"Zapping" through history, I have been very impressed by the look of the pre - dreadnought ships: battleships were massive (at least in the appearance, if not in real dimensions), cruisers were thin and elegant, the pre - war painting schemes were colorful and striking.
So I decided to purchase a number of models from two main producers, and I ordered ten French and German ships in 1:1500 scale from WTJ and a Russian and a Japanese "starter fleet" in 1:2400 scale from Tumbling Dice.
In the next future I will write another post about these models, but now I'd like to address the topic toward the game rules.
I have to admit that I'm not a fan of ultra-complex rules, neither I like games lasting more than three hours.
Above all, I prefer rules that enhance the movement and the tactic and resolve fire and clash in a fast way, because I don't like to spend too much time in throwing dices and read charts.
While I was painting the models, I read lots of information about these ships and the battles they fought, expecially the Russo - Japanese war, with the main focus on the battles of the Yellow Sea and Tsushima.
I have been very impressed by the very fast technical development of the period in every matter of improvement: steam engines, gunnery, ammunitions, armor, radio communication, mines, torpedoes, and so on.
This, in the period roughly from 1885 to 1905, caused a very, very fast obsolescence of the ships: a modern battlecruiser in 1890 was a scrap just ten years later!
For instance, if you compare two russian battleships, the Imperator Aleksandr II (1891) and the Borodino class (1904), you'll find totally different ships in terms of shape, dimensions, speed, armor, gunnery.
These wide differences between ships (also formally of the same class) make things very interesting in terms of gameplay, so I decided to try a battle with the WTJ free ruleset called Quickfire.
These rules are clear, well written, easy to understand and quite fast, but they don't match entirely my taste because are mainly focused on fire instead of movement; for instance, in terms of gunnery there is only a slight difference between long range, medium range and close range, because it is assumed (quite correctly) that on a normal game surface naval guns are always "in range"; this is correct, because large guns were able to fire more than 15 km away, and medium 10 km away, but in terms of game this means that movement becomes quite unnecessary ...
So, I have begun to develop my own rules.
I started from a very quick and fun ruleset for steampunk airships, whose name is Imperial Skies (from Brigade Models), and added principles and rules taken form other rulesets (like the same Quickfire, or also Bolt Action) in order to increase the realism.
For each ship I picked the data from the real one and, with a bit of calculation, I transferred these data on a small "ship card" (which I put in transparent sleeves in order to erase damages).
These data are: ship nationality, ship name, class, year of commission, speed, "turn ratio", weapons (divided in heavy, medium, light, torpedoes), "target difficulty ratio", size, armor, repair points (depending on the complement).
The game should be fast and fun, allowing to field five or more ships per side and focusing on movement and tactics.
Following are the basics of COAL & GUNS.
GAME SCALE: each game turn is roughly one minute of real time. Scale of distance is 1:3000 circa. The range of guns is not the maximum range, but the most effective range. I made this in order to allow a funny gameplay on a normal game surface of 180x120 cm. So: long range is 5 km; medium range is 3 km; close range is 2 km; torpedo range is 1 km. I know that these ships could fire almost 20 km away, and that the battle of Yellow Sea was fought at almost 15 km of distance, but the chances to hit were quite low, due to the scarce visibility, the quite poor technology of the contemporary rage finders and the different and not always good quality of the ammunitions.
INITIATIVE: randomly generated for each ship. I use the Bot Action system: nationality tokens randomly taken from a small bag. Simple and fun. Initiative defines the sequence of movement. After all ships have moved, all ships fire simultaneously.
MOVEMENT: each model has obviously its speed, taken from the data of the real ship. Each ship has also her "rate of turn" and, in order to turn, I use the turn - rulers made by Brigade Models for Imperial Skies. You have to track your current speed on the ship card, because from a game turn to another you can increase or decrease speed not more than two points.
FIRE: all ships fire simultaneously. Each ship has (written on her card) her number of small guns (under 99mm), medium guns (100 - 199mm) and big guns (over 200mm), plus torpedoes. Each number is the number of dices you throw attempting to damage the target. Depending on the range, on the "gunnery table" you find the number that each different kind of gun needs to score in order to hit, and the damage that each gun can inflict. On the "gunnery modifiers table" you will notice that the most important modifier is the TDR (target difficulty ratio): small ships are more difficult to target.
DAMAGE: this is my own copyright! :-)
I calculated the "size ratio" of each ship (length x beam), then I calculated the "armor ratio" (depending on the thickness of the cuirass, and if the ships used normal, Harvey, Krupp, or Krupp carboned plates). You need to inflict damages unitl the "armor ratio" in order to place a critical damage. So: each time a ship is hit you have to erase a size point, depending on damage; each time the size damage level reach the "armor ratio" you have to erase also a speed and a gun point (for each kind of guns). When all size points are erased the ship sinks. Very simple and, I hope, quite fun and real. I'm very proud of this!
If you are interested, you can find the game on Wargame Vault:
If someone will post a comment I will appreciate.
