"Sea War Campaign" Topic

All

WW2 Naval warfare is a new project for me as I currently do 28mm Napoleonic's but I fancied a break

Are there any games systems already out there that would allow for a "campaign" for 3-4 players, mainly by e-mail but just meeting up to fight any sea battles?

I would be looking for small ships to keep costs down as this would basically be a side project, but not so small that i'd drop and lose all the destroyers….

I have some knowledge of WW2 naval warfare, and used to collect and make 1/700 scale ships so I am aware of the vessels involved.

Any guidance would be great,if there are no pre-made campaigns I might write a simple one myself, and use a (cheap and simple) rule set :)

Thanks in advance guys!

J

I believe there is a campaign modual in the General Quarters rules.

That said, unless you fancy fighting the battles with the GQ rules, I would look at Avalanche Press board games. They would work well for a PBEM campaign.

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Allen57 is right.

GQ2 has a very simple set of campaign rules in it but requires GQ1 to play a tabletop game. The newer GQ3 has modules for campain play. Also available for GQ3 is The Solomons Campaign. It's not a map system but a decision tree campaign. Fleet Action Imminent is GQ3 for WW1. There is a North Sea campaign availble for it, again you make decisions, compare them to see if there is an action

Avalanche Press have many naval boardgames that are useful for campaigns

The Avalanche Press Second World War At Sea series of games is your best off-the-shelf option. The rules already track individual ships (except DDs) and air groups, and battles are resolved on a tactical map with separate tactical rules, so it's little trouble to substitute a miniatures game to resolve battles. Note that some of the titles in the series are long out of print (Leyte Gulf, SOPAC, Bomb Alley, etc.), but can sometimes be found on eBay or the Board Game Geek market.

If you want to keep it small, get the Avalanche Press game Bismarck and play one or more of the classic nail-biting hunting trips in the foggy North Atlantic. The investment in ships is modest (as few as 2 Germans) and the scenarios are simple but tense.

I think the Avalon Hill games Midway and Guadalcanal would also work as pre-built mini-campaigns of a few days' duration. Midway is (obviously) about a single battle, but Guadalcanal has scenarios for all of the other major carrier battles in '42-43, and a few of the actions in The Slot. Again, ships larger than DDs are represented individually so you could just play the tactical battles with your favorite miniatures game.

- Ix

I created a Norway 1940 campaign in the late 1980s (using ideas from SPI's "Flight of the Goeben"), which I have digitized, and will distribute to anyone who is interested. In return, I ask that they not distribute it further, but refer anyone else who is interested back to me.

It is designed for 2 players, without a referee, but could be played by more if you used teams. It assumes use of General Quarters 1 and 2 rules, but could be modified for other rules. Send me a PM if interested.

FYI, here is a reduced-size image of the game-map, which was created on an Amiga 1000 PC. The images are JPEGs of this old artwork (hence the low resolution); it's readable though. There is also a text file with GQ interface rules, and 2 sheets with both German and British SDSs.

Mark H.

Further thought on the subject. Pacific Fury revolutiongames.us is a nice small game which could be used to generate a Solomons campaign. Another thought would be the two old Avalon Hill games, War at Sea and Victory in the pacific. Both can generate great campaigns. While these games are OOP they are usually available on eBay at good prices.

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Some people have used the "Berthier" system to run a campaign. It's free and can be used for land, air, naval or any combination.

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Seems you might be looking for ships too… Figurehead makes a great range of 1/6000 scale that are pretty well done. The destroyers are pretty small though!

I made up a set of campaign rules that do what you are looking for. If you want a copy (free) give me an email address. They work off percentile dice instead of maps.

Another vote for Second World War at Sea by Avalanche Press. The games are operational in scale and work great for campaigns since it's very easy to translate the battle to a tabletop scenario. And if the battle is not critical and/or very lopsided then just play out using the SWWAS rules and save the minis for the really cool fights.

-Will