"Hunt for Red October as a Game" Topic

I ran this game recently at a local convention, it's basically an 8 player game of hide-and-seek. One person is the Red October, the rest have to find it and either sink it or defend it as it crosses the board. The rules I used are homemade called "Meatheads with Missiles" and the scale is 1"=10 nautical miles and one turn is 8 hours. Units are either individual submarines, ship taskforces (1-10 ships) or plane flights (usually 1 for patrol planes and up to a dozen for attack planes). Units are hidden as caps unless detected, then models are put on the board. Caps cannot be attacked and may be offset from the actual location of the ship or plane. I tried to write the description below generically if you want to try it with some other set of rules.
UNITS-4 players are Russian, 4 are NATO (but only one player wins, so it isn't a team game). 4 of the units are 4-ship task forces, the other 4 are a submarine and patrol plane all evenly divided between NATO/USSR (subs are pretty boring, the patrol plane gives the player some range and something else to do while their sub putts along). One player gets an American aircraft carrier, this can make life hard on the Soviet players if war breaks out (see below). The players may not reveal their units, either nationality or unit types until detected by a different player.
MISSIONS-Each player gets a mission card. There are 8 cards, each with a mission if the player is Red October and a different mission if they are anybody else. The Red October has three options: Defect to the USA (4 cards), Patrol the US coast (3 cards) and Nuke the USA (1 card). In all cases the player has to have the Red October safely cross the board to succeed in their mission. For the other players the missions are: Attack the Red October (3 cards), Defend the Red October (3 cards), discover the Red October's intentions (2 cards). If a player discovers the Red October's intentions all other player's cards are passed in. Then the players take on the logical roll of attacking or defending based on the Red October's mission (Russians attack on a defect mission, defend on a Patrol mission and everyone attacks on a Nuke the US mission) The cards are randomly drawn by all players and they may not be revealed until the player is going to act on them.
MAP-The board is roughly square and about 6-8 turns wide (we played on 6'*7.5'). It's a completely empty, deep ocean. Each player starts either in a corner or in the middle of one side, one per so all players are evenly spaced around the table. North is determined by the Red October's location, but since that would give away the sub's position it isn't known until after the game.
DEFCON- The defense condition determines what players can attack during the game. Defcon 4-no attacks other than dictated by mission cards. Defcon 3-Enemy submarines can attack each other if no other players are close enough to tell what's going on. Defcon 2-Ships and subs may attack each other with guns or torpedoes if no other players are close enough. Defcon 1-War, all attacks authorized. Defcon-0 Tactical nukes authorized. The defcon level went up from Defcon 4-10 points-Defcon 3-8 points-Defcon 2-6 points-Defcon 1-4 points-Defcon 0-2 points. Points assigned every time an unknown or enemy unit detected a taskforce and when ships or submarines were sunk. I made up a 6-sided "Point Die" with three 1's, two 2's and one 3.
VICTORY POINTS- using the point die above, a player with "Attack the Red October" mission who succeeds rolls three times and the game is over. A player who successfully defends the Red October (by being between the attacker and the Red October and successfully absorbing the attack) gets one roll per success. Players determining the sub's intentions (by being adjacent to the Red October and afloat at the end of a turn) get two rolls. The Red October gets three dice for successfully exiting the board, unless they're on Nuke the USA mission, then they get five dice. Players also get victory points for sinking enemy ships either by accident (when a ship attacks the Red October and a defending unit absorbs the attack) or when Defcon says it's OK, but the Defcon counter goes up by the same points in either case. Players get "Loser Points" (minuses) when they bump the Defcon level, 1 die for Defcon 4 to 3 then an additional die per additional level, or if they reveal their mission or units before the appropriate time. Also if a player accidentally sinks one of his own side's ships while attempting to attack the Red October he gets loser points.
That's basically the game. The Red October player attempts to sneak then race across the board before someone sinks it, while everyone else tries to rack up victory points and not earn loser points performing their own mission. The Red October has a caterpillar drive that gives him a terrific chance of success, but every time he uses it to hide he rolls a d6 and on a 1 the drive is sabotaged and no longer useable (after that detect attempt). When we played at the con the Red October rolled a ‘1' the first time he used the caterpillar drive but escaped under a defect mission anyway. The winner was in command of the UK SSN Swiftsure who absorbed and then survived several attacks by the Russians. A Udaloy was sunk and the Defcon only made it to 3. The Red October could have won but he rolled three 1's on his winner point dice.

Of interest. Thanks.

I need to have several reads of your information. Any chance you have and might post some photos of the game?

Thanks

TSR did a board game for this, not sure how it was played.

Tsr board game was very good, double blind, and a game of hide and seek for two players, it could also play a third world war Atlantic confrontation as described in red storm rising by Clancy..

Of course the board game red storm rising covered the land battles and could be combined for a full campaign that could be played by two or four players over a day .. And was bloody good fun..

I'll try to get some pics up. I have the Red October board game in the store room but never played it.