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"Project Jutland - Live at Derby" Topic


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yarkshire gamer22 Oct 2017 9:45 a.m. PST

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Evening fellow Navallers,

The giant behemoth that is Jutland rolled out of the stocks into the show that is the Derby Worlds a couple of weeks ago.

I have done a full report on the game, it's set up and how we got on, liberally sprinkled with lots of pics of course !

A great couple of days with a monster of a game. For you full on Naval geeks I have listed the damage to each of the ships involved. I have put it at the end so "normal" people can stop reading before hand.

Hopefully Project Jutland will see the light of day again, no plans as yet but I'm open to offers (mostly pie and beers based offers that is).

Regards Ken
The Yarkshire Gamer

Cheriton22 Oct 2017 10:33 a.m. PST

Ken:

Have been using golf tees for shell splashes forever [literally], never occurred to anyone I knew to make the step of adding the "ring" near the bottom to suggest explosions. Gawd I miss the naval stuff!

Beautiful presentation. Brilliant! thumbs up

Cheriton guinness

Frederick Supporting Member of TMP22 Oct 2017 10:56 a.m. PST

Wow – big battle! Nicely done and congrats on pulling off a really big game

langobard23 Oct 2017 2:53 a.m. PST

Wow. That is what I think we all believe a dreadnought game should look like, but never see. Congratulations and thanks for sharing!

Munster23 Oct 2017 3:30 a.m. PST

Awesome effort, now if you head down under we have plenty of 2 and 3 day tournaments and shows :)

Old Contemptibles23 Oct 2017 11:10 a.m. PST

Very nice ships. I have to say I was wondering about all the white missiles.

Midlander6524 Oct 2017 1:40 p.m. PST

Spectacular and slightly mad, in a good way.

I was very glad to see it in the metal at the "Derby" show and thanks to whoever it was took the time to explain to me what was going on. I really hope you get the chance to put it on in full at few more. Such an epic game deserves to be seen by as big an audience as possible.

Bozkashi Jones24 Oct 2017 2:45 p.m. PST

Oh lovely stuff Ken!

Nick

whitejamest25 Oct 2017 6:40 a.m. PST

That's a really fantastic looking game.

I'm wondering, for those of you who have gamed Jutland in the past, what was the most decisive result you've seen?

A C London26 Oct 2017 5:56 a.m. PST

Sounds like a really good game. The realistic results are a good advert for your rules. And what a brilliant advert / recruiting sergeant for naval gaming! Hope you get to take it to more shows.

Whitejamest, I think the Central London club might have managed the most decisive Jutland. There were many anniversary refights, but ours was the only one I have yet heard of which finished the battle, or at least the daylight part of it.

Main credit is due to the two umpires who, while painting up the fleets (in 3000 rather than lovely 2400 scale, but still a challenge), ran evening games taking club members through the earlier Brit v German engagements. We used the zippy GQ3, Fleet Action Imminent rules, so cd sometimes fit a couple of games into an evening. As a result, most players had a fair idea of the rules before the off.

Having two umpires to hurry things along was also a gt help. Think we had about five players aside, with people drifting in and out over the course of a Sunday.

We'd modified the rules to make Br battlecruisers even more likely than they are in the basic set to blow-up. As Jellicoe, I thought that was rather over-egging things but, by luck or judgement, Beatty & co managed to survive the runs to the south and the north largely intact.

The decisive difference was made by the 5th Battle Sq. Hindsight is a problem with a battle like Jutland. Knowing (unlike the real Germans) that they were likely to encounter Br battleships, the Germans had kept their fleet in squadron formations rather than in single line of battle, allowing for a more flexible deployment when the Grand Fleet emerged. Our Evan-Thomas hadn't much practice of WWI, but was a skilled ironclads player. Handling his ships with aplomb, he shot bits out of the German battlecruisers and compelled the High Seas Fleet to begin to deploy against him. As a result they were caught partially-deployed and nr surrounded when the Grand Fleet appeared.

A massacre ensued. The sq of most modern German dreadnoughts lined-up against the oldest RN dreadnoughts. That alone gained an advantage and escaped unscaved. By around 7 pm (2016 time) the players were exhausted and the Germans retreating where they could. With light failing, we judged that just over half of their dreadnoughts would have made it back.

Half way through the game, to speed play, the umpires removed all flotilla craft. That whizzed things along, but was unfair to the Germans, whose torpedo boats would have helped them to get more out, while the Brits had been able to faff around with destroyer attacks early on. The German players took all in good grace – the aim being to get a result.

Earlier this year we tried a what-if Jutland, set in 1915, when the forces were less unbalanced. We used some fast-play flotilla rules I'd written, which did sort of work, but the game was slower: maybe because the forces were more even. It ended in an unfinished draw, with the Germans marginally ahead.

Alan

yarkshire gamer26 Oct 2017 10:54 a.m. PST

Thanks for all the positive posts, much appreciated.

Some interesting ideas on fighting the battle. I deliberately chose to start at the beginning of the Fleet Action to get the largest number of ships on table for the viewing public at the show. People with a basic knowledge of the Battle could instantly see what they were looking at.

We did think about doing the "Run to" actions as self contained games prior to the main action and carrying the results forward but felt that a few ships on a 18 x 8 table would look pants.

I think it's perfectly possible to run it as a mini campaign from the initial Battlecruiser action but the Fleet Action (If you end up with one) is not likely to look anything like the actual battle.

There are always compromises with games this size, I have covered ours in the post, it's always great to see a massive Naval game regardless of how it's done.

Regards Ken
The Yarkshire Gamer

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