Sink the Bismarck! (again)

 Jim put on another game session using Worthington Games' 'Sink the Bismarck'. This is a solo game but is suitable for team play. Fairly obviously it covers the Bismarck and Prinz Eugens sortie into the Atlantic, and the Germans need to do better than historically to win.

The game is played on this stylised (but very useful!) map of the North Atlantic. Each large grid area is subdivided into four small ones. The Bismarck can cover two (small) squares per turn and Eugen three although both can burn extra fuel to get one additional square of movement. There is alos aU Boat flotilla with a movement of one.

The various capital aships have fairly obvious ratings for hull boxes and firepower, and surface engagements are resolved with simple dice rolling to score hits. The Germans have the option to close or extend the range, with various benefits and penalties, or break off altogether. The British will generally stick around to fight if they are superior, or atttempt to break off if not.

The Germans gain VP by sinking British ships (eg KGV is worth 4) and convoys (1ea) but lose VP if the Eugen or Bismarck are sunk. To win they need to get 6 VP and get home to Brest or Bergen and ideally sink at least one warship to get a medal.

We had quite a turnout for this one, and a suitable array of dodgy hats. I'd commanded Eugen before so this time was cast as British. The British team was myself (Adm Holland on Hood), John A (Home Fleet) and Russell (Force H). The wicked Germans were Tim (Lutjens), Mark (Bismarck) and Terry (Eugen),

It transpired that only a few people had read the rules beforehand so there was a certain degree of chaos while the turn sequence and general flow of events was mastered, but we soon got into it. Slightly unfortunately the Germans ran into the Home Fleet on turn 1(!), and managed to escape albeit with serious damage to the Bismarck.

Regular readers may recall that the Germans navigate across the map, and any encounters are governed by sheets like this. Dice for the sheet (1 in this case), then two more dice determine which event block is used. The coloured areas on the block show which specific squares are affected by the various events listed which can be anything from thick fog, meeting up with a tanker to finding a convoy or the Home Fleet(!). 

Some events are more likely to take place in certain areas of the map, eg the main convoy routes are rows E and F. Although it looks complex, it actually works very well, and is a way of introducing semi random encounters with a vey rich variety of types.

After the initial bruising encounter, things went a bit better for the Germans and they headed south west into the Atlantic. They did run into more heavy units, but managed to break off from KGV and Rodney while actually sinking HMS Renown!

The U-Boats had great success and damaged KGV and sank HMS Ark Royal before she could get any planes off. They also sank a convoy too.

Tim kept a good track of the German progress (shown above). The heavy damage incurred early in the sortie meant the German surface units were disinclined to hang around and headed back to France at the first opportunity and both surface ships made it back to Brest OK. Sadly having only sunk one elderly battleship, the Fuhrer was none to pleased and with only 5 VP in total the Germans lost, although they did get nice medals for sinking a capital ship. 

Having got some idea of what we were doing, we gave it another go the following evening.

This time the Germans were a bit more canny and went for the southwest Atlantic, sinking Rodney and Ramilles on the way. Sadly they lost firstly Prinz Eugen mid Atlantic to the Home Fleet and then Bismarck was caught by force H, damaged by aircraft and despatched by Renown.  This time they didn't encounter any convoys at all! The Germans were winning on VP until Bismarck went down, so overall it was a much closer game.