Little ships and Nimitz

EDIT

On Wednesday evening, as scheduled, Peter J. brought his WW2 ships along. I hadn't seen them before and I've got to say, for something that small, they looked good to me. They are 1:6000 vessels by Hallmark. Having been to the Magister Militum site today I found models of this Myoko class heavy cruiser were just £9.50 for a pack of four. 

Here are the two fleets that Peter brought along for the evening's game. Basically a mix of cruisers and destroyers: You can just about buy the lot for £40. A single unit of twelve 28mm cavalry from Front Rank cost more than that: 

Now, I've only ever played one game of WW2 naval before and that was years ago. It was a game put on by Brian Hicks (of Leeds Wargame club 'Hicks Centre' fame) using some of his shallow seas stuff. It was okay but, it was a bit complex and it certainly didn't enthuse me to go out and make WW2 naval a thing - on the contrary, in fact. 

In consequence, to be honest, I wasn't expecting much of the planned game. So it came as a nice surprise when the game proved to be both simple to pick up, exciting and fun: The rules used were Nimitz by Sam Mustafa.

We all decided to get stuck in from the start - which is usually the best way to pick up new rules (none of us had played, only Peter had read). Not knowing what ships could do what (beyond move rate and weapon range) there wasn't much tactical thought in evidence. Indeed, before move three was out pretty much everything had drawn up at close quarters and then all hell broke loose - this move to close range was lucky for the Americans because the Japanese would prove to be much better at long range than them.

This photo was taken at the same time as the other shot but, I thought I'd add a pencil to show the scale of these little beauties. The ship size means a big table isn't needed - I doubt we got out of a 5' x 3' all night. Shortly after this shot the formations dispersed a little, and the game got a little (being generous) more tactical. 

The rules were sorted within a couple of turns and the game ticked over very nicely. The firing mechanism was especially sweet because, unlike that other WW2 naval game I've played, it was very simple. Firing is split into three stages: Ships fire secondary armament (cruisers had some, the destroyers didn't), followed by all firing main armament, followed by torpedoes: Basically gunnery was half a dozen modifiers to give you a difficulty factor (0-5), cross referenced with tubes firing on a to hit table to find the number required to hit, then roll d6 - you hit, or you don't; if you hit roll D6 for damage cross referenced with gun penetration at close or long range, minus target armour for effect (tick off damage boxes); then roll a bonus 2D6 for a critical hit. Each fire takes literally seconds to resolve. The effects of damage were also very easy to follow; general movement rules were even simpler.

There is a bit of book keeping to be done on the individual ship roster / damage / gun factor sheet but, this was so easy it is hardly worth going into, except to say that, as with everything by Sam Mustafa, it's all incredibly clear once you've identified the symbols - he's a very 'visual' guy: Once identified and understood they do stick in the mind. 

The whole game, with virtually no looking at the rules, was carried out using this one sided QRS in about two hours. Pretty good for a first game with four players.

The game was a draw with both sides getting quite badly mauled. The Japanese cruisers were better off than the American ones at the end but were much worse off for destroyers.

Will I be going out to buy WW2 naval. Well no, but only because Peter has already done so. Otherwise, I'd be sorely tempted. 

Word to the wise about Sam Mustafa's rules: If you think you will get round to this as a period one day, and you like hard copy versions of rules, buy your copy of Nimitz now! They will sell out pretty quickly (they always do) and there never seems to be a re-print so second copies go for twice the price!

RECOMENDED!

We liked it so much we are playing it again next week.