"Looking for quicker playing WWI and WWII Naval Rules" Topic

I have GQ III and enjoy playing it very much. Yet I would like to find a ruleset that will allow me to fight either larger battles to a conclusion in an evening or smaller battles to a conclusion more quickly.

I am open to any recommendations but I am particularly interested in the folowing rulesets;

WWI
Naval Thunder: Clash of Dreadnoughts
VaS: Age of Dreadnoughts
Sides of Steel: World War I Fast Play Naval Rules

WWII
Task Force: World War II Fast Play Naval Rules
Victory at Sea

What are the pros and cons of these rulesets?

Any other recommendations?

Thanks!

GQII is still my favorite.

Very quick WW2 – Battle Stations, Battle Stations.

Our club is very fond of VAS; the rules are easy but still have a feeling of realism. You can fight large battles with VAS and finish within a few hours. I have not played Age of Dreadnoughts yet, but I'm sure it will be just like VAS.

I'm a big fan of computer-assist naval rules for large battles and have written a number of them.

With Shipbase I or III you can do Tsushima (56 ships) in about four hours, with Shipbase I thru III you can do Jutland (72 ship version, all the BBs, BCs, and CAs) in four or five hours.

Shipbase I and II are available in the freebie download section of my website:

link

They're ancient DOS programs, but what the heck, you can't beat the price.

There's also the as-yet-unfinished D-CATR Naval program, the latest in the Shipbase series, which is updated for Windows and includes several WWI scenarios.

You can read some detailed summaries of Victory at Sea and Task Force here:

link

I like Dreadnought for WW1 (Side of Steel quoted above is for pre-dread but they're basically the same rules). Can't help with WW2 as I don't game that period…

Is GQIII that much more involved than previous editions?

I second BattleStations! BattleStations!

NO record keeping involved.

I have played battles with 24 ships and ended in four hours.

I will be running it at RECON next weekend in Coco beach.

………………Doug

Well I can tell you that Naval Thunder was designed to be taught and played in a convention environment.

I played many of the other systems you mention but none of them was quite what I was looking for. I needed a system that would allow me to run the Battle of Jutland in a reasonable length of time at a convention, assuming a crowd of people who had never played the game before.

At the same time, I didn't want a really abstract system that lost all the flavor of naval gaming in the name of speeding up play. There needed to be enough detail and granularity between different classes of ship, that the system could be just as exciting for single ship engagements as it was for big fleet actions.

Sound like an impossible goal? I admit it was challenging, but I think through the scalable optional rule system incorporated into Naval Thunder, we've managed to hit the mark. You can pick the level of detail that appropriate for your style and the size of the game you are running.

Naval Thunder is fast, fun, and has TONS of naval flavor and it sounds like its just the sort of game you are looking for. Its easy to find. . . its the number 1 seller on wargamevault.com and has been since the day of its release last month.

I'd humbly suggest you give it a try. . . WWI is out already. By popular request the Russo-Japanese war expansion will be out within a couple weeks. The WWII version will be out within a couple months.

I still play Fletcher Pratt's rules, with mods to use dice rolling instead of range estimation. Goes very quickly and record keeping is minimal.

I sold my copy of VAS at a loss to the first sucker that would buy it and counted myself lucky. I was not impressed with this rule set. There were so many flaws, I don't know where to begin.

GQ I and II are fast play and would be my choice, I haven't seen Dreadnaughts yet, so I can't comment. BS BS uses saving throws to avoid damage. In a naval game! Andwith japanese having better DC than the US. Nuff said about that one.

GQ1 and 2, or Battle Stations, Battlestations.

Action Stations is also very good, if you want to try some battles with small units. Recommended for great fun, e.g. MGB's, MTB's, S-Boats, PT Boats, DD's, etc.

I and a few friends play VaS and just played VaS Dreadnought and really enjoyed the games.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and depends on what you are looking for in a wargame.

Joep

GQIII just needs some practice. Then it will adequately handle large games.
Even faster if you use the deluxe ship logs!

BS,BS is the set that I prefer for WWII battles. I would recommend that the damage control/repair success percentages be lowered by some sort of house rule though. I'd like to see them do a WWI version of these rules, but I'm not holding my breath for that to happen.