Rescue

I put myself down to run a game of Torpedoes & Tides at our club last night, and Daniel was up for a game. When looking for a suitable scenario I was inspired by some browsing I'd done on the wartime service of Doctor Who actors (we're watching a lot of Doctor Who at the moment). Anyway, it turns out that the Second Doctor (1966-69), Patrick Troughton, served in the RNVR as an officer on an MGB then an MTB and finally a Fairmile B motor-launch on rescue duty. So in honour of this discovery I thought I'd run the Rescue scenario from the rules. 

Here's Patrick Troughton (highlighted) and the crew of MGB 603 in 1942.

And again (second from left) with the crew of  ML 514 in 1944.

It should be added that he was mentioned in dispatches for one of his actions. 

Anyway, I set up the sea rescue scenario from the book, with the British running the rescue, but added an armed trawler (HMS Sodor) to the British force and a V-boat with an 88mm gun to the German patrol. 

The British had a single MGB, two Fairmile B motor launches and the trawler. The German patrol consisted of two KFKs, an R-boat and the V-boat. We designated one ML as having Lieutenant Troughton on board. 

Daniel, playing the British. got lucky; the first of the three possible locations for the downed aircrew turned out to be the one, and they rolled OK for how many actions it would take to rescue them. Laying smoke the MGB zipped in to pick them up. The Germans were still shapes in the darkness at this stage. 

As the rescue started the Germans came in, guns blazing. The MGB started taking hits. Shooting was easy thanks to an unhelpful full moon.

The V-boat fired its 88mm and inflicted a damaging hit on  the little British boat. 

The rescue attempt was not looking good. Attempting it in the face of an advancing German patrol may not have been the best plan. 

I got too excited though. I activated one of teh KFKs to shoot at the gunboat, which was all well and good, but the mandatory movement saw me collide with the R-boat I should have activated first so that it was out of the way. Silly me.

The R-boat was seriously damaged. 

Thanks to the full moon everything was pretty much revealed now, and firing enthusiastically. HMS Sodor used its 4" gun to take a pop at the V-boat, and damaged it. 

The firing was too much for the MGB, which broke off from the rescue and headed for home, It had completed about half the mission though. 

Another shot from HMS Sodor sank the V-boat. 

And that was too much for the damaged R-boat who also headed for home. 

So I was now left with two KFKs against a British force that was still looking pretty sprightly. I took a potshot at Troughton's boat, but just caused everyone to duck for cover. 

The KFK then ran alongside HMS Sodor, causing no damage but being set on fire in return.

It really wasn't going well for the Germans. 

The other Fairmile B came up and finished off the rescue mission. Both f my KFKs were either too damaged or too far away to prevent this. 

The Fairmile headed for home, with the whole aircrew now rescued. 

As it did so, HMS Sodor finished off the damaged KFK. 

So the British rescued all of the downed aircrew and, in the process, sank two German vessels. A convincing win for the British.

And Patrick Troughton survived. 

Remember The Maine

Once again I find myself apologising for the lack of posts here. With one thing and another I've not been gaming as much, nor pondering projects. However yesterday I did dig out this old boardgame that I bought more than 30 years ago. In fact I bought it, and hadn't looked at it since. 

'Remember The Maine' covers the Spanish-American War in the Caribbean and Atlantic, with a campaign game allowing squadrons and individual ships to cruise around and seek each other out, whilst trying to resupply with coal where possible. The Americans are looking to blockade Cuban ports and land an invasion force, whilst the Spaniards are looking to break the blockade by running merchant ships to Cuba. Both side also get points for bombarding or raiding the opposing coat. Victory points seem to be set up to allow the Spanish (who are massively outclassed) to still 'win' by making an American victory costly. 

Attached to the main campaign game are two sub-games. Each main Cuban port, and the whole island of Puerto Rico, has a little hex map, and once troops are landed there's a whole set of land combat rules for playing out the individual invasion campaigns. Included in them are a couple of self-contained scenarios. I set up one covering the final attack on Santiago, including the attack on San Juan Hill. 

The US have six turns in which to take Santiago. In each turn each side gets two action phases. In the first action phase US troops took San Juan Hill, and forced the Spanish defenders into the entrenchments around the city. In their phase the Spanish started moving up reinforcements.

In the second action phase of the first turn the US took the city and the Spanish surrendered. 

So not a very exciting game as a standalone exercise. The US forces are overwhelmingly large, and I can't see how the game wouldn't always play out the same. But in a campaign the system would work well. There's a nice mechanism for yellow fever, which is more dangerous to teh US forces than the Spanish are. 

The second sub-game is for the naval actions. It's a simple system involving putting both opposing fleets int lines and shooting at each other until ships sink, closing up the lines. Manuever is covered by each side being allowed to set the range - Short, Long or Sight (no combat). A force at Sight can try to disengage. 

Again there's a small scenario to try out, so I played it. It covers the Spanish breakout from Santiago. Here's teh two fleets in their opposing lines. The Spanish have to escape with at least one cruiser, but cannot escape until they have spent at least one turn at close range.

They immediately moved to close range. There was firing.

Amazingly the Spanish scored hits and, generally, the US didn't. For US battleships got pasted whilst only two Spanish cruisers suffered any hits. 

I misunderstood teh range rules at this point, thinking you could only change by one band (you can, in fact, go to any range from any other range). So instead of going to Sight, the Spanish went to Long first. Their squadron is faster than the US one (their slowest ship is faster than the US squadron's slowest ship), so they Spanish have an edge in changing range. They went to Long and teh US couldn't close. 

There was more firing, although mostly from the US as the Spanish ships can mostly only fire at Close. Again the US navy failed to inflict much damage on the Spanish. 

The Spanish then disengaged and won a convincing victory.

It's a pretty simplistic system, but obviously it's designed for quick actions in the context of the main game.

I then tried setting up the campaign game, but it's basically impossible to play solo. It's also long. It took me an hour to set it up, and whilst the play time is given as 4 hours that assumes around ten minutes per turn, which is highly unlikely. It's a game to play over several days. And it has a lot of bookkeeping too. It was published in 1986 and is very much of its time.

So, a great subject, but after 30 years I've found out that it's a game I'm unlikely to play.

In other news I have been board-gaming. My wife and I have continued the 2026 Tour De France Femmes, and have now played six of the nine stages. I have a small lead, but it's gradually being eroded. In addition I have been reading a book about Stnewall Jackson's 1862 Valley Campaign. There are a couple of scenarios for battles from it in 'Battle Cry', so as I read each one I set it up and played it through a few times. It's a surprisingly interesting way to cement what happened, despite the game being semi-abstract. 

So that's what I've been up to for the past week or so. 

Dancing In The Dark

One of my views of simple scenario design is that you simply chuck plenty of troops into the mix, randomise some entry times and entry points and let the situation develop from that. Sometimes it doesn't work, but most of the time it produces entertaining results.

Anyway, that's what I did last night for a club game of Torpedoes & Tides. I played Torpedoes & Tides because (i) Daniel asked for a game (ii) Naval games were the theme for the week and (iii) Yesterday was, by a staggering coincidence, International Naval Wargames Day.

I set up the Grey Christmas scenario from the book. This sees two British steam gunboats (HMS Grey Owl and HMS Grey Wolf) opposed by a air of S-boats. One vessel from each side is elite (the British one is commanded by Peter Scott) and there's a patch of mist to keep things interesting.

But I added more. For a start I added another patch of mist. Then I gave each side reinforcements. The Germans got a minesweeper and a large flak boat with an 88mm gun. The British also got a minesweeper (one of my Halcyon-class models making its debut) and a Round Table class armed trawler. 

If you look at the stats in the rules you'll see that just about everything in the game has 'big' guns. Only the S-boats are relying on smaller weapons. But they are the fastest things on teh table, and not only have torpedoes but have torpedo reloads. And they can't be torpedoed by the British gunboats. 

The gunboats and S-boats start in the centre of opposite edges. From Turn 2 onwards each side rolled a D6 at the start of their turn. On a 5-6 one of their reinforcements would show up. It could appear on their starting edge, or the left edge or the right edge - equal chance of each. I then randomised where on the edge it appeared. 

And that's it. Simple but, hopefully, chaotic. 

Oh, and there's no moon, so visibility is limited. 

I played the British and Daniel took the Germans. 

Here's the position a couple of turns in. One British gunboat has been spotted, whist ahead of it the second (the elite one) is hiding in the mist. The other three markers are the S-boats and the flak boat (the 'Thor')

The elite steam gunboat tore out of the mist, revealing an S-boat that promptly opened fore on it, causing damage and a fire. The British replied to no effect, and then sped into the other patch of mist. 

By now the Germans had both of their reinforcing vessels on and closing in on the fight. Both S-boats and gunboats were revealed. Commander Scott extinguished the fire on HMS Grey Owl, but decided the damage was too great and headed for home. 

The S-boats and the other British gunboat (HMS Grey Wolf) hid in the mist. And that's where they collided. HMS Grey Wolf was undamaged but the elite S-boat took a hit. 

Owing to my inability to roll a 5 or 6 I was now a few turns into the game with no reinforcements. Since Grey Owl had buggered off, this left Grey Wolf facing four German vessels alone. HMS Grey Wolf is marked with a red dice. 

The German minesweeper chased after HMS Grey Wolf, which wisely dodged and hid as much as possible, looking for a chance to torpedo one of the larger ships. 

As the German minesweeper turned past the mist the first British reinforcement arrived - the minesweeper HMS Parthenope. It lasted one turn. It spotted the German vessel who, in turn, shot at it and set it on fire. On the next turn the Parthenope's crew decided to head home. 

It did manage a wild parting shot that damaged the German minesweeper, though. 

HMS Grey Wolf managed to shoot up the flak boat Thor, knocking out some guns. 

But now the sneaky elite S-boat captain saw his chance and launched torpedoes at the Grey Wolf. They missed. The S-boat disappeared into the darkness to reload. 

The other British reinforcement finally turned up - HMT Sir Mordred. It immediately engaged the Thor, damaging it. 

The second S-boat fired torpedoes, but it was a bow shot and teh plodding trawler easily evaded them. 

The trawler took a shot at the S-boat, but couldn't hit the fast-moving German vessel. 

A big aerial view of the action. Some ships have returned to blinds because they were out of sight of enemy ships. Top right you can see HMS Parthenope heading home. 

The Thor fired starshells (the yellow counter) to try and help the the S-boat's gunnery, and the trawler was damaged. 

HMT Sir Mordred kept up the fight, damaging the Thor again. 

Meanwhile on the other side of the board a long-range (at least as far as the darkness allowed) shot from the German minesweeper hit the Grey Wolf and - you've guessed it - set it on fire. Fortunately the British crew extinguished it fairly rapidly. 

Thor and Sir Mordred continued their fight. 

HMS Grey Wolf came up on the Thor and fired torpedoes. Naturally they missed. 

Grey Wolf shot up the Thor some more, knocking out its guns, and the German flak boat broke off the action. 

Meanwhile the German minesweeper had had a strange time of it. It had to roll on the All At Sea table three times in three turns and each time got a turn to either port or to starboard, so had weaved a strange random course across the board. The Sir Mordred came up and put a shot into its bridge, battering it. The minesweeper returned the favour, damaging the trawler's engines. 

The trawler was no battered and it too was steering wildly. It veered across the course of the S-boat, there was a collision and the trawler was sunk. The S-boat escaped without damage. 

And that was it. A final shot from HMS Grey Wolf failed to finish of the Thor and we called the game.

The Germans had a crippled minesweeper, a badly damaged flak boat and a lightly damaged S-boat (the elite one that had, after firing off all its torpedoes and missed with every one, simply given up and gone home). The second S-boat was undamaged and even had a torpedo left. 

The British had had Grey Owl lightly damaged, Grey Wolf damaged, HMS Parthenope damaged and HMT Sir Mordred sunk. We decided that it was nominally a draw but that the sunk British vessel gave the Germans a marginal edge. 

All in all it was a splendid and chaotic game, and a perfect way to celebrate International Naval Wargames Day for 2026. 

IPMA Annual Show - Fjord Serpents

This weekend was the annual show of the Illawarra Plastic Modellers Association. As with previous years our club was invited to put on some demo game over the two days it ran. This year we embarked on an ambitious project to put on two different games each day

On the Saturday the 'main' game was Fjord Serpents, with a secondary game of A Fistful Of T34s. On Sunday the main game was a huge Team Yankee game spread over two tables, whilst the secondary game was Battletech: Alpha Strike. 

On the Saturday I was involved with the Fjord Serpents game. We had three players - myself, Ralph and Caesar, whilst Darren hung around and chatted about the game and the club to anyone who came to have a look. 

We ran the race scenario we'd been trying out for this show, with each player having a small, nimble karvi and a larger faster snekkja. Here we are at the start. Ralph and Caesar are on the left, whilst I kept my vessels together on the right. 

Oh, I know what you're thinking. "Never mind the ships! What about that amazing terrain?". Darren made all that. The waterfalls are gorgeous. 

Another shot of the ships on the start-line. 

And straight from the off Caesar decided to employ violence, ramming the stern of Ralph's karvi with his snekkja. 

Here they are fiddling with the troops on board as the grapples fly and the boarding action commences. On the left my ships were plodding down the fjord, although I had to engage in a little bit of maneuver in order to stop my fast snekkja running into the back of the slower karvi. 

The boarding action didn't last long. Caesar's initial collision had badly damaged the smaller karvi, and once they were grappled the two ships drifted. This meant that Ralph's karvi ended up on the rocks of an island and was destroyed. Caesar ungrappled and went looking for new prey. 

Caesar's new prey - my snekkja. 

I was rammed, and took a fair bit of damage. Top right you can see my karvi, now forging ahead in grand style. 

Caesar and I got into a boarding action, and I came off worse. At the top left you can see Ralph's snekkja. He's rammed Caesar's karvi in an act of revenge, and started another boarding action. 

Thanks to my ship having a skald on board my inspired crew were able to cut grapples and escape from being slaughtered by Caesar's crew. 

Thar is until he came in again.

A view down the fjord. My fight with Caesar is on the left. On the right you can see my karvi. I put in to shore to pick up a bit of treasure. Near the island at the top is the fight between Ralph's snekkja and Caesar's karvi. It was not going well for the smaller ship. 

My karvi loaded up treasure quickly, backed oars and prepared to round the island and head for the finish line. However my snekkja had once again broken free of Caesar's, and Caesar's vessel had forged ahead, unable to resume the fight. It was hardly worth it anyway - I was down to a skeleton crew and only had one hull hit left. But Caesar's snekkja was now at the top end of the fjord, and I had to get my karvi past him in order to finish the race. 

At this point I managed to miss taking a pile of photos. Somehow I managed to evade Caesar's snekkja - we exchanged some archery as we sped past each other, but that was it. I cut around the island and went for the home straight. Caesar had a chance to cut across the middle and sill intercept me, but he misjudged a turn and ran onto some rocks. 

To the left you can see the result of Ralph's attack on Caesar's karvi - the karvi crew was wiped out, with Ralph taking no loss. He put a small prize crew on board and sped off to intercept my karvi. Meanwhile his snekkja closed in on Caesar's

My karvi heading for the finish. But with it heading into the wind it was slow going. Meanwhile my crippled snekkja had put into shore and grabbed some treasure. It was still sailing, so I decided to keep moving and try and complete the race as best I could. The first problem was escaping destruction at the end of the fjord. When ships turn their sterns swing out, so you have to be very careful turning when close to land. I had to row slowly and cautiously, which all takes time.  

Some serious pointing from Ralph and Caesar as Caesar's snekkja quite frankly got what it deserved. 

Victory for Ralph. 

So now Ralph had two ships (his undamaged snekkja and a captured karvi), whilst I had a badly damaged snekkja and a fairly fresh treasure-filled karvi. Ralph's captured karvi cut across the bow of mine, forcing us to a collision and boarding action. It also delayed me for a few turns.

The boarding action went the way you'd expect - Ralph's skeleton prize-crew was destroyed and I cut grapples ready to run for home again. But Ralph had gone into race mode as well. His snekkja had speedily rounded the island at the end of the fjord, cut my crippled snekkja in half as it did so, and was now in hot pursuit of my karvi. Snekkjas move faster than karvis and Ralph kept the wind on his beam for as long as possible whilst I was forced to beat slowly down the fjord. He was catching me up!

But as he closed the wind veered in my favour and I could sail at full speed. Ralph was still gaining, but with everything moving faster he ran out of turns to catch me in, and I crossed the finish. 

The winner! My one ship collected three treasure from the board and nine for winning the race. 

Runner-up. Ralph's undamaged snekkja picked up six treasure for coming in second. 

The game attracted lots of attention, especially the terrain and the painting of the teeny-tiny crew figures. And the game itself was exciting and full of swings of fortune. I was pleased that my race to win strategy paid off, although it would have been nice to get my snekkja home as well. 

Thanks to Ralph for organising the scenario, Caesar and Ralph for providing ships and especially to Darren for the terrain. My sole contributions were some initiative cards, and my great sailing skill. 

In the next post I will cover the Alpha Strike game on the Sunday, plus a few (very few) pictures of some of my favourite models in the competitions.