"Tough gaming choice: pre-dreads or WW1?" Topic

Such a dilemma, and a self-created one as I cannot resist a shiny new object: I bought a bunch of unpainted pre-dreads a few years ago (mainly armored cruisers) and in the meantime have grabbed any cheap or pretty ships to go along with them, in the interest of creating (at least) two opposing fleets. Unfortunately, I've closed one eye while doing this and now I find myself with a lot of pre-dread ACs and a lot of WW1 BBs and BCs…75% of which are not painted. Now, I know the proper gamer thing to do is just keep and paint all of them but I'm renovating my basement (including my game room) and any extra cash would really come in handy. So I am thinking of selling off one or the other…so I put it to you, my gaming brethren: keep the pre-dread ACs, or the WW1 big boys? For what it's worth, they are 1:2400 scale.

I have some home rules if you want them,

Completely different system than Form on Admiral's Wake but same level of complexity

Tom Black

WW I as there is a good set of rules called Fleet Action Imminent available.

An awful lot of pre-dread stuff was still in use around the world in 1914.

For me the two periods slide together, it's a very artificial divide. Heck I have stuff that's technically pre-dread that tries to fight in WW2.

But if I had to choose it would be WW1 – the available rules are IMO better (FAI as above) and you get to use modern BBs and BCs with old B*s and whatever assortment of CAs and CLs you feel like.

Hi, Tom! Thanks, man, I'll hit you up for those.

I recently bought FAI but have not played them; I'm signed up for a Jutland game of them at Historicon so hope to get a taste of them, period specific, then.

Would it be reasonable to mix what I have, then? Have the main battleline of the BBs and BCs, then have separate squadrons of the armored cruisers that could tangle with each other, or pick off wounded ducks?

I know, of course, that it's all a game and I can do whatever I want, but I like to keep it reasonably accurate.

It rather depends just how venerable your assorted pre-dreads are.

If you drop some ship names / classes we can probably give you an idea if they can historically be included in a WW1 line up.

Although if you have the FAI fleet supplements you should have a pretty comprehensive list of vessels.

For myself I'd go with Pre-Dreadnought since you have a much wider variety of ships and nations to work with.

One set of rules that my friends and I use is David Manley's Fire When Ready.

As for WWI you have mainly 2 main Naval powers(Great Britain and Germany) and several smaller ones like France,Austria etc.

But the choice is yours

Calling France a minor naval power is a bit rich!

You also have the US, Italy, Turkey, Russia and Japan as major combatants.

In fact the same players you would have in the pre-dread era (or post WW1 interwar era or in fact the WW2 era).

Spain and China require a bit of inventiveness admittedly but all the other minor powers can be shoehorned in one way or another within the post-dread timeframe.

Zippee I never said France was a minor Naval power I said smaller than Great Britain and Germany what is wrong with that?

And you must admit that France was smaller in Naval strength to Great Britain.

Great Britain was bigger than the next 2 or 3 Naval powers combined.

Need I say more?

Some of the British cruisers are Cressy, Devonshire, and Monmouth. Germans include the Adalbart, Kaiser Karl, and the old Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. I just looked at the national charts in FAI. I haven't really looked at the rules since getting them. I saw all of these old ships on the lists, so I am going to believe I can use the older ships withthe "newer" battleships. I am really looking forward to playing these rules at Hcon.

The Monmouth fought the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and lost. Devonshire was in the same class as Hampshire which fought at Jutland and carried lord Kitchener to his death shortly after. Cressy and two sister ships had an unfortunate run-in with U-9 early in the war. Adalbart fought in the Baltic against Russian ACs so there is scope for your predread ships, especially in "what if' scenarios.

If you want the best of both worlds you might want to look at the Mediterranean in WW1; the British forces were very much the Second XI and the are lots of 'what ifs'. It might allow manageable actions with a mix of pre-dread and more modern, especially if you look at the Adriatic.

One of the advantages of pre-dread is you are not as constrained by history. In the period 1880 to 1914 pretty much any match-up is feasible with lots of flashpoints. Italy V France over Libya, France V Britain over Egypt, Germany V Russia over the Danzig corridor, Turkey V Russia, Turkey V Italy or France, Britain V Russia after the Dogger Bank fiasco, the list goes on.

For 1:2400 and shorter ranges I'd go with pre-dreads with all the infinite variety it allows.

Nick

FAI and its Supplement include many of the older armored cruisers and battleships. While decidedly second string to the dreadnoughts, they still had their uses in secondary theaters. So you can utilize them. And, as Bokashi Jones points out, the Med is a prime theater for their use.

Thanks guys, for all the solid input. I think that's what I'm going to do…keep the ships I've got (rather than try to fill out the Brit and German OBs at Jutland) and just do a lot of hypothetical scenarios. I'm even thinking of combining Italian battleships with my few German battleships and battle cruisers to take on a mix of older and newer Brit ships.

Sounds like a good way to go. If you wanted to fill out your WW1 fleets you could sent up for Cradock vs von Spee at Coronel and Fisher vs von Spee at Falklands – two nice little actions that give some good WW1 flavour without the need for huge fleets.

For small WW1 actions you might also want to look at operations in the Black Sea; the Ottomans had a modern BC but you could easily rewrite history to include 2 dreadnoughts (Agincourt and Erin – both were built for Turkey but requisitioned by Britain at the outbreak of war).

Nick