"Previews of War At Sea Miniatures." Topic

Avalon Hill's upcoming 'War At Sea' collectible miniatues game, ships will be 1/1800 and planes 1/800.

link

Given the larger scale than 1/2400, I would have expected more detail. As is the quality is poor. Given the non-standard gaming scale, I think this one might just tank.

TheGhost.

Yuch. I'm a sucker for most things naval but I'll give this a pass.

Is it me or do those things look ugly and cheap, I think my 1/6000 scale stuff looks more detailed then those.

WOW those are horrible!

Thanks for posting I will not waste my money on those.

………….Doug™

I agree. The ships just look clunky.The Wizards site does make them look better though Ill still will be passing too. And letme guess. All the ships will be packed in the boxes at random too. Another kind of turn off with these kind of games. Robert

Here is another incentive from the site. "Larger (Rare) ships have moving parts (turrets/main guns)". WOW!! "Moving Parts"!! LOL. Robert

Ooooh! I sick.
No not sea sick…SEE sick.
Crikey they are pretty horrible. They remind me of some of the toy types available about fifty years ago.
As for the aircraft….sheeeeesh….you would think ANYONE could get the aicraft right.
Honestly people….those models look like they were created in the ugly tree, fell out, and hit every branch on the way down.
YIKES. I'm gunna have nightmares.

Mal.Wright.

Yikes, those minis look like crap…

The rules look pretty poor as well.

Yuck!!! Once again I have made my saving roll against "collectable" miniatures games.

Dave

Yuk! I imagine in some wargaming hell there are poor naval players who are forced to use things like this!!!

I agree with Inari7, my 1:6000 ships look better!!

Ken

The Yamato preview they gave on their forum must have been a production master of a sort as these look far worse. The odd scale choice is a non-starter for me.

>> The Yamato preview they gave on their forum must have been a production master of a sort as these look far worse.

They do that with all of the collectible games. The preview shots on their site and in the gallery are of paint masters that are sent to China as references. They typically have better paint jobs and neater paint jobs.

Both the planes and the ships are non-standard scales…brilliant.

Actually they don't look that bad (they can recongized for the ships they're meant to be). The big issue is the odd scale for both ships and a/c. Why would anyone buy ships (and a/c) that don't match any other vendors' out there?

Dan

I've seen grown men nail their own 'eads to the floor rather than use ships like that.

LT

Took a look at the preview of the rules (its on Gizards, oh excuse me, Wizards, of the Coast site) that are suppose go along with these pathetic lumps. And yes, the rules are as lame as the minis. Between this and Victory at Sea, naval gaming could be setback 30 years or more!

MB

Manley, you kill me.

What gives with this? You can do better with old Axis and Allied pieces. And 1:1800? I'm all for cheap minis but no thanks. You can likely do CnC 1:2400 ships for less and get what you want in each order.

I tool a look at the rules preview, and I assume it is a rather "lite" offering.
I recommend anybody still tempted after reding the thread so far to do the same.

If I understood right, a ship with lots of small guns (say 15 x 6") can be equally capable as one with fewer large guns (say 6 x 11").
I saw no allowance for armour or penetration.

Deep sigh…

maybe the scale is set so low as to make it easier for the smaller ships ?

Somebody could lose a bunch of money on this venture….

These things are mostly for kids though, aren't they? I bought a bunch of the Axis and Allies stuff for my sons, and they play with them. I mean, "boom boom" play, not "reading the rules and moving the units" play.

If they want to, I will eventually sit down and read the little rules set and see if they want to play the actual game (if any of the pieces are left!).

I'll puk… er pass these up.

I've seen some of the most recent pic's of some of the ships.

I've seen the Yamato which is not half bad and the Bismarck as well,so i plan to partly get into this game by getting the starter set and 1-3 boosters.

Granted some of the ships from what i've seen are so-so but i'll give the rules a chance.

Captain Gideon

Wow cheap figures! ;) I can see it now, spending many delightful hours paints these when my time and money would better spent in painting up decent miniatures and actually not being embarrassed to put them on the gaming table. You only live once and you are only going to paint Bismarck once too, so you might as well do it right the first time and buy some decent minis!

"These things are mostly for kids though, aren't they? I bought a bunch of the Axis and Allies stuff for my sons, and they play with them. I mean, "boom boom" play, not "reading the rules and moving the units" play."

Yup, these are aimed at people who collect A&A miniatures who could care less how the minis look.

Hey, this might be a cheap way to introduce younger kids into Naval Wargaming. Oh, I forgot – this is the board where we are supposed to be old curmudgeons and begin every post with, "In my day, they didn't have…."

Sorry.

;)

I think I will get these and use them for Victory at Sea.

Save me time and money.

>> I think I will get these and use them for Victory at Sea.

Just noticed this

The fleet lists for VaS don't really match up well with the ships in the War at Sea base set

You won't really be able to use this set for VaS at all

Not even by ship types?

damn..

WW2Fantik said:

"Yup, these are aimed at people who collect A&A miniatures who could care less how the minis look."

…uuhh, that would be me.

This game is HUGE in my area. I dont understand why

I've read the quick-start rules they have on-line and my reaction is "ennh". I've seen some of the ships other people bought at the FLGS and my reaction is "ennh".

If this game gets beginners interested in WWII naval gaming, I'll welcome the company but it certainly doesn't interest me.

LT

Hmmm…. Are you guys looking at the same ships as me??? The ones in the boxes labeled Axis & Allies Miniatures: War at Sea?
I've bought a bunch of them and played the game out of the box which was actually fine. The pieces are great. They are far better then the land minis that A&A have. I have shown them to a bunch of people and everyone's reaction is always very favorable. I was at a convention last weekend and threw down a game on a 6x8 felt covered table and used the A&A rules converted to inches. The game was a blast and enjoyed by all! Even die-hard mini's junkies were talking about getting cases of these things. I'm telling you this stuff is pure plasticrack!
I have a ton of 15mm and 6mm WWII land stuff. And I am pretty particular about painting them up nice. I have wanted to get into naval gaming but never wanted to invest a ton of money on GHQ ships even though they are extremely impressive. A guy at my local shop has a bunch of Panzerschiffe which are good, but then that requires more painting time too which falls behind my land painting backlog. So it is either think about buying unpainted lead indefinitely or buying pre-painted plasticrack and start playing immediately. I chose the later and have really enjoyed the pieces and the new scale. 1:1800 is actually a pretty good scale. The destroyers are nice sized and the large ships aren't too large. Buying them also inspired me to finally pick up a copy of General Quarters III which I found at the convention too.
So avast ye matey's! This land lubber is taking to the seas with my plastic fleet.

I've seen them at the local game store and although I have no interest in buying them I thought they were nice looking pieces. And the guys at the store are all using them to play Victory at Sea.

Personally I just never could get into the collector aspect of it. Even though they are decent.

Despite the reviews above, I bought into this game, and I've gotta say, I rather like it!

It's true that this game has its shortcomings, but it is what it is: a simple game of WWII naval combat. It's not about realism or historical accuracy; it's about throwing down and having fun for an hour or two.

Crap buyin shizer loads of booster packs to get the one ship you want also if you want to build a a full list of ships for the fleets of WW2 how much do you think that would cost, and because of the starnge scale you will be restricted to what MiZKidz decide to release. They do have uses though. Buy a couple of boxes if you intend to introduce your kids to wargaming they will last a lot longer than loaning them your prized GHQ minis. So far adults they are a no no but to introduce kids to wargaming they are recommended.

I bought the starter set to get the rules, counters and maps but, for the rest of the stuff, i am directly buying what i want from ebay.

Itīs cheaper (or, at least, the same expensive) and you can avoid the random factor. Same for any collectible game…why the mourn?

I honestly can't see the problem with the War at Sea miniatures, I intend to use them with the Victory At Sea system and like the last post I'm buying them singly from whichever site has the best price ! Yes, it does work out pretty expensive, but it's nice having models that I can just put down and play without having to spend time and effort painting them.
As for the Victory At Sea rules, I wanted a set of rules which were fast and fun, ( I do play,and enjoy Seekrieg and Harpoon. I just wanted something a little different this time.) Horses for courses I suppose !