"Convoy/Deadly Waters--what is the verdict?" Topic

I posted this to the yahoo group, but I thought I would get more feedback if I asked here on the TMP as well.

I am thinking about buying the rules but I am concerned if the game is actually playable. It appears from the many posts to the yahoo group (including from the author himself) that the game is not as playable as intended. I don't want to say an unplayable mess but between the posts and the corrections and amendments etc in the files section it almost appears so. Especially to someone who is new to
naval gaming. So my questions are…

1. Is the game playable as is--out of the box? Or do players need to download additional material in the files section of this group?

2. Are there any plans to release a new and improved version the game? After all, it certainly seems to have generated a lot of buzz, is an interesting topic that has not really been done before, and appears to play well solo.

Calling Mal Wright…

Well sure, Mal Wright will give a perfectly objective opinion on this subject ….

As is, no. You'd need to access the yahoo group to get the tactical rules. And even then they may still be unplayable. That said, the operational rules work fine enough with some commonsense tweaking.

If you do buy it, then my suggestion: Lose the tactical rules and replace 'em with your favorite flavor of rules (GQ3, Seekrieg, CaS, or whatever).

As to whether I'd buy any of the follow on games? No way. My 'Nice idea but unplayable' pile is too big as it….

And actually, Mal would agree, Bede. He knows it was published as is without incorporating his corrections, but he had no control over that – thus part of his anti-CoA rants.

Short answer – don't buy it. Not that it's a slam against Mal, its just that he won't see any monetary benefit from it and it'll aid the alleged IP thieves.

Wyatt

I can see that it wants to be a good game, i can see it is a labour of love,just that well borrow a copy and read the rules and see what it became.

Its a shame,id waited for this game,and when i got the rulebook,thought,i havent enough years left to make sense of it.

Now,if you dont know of the yahoo group, then it will be unplayable,i hope it comes out the way it should have,as it deserves it,until then im afraid id say no.

A great pity really,it could have been a sure fire winner.

I think Mal is marketing the other campaigns on his own though a PDF publisher, but it seems to me he dropped the tactical rules due to the issues and the potential copyright fight with CoA. Personally, I wouldn't give CoA the money for them, but the other systems might be workable because they were published the way Mal intended them to be written.

Dead in the water.

I like the rules a lot (Having a distinct Grognard side), and the subject is covered with Mal's usual thoroughness.

It is unfortunate that it is embroiled in the controversy with CoA.

We still use Coastal Command for our campaign rules.

I agree with Warlock on this one, I like the rules a lot and began playing the Convoy tactical miniatures game right out of the wrapper. The tactical miniatures game is less complex than Command at Sea and is improved by the Addendum and also the How Do We Start Playing documents on the Yahoo WW2 Convoy web site. Mal has also posted a document there with several alternative rules, mostly addressing a less complex method of surface gunnery, and also including a slightly different sequence of action in the tactical turns. Other aspects of the tactical game , such as detection, ship anti-submarine warfare, torpedo attacks, damage control, etc., remained as originally published even with Mal's alternative rules.

The original game CD included enough ships log forms for years of convoy games, and in addition to these, literally hundreds of additional ships log forms have been posted on the web site, some with the original surface gunnery method and also many with Mal's less complex gunnery method (in three fully completed convoy runs, I have not yet had any surface gunnery). The game books also include historical commentary on ships, submarines, weapons, operations, and tactics of the era and this historical commentary alone was worth the price of the product to me.

One of the interesting aspects of Deadly Waters is that if you prefer a different tactical game, such as GQIII, the Deadly Waters operational game book can be used to generate the tactical scenarios for playing out with other tactical games. Mal has even suggested a method for resolving the Deadly Waters operational events using the GQIII campaign rules without actually deploying miniature ships onto the gaming table! I haven't tried this yet, but this could be a good way to keep the convoy action going while traveling around and living out of a suitcase!

To date, I have had a whale of a time playing three complete convoy runs using the Convoy tactical rules that came with the Deadly Waters game. After my first convoy, I posted a 90 page After Action Report on the Yahoo WW2 Convoy web site that is a detailed example of play type of report that goes move by move, dice roll by dice roll, tactical turn by tactical turn through an entire convoy, illustrating the playability of the tactical game.

I have just completed a dual convoy, mega game and I'm also now preparing a narrative AAR for those convoy runs that I will post later this month. To give a flavor of how the game plays out, here is a report of an action with U-28 attacking Convoy HG56 on its last night before enduring the final morning and evening day map phases and then arriving in Liverpool.

The local in bound escort group joined the convoy as it closed on Liverpool, and given prior merchant ship losses, the entire convoy and escorts could be deployed within the 72-inch width of my gaming tables (1/3000 scale ships on a 1-inch = 100 yards grid for a ground scale of 1/3600 pretty closely matching the ship scale). The sight of the convoy and escorts all arrayed on the table was magnificent! Then U-28 torpedoed the merchant ship Margareta, sinking it rapidly, missed with a stern shot on merchant ship Thurso, and then maneuvered to try to get under merchant ship Aymeric to avoid being depth charged while diving beyond the reach of the 1941 era depth charges.

Just before abandoning the sinking Margareta, the convoy commodore ordered Raspberry to provide illumination for searching for periscopes or any other surfaced submarines that might also be in contact, and ordered a temporary increase in convoy speed from 7 to 9 knots, to take effect 6 minutes later, that would allow the convoy to run ahead of any submerged submarines. The 13 escorts -- there are a lot of escorts when in the vicinity of Liverpool, not so many anywhere else (see the forthcoming report on the saga of OG56 …) -- began the turn-in and column combing standing maneuver orders to find submarines around the flaming datum, and soon detected U-28 under Aymeric, although an immediate depth charge attack would have also damaged Aymeric, likely sinking it, so the U-boat enjoyed a temporary reprieve.

However, as the convoy and Aymeric moved ahead at 9 knots, U-28 fell back as its maximum underwater speed is only 8 knots, and it was soon exposed to depth charging. With so many escorts, the U-boat remained constantly detected, and as a result of prior bow plane damage experienced in an action several days earlier, U-28 was limited to slow diving and was exposed to more attacks than it would normally have endured before it was too deep for the depth charges to hit. On the fourth depth charge attack, the destroyer Scimitar hit U-28 at deep depth (14% probability of hit) sending it to extreme depth where it cannot be hit and also causing major flooding.

After some additional progressive flooding, the crew controlled all flooding and U-28 survived with damage, then successfully evaded as the escorts broke off to rejoin the convoy in case of further attacks that night. Luckily for the convoy, there were none, but then on the morning of the last day, two Do217s surprised the convoy and were flying in to bomb a ship in the rear of the convoy! The fun never stops in Convoy: Deadly Waters!

For anyone interested in exploring the history of the Battle of the Atlantic, I highly recommend "Convoy: Deadly Waters" along with the Yahoo Groups WW2 Convoy web site for errata, clarifications, many additional ship and submarine log forms, and player commentary, plus news on forthcoming games in the series.

Enjoy your games!

Jan

A big part of the problem for some wargamers is that they are expecting the same old style that has been around since Fred T. Jane wrote his naval rules back in 1905. But I wanted to move outside the ordinary and produce something different that was faster and more exciting.
The gunnery system in the rules I have published myself since, or via Nimble Books, is such a divergence from everything that has come before. Unfortunately the CofA writers Bond and Carlson were stuck on the old ways, so Deadly Waters ended up getting altered to suit that. Variations for every gun, range, penetration, etc. The usual procedure of going through multiple steps to get what I consider a predictable result.
There can only be a certain finite number of damages caused to a finite range of targets with a finite amount of armour, across finite ranges. So why the heck slow the game down by going through all those steps? It seems silly to do so to me. Hence I just list all the damages likely to be inflicted on a certain size target with or without protection and the player rolls on that.
But that is not the only area where traditional naval wargamers can fail to pick up how slick the system runs. They are expecting lots of detail and reams of data, various procedures etc they must go through to get from one point to the other.
I have cut out the crap. Under most rules it is slow and it can be downright boring for players, to go through all the preliminary lead ups to things happening. Often to find out they didn't happen and all that game time was wasted. All those fast map moves, then slow move to contact moves, then some want to break it down into thirty seconds and so forth.

What really counts in a wargame…and especially if it is to be a fast one….is what happens from point of contact. From a tabletop wargame point of view how you got to that point is irrelevant. How you FIGHT the battle from then on is what counts on a tabletop battlefield.

My solution has been to refer to history. In my convoy games the actions START with contact. But those contacts occur in ways they did historically. The players are therefore placed in the position of a real warship or submarine commander and detailed off to deal with a situation such people REALLY faced.

An aircraft or submarine might appear almost out of nowhere at close range having not been detected by the expected means and have to be dealt with. Or it could appear at longer range having been correctly detected, and the player has more time to think about how to deal with it. But the game starts there! No messing about with preliminaries that waste time. My convoy runs are expected to take as much time for the entire passage as some of the slower games take for a single action.

To make it easier to play most of the information a player needs will be on the damage log. No need to slow the game down asking the referee how far X ship can fire its guns, or how many depth charges it has and so forth. No need to ask what radar ranges and chances of detection are…its all there on the sheet. That speeds the game up if players catch on that its all there under their noses.

Those who have caught on to that seem to love the games. But others who seem to be searching for all the game slowing details that I have eliminated cannot seem to grasp that they are not needed. They might have been present in the traditional games, but with my system they are not needed.

Most questions I get asked are usually based around why this is not there, or how I have failed to put that in etc. Whereas if the questioner did a few test games it would have dawned on them that those things are not there because they dont need to be there. They seem to panic and start asking questions instead of running a game.

Trying to break out of the common place, seems to have been my biggest difficulty regard wargamers comprehending the games. Those who have thoroughly read them, and compared the damage logs etc will understand at once. Those who have not properly read them WONT and therefore attack the rules due to their own lack of understanding. Some will be quite rude with their questions too. Even detailed responses will not get a mere 'thank you'.

But I do try.

And actually, Mal would agree, Bede. He knows it was published as is without incorporating his corrections, but he had no control over that – thus part of his anti-CoA rants.

Actually the truth is that it was not a case of incorporating my corrections. It was a case of substituting my work for other material from CofA writers, that went back to the old boring ways things have been done via since the Janes game of 1905.

Had I not fought very hard there would have been considerably more reversions to old styles and game slowing systems and it would have ended up as another unplayable game like the disastrous Harpoon 4! I still play the earlier versions of Harpoon, but 4 is a prime example of how a thing can be taken much too far. It is what I did not want my convoy games to become.

Coastal and Bede can have their opinion on my reactions. Freedom of opinion is permitted on here as long as one does not say what one really thinks of some critics. But I'm sure their imaginations can probably stretch far enough to conjure up a word or two.

So, Mal, how hard would it be to get a copy of your vision of ideal naval rules?

Are they lurking in some of your newer games, or are they still to-be-released?

You see, based on that description, those are close to my ideal naval rules!

So, Mal, how hard would it be to get a copy of your vision of ideal naval rules?

I keep working on it!
Many of my ideas ARE already incorporated in my own convoy games. The new RISING STORM really takes that on. A fleet action is perfectly feasible using them.

But as stated. The biggest problem is not getting them into print, so much as that players have been raised on certain 'ways' of playing a naval game. Getting them to accept a faster way that produces the same result is proving a little more trouble. Mostly in that having purchased the games they go looking for all that old stuff, and not having found it set up a 'hounds a hunting cry'. That identifies them as 'traditionalists' who dont understand or accept a new approach and their comments being therefore negative…make potential purchasers hesitate.
For some reason, those sharp negative blasts, seem to influence people more than the praise and even detailed information posted by those who understand what its about and like it.

You will note a couple of old fossils comments have appeared on TMP from people who are obviously not forward thinkers.

Last time I mentioned some 'idiots' someone pressed the complaints button and I was dawghoused. That resulted in some hilarious email to me from people who wondered if the person or persons who identified with being called 'idiots' would later choose to say who they were. So it will be quite fascinating to see if I get Dawghoused because any feel that 'old fossils' is a personal or group attack on them!

"For anyone interested in exploring the history of the Battle of the Atlantic, I highly recommend "Convoy: Deadly Waters" along with the Yahoo Groups WW2 Convoy web site for errata, clarifications, many additional ship and submarine log forms, and player commentary, plus news on forthcoming games in the series."

A far better read, in my view, can be found in: "The Real Cruel Sea, The Merchant Navy in the Battle of the Atlantic, 1939 – 1943", by Richard Woodman. Mind you, it makes for depressing reading. Who could have sailed on an iron or manganese ore carrier, without serious misgivings? Others include "Arctic Convoys, 1941 – 1945" and "Malta Convoys".
I would suggest reading all of these before gaming the Battle of the Atlantic, in order to gain an understanding of what the battle involved.

A far better read, in my view, can be found in: "The Real Cruel Sea, The Merchant Navy in the Battle of the Atlantic, 1939 – 1943", by Richard Woodman. Mind you, it makes for depressing reading.

I'd second Chouan's endorsement and also suggest "Convoy" by John Winton as a good overall summary of convoy operations in both World Wars.

"Unfortunately the CofA writers Bond and Carlson were stuck on the old ways, so Deadly Waters ended up getting altered to suit that. Variations for every gun, range, penetration, etc. The usual procedure of going through multiple steps to get what I consider a predictable result."

I have to admit to having similar preconceptions before trying Arc of Fire for WWII Skirmish. If someone had said they could design a good set of WWII Skirmish rules where a shot was resolved with 1 die roll, and not at least 2 (i.e., to hit, effect), I would not have believed them. Now I'm a true convert!

I heartily agree with the books recommended by Chouan and Pontius, and would also add anything written by Arnold Hague, the biography of Captain F. J. Walker by Robertson, War Beneath the Sea by Padfield, and of course Cruel Sea by Montsarrat as a fictional account by someone who served. Rear Admiral Simpson's autobiography Periscope View provides an interesting perspective on submarine operations in the Mediterranean with the shoe sometimes on the other foot so to speak compared to the Atlantic. I would also recommend Gannon's Operation Drumbeat as a perspective on knowing what should be done and then not doing it when the US Navy failed to implement convoys early in 1942. For the daily tally of grim statistics that goes on for years and years, Rohwer's book on submarine successes has more than you want to know. I also have enjoyed Morison's many volumes on the US Navy, several of which deal with the Battle of the Atlantic and convoy actions. When we get to Mal's game on convoys in the Pacific, Clay Blair's Silent Victory will provide a depth of background understanding. And for a quick, light read I would suggest Forester's The Good Shepherd, first because it is quick and also because it explains the importance of coffee in naval operations.

And while reading about history is a very enjoyable experience, gaming it out on the table top provides a more dynamic depth of insight and perspective than books alone can provide. There is nothing quite so fine as reading Douglas Southall Freeman's Lee's Lieutenants thinking you now know it all, and then setting up Avalon Hill's Stonewall Jackson's Way on the board gaming table and seeing how remarkable the maneuver campaigns truly were in moving thousands of troops hundreds of miles on foot and then reaching a deliberate or accidental meeting point and fighting it out hammer and tongs, not to mention a few dice rolls. Games and simulations can provide a depth of insight beyond what can be learned by reading alone and I heartily recommend that everyone enjoy their games!

Well, my first naval game was some computer-moderated monstrosity back in 1999 or so. I'm sure that the computer ran through all the individual steps so that we didn't have to.

Then Seapower in 2004, when I was in the Navy and knew the true pace of events. That was cross-referencing range and target speed against a table to see what your to-hit # was, then rolling 10d6.

These days, no naval gaming. Limited time, limited interest among the gaming group for 'classic' detail-heavy games. But a quick-playing naval game (more tactically complex than Spartan Games' offerings) might get the guys interested.

I'll have to take a look at Rising Storm, then.

The Richard Woodman books are, as far as I know, the only books that have any idea of the experience of the Merchant Seamen. All the others are about the purveyors of violence, not the civilian victims.

Jan (sloophmsstarling) --

Thank you for your running AAR for Deadly Waters. The narrative reads like history unfolding. That's a rare thing in any genre of wargaming. It reminds me of a boardgame "Torpedo!" from Canada Simulations that I enjoyed in the '80's, but in much more detail. On your recommendation I ordered Convoy&DeadlyWaters rules which arrived yesterday (excellent service from Noble Knight), and joined Mal Wright's Yahoo Group. I don't know how anyone could ask for more support from the author than his excellent campaign scheme filled out with historical context, and his additional 11-page "Get Started" document from the Yahoo group. No rules set will suit everyone's taste, but this set is something special. I'm keen to buy a load of submarines, merchant and escort ships and set out on a perilous trip of my own.

And other notable gentlemen above,

Thank you for the recommended addtional reading on convoy warfare.

--Matt

Matt,

Welcome to the Group! I hope you enjoy the Convoy games as much as I do! While posting the AAR for HG56&OG56, I have also embarked on OG71, and believe me that will turn out to be Trouble on Deadly Waters!

The real history of OG71 is pretty grim, and my version is following suit, the Commodore's ship was just sunk last night, only in my version he has survived, so far, and about to shift his pennant to another ship, that may or may not make it to the end … the wolves are out there prowling in the dark!

And as Mal has mentioned he is working on Rising Storm covering the period before Deadly Waters, and that should be a ton of fun too!

Enjoy your games!
Jan

If you're interested in purchasing this, please contact me. I found it wasn't my cup of tea, and I'd be willing to sell it at a substantial discount.