Thursday, February 11, 2010

WWI Naval gaming, and naval-style gaming in general

Late last year I read Robert Massie's Dreadnought, and I'm currently about halfway through with his Castles of Steel, so of course I'm looking into some WWI (and maybe some pre-dreadnought) naval gaming. I ordered a copy of the "Dreadnought" rules by Ben King, and am grabbing two more rulesets in PDF (Grand Fleets and Naval Thunder) later this week. Once the rules get here I suppose I should start figuring out what scale to go with, although I'm looking at the lovely Navwar 1/3000th scale offerings.

All this has sort of revived my interest in several different naval (or faux-naval) wargame settings; when I ordered the "Dreadnought" rules I also gave in and grabbed a set of GW's Napoleonic-era naval wargame "Trafalgar," as well as digging out my old Battlefleet Gothic stuff and taking a serious look at it, and the BFG rules, for the first time in a long time. I'm also eagerly awaiting Catalyst games upcoming dieselpunk/WWI-ish game of giant flying ships, Leviathans. This style of gaming is something I've got no experience with at all, but it seems like an interesting area to explore.

4 comments:

  1. The Spring Fever Con in Raleigh, NC in early March has several naval games scheduled.

    Check out Triangle Simulation Society (http://www.trianglesimsociety.org/index.php)
    for details on the Spring Fever schedule.

    Cool stuff.

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  2. Ron mentioned Spring Fever when I ran into his shop Wednesday, but I didn't think to ask about the naval issue. One more reason for me to try and go if the family schedule works out.

    Also, didn't you say people at his store played a fair amount of Firestorm Armada? I noticed a fleet box for the Aquans while I was browsing and meant to ask about it, but got caught up in the minutiae of what types of minis to get for some Napoleonic gaming in the Peninsular Campaign and totally forgot to bring it up.

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  3. Speaking of WWI, are there any minis games out there for it? I mean ground troops, trenches, proto-tanks, etc..

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  4. Tom, I know there are at least a few WWI ground combat minis games out there: Warhammer Historicals produces one called "The Great War," website here:

    www.warhammer-historical.com/acatalog/The_Great_War.html

    There's also a company called 'Too Fat Lardies' that makes some very interesting stuff (I got their Napoleonic skirmish game and their Age of Sail game as well, and both look quite playable and fun); their WWI ruleset is called "Through the Mud and the Blood," and you can find it here:

    http://toofatlardies.co.uk/

    I haven't played either of these, or even talked with anyone who has, but I've seen good stuff about them both on the internet. I'll ask around a bit on some other boards and see if anyone has any other suggestions!

    (also hope to see you at Boargame Night tonight!)

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