"Cruel Seas – New WWII Small Ship Naval Combat Game 1/300" Topic

Belloflostsouls has a article will new pictures of the Warlord Naval Game. The group picture has what i have want for a long time f-lighter'

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'immersive' is probably the appropriate adjective.

that sounds interesting

Interesting indeed, the initial release of models look lovely. I'm not entirely sold on 1/300 as a decent scale for CF wargaming; I can see it working well for "skirmish" level games involving a couple of half flotillas and maybe a trawler, F lighter, merchant or two, and that's what I think I'll be doing with these. For bigger games such as a convoy attack I'd see 1/600 as still being the scale to go for, so I'm sceptical about "dozens of ships on the table" – and tbh I can't think of many WW2 coastal forces games I've played in 30-odd years that have had dozens of models on the table anyway) :). That said, Warlord love "oversized model" games – we've found Bolt Action looks far better with 15mm than 28mm, I guess this is going to be no exception. Not sold on the dice that the boats are towing around behind them, but I'm guessing that is something that can be easily house-ruled away. Definitely looking forward to Christmas to get my hands on these.

The models look great but yea, 1/300 does seem a little large. Will be looking forward to this.

Think Wings of War with PT boats. Crowded is fine, so 1/300 is fine.

But I agree -- 1/300 is too large for "normal" games most of us are thinking of.

The ships do look nice though.

Great shame they didn't go for 1/600 or 1/700 but I may buy a few as targets for my air combat games.

I thought of St Nazaire when I saw those, assuming there could be Fair miles and HDML's. I think Scotia do some 1/300 scale coastal forces models too.

The way they have done the 72'6 MTB makes a conversion to the specially converted MTB74 pretty straightforward

It looks like the infamous Flames of War tank parking lot at sea.
Nice models, though.

I'll be interested in seeing how the rules handle torpedoes. This seems to be the area that rules never do very well. Since a ship can see across the table when torps are launched, it becomes too easy to maneuver out of the way. We'll see.

I wonder if Warlord will release the rules as a free download.

The wake-marker-as-speed-indicator (and apparently unit info card?) is rather brilliant.

Not sure about the scale. Yeah, I get that 1/300 is a typical gaming scale, but 1/350 is the typical naval modeling scale…

I want the 72' Whaleback MTBs/MGBs.

They can use the same hull with different cockpits for a couple of different variants – late war model has a shorter, "more conventional" cockpit.

Of course, at this scale, we need crew figures so the boats don't look like ghost ships. Hoping someone will make them with commanders caps, and also figures with helmets, to man the cockpits and guns.

Also need some merchants for targets too. Apparently, those are in the works.

This scale will be especially good for small, point-blank, MGB/MTB vs. S-Boat actions.

Did I mention boats this size need crewmen?

Yep, I'm a little sceptical about the 'Flames of War' tank park effect too, but the models could definitely have a place.

The addition of crewmen would be splendid to bring the models to life – maybe it's time to start reading some Douglas Reeman to get some scenario/campaign ideas!

Nick

I suspect quite a few of the Heroics and Ros individual 6mm gun crew figures would do for these

Didn't think about those, David.

Thanks for the suggestion.

May have to check them out.

Anyone have pics of them, in either painted, or unpainted condition?

Anyone have pics of them, in either painted, or unpainted condition?

I have a few. But not much in the way of good quality close-ups. Sorry. Pick out what information you can from among these…

My Italian 100mm Howitzer crews are pretty much all H&R. If you can see, the artillery crews are standing, with one pose of a figure with binoculars, a pose with both arms close in to the body but hands outstretched, a pose with one arm raised to point or reach for something, and poses clutching a round for the gun.

French 25mm AT guns. Crews are all H&R. As shown in my pics, H&R gun crews generally are standing for artillery, and kneeling for AT guns. Kneeling figures are generally observing through binocs, a couple of poses with one or both arms outstretched (operating gun?), and a couple of poses clutching a round of ammo (couple poses -- clutching close in, our outstretched as if loading).

Some GHQ AT guns come with crews cast "en bloc", as this Russian 57mm AT gun shows. These are quite useful for modelling guns. I have also cut the en blocs apart into 2 figure clusters on occasion to use for vehicle crews. Might be useful for modelling boats … I can't say.

GHQ also makes standing artillery crew figures with German, British or US style helmets (the US style helmet figures are also sold as Soviet and Italian artillery crews). There are also "summer" artillery crews with bare chests or rolled-up sleeves -- these might be very nice on SWAPO PT and MTB boats.

The GHQ artillery crewmen include some with rounds … which are substantially longer rounds than the H&R artillery crew rounds. There are more open-armed reaching out figures, and with GHQ figures it is easier to move the arms to have them clutching gun shields or vehicle sides, whatever. Oddly the GHQ artillery crews, including British and US, include a large number of figures holding wide-angled binocular coincidence range finders. Don't think anyone but the Germans used these in large numbers. I often bend the ends up to look like the more commonly seen periscopic binoculars, or snip them off to look more like (a poor kit-bash of) regular / small binoculars.

GHQ also has, in the US line, a pack called Armored Infantry. This VERY useful pack includes many sitting soldiers (in 2 or 4 soldier en bloc castings), and standing machine gunners with .30cal water-cooled and .50cal HMGs.

Many of my open-topped vehicles are crewed by combinations of these kinds of figures. Might have one or two seated crewmen around the gun (from Armored Infantry packs), one standing holding the gun shield or side (from Artillery Crew), one pointing or looking through some form of binocs (often from Artillery crew). If there's an MG gunner, that comes from the Armored Infantry pack.

I do not really hesitate to mix and match the figures. H&R figures are generally smaller than GHQ (not much smaller then the en bloc figures, but notably smaller than the individual standing figures). That's OK with me … I've seen people in real life that are not all exactly the same height too.

The crews of this Romanian howitzer battery are a mix of H&R and GHQ figures. I don't see much harm in putting them together, not only within one unit but even on one stand.

Hope that helps.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Hi Mark,

Thanks for posting your pics. I appreciate that.

I can't see them, but do see tiny little squares.

No worries though.

I think the GHQ figs will be too large, since they're about 1/220th scale, instead of 1/300th.

I'll check out the H&R minis.

Regards,

Rob

Very interesting and I will be seriously looking at these. My collections are strictly 6mm across the eras in which I game. Although I'm not a huge fan of warlorrd games rules this might change my mind enough to give them a try.