WW2 Naval Action: Battle of the River Plate

I headed over the Roy Scaife's place on Saturday afternoon for a WW2 naval game using Roy's rules entitled Dark Seas.  Dark Seas is a hybrid between our Beat To Quarters naval rules and Victory At Sea.  Roy has a collection of 1:1200 ships that are just beautiful!

We played through the Battle of the River Plate scenario that pitches the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee against three Royal Navy cruisers, the HMS Ajax, HMS Achilles and HMS Exeter.

The great thing about naval games is the setup --- roll out the blue mats and put out the ships and you're done!

The Admiral Graf Spee makes a run for the far side of the table - can the Royal Navy ships sink her before it can escape to a neutral port?  Yes, we pulled it off - just barely!

I ran the HMS Exeter which started the closet to the Admiral Graf Spee and also was isolated from the other Royal Navy ships.  Fortunately I was playing against Roy and he has fairly terrible dice so he was unable to sink me before making the run through the other Royal Navy ships.

Pictured you can see the ship card that covers the weapon systems, special rules, speed/turning, and damage tracking - templates - and the ship itself with the wake marker that is used to set the current speed of the ship.

The other two Royal Navy ships pictured above with their ship cards and the QRS for the rules.

Below are some action shots of the battle.  All together we played through this game in ~2 hours at a leisurely pace.  Rules are streamlined and very fun. 

Just to give you an idea of the size of the ships.  Normally WW2 is played at 1:2400 - but we like larger ships.  Below you can see the USS Missouri (US Battleship) and the German Bismarck along side a regular D6.  The rules are designed to be easily played on a 6 foot by 8 foot table.

Very nice ships and the larger size adds some real visual depth to the game that is so often missing from games using 1:2400 scale ships.