"Imjin War naval battles rules?" Topic

Im starting to look into gaming the naval battles between the Japanese, the Koreans and the Chinese in this war. Are there any rules that are specifically written for or cover this period? It seems like a fairly untouched topic. I am surprised that there is not more interest in it!

A few years ago I drafted a Japanese/Korea/Chinese inspired supplement for Steve Blease's "Strange Tydes" fantasy naval rules (a project that advanced a long way but which to date hasn't quite made out of initial development (due in part to the lack of suitable models). As it develped though it was obvious that, with the "fantasy" elements removed it would also make a decent set of purely historical rules covering the period. I also applied the information and approaches taken to a set of fast play rules based curiously on mecanisms in DBx and Fire and Fury (at least in the "fleet action" variant) that I've used successfully for ancients, renaissance and 18th century Baltic naval battles. Again, a project that foundered on lack of models but it wouldn't take much effort to finish them off, or at least get them to a state where they worked well. I might just dig out the old files from the hard drive and resurrect this little project. I think it would be fun to try.

Of course, its all about the inspiration (or in other words, the models). :)

That sounds very interesting in deed! I am in the same boat w/ models. Scheltrum (spelling?) are nice but too expensive to collect in large the quantities needed to do large battles.

Thats why I have been thinking about doing 1/800 ships on a Wargames Factory plastic sprue. You could get at least six and maybe 8 ships to a sprue. Obviously, you would lose the visual greatness of the ships to a degree, but I think in large numbers the appearance would more than make up for it!

Let me know if that sounds at all appealing to you Dave (and get to work on those rules, maybe they will inspire some company to put some ships out!).

Cheers.

As I'm working on putting together an Imjin War campaign, I'm also in need of a set of naval rules that work for the subject. I don't need anything too complicated. In fact, since it will be a WAB-based land campaign I've been toying with the idea of simply using those rules as a base to recreate the naval warfare since it'll reduce the amount of teaching I'll have to do to relatively new gamers in a language in which I'm hardly proficient.

I posted on this site asking a similar question a few weeks ago and received a few helpful replies, but nothing to model what you are describing (and I need), namely, large Japanese-Korean-Chinese naval engagements with small ships.

Marv

I shall crack on with looking at and developing some rules once I get back from my current works trip (in about 2 weeks).

An old Miniature Wargames magazine had a specific set of naval rules for fighting the Korean and Japanese fleets. I dont remember the issue number though…sorry.

Sounds Great Dave. The 1/800 ship idea has received a lot of positive feedback on the Yahoo Asian Warfare page so I believe I will be moving forward with it in the near future. I'll keep you posted on developments.

Have a nice trip ;-)