Monday, May 6, 2019

Beat to Quarters Playtest Game

Hey everyone - actually I've been very busy with gaming stuff - just lacking the time to post.  KublaCon fast approaches and my games for Napoleonic naval and LOTR are coming together nicely.  I'll be posting the scenario for Toulon Harbour shortly, but in the mean time, I managed to get some ships on the table this past Saturday to test our Beat to Quarters v2.0 with Roy Scaife.


I'm really happy with how the rules are coming along, if you are curious, you can download the rules and ship cards (for the ships at Trafalgar) from here:

Rules:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/qh7s7h78dz0imya/beat_to_quarters_qrs_v2.1.pdf?dl=0
Ship Cards:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/f23bb7mqmjf1mxk/beat_to_quarters_ship_cards.pdf?dl=0

Two groups of pictures - the first using my SLR camera, the second using my phone.  Roy Scaife has the British fleet and is actively working through rigging.  I'm doing the French and Spanish fleets myself.  We've both been working away on the ships.  The game at KublaCon will have 38 ships total on the table.

In this game we played it on my 6 foot by 8 foot table.  Ships in the game are organized into squadrons of between 2-4 ships.  We used 4 ships each organized into 2 squadrons of 2 ships.

British OOB:

1st Squadron:

  • HMS Tonnant (80 Guns) - Flagship
  • HMS Minotaur (74 Guns)
2nd Squadron
  • HMS Leviathan (74 Guns)
  • HMS Defiance (74 Guns)

British ship cards below ...






French/Spanish OOB:


1st Squadron (French):

  • Bucentaure (80 Guns) - Flagship
  • Heros (74 Guns)
2nd Squadron (Spanish)
  • Rayo (100 Guns)
  • San Ildefonso (74 Guns)

French and Spanish ship cards below ...





We had a great time playing through the rules that worked out very well.  Both sides suffered heavy losses across 3 of the 4 ships ... and we had raking, broadsides, and all sorts of different rules aspects taking effect throughout the game.

Pictures below of the action.  You'll notice we are using wake templates behind the ships.  These have four purposes - first they show the current sail settings for the ship, they show the number of inches moved per segment (based on the sail setting), they have the turning radius/template build in, and finally they have a green/orange side so activation can be marked and alternated.



















And phone pictures of the game ...





























That's all for now folks!

19 comments:

  1. It is very very beautiful, congratulations for the rules and thank you.
    "Vive la Royale"

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  2. Brilliant my friend! Love all those photos at the end with all that cotton 😀 Lots of cotton on a naval table is always a good thing! How many players for each game?

    *clear bases on the ships... wipes tear from eye*

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    1. lol - thanks Ivor! Just Roy and me --- so just 2 this time. I think about 4 ships per player is right. The game at KulbaCon is 18 ships a side ... 4 x 4 ship squadrons ... with a squadron of 2 frigates per side ... so 8-10 players for that one.

      Those clear bases are the bomb (with colour coded labels). :-)

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  3. Naval battles... thank you for this new itch that won't let me sleep until I start painting little ships!

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    1. lol! 1:300, not so little ;-) Actually, I love the scale ... and you can have tons of fun with even just 4 ships per side :-)

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  4. Wonderful ships - I'll take a look at the rules

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  5. HI there, Amazing blog and AARs. Where did you get the ships from? Well bloody done Sir!
    Cheers
    John from Tasmania

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    1. Hello John! Thanks!

      Ships are from Old Glory:
      https://www.oldgloryminiatures.com/products.asp?cat=373

      Sails/masts are 3D printed sets from Shapeways.

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  6. Awesome game, ships and photos! Just saw this on The Miniatures Page. Thanks for the link and ship information!

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  7. Ships are looking fantastic. Though I think you need a bigger table. 😀

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    1. lol, you got that right ... our game at the come is on a very large table :-)

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