Fight For The Fjords

Ralph put of a WWII naval game for us on Thursday, which was the last club meet of the year. He aimed for something different and mildly spectacular and it looked great. Three tables in an unusual kinked configuration represented a Norwegian fjord, whilst the ships were 1/700th kits covering destroyers and a single light cruiser. The rules were Nimitz.

A force of twelve allied destroyers in three columns are steaming at full speed into the fjord.

At the other end is a German heavy-water storage facility. The destroyers have to shell it. The Germans has three destroyers and a light cruiser to defend it with.

On the middle table was  fifth German ship, a guardship (also a destroyers). So the whole action would be fought with 4" guns and torpedoes, aside from the mighty 6" guns on the light cruiser.

One of the issues that the British had was that there were a lot of ships in a confined space. Movement became an issue of traffic management. Our plan was to send two columns in at high speed to engage the enemy ships, one at a slower speed to act as a mopping-up reserve and a third to head for the target and bombard it.

I was part of the British force. We onto  the central table virtually unmolested; a couple of minor its from the guardship and nothing more. The guardship took a pasting from concentrated fire though. No surprise there!

The rest of the Germans engaged the lead British vessels.

The light cruise Konigsberg ended up far to close to the cliffs of the fjord, cutting down its manuever options and leaving it shooting effectively but unable to turn into the main British force. Amazingly none of teh British destroyers could get a clear torpedo shot at it!

The German destroyers didn't last long. They sank one British ship, but were quickly wiped out.

With the light cruiser too far out of the fight to be useful the British now had a clear run at the target, and we called the game, claiming a British victory.

Thanks to Ralph for a fun, and surprisingly quick, game. Nimitz really rattles along when you know what you are doing.

With some time to spare I played a quick game of 'Blood, Sweat & Cheers' with Daniel, who hadn't played before. He wanted 'one of those guys with a net' so ended up with the retiarius Cupido. I took a classic opponent, the secutor Astinax.

Daniel controlled the game early on as I couldn't find an opening against the speedy retiarius.. I also got lightly wounded, which slowed me down somewhat.

On the plus side, whilst I couldn't get in a decent attack, Daniel found that I had ways of blocking every effective attack he made against me. To be fair several times that involved throwing sand at my foe (much to the crowd's displeasure), but it got me out of a tight fix a couple of times.

At one stage I got knocked down, but Cupido still couldn't finish me off. I even managed some rolling evades and ended up on the other side of the arena before finally being able to stand up.

And from that point on I found my stride. Astinax started to get some decent attacks together and I whittled down Daniel's gladiator, eventually striking him down for a win. The crowd were in my favour by that stage but he rolled well for missio and Cupido was spared.

So two fun games  to finish my club wargaming year!