What is your naval wargaming set-up?

[RogerBW]

Borrowing from Whirlwind over on the air forum, what naval wargaming set-up do you use in terms of:

Models or not?

And if yes, what scale?

What board / mat / layout (size and type)?

Hexes or not?

Solitaire, H2H, multiplayer?

Only video games?

RogerBW's Wargaming Blog

[RogerBW]

Speaking for myself:

Generally no models, though I’m working on 3D-printed designs in 1:6000. I like to keep figure and ground scale similar, but it’s really not possible with naval combat.

Blue cloth, no hexes. Or a printed chart.

Usually two players, or two plus referee.

Not video games as such, though I’ve done Harpoon by email with assistance from software I’ve written.

RogerBW's Wargaming Blog

[irishserb]

Models or not?

Modern, a small number of early 1980s US and Soviet vessels in 1/2400, and  I hand drew 1/4800 scale plan views of every class of ship in both navies and made my own cardboard counters circa 1983-84.  Used an eventually heavily modified version of Naval Battle Group and then Harpoon.

 

And if yes, what scale?

1/2400 and 1/4800.

 

What board / mat / layout (size and type)?

Blue patterned cloth up to 12’x6′.

 

Hexes or not? No hexes.

Solitaire, H2H, multiplayer?

 

All.

Only video games?

No video games.

[Gaz045]

1\3000 WW2 for the Norwegian Campaign, recently got the ships for Graf Speed hunt, a big Pacific fleet that was gifted by a fellow gamer…….destroyer and cruiser actions a favourite.

Hex mat usually used but not always……rules from Mini Wargames article about  Norwegian campaign.

I have some 1/300 destroyers and mtb/ mgb to support my landing craft…..use my 1/300 aircraft with them

Also 1/600 coastal warfare………Mediterranean, Black Sea and China ( Sino Jap war 1937 on the Yangtze). I like the peripheral campaigns!!

"Even dry tree bark is not bitter to the hungry squirrel"

[McKinstry]

1/2400 for Ancients, Renaissance and ACW/Ironclads to 1890

1/2400 & 1/3000 for Napoleonic Sail

1/2400 & 1/6000 Pre-dreadnoughts

1/6000 WW1 & WW2

maybe 10+ 4′ x 6′ cloths and mats both hexed and plain including Fat Mats, a great many Cigar Box Battle, MKP and several others

A great many rules sets varying by battle size from small duels through fleet action

 

The tree of Life is self pruning.

[Gaz045]

I forgot my 1/600 ACW from Peter Pig and my Chinese junks for 1900 piracy and gunboats. Not as nice as the ACW gunboats here……

"Even dry tree bark is not bitter to the hungry squirrel"

[irishserb]

Reading back through this, I realized that I left out my colonial gunboats.  I’ve played a couple of games with the 28mm gunboats that I made for my Victorian adventure games using a very simple set of mechanics, loosely inspired by the old Bismarck board game.  The games have involved some sort of intercept and boarding action, but do involve ship to ship combat.  The ship models are all based on real ships from the late Victorian era, but are more caricatures of the real ships, scaled to be functional within my south Pacific island adventures.

You may have seen these as the post is quite old, but there are some photos located at:

http://irishserb.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-ships-of-ponape-28mm-colonial.html

 

 

[Dan073]

First of all greetings from New South Wales Australia.

Second: Wow Tim!!! Some very impressive miniatures and amazing set-ups.

I’m an enthusiast of all naval periods but mostly WWII and Age of Sail – Napoleonic Periods, but have to say I’m keen to always try out something new, Ive been gaming for about 20 years but found my groove playing naval warfare…simply, I just cant get enough of it. I was introduced to Axis & Allies – War at Sea in the summer of 2007 and have been mainly playing that.

We have recently started up a gaming group for our region, we have started by playing Pathfinder, but we are also playing many other games including Age of sail, War at Sea, Battlelore and many others. Struck gold when one of our new friends also has a passion for naval wargames like I do.

"The British Army should be a projectile to be fired by the British Navy".
- Edward Grey

[MartinR]

My stuff is 1/3000, mainly pre dreadnought and WW1. I do have few river gunboats for colonial and WW1 as well.

Usually play on a traditional blue cloth, these last ten to fifteen years, either De Bellis Navalis or Iron Ships and Wooden Heads although I did write a naval OHW variant too.

I used to play Seastrike back in 70s (still have it) but the only computer games were the old SSG game Carrier Strike.

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Dan073]

Nice I’ve always liked that scale MartinR, nice for large scale battles, more bang for your buck so to speak, see them mostly at conventions. I like a little larger only for the fact that you can see the models better, just makes recognition a little easier I guess…and I enjoy painting them more. Ive heard of Seastrike but never played it.

Really looking forward to trying some Age of Sail and WW1 battles with John in the next few months. Not sure what rule set we will be using but I hope its not too involved. If the set is too involved it takes away from the fun of it I think, just my opinion, if anyone knows of a set of rules for Age of Sail that is fairly simple please feel free to mention it.

But after all that I didn’t answer all the questions from the title post, got too busy trying to figure out how to post a pic…lol

Models or not? Models definitely!, never found a suitable game that didn’t use miniatures actually but each to their own.

Scale? 1:1800th, but I also like GHQ Micronauts 1:2400th I believe they are for reasons mentioned above.

Board? I like tabletop best have a 6 x 4 footer.

Hexes or not? The game I play uses squares in checker pattern, but I have seen hotz mats (hexes) used in War at Sea.

Solitaire or Multiplayer? Well actually I have been known to play reverse chessboard before when testing a rule or fleet or unit so have to say I have played solitaire before, but War at Sea is best with 2-4 players, 4 is the most fun I reckon. Playing World of Warships, solo and Multi.

Only Video Games? No, prefer to play with a human being most of the time or preferably, but I really like World of Warships too.

just to stay on topic chaps

 

 

 

 

"The British Army should be a projectile to be fired by the British Navy".
- Edward Grey

[Steve Burt]

Models.

1:3000 scale for WW1 and WW2

1:2400 and 1:600 for Age of Sail (the latter for detailed ship on ship duels)

1:600 for Galley warfare.

[deon]

hi All,

Currently playing Modern Naval at 1/3000 using Navwar and Skytrex. Will probably have to shift to 3d printed to get more modern ships although the cost is high for me.

We play on  a hex mat, but we don’t play often and  currently we are stress testing some generic rules to see if they can handle modern naval warfare. We have played harpoon and general quarters before but harpoon was too slow, but I do use the data annexes to work out the stats for my current rule set. I play with 2 or 3 good friends and like to play with newcomers to see if the rules make sense and get a fresh perspective.

I have some 1/10,000 scale Jutland that I will never use, and I have some 1/1200 WW2 that will probably be converted into aeronefs ( heretical i know)  There are a few 1/1200 Napoleonics and some ACW in my pending pile.

http://deonsmodels.blogspot.co.uk/

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