The recent release of 'Nimitz' by Sam Mustafa, a WW2 big scale naval set of rules, generated a fair bit of interest at my club with a few people wanting to try it. It isn't something I'd usually be keen on but Sam's rules are always innovative and, even when I wasn't that keen on them ('Longstreet' and 'Maurice' for example) they take a different approach to many other sets.
Another factor was that while Andy and I both love playing 'Rommel' we had pretty much exhausted them between us and the games were becoming less interesting so as Andy was keen to play as well I thought I'd give it a go!
I had a quick run through of the battle rules with Dave a few weeks ago which went well, very easy to pick up and very much in the Mustafa way in that it concentrated on the bigger picture rather than the minute details .
Andy and I then jumped literally in at the deep end with a Halsey campaign, I had 200 points of British while Andy had 200 points of Germans. My task was to escort a convoy past Norway on it's way to Murmansk.
My force is split into 9 'Task Forces' six of which are dummies and three of which contain ships (green tokens). Andy's force had five TF I think. The board also shows the position of storms which help/hinder both sides!. The day is split into three periods (AM, PM and Night) with the convoy only moving at night (I assume to represent their slow progress not that they anchor during the day!):
The Germans sortie out from Altafjord:
A German flying boat attempts to spot one of the RN TF's:
It fails so another German scouting plane is sent out:
The Germans close in! TF's 4, 5 and 7 have been revealed by the Germans to be dummies:
Action stations! A German destroyer investigates TF 6 and finds a whole fleet of RN ships (HMS
Rodney,
Howe,
York,
Belfast,
Spartan,
Jervis,
Khartoum,
Kelly and
Jackal):
Given the odds we don't play this on table and use 'Mikawa' to resolve the fight:
The action is short and the German destroyer is sunk but not before it reports back on what it has found:
Having found the main RN fleet the Germans make numerous air attacks on them:
Some aircraft are shot down, some driven off but a few get through and successfully make bombing runs:
Th fleet desperately fights off the Germans:
HMS
Spartan takes a bomb hit doing considerable damage:
HMS
Belfast is also hit:
Storms move and are dissipated, TF plough on and the convoy starts to make it's way across the danger zone:
TF 6 (the RN main fleet) moves to engage the Germans:
The Germans launch more air strikes:
HMS
Spartan is sunk!
The opposing forces are converging and battle is imminent:
The Germans discover TF9 which consists of HMS Implacable, Norfolk, Offa and Orwell. They decide to engage at night as that way the Implacable won't be able to launch any aircraft:
At this point we were on to the night phase of Day 3 so we decided to fight the battle on the table then break to continue later:
The opposing forces - the Germans have the
Hipper and three destroyers:
Just a note that the
Belfast was further damaged in one of the air attacks:
The opposing forces deploy, the RN wish to save the
Illustrious and
Orwell which deploy ready to disengage. The
Norfolk and
Offa prepare to hold up the Germans:
German shooting is poor and the
Norfolk and
Offa race in to engage the
Hipper and a Destroyer. The RN demonstrate excellent gunnery sinking the German Destroyer:
The
Implacable and
Orwell have successfully disengaged and the other two German destroyers are literally left in the dark. More in hope than expectation the
Norfolk and the
Offa launch torpedoes at the
Hipper. The
Devonshire misses but the
Offa's torpedoes strike home devastatingly sending the mighty
Hipper to the bottom of the sea!
So with Day Three now at an end the overall position is below:
The RN is half way to exiting the convoy to Murmansk and has lost HMS Spartan with HMS Belfast badly damaged. TF 6 and 9 have been identified by the Germans while TF 2, 3 and 8 remain unidentified.
The Germans have lost the Hipper, two Destroyers and a few aircraft. TF D has been identified and now only consists of two Destroyers while the other two German TF are yet to be identified.
A really enjoyable game in which we made a few mistakes with the rules and, certainly in my case, perhaps didn't do some things I should have! The whole thing is very thoughtful and I suspect, like Rommel, while apparently simple it is also subtle. It is certainly more thought provoking than the similar 'Scharnhorst' campaign system for 'Blucher' and, in a similar way, sets up more interesting games than the usual just try and kill the opposition ones.
Hopefully we will be able to continue the campaign soon, will the convoy battle through or will the wolves manage to get among the sheep and sink them?!
I must have been inspired as I've now ordered all the ships I chose for this campaign (all the models above were Andy's very pretty ones). A bit like CWC the forces needed are relatively cheap and easy to paint up which is a good thing.