase it is facing into the wind it needs to make a skill check to complete its tack. It fails and moves straight forward and is now considered anchored.

Oddly, there is no anchored token in the otherwise generous sheet of tokens provided with the game so I am using a whale token. There is nothing I can find that stops the ship using the Fire as She Bears rule before going into irons so it fires away

Even without the -2 modifier for Fire as She Bears these shots weren't hitting anything!

The windward captain is going to try and put out the fire this turn but rolls a compulsory turn for the rudder hit meaning it can't do damage control. The skill check for the fire fails and it burns doing 2 more damage to the ship. Even with the compulsory turns the ship moves off the map.

The Windward ship ends up with 5 points for damage plus 2 for exiting first for a total of 7. The Leeward ship has 19 points for damage (maybe the fire shouldn't count for points but either way it is clear which ship won)

Single ship duels are usually pretty pointless from a gaming point of view but this was a good introduction to the mechanics of the the game. They are a bit simple and even the advanced movement rules leave something to be desired but I think with a few more ships this will be a pretty good game.

I will probably play the second introductory scenario in a few days and hopefully I will get to play with an opponent some time in the not too distant future

Sailing the Black Seas

Since the beginning of my gaming days, I have always had an interest in the Age of Sail. Back when I was playing board wargames in Junior High and High School, Wooden Ships and Iron Men was always a favourite.

 I can always remember an article in the General magazine which had special rules for various fictional captains and the rule for Nicholas Ramage (from the books by Dudley Pope) was that he suceeded on any task on a roll from 1-6 (on a D6). The term "Ramage Roll" took on a life of its own in my gaming group for many years.

Several years later after moving to Ottawa, Tod ran some War of 1812 games using (I think) 1/1200 ships using Fire as She Bears for the rules. I bought the rules, which I liked and still have somewhere, and some ships. I found the process of rigging so frustrating that I ended up literally throwing the ship across the room and decided I would never ever try and build anything like that ever again.


I had one relapse from this when I played an American Civil War naval game at an HMGS con and I bought the Smoke on the Water rules and then ordered the Monitor and Virginia (no sails and masts there!) and then got a sailing ship that was present at Hampton Roads (USS Congress) and gave it away within days of getting it in the mail.

When Warlord Games announced the upcoming release of Black Seas I was very interested but cauatious -- Mike and I decided we would split the starter box. When it arrived I had 4 brigs and 2 frigates to build (I think we got a few extra from Wargames Illustrated). I decided to build the US Navy -- Imagining battles against the Barbary Pirates and the Quasi-war with France (though the reality was likely to be fighting Mike' British).

I got the 4 brigs built and painted and one of them rigged and decided it wasn't as horrible as I remembered -- I think the larger scale and the solidity of the plastic models made rigging easier. Scheduling conflicts got in the way of actually playing a game but I went ahead and oredered some more ships -- the US Fleet box, the USS Constitution, some Merchants and Gunboats. I also got the terrain pack which had some shore batteries and a Martello tower (and a few other odds and ends)

Just as I had a good force to play with finished (2 frigates, 4 brigs and 4 gunboat squadrons) the shutdown started and Mike had to self-isolate after returning from the US so it looked like I wouldn't get to play for a while. Just before Warlord shut down their shipping I ordered the Schooners and the USS Essex though they have not yet arrived.

The current painting status is that the Merchants are nearly finished painting.

 the terrain is underway

and the USS Constitution, USS United States, USS President, USS Constellation, USS Chesapeake and USS Congress (yes, I got it again!) are assembled and primed (except the masts -- I am not putting those in until I finished painting)

When Mike Posted last week about Out of the Box games last week, I had a look at what they had and ended up buying the French Fleet box so I am not going to run out of ships to paint soon.

Well I should get to painting now. I guess my next blog will talk about the rules for Black Seas unless I get distracted by something else...

Painting Fantasy

Being cooped up in the house has given me an excuse/reason to start adding to my blog again.

Since I last wrote anything I have had a pretty big case of Painters block but I have played quite a few games of Team Yankee, Saga: Age of Magic, The Walking Dead: All out War and Gaslands.

When I was having some discussion with Ed about my lack of painting motivation -- I had some SPQR Romans and Saga: Age of Magic Undead on the painting table but they really weren't getting anywhere -- and I decided largely out of nowhere I would paint a dragon. I did some searching for figures and I came across both the Wizkid Nolzur's line and the Realmsmith.tv tutorial videos. I ordered the  Young Blue Dragon and picked up the colours I didn't have at the Hobby Centre.

I was surprised by both the price and the quality of the Blue Dragon. It cost less than dragon miniatures did decades ago when I was last buying fantasy figures. It might no be as detailed as a really good metal mini but it is still very good -- I think the detail on this softish plastic is better (or at least different) than on more traditional hard plastic. The light weight of plastic is nice in a model that is flying.

The Realmsmith tutorial was also very good. It is an archive of a livestream and probably could be better with some editing but that would be a lot of work. The techniques were mostly ones I had used before but it was somewhat therapeutic to have someone tell me what to do and just paint along without giving it much thought.

I enjoyed the process so much that I ordered the Brass Dragon as soon as I finished.

By then I developed a dragon addiction and ordered the other 5 young dragons that were available (Bronze, Copper, White,  Green and Black). I think the Red and Gold are available now and I will probably get them in the near future.

 I had a justification (if one is needed) in that I could use them as the Morrow Island warband for the Horde Faction.

Once they were all painted, I did just that and fielded them (and a Chimera I had painted years ago to have 8 monsters) in a battle against Mike

I have since painted a Frost Giant and

a Cloud Giant which could work in the Morrow Island List

As well as  a Night Hag, Green Hag and a Bullette which were fun to paint but have less immediate use.

Finally a Kraken which I have plans to use as particularly hazardous terrain  in a Saga: Age of Magic game and by the time my Black Seas ships arrived from Warlord games I was back in my painting groove.

I have a few other unpainted giants and odds and ends that Realmsmith has tutorials for so I will have them in case I run into painters block again (and I think ultimately I will want to get some monsters that count as Behemoths for Saga: Age of Magic.

As another note, this was the first time that I had used the Vallejo Game Color and I noticed that they were different than the Model Color and Model Air that I was used to (and I liked it better to be honest). I did a bit of  digging and the different lines are slightly different in terms of composition (as well as colour, obviously) so it is probably worth trying all the ranges and seeing what you like best.

Assuming that I remain cooped up, expect a posting about Black Seas in the not too distant future.

Some thoughts on the Sarrisa Precision Terrain Tiles

When I saw that Sarissa was releasing a system for modular terrain, I was interested but cautious. I have always felt that most modular terrain systems have advantages and disadvantages but that the negatives outweigh the positives.

My first attempt at a modular system was with GHQ's foam Geo-Hex system (I realized after writing this that Geo-Hex is a different product the GHQ one is called Terrain Maker)

In 15mm I have made a few set piece terrain items but I have made no effort to make them modular -- except in the case of the pontoon bridge where I made sure the river would fit with the Battlefront rivers that I use. I think that for most 15mm games I want to have complete flexibility of the map to make what ever I need but I still like the look of all those set-pieces. The farm, for example, looks much better with everything in place rather than just randomly placed. And some like Monte Cassino are big enough that they really just define the map on their own. As you can see from the photos, I never got around to finishing off the edges!

In 28mm games I play the maps are different -- smaller (2'x2' to 4'x4' vs the 4'x8' that my 15mm games are) and generally have one main focus such as a single building or group of buildings. (I guess my Hail Caesar games don't really follow this pattern but I don't plan to use the terrain tiles for them). There is less need for complete flexibility in this case and there is greater scope for adding in detailed terrain both of which make terrain tiles more attractive.

My long term plan is to make tiles for each of the buildings I have -- the motel might be a set of tiles but even in that case they will probably only go together one way. In the short term to see if the tile concept really does work for me I will get the 3x3 starter set and work up some road and open ground pieces. The big concern I have with the wavy edges is how the boundary between tiles will be handled -- my basic "edge-crossing" terrain will be a road bounded by a sidewalk. I am going to use sandpaper as the base material for my paved roads so that can be cut to match the edge but the sidewalks are likely to be more tricky. The one thing I learned from doing the SAGA terrain last Christmas time is that the actual terrain you make is always better than the perfect terrain you don't make so I will just charge on an hope for the best

I have ordered the starter set and am planning to work on it over the Labour Day weekend but I have never been particularly good at sticking to those plans!
. I really didn't do much with it as I didn't really have much in the way of skills or money at the time (this would have been late high school - early university) but even the little bit of work we did on it made me think that it was ok for hills (but the hexes weren't much of an advantage over a single piece of Styrofoam) and would be good for a sunken river but to do a whole table size of flat terrain was just extra work

Flames of War: Stalingrad Campaign battle report

This weekend I played a game of Flames of War at the Ottawa Miniatures Gamers meeting against Martin. This was the third round of games for the Stalingrad Firestorm camapaing but it was the first that I have played in.

I wasn't really super-excited to get anything new for this campaign but I did decide last weekend I would assemble and paint the 10 Plastic Soldier Company Churchills that I had bought (I think for a D-Day campaign several years ago). I airbrushed them with their base colour and added a bit of detail and shading and I think they turned out OK. I could have but some decals on them but to be honest, I really couldn't be bothered. I do have some 15mm tanks that I have put a lot of effort into but at the moment I don't really enjoy working on them relative to 28mm figures.

To round out the force -- the 10 Churchills (3 units of 3 plus HQ) cost 90 of my 100 points so I added in a Reconnaissance Platoon to take advantage of the spearhead rule and an SMG Company in case I had to hold an objective. I also had a unit of 2 IL-2 Shturmoviks as my Firestorm unit.

I set up with all the Churchills in the deployment bubble created by the Recon troops. Looking at this picture, I probably should have just forced the fight for the near objective by the bridge but I decided to try and force the Germans to spread out a bit so attacked on a broader front.

Martin had both 8.8cm AA and Marders which were the two things I feared. I had  hoped that my planes would be able to at least distract the 8.8cm guns but they were no where to be seen in the first 2 turns.

The 88s and Marders took out 2 of the Churchills on the objective on the first turn and the other Churchill pushed back the infantry and mortars along the river line. A unit of 2 captured T-34s appeared but I destroyed one and the other failed its last man standing roll. I was really worried but on the second turn the Marders and 88s missed (there might have been on or 2 hits from the Marders but I made my armour saves).

My IL-2s finally came in and took out one of the 88s and then other failed its last man standing roll (my lone Churchill on the bridge kept making its roll turn after turn). The other Churchills were taking out the Mortars and 10.5cm guns (which in hindsight was not really a good use of their time). I was ignoring the Panzer IIIs as their short 5.0cm guns couldn't penetrate from the front (the could get a tie)

On the last turn all my Churchill were bailed out and I couldn't get enough back in to make my Force Morale and lost. It ended up as a 6-3 due to the German losses.

It was a very enjoyable game and I think it looked like it was going to either way throughout the game.

I am still not super enthusiastic about Flames of War V4 but I will play games when they are available. I should be free to play next month so maybe I will try and infantry force next time.