Mini Jutland 2

John and I decided to try out our revised One Hour WW1 naval rules with another outing to Jutland. The main differences were a rationalisation of the various conditions for halving hits, and more of a Fletcher Pratt/GQ style incremental damage model. So every five hits reduced firepower and speed (indicated by the yellow and red hit markers). We ran this game using Johns WW1 ships on a 3'x3' cloth. The ship ratios are extreme, each model represents around six real ships (I think!).

The German fleet enters.

And the Grand Fleet in the distance, battlecruisers already out front.

Early exchanges of long range fire damage the German BC.

More pounding.

The British BCs take some hits.

German BCs try to flee.

But it doesn't work out too well. Scratch some BCs.

Soon followed by the British ones. Clearly something wrong with our ships today.

The opposing lines of Battleships start to sort themselves out.

And line up for some hard pounding.

The Battleships blaze away while various lighter ships fuss around.

Damage slowly mounts.

Things aren't going to well for the Germans (all those red markers) but the RN has taken lots of damage too.

Ooops, the edge of the world seems to have intervened.

And suddenly it all gets very messy.

Kaboom. Although the Grand Fleet has also taken a real hammering.

This was really quite a satisfactory outing, the rules mechanisms seem to work well enough within the One Hour Wargames framework, and although a few things inevitably creak a bit in such a simple set of rules, they produce an enjoyable game. I don't think the authors of GQ3 are going to be quaking in their boots, but hey, we just did Jutland in less than an hour. We'll be taking this to COW in July, so people can judge for themselves.