"David Manley's White Bear Red Sun RJW quick review" Topic

Just a really quick read of David Manley's white bear red sun rules.

I was a bit apprehensive that they'd supplant the lovely Quickfire that WTJ put out for nix, but I'm happy to report that the two sets fill different niches and I'll happily be playing both.

QF has point by point reduction for its ship stats damage effects, while WBRS' Tactical rules (called Broadside and Salvo) take a stepped approach (damaged, silenced, crippled,sunk) with each step modifying ship performance (except minor units) in the same way.

Movement and action are governed by per squadron action points d6

These two mechanisms will likely combine to reduce per ship stat keeping and allow fast resolution of much larger fleet battles quickly.

Something QF struggled with at more than a dozen ships a side. (It has good chrome for several sqns a side game)

This is the set you fight Tsushima with, which I think is what David is shooting for.

He's included a critical hit table for attacker 6, defender 1 results..
So you will all get a kabewm from this set sometime.

Gunnery is DBAesque (equal, greater, twice, etc)

Torpedoes are one shot attacks conducted similarly

I'm looking forward to these rules and I think they'll serve their purpose well.. nice one David
(Go buy the rules if you haven't already)
link

The front Matter is 7 pages of RJW campaign narrative followed by 2 pages of brief OOB for the 10 major actions of the RJW from Port Arthur to Tsushima.

For those of you who remember DBSA, well this isn't DBSA. it will play faster, David has removed the exceptions and corner cases which made DBSA combat results resolution a drudge.
It flows and it shows.

David has indicated a SpanAm supplement is in the works

More tomorrow when I've digested the campaign rules.

Just purchased, looking forward to reading it and trying out a game.

How do you think they would work with Yalu?

Yalu would play fast and fine, I've played it using Quickfire and it's a middle sized action for WBRS

Sounds ideal for my 1/6000 Hallmark ships which have been languishing unpainted for want of a set of large fleet action rules.

Definitely Alan let rip.
The campaign rules look good I'll post more when I've given them a proper read through

Bob,

Look forward to your further report.

Alan

Alan I'll post more but lash out and grab em. Dirt cheap.

David Manley's got Alpacas to feed ;)

Well worth getting for the campaign rules alone.

Do the tactical rules cover torpedo boats, perhaps as flotillas, as well as capital ships?

Alan,
Yes, the tactical rules have everything that you need in a dozen pages. Destroyers and TBs care handled in flotillas of three or four boats.
They are very good set IMHO and would be easy to tinker with if you want more detail or specific cases.
Cheers,
Bertie

I bought mine last night, look forward to reading through everything. Ended up buying the Ancient Galley campaign game from Long Face as well.

Are the tactical rules RJW specific, or can they be used for pretty much any pre-dreadnaught battle, real or hypothetical?

Dear Tony S,
The tactical rules (which make up only 14 of the 48 pages,) can be used for any pre-Dreadnaught battle and are quite generic. Very much like Phil Barker's DBSA if you have played that. But they take up where DBSA left off and the damage outcome rules are particularly elegant: ships fall out of line, torpedo boat flotillas are driven off. It looks to have a very good "feel" for the general period.

The campaign module includes period-specific rules for the RJW to give more period flavour. You could do the same thing for other wars in the period if you liked.

They could be easily tinkered with to provide more detail and granularity if you like that sort of thing. For example rather than have all battleships with an attack of 4 and a defence of 5 you could vary the factors as you wished.

Cheers,
Bertie

Purchased today and look very interesting, particularly as I would like to run larger games where other rule sets tend to bog down