NT-RoB: Battle of Tsushima at HedgeCon

[shigure]

AAR- Battle of Tsushima played on March 13th.
Pics for Tsushima battle:
Initial game set-up:
Russians at the top of the board, IJN entering from the bottom of the board. The three lines at the top are the Russian BBs, with the cruisers already beginning a turn to port as they make contact with the IJN cruiser line. The two rear lines of the IJN are the AC's to the left with the BB's followed by two BCs to the right. The cruiser lines are closing rapidly.

Russian main body:

Suvarov leads her charges into battle:

Oleg leads her line:

IJN Fleet increases speed and goes to battle stations

Togo's flagship leads the IJN main battle line into battle:

Izumo leads the AC line:


• Set-up as per Oob provided in NT-CoD-Rise of Battleship expansion rulebook
• Models collected and painted by Afilter. Masts and crows nests are modifications.
• Most are Panzerschiffe with several Viking Forge mixed in.
• Scale is 1/2400
Turn 1 through Turn 4
• Battle lines close and maneuver for battle.


• Ranging shots of little effect until protected cruisers and destroyer flotillas close on Turn 4








The IJN ACs Nisshin & Kasuga are the tail end charlies of the IJN BB line.

End of the IJN AC line:

Russian cruisers begin taking fire from IJN cruisers. Critical hits start fires in two of Russian cruisers:




• Russian Battleships plod ahead at speed 3 or less as Japanese Battleships turn to fire full broadsides at range.


Turn 5
• IRN DIMITRI DONSKOI (CA) Sunk by gunfire from Chin Yen and Mikasa.



• IRN AURORA (CL) Suffers engine damage and a bridge hit as it is engage by Japanese Destroyer Flotilla #2 gunfire. Torpedo hit make her DIW by end of the turn.

• IJN NIITAKA (CL) takes a Torpedo hit and sinks at the end of turn.


• IJN JAPANESE DD FLOTILLA #2 Loses 3 destroyers to gunfire from IRN Destroyer Flotilla
Turn 6

• IRN SVYETLANA (CA) Sunk by gunfire from Suma.

• IRN VLADIMIR MONOMAKH (CA) Torpedoed and sunk by 3 fish from Japanese Destroyer Flotilla #1.

• IRN OLEG (CL) loses bridge to secondary gunfire from Suma.

• IRN AURORA (CL) sinks at the end of turn due to uncontrolled flooding.


Turn 7
• IJN OTOWA (CL) sinks from main battery fire from the IRN Oslyaba.

• IJN CHITOSE (CL) sinks from main battery fire from the Imperator Nikolai I.

• IRN OLEG (CL) damaged by gunfire from Chiyoda, takes on a severe list. She capsizes at end of turn due to uncontrolled flooding.

• IJN Kasagi has rudder is Jammed by gunfire.

• IRN Imperator Nikolai I (B) starts transfer of Flag to General Admiral Apraxin.
Turn 8



• IJN Akitsushima (CL) sunk from gunfire by Russian Destroyer Flotilla #1.
• IJN CHIYODA (CL) sinks due to uncontrolled flooding.

• IJN CHIN YEN (B) sunk by main battery gunfire from Sisso Veliki and Navarin.


Turn 9
• IRN Imperator Nikolai I (B) sinks from main battery fire from the Mikasa.


• IRN IZUMRUD (CL) sunk by gunfire from Japanese Destroyer Flotilla # 1.
• IRN ZHEMCHUG (CL) sunk by gunfire from Japanese Destroyer Flotilla # 1.

Game Called for Time:
IRN OSLYABA (B) and IRN SISSO VELIKI (B) would have been lost on Turn 10.

Loss Tally:
RUSSIAN LOSSES = 3 Battleships, 3 Cruisers , 5 Light Cruisers .
Japanese Losses = 1 Battleship, 5 Light Cruisers and 3 destroyers.

Conclusion: Japanese victory

Another great game. This time instead of being the first out my IJN BB's suffered no damage, but once in range were getting one to two hits per salvo.

[afilter]

Awesome....thanks for posting.

[daniel]

Looks good. Were there any disagreements or things an umpire needed to rule on, or did it go smoothly?

[Bluebear]

Looks like you all had a real "shoot 'em up" . . . much like history.

Did you guys use the "double speed & ranges" suggested rule?

How did you find the differences between WWII and Pre-Dreadnoughts?

What would you do differently tactically in a replay?


-- Jeff

[shigure]

The only real issues (not disagreements) were on whether a ship could fire all her guns due to some extreme angles a couple of times. We made die roll to see if it was possible or not and moved on from there. There were even times when the opposing side made sure that their adversary was reminded to fire their secondary guns. Couldn't have asked for more worthy adversaries on both sides.

As you can see the cruiser action got heated pretty quickly. The torpedo boat/DD flotillas got to make torpedo attacks and actually sank a few cruisers.

[afilter]

Mar 15, 2011 21:44:16 GMT -5 Bluebear said:

Looks like you all had a real "shoot 'em up" . . . much like history.

Did you guys use the "double speed & ranges" suggested rule?

How did you find the differences between WWII and Pre-Dreadnoughts?

What would you do differently tactically in a replay?


-- Jeff

Very much enjoyed Savo Island, but I really appreciate the simplicity of Pre-dreads.

I think Harry is now hooked on Pre-dreads as well

Harry did bring up the double range, but as you can see it would take a ton of room. the battle barely fits on a 8'x4' table. If using any bigger models like the 1/1000 houstons I would recomend it especially due to the short torp ranges.

The Max speed 3 and the +1 crews for the IRN really slows things down for closing the distance and handicaps the Russians to give a historical flavor. It was trun 6-7 before the Battleships really started to engage.

Although we called this a IJN Victory I truly think it was not completely decided. The Borodinos had barely been touched and were in the process of mauling the IJN Armored cruisers as they passed by. Of course the IJN Battleships had not been fired on yet. The Russians still had the advantage in amount of big guns it was just a matter of closing the distance and the IJn had a distinct advantage in speed/manuever.

Shigure is definately right on flotillas...do not judge them on their size. Hard to kill and very deadly.

Unfortunately we had to call it due to time, so we will never truly know.

It was great fun.

[shigure]

The guns and torpedoes on the WWII ships are much more lethal. I lost the USS Chicago in one turn to the IJN Chokai just from gunfire. The WWII closing speeds are much faster. Once engaged if you make a wrong maneuver it could be fatal.

The Predreds are, of course, slower and less lethal. ACs can at least stand up to a Predread for a couple of turns. A WWII BB would demolish a CA with a decent die roll.

As far as what I would do differently, these are just my opinions.
From an IJN standpoint it went pretty well. If the ships would have been positioned differently it would have been advantageous to let the IJN ACs pull ahead and decimate the Russian cruisers while the IJN protected cruisers & TBs kept the Russian BBs nervous without getting too close.

The Russians were at a speed disadvantage, so about all they could have done is see if their protected cruisers could have gotten the aggressive IJN protected cruiser commanders to chase them back to their BBs before the IJN BBs got within range.

[warchariot]

So did you guys take a group picture as a "class" shot?

[shigure]

So did you guys take a group picture as a "class" shot?

Rats!!! I knew there was one pic I forgot to get.

[afilter]

Mar 15, 2011 22:18:59 GMT -5 shigure said:

So did you guys take a group picture as a "class" shot?

Rats!!! I knew there was one pic I forgot to get.

I was thinking the same thing on my way home Sunday.

[Bluebear]

Thanks for the report (and photos) . . . now let us have some of the thoughts and/or reports of the other participants.


-- Jeff

[fastgit]

Outstanding pics and report! Thank you for posting.

[TheDreadnought]

I have to say that I really enjoyed the pre-dreads. It was not a period I had a huge amount of interest in to start with, but the simplicity is quite appealing.

. . . and a good reminder for me in game design, that there will always be people wanting more detail, more complexity, but that sometimes that's not always a good thing.

I would highly recommend people try out the WWI/Pre-Dread era if they've never done it before.

[warchariot]

Mar 16, 2011 13:32:55 GMT -5 TheDreadnought said:

I have to say that I really enjoyed the pre-dreads. It was not a period I had a huge amount of interest in to start with, but the simplicity is quite appealing.

. . . and a good reminder for me in game design, that there will always be people wanting more detail, more complexity, but that sometimes that's not always a good thing.

I would highly recommend people try out the WWI/Pre-Dread era if they've never done it before.

Well duh...

[afilter]

I was just re-reading CoD and noted a couple things based on our game.

1. I believe we agreed to make flotilla a 10 to hit. I can see doing this for WWII but I think flotillas are powerful enough as we proved and probably should remain a 9.

2. I was not controling any protected/light cruisers but I just noticed they are move and shoot with flotillas. Were we doing that or did we include them with cruisers?

[Bluebear]

Aaron,

The Protected Cruiser phase listing is wrong for one of the navies, listing it as "Cruiser" when it should be "Flotilla". This was something I asked Harry about way back. He said that he'd correct it on the cards with the next update . . . but I don't know if it ever got done.

In any event, the Protected Cruisers in RotB should move and shoot in the "Flotilla" phases for BOTH the Russian AND Japanese navies.


-- Jeff

[Bluebear]

Mar 16, 2011 13:32:55 GMT -5 TheDreadnought said:

I have to say that I really enjoyed the pre-dreads. It was not a period I had a huge amount of interest in to start with, but the simplicity is quite appealing.

. . . and a good reminder for me in game design, that there will always be people wanting more detail, more complexity, but that sometimes that's not always a good thing.

I would highly recommend people try out the WWI/Pre-Dread era if they've never done it before.

Harry, why do you think some of us have been pressing for Pre-Dreads so much, eh?

And besides the earlier Spanish/American battles, there are some great "what ifs" possible with Pre-Dreads . . . such as England vs Germany and US vs Japan.


-- Jeff

[afilter]

Mar 17, 2011 3:31:50 GMT -5 Bluebear said:

Aaron,

The Protected Cruiser phase listing is wrong for one of the navies, listing it as "Cruiser" when it should be "Flotilla". This was something I asked Harry about way back. He said that he'd correct it on the cards with the next update . . . but I don't know if it ever got done.

In any event, the Protected Cruisers in RotB should move and shoot in the "Flotilla" phases for BOTH the Russian AND Japanese navies.


-- Jeff

Jeff,

I just looked at the Data cards and you are correct. The IJN cards list them in the cruiser phases and the IRN cards have them properly in the flotilla phase which is what the rules state. This is both on the Data cards and the printing tool.

Either way it worked out and we had a good time. It will just be a note for next time that they will all move and shoot in the flotilla phase.

I am not sure any of us were really looking at the cards we just saw "cruiser" and lumped them all in the cruiser phase as I know I do not recall reading in the rules that Protect/light cruisers move and shoot with flotillas before I saw it again last night.

[TheDreadnought]

Mar 17, 2011 3:31:50 GMT -5 Bluebear said:

Aaron,

The Protected Cruiser phase listing is wrong for one of the navies, listing it as "Cruiser" when it should be "Flotilla". This was something I asked Harry about way back. He said that he'd correct it on the cards with the next update . . . but I don't know if it ever got done.

In any event, the Protected Cruisers in RotB should move and shoot in the "Flotilla" phases for BOTH the Russian AND Japanese navies.


-- Jeff

Correct, and it hasn't been done yet, because I haven't made any updates yet.

I did actually remember that about half-way through the game. But by that point we'd been playing it the other way a while, so I figured we should just stick with it.

The purpose of that rule is to let protected cruisers function effectively as flotilla leaders. After playing Sunday though, I am wondering whether that rule is really needed, or whether the protected cruisers just ought to move with the cruisers.

Thoughts?

[afilter]

Mar 17, 2011 11:04:23 GMT -5 TheDreadnought said:

Mar 17, 2011 3:31:50 GMT -5 Bluebear said:

Aaron,

The Protected Cruiser phase listing is wrong for one of the navies, listing it as "Cruiser" when it should be "Flotilla". This was something I asked Harry about way back. He said that he'd correct it on the cards with the next update . . . but I don't know if it ever got done.

In any event, the Protected Cruisers in RotB should move and shoot in the "Flotilla" phases for BOTH the Russian AND Japanese navies.


-- Jeff

Correct, and it hasn't been done yet, because I haven't made any updates yet.

I did actually remember that about half-way through the game. But by that point we'd been playing it the other way a while, so I figured we should just stick with it.

The purpose of that rule is to let protected cruisers function effectively as flotilla leaders. After playing Sunday though, I am wondering whether that rule is really needed, or whether the protected cruisers just ought to move with the cruisers.

Thoughts?

I agree....It was a non-issue for this battle. It might be more of an issue for "what if" or generic WWI battles where players do assign a Protected/Light cruier to a flotilla.

At Tsushima I think it might have resulted in a few more protected cruisers getting pounded by Battleships and Armored cruisers without a chance to return fire.

It also would have created and interesting situation for Chin Yen a Battleship that was operating with a protected cruiser squadron.

In this particular case I think that RotB could be modified to state that ships from different movement steeps assigned to the same division move togehter, but shoot during their respective shooting step. Otherwise Chin Yen(a Battleship) gets pounded by both Battleships and Armored cruisers before it ever gets to shoot with the heavier guns which is contradictory to your concept of having larger ships fire first.

So I guess I am saying for RoTB put protected cruisers in with cruisers and correct the Russian data sheets. I could be wrong, but my guess is most play the historical scenarios provided along with Ulsan. Maybe this will change with RotB2 with alot more "what if" possibilities.

I have not played enough WWI using cruisers to weigh in. If you extended the division rule from RotB to CoD then a Light cruiser could still serve as a flotilla leader and move with the flotilla while other light cruisers would operate with cruisers.

On another issue I think we may have missed the +1 Torpedo modifier:

Torpedo Attacks
Torpedoes at this time are highly unreliable. All torpedo attacks suffer a +1 penalty to the
target number needed to hit.

I was not keeping track as I did not have the opportunity to get in torp range.