"Clash of Dreadnoughts: Best way for using the SDCs" Topic

I recently purchased the PDF version of the rules. I've printed them out and I'm looking forward to giving them a try. Like most games of this type, each ship requires a Ship Data Card (SDC.)

The problem I'm having is trying to figure out the best way to use the SDCs supplied with the rules. There are SDCs provided for the various classes of ships in the British and German navies. There are 2 SDCs per 8.5 x 11 page and they are arranged alphabetically by the ship class names and not by ship type.

Should I print out the entire set of cards on card stock, cut them in half, then copy the individual cards as needed on half sheets of regular paper?

Should I do some copy-and-paste hokus pokus with my MS Publisher program, reduce the size of the cards and arrange them by squadron and division as per the Jutland order of battle? (I have the British and German Jutland fleets in 1/6000 so, theoretically, I could do the entire battle.) The downside of this is that reducing the size of the cards to approximately a quarter page size might make parts of the cards difficult to use, namely, the movement orders and target records.

I almost wish that they would have included a blank sheet for the capital ships that could be copied and then filled in with the data from the SDC books. It would be a lot of pencil work before the game, but it'd be a snap to print out pages of SDC forms.

If anyone has played these rules and has a handy way of using the SDCs as provided, I'd really appreciate hearing about it. Thanks!

Patrick

Hi Patrick

I have created an Excel spreadsheet that will print SDC's 3 to a page, your choice of class for each SDC. If you would like a copy PM me with your email address.

Ken

P H Lewis -

In the absence of Ken's excel document, you can use the snapshot tool within Adobe also.

Go to:
Tools --> Select & Zoom --> Snapshot Tool. You can then select and copy SDCs to a landscape Word document, two to a page. When you duplex print, you will get 4 ships to a single sheet of paper – or essentially an entire division of ships under normal circumstances.

Or it sounds like Ken's app is pretty cool too.

Love to hear back any battle reports or thoughts on the game once you've had a chance to try it.

KenH01: Thanks for the offer! Private message sent.

TheDreadnought: I've already been experimenting with the snapshot tool, but I've been putting the copies into a Publisher document instead of Word as I find Publisher easier to use for this sort of thing. However, the thing I haven't tried —and it seems so obvious now that you brought it to my attention— is to print them two-up on both sides of the paper. (Doh!) That will work for most divisions, but I will have to figure out what to do with those few 5-ship divisions.

I'm not sure when I'll be playing a game, but I hope it is soon because the rules are very interesting and they seem to have just the right level of detail for the kind of game I want to play. I thought I might first try the battlecruiser action at the beginning of the battle of Jutland as I have most of the ships painted already except for the flotillas (I haven't figured out exactly how I want to base these, so they ended up at the back of the painting queue.) I'll try to do some sort of battle report possibly with pictures.

Thanks for the suggestions, gentlemen!

Patrick

That would be awesome if you have the time. Thanks!