Wednesday, 11 September 2013

WW1 German battlecruisers

I was asked what the Navwar 1:3000 WW1 battleships look like, so here is the 1st Scouting Group ready to refight the Battle of Jutland.

The entire group, SMS Lutzow at the front, second row SMS Derfflinger and SMS Seydlitz, back row, SMS Moltke and SMS Von der Tann.
 SMS Lutzow (in the foreground)
 SMS Derfflinger
 SMS Seydlitz
 SMS Moltke
 SMS Von der Tann

With the 100th Anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War fast approaching and the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Jutland coming up in 2016, I shall have to dust off the fleets and seek out a set of playable rules to get these ships in action.  Then all I'll need is a gymnasium to play out the battle in.

Thanks for looking.
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4 comments:

  1. Richard Naylor12 September 2013 at 08:22

    They're not bad little models are they. Never quite solved the rules issue myself, there always seemed to be too much emphasis on detail to make fleet actions feasible.

    Cheers

    Richard

    ReplyDelete
  2. Andy Canham12 September 2013 at 14:03

    Hi Richard

    I like them - not too difficult to paint to look the part, it's just the colossal size of playing area needed to get the right feel of the game. General Quarters seems to be the most commonly played at the club, but my eyes sometimes glaze over when I try and read through all the small print. I quite like the old SPI Dreadnaught game system for firing the capitol ships, but the cruisers, destroyers and torpedo boats were too symbolised for me as they were treated as entire flotillas.

    Cheers

    Andy

    ReplyDelete
  3. Richard Naylor12 September 2013 at 21:12

    Hi Andy,

    I've tried various rules (Fire When Ready, Floating Castles and Stations Manned and Ready) for my collection of Ironclads and Predreadnoughts but never really found anything that really strikes a good balance between playability and detail.

    Fire When Ready was about the best of the bunch, we even managed to refight the battle of the Yalu though my part of the Japanese fleet did take quite a pasting! Floating Castles on the other hand was a nightmare to play as each broadside involved the rolling of 30-50 dice!

    Cheers

    Richard

    ReplyDelete
  4. Andy Canham12 September 2013 at 23:22

    Not come across any of those rule sets previously. I've looked through a couple of free wargames rules off the net - "There's something wrong with our ships" looks promising. I suspect I'll finish up going with General Quarters as a) I have it and b) the club has players using it already. Still worth a look at the others when I gget a chance. Any idea who publishes or stocks Fire When Ready?

    Cheers

    Andy

    ReplyDelete