"Steamer Wars Published " Topic

Evening all. I don't normally "do" gratuitous self promotion, but just this once I thought I'd change the habit of lifetime to let the world know that I've published a set of my rules under my own banner on Wargame Vault (as "Long Face Games") rather than through an established publisher. The subject is the lake steamer battles on Lake Tanganiyka, so its more a labour of love and a bit of fun rather than an assault on the established naval wargaming press, and it was intended to support the rather nice North Head range of 1/600 models available on Shapeways (and of course PT Dockyard's RCW and WW1 models are extremely useful for it too).

Thanks for reading – normal service will now be resumed :)

Congratulations!

I looked forward to you buying champagne for all Berkeley Vale club members with your first royalty cheque

Would you not prefer beer? :)

Just bought one and printed it up.

Good luck David, the rules look fun!

And Mallen, print me up a beer too.

The beer I printed up was a bit dry, and a tad flat. An IPA perhaps?

Flat is the only way to drink beer or at least without the Sparkle

@Dave – have we played it at the club?

Great job, David!

I've noticed that Tumbling Dice have added a few WW1 steamers to their 1/600 naval range

David. We pressed the rules into service at little wars adelaide on the 12 th. They were very well received. We played three public participation games with people who just walked in. The rules were easy to pick up and understand and great fun was had by all. Through sheer bad luck the Germans got pounded into pudding in all three encounters. One issue was raised about how close you could get to a ship before the guns couldn't depress far enough. Mimi and tou tou decided to close on the grotsen by racing up and laying themselves on either side. To the accompaniment of 3 lb guns being fired at the hull from inches away – a member of the ship modellers association who had actually been on the grotsen a couple of years back chatted about there not being enough room to depress the guns to fire at a thing so small along side. In keeping with the spirit of the encounter the German captain offered to prime the 105mm shells and toss them over the side onto the decks below. He thought he would have a better chance of hitting or at least of them passing through the wooden hulls.

So the question is one of dead ground as it were ( or Dead Sea). Any thoughts.

And here is the Link…

link

Are the modifiers for hitting targets of size 2 or 3 on Page 6 positive when they should be negative? Otherwise it's easier to hit smaller targets.

Also on p6, it's easier for a gun to cause heavy damage on a medium target than either large or small. Is this deliberate? Were shells more likely to go through little ships without causing major harm? sounds plausible, just checkin!

They're a great wee set of rules, I can see them being easily adapted to the RCW on the rivers, and maybe the Caspian too.

I found these rules for East Africa company level actions on freewargamesrules.co.uk

PDF link

I'm thinking of shoehorning them into the campaign rules in Steamer Wars.

Same question as fleabeard. It looked like the modifiers were reversed.
Otherwise they look good and my group will probably play them.

Hi Bill, fleabeard,

Yes, you are quite correct – I don't know how many pairs of eyes that table has been through but you were the first to spot them.

re the gun damage table, yes, thats right (although you will note the misprunt in the row above that should read 3-7 rather than 3-8!)

I will correct the file and reload it to WGV – as an aside, does anyone know if there is a facility on WGV to automatically send an updated file to customers, or to alert them to an upissue? Having made a mistook I'd like everyone who has so kindly purchased a copy to get the right version.

And on another note I'll also be updating them to include reference to the Tumbling Dice range of 1/600 models (which are very nice) and (when I have time) adding a free additional mini campaign based on Lake Nyasa. But that will be a bit further off in the future.

Good spot on the land rules, btw. I was thinking of something similar, but these fit the bill nicely :)

David, thanks for getting back to this so quickly. When you write something and then read it, you generally see what you expect to see. :)

Got an email from Long Face Games linking to the new version on Wargames Vault (in the process discovering a WGV "library" I didn't know existed)

Job's a good 'un. Thanks!

Yep, got the new version last night. Quick work! Thanks for the fast response.

Used 'em for RCW river battles and they worked great. Good feel and fast play; not much more to ask for.

David- One quick (dumb) question: What is the rough ground/timescale for these rules? We were trying to construct the riverbank area (one of the objectives for the game) and hit a snag. Ended up with a rough 'that's looks about right' idea, but it's always best to ask the author…..