"The War that never was: Update" Topic

We met with my gaming buddies in Istanbul today to introduce them a bit to naval gaming. We took with us the Great War at Sea Avalanche Press module on the Mediterranean, and Fleet Action Imminent, together with mine and Doruk's collection of 1:2400 Greek and Ottoman what if fleet for 1914.
Our main goals were to introduce Emir and Onur to naval gaming, get a hold on FAI, and test how well we can use GWAS for generating FAI battles.

In general we learned some good things to know. First GWAS does not mesh well with miniature wargames. This makes sense as it's not a system for producing balanced tabletop battles but a full board game. It always is a good way to see the tediousness that was 90% of naval warfare. I am thinking of coming up with a simple area control campaign system.

Second, FAI once you sit down and play, becomes a bit more manageable. Still the sheer number of charts counts against it. Indeed the seeming complexity due to the way the rules are structured always makes you worried that you forgot something. I think my problems with the system are more due to the structure of the rules than to their actual complexity.

Third, we ran a small scenario. Essentially the two dreadnought squadrons of the Greeks and Ottomans meet in battle, in preparation for amphibious operations either against the Eastern Aegean Islands or Asia Minor. The Salamis and King Constantine met the Resadiye and Sultan Osman. The battle went much faster than the equivalent in Perfidious Albion, but it felt less tactical to some of us. That said the result is probably what would happen historically. The four dreadnoughts hammered each other. No ship sunk, but the Sultan Osman , Salamis and Resadiye would need substantial dry-dock repairs to their guns or flotation, while the King Constantine to its rudder. None of the four ships would be quick to return to action with the exception of the King Constantine. Thus a draw, which interestingly would throw the weight of resolving the issue on the Greek and Ottoman pre-dreadnaughts. In this case the Greeks have the advantage with their Kilkis and Lemons pre-dreadnaughts vs. the Ottoman Branderburgs. And thus what is old becomes new again.

End result it was a good introduction. We all had fun, and learned what works and what will not work. We do want to run a game of Perfidious Albion for Onur and Emir before moving onwards to a fuller campaign.

KTravlos

Thank you for the post. You mentioned that GWAS did not "mesh well" with FAI. I have been thinking of trying to use GWAS with FAI or with Naval Thunder, and so am interested in knowing what problems you encountered. Would you be so kind as to describe exactly what complications/problems arose? Do you think Naval Thunder would mesh better with GWAS, or is GWAS just not as suitable for naval miniatures as it first appears?

Thanks,
Byron

I've had similar problems using GWAS to run naval operations. The maps are beautiful and the system looks so simple, it seems like it ought to be fun, but in practice it can be joyless and tedious.

The GWAS map movement mechanics are basically an accounting exercise, and it can be a prolonged agony of paperwork before the point of actually moving fleets around the theater. Worse, there is a very real chance that no interesting fleet encounters will occur. Severely lopsided encounters are a natural occurrence as small detachments on independent missions can and do run into enemy forces that can overwhelm them, and it's a bummer if by the end of the gaming session all the battles have been such uneven stern chases.

Most of us play naval games to get into fleet battles, but as in real life, fleet battles are actually the least likely event in a large sea area full of small warships steaming hither and yon on detached duties. Choosing different tactical rules won't change any of this, because as Dr. Travlos summarized so well:

It always is a good way to see the tediousness that was 90% of naval warfare.

I agree that an area movement map might work better. A point-to-point map might also. The point of naval miniatures gaming is really to get the nice models on the table in entertaining scenarios, and you only need a bare minimum of strategic context to accomplish that.

- Ix

Ix surmises it up well. While I do love the operational aspect, figuring out what to do, what the enemy is likely to do and making up a good distribution of forces, it is not built to make exciting battles. The game is built to stimulate the issue of use of scarce resources for missions. It does that well. But it is not build to produce fun naval encounters. In all of our games to date most encounters were very lopsided (for example 1 AC vs. 5 BB(pre Dread), a small destroyer flotilla vs. a massive combined fleet etx). It makes sense from history and shows to you how one large operation gone wrong could doom one of the two sides, which makes the players naturally timid. Fleets are concentrated into massive battle-groups, that you can expect to win. Those battlegroups spend their time blindly looking for each other, either missing small groups that rack in VPs for missions, or falling on those small groups in battles so lopsided that its not worth gaming them.

To put it simply GWAS is a great game for what it is supposed to do. Giving you insight into the operational art of naval war It just does not work for producing entertaining naval battles. A smaller area control or point to point system, with some good VP rules would concentrate forces more and provide a chance of at least more interesting tabletop battles and still force players to decide how to use scarce resources.

Fascinating discussion gentlemen, and I would love to see some photographs of the action.

With regard to a campaign 'engine' to drive tabletop battles I have been considering that in a week long campaign turn each side has a finite choice of missions; shore bombardment, convoy escort, patrol, etc. Each of these is pre-mapped and naturally there are points where opposing missions intersect. Each player allocates resource to each mission, and may decide against running others at all. Once done a simple cross-check gives any possible encounters with the chance of it occurring.

I'm developing this for a WW2 Med campaign and supported land operations are simple in the extreme. For example the Italian forces in Libya may have 20 'Army Points' in the Western Desert, a figure that drops 1 point each week, so they need to keep Tripoli supplied. For each supply ship successfully escorted a point is added, but if the Royal Navy conduct a shore bombardment mission on their supply lines they may degrade the AP by 1 point for each ship with 8" or larger guns.

Still working on it; anyone tried anything similar?

Nick

Yes, GWAS (and SWWAS) really focus on the operational aspects of naval warfare, and sometimes the best way to win the scenario is to not fight at all, which makes for an interesting operational game but not so good for getting minis on the table.

Some of that is down to scenario design though. The newer games in the series tend to have a better balance of scenarios, with some that actively encourage the two sides to seek each other out. I can probably comb through what I have to make recommendations if folks are interested.

Another factor is that there are some optional rules that help make encounters more likely, often used for double-blind play but they would work well if you wanted to help the two main fleets find each other. I can see if I can dig those up.

-Will

Please do. Thanks.

For the Screening Rules, folks should be able to get at this:
link

The gist of the rules are that:
1) you can assign ships to 'screen' your fleet and have the option of adopting an extended formation, basically placing them into the zones next to the main fleet van and extending the search area.
2) there is also the chance that ships in adjacent zones will spot each other based on smoke or chance investigation of other ships.
3) There are rules for how these extended screens start battles which should be easily adaptable to a tactical system.

The end result is that fleets might be three zones away from each other and still make contact, and get drawn into an escalating engagement.

-Will

good contributions all, thank you!