Thalassa and Dystopian Fleets

For our session in April we did a naval double-bill, starting with Thalassa, a free set of wargame rules that came with Wargames Illustrated #421.

When I first learned about the rules I was interested because of the positive experience I had with Never Mind the Billhooks, another set of free wargame rules from WI that blew up, but the cost and effort required in painting up ships made me hesitate. At Adrian's suggestion, I looked around for cardboard models, and found some nice ones at Tiny Tin Troops. The game is designed for 1/300 scale models while the card models are at 1/600 scale, but as the templates were available in pdf form, it was a simple matter of printing them out at 50% scale. I also approximated the move distance of 3" to half the width of the ramming template, which eliminated the need for tape measures on the table. The game features custom dice, but it was easy to use normal d6s and "convert" the results.

For our first game we pit six triremes against seven, with two players on each side. I had expected the game to be over quickly, with most ships being rammed and sunk after two turns, but my players seemed more interested in boarding and capturing enemy ships. The battle lasted a while, with melees involving three ships grappled together.

We had a lot more fun with the game than I anticipated, and the lack of custom game dice was not a hindrance at all. If there is one improvement I will need to make it is to reproduce the ramming template in clear plastic, which I will do before our next game.

For our second game we played a homebrew set of rules using Dystopian Wars models. We have had models for the game for literally more than a decade, but as we could not agree on a set of rules to play with, the project had languished... until the recent purchase of the East India Company squadron re-ignited my interest in the period.

I tidied up the rules I have been working on - a blend of Majestic Twelve Games' Grand Fleets and the movement templates and rules from X-Wing - and sent the rules to the gang, set a date for the session, and in a few months models that were left unpainted for a decade finally got finished, and were bloodied.

As the rules were not designed with a points system, I will need to do some work in balancing the factions and arms, but the basic concepts seem to work.

Dystopian Wars East India Merchant Company Naval Battle Group

A few weeks ago my friend Dave was at a flea market and he saw a box of the old Dystopian Wars East India Merchant Company Naval Battle Group going for S$5. I was not even aware that this faction existed, but it was too good a bargain to pass up, and I asked him to help me grab it. It turned out the previous owner had already primed and magnetised most of the models, so it was a quick job to get the lot (minus the airship, which I still haven't decided if I will paint) painted.

The models have the aesthetics of the old edition of Dystopian Wars, which I much prefer to the more modern look of the current edition. I decided to lean into the "just put buildings on a hull" aesthetics by painting the ships in the "black and white houses" theme.

Example of a Black and White House in Singapore

The black and white houses are a relic of the colonial era - although there are modern houses built in the style too - and I thought it would be a nice in-joke for our group. They also bear some resemblance to the "dazzle camouflage" used during WW1.

Ottoman and East India Company ships clash in the Arabian Sea

The acquisition of the box set also prompted me to finish painting the tiny flyer tokens for my Ottoman fleet, make a few more islands, and to finally buy a sea mat - in this case a piece of quilt fabric from a craft store, which wasn't exactly cheap, but affordable compared to the price of a dedicated wargaming mat. The mat and islands will also prove useful for Thalassa, a set of rules for trireme warfare that comes with the January 2023 issue of Wargames Illustrated, which I have ordered.

The arrival of the East India Company ships has also prompted FG to restart his work on the French, and Adrian on his Prussians. This also shift our theatre of conflict from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arabian Sea.

I have also revised the set of rules I have been tinkering with for this period, and if things go according to plan we will be having a naval bash n April.

Ottoman Dreadnought

Ottoman Kanuni Class Dreadnought

It took a few months, but I finally painted everything except the tiny flyer tokens from my Ottoman Naval Support Group box set.

The word kanuni translates as "lawgiver", and was a title of Suleiman the Magnificent. I take the liberty of interpreting that to mean that the ships of the class are named after past sultans, and named my ship the Yavuz Selim, a name which I think is suitably intimidating.

The entire support group (minus tiny flyer tokens) on its shakedown cruise.

Also completed but not shown previously are the two Sinop Class Armoured Cruisers, seen flanking the Yavuz Selim above. Sinop is the name of a Turkish province, a city, as well as a naval battle fought there. I decided to name the ships in the class after Ottoman cities and named my two cruisers the Izmir and the Iznik, both of which I have visited and enjoyed.

Next on the painting list is a dwarf miner from Scibor, and hopefully a dozen dwarf footmen from Red Box Games after that for my Riot campaign.

Ottoman Bombers

Here is the third unit of my Dystopian Wars naval support group - the bombers.

Zuhaf Class Mine Layers

They are supposed to be mine-layers but I plan to use them as bombers. I have magnetised the basing by gluing a magnet to the hole at the underside of the model, and also a magnet to the top of a standard flight stand stem, which I then glued to the base supplied in the box.

The white balance in this photo is a bit off, but the top part of the plane is painted in the same slate grey that I use for the armour of the ships, while the underside is painted in a lighter blue-grey.

The problem with painting imaginary planes (and ships, really) is that half the time I have no idea what the bits that I am painting are supposed to represent. So far I have painted pipes and coils and decorative bits copper, and bits that are supposed to be tougher (like weapons and gears and turbine blades) white metal.

I have no idea why there are these oblique panels on the top of the plane, but I decided that I would paint my roundel there - since the panel is oblique, it can be seen from both the top and from the side. I chose the WW1 Ottoman roundel that was easiest to paint.

With this unit done, my next job is the cruisers, which are a lot larger.

Ottoman Frigates

Mizrak Class Frigate-Escort. The one on the left is flipped on its side to show the details on the under-surface.

Here are the second unit of my Ottoman force. They are supposed to be some sort of "surface skimmer", which to me is quite silly - I don't see how the gunnery officer is supposed to see anything to hit it, and shooting from a different height to your target must be a nightmare in calculation. The only advantage I can think off is that it makes you safe from torpedoes, but then again, small, fast vessels are hard to torp anyway.

I've chosen to base them onto the hex flight bases without the stems to reflect the fact that they are skimmers rather than flyers. The hex helps me determine their firing arcs.

I'm now working on the bombers that came with the set, and after them I plan to start on the first of the big ships. Those will be a challenge...

"Denizlere Hakim Olan Cihana Hakim Olur"

"He who controls the seas, controls the world."

Avci Class Destroyers

Here they are - the first squadron from my Dystopian Wars Ottoman Naval Support Group boxed set.

I didn't paint them as per the "codex", choosing a blue that I hope mimics the slate blue of the Blue Mosque. The colour I picked is FolkArt Light Periwinkle, which looks about right after a wash of Army Painter Dark Tone. The white is Martha Stewart Crafts Wedding Cake.

I chose to keep the scheme simple; there are just three non-metallics and three metallics: brown for the deck, white for the "walls", blue for the roofs, and silver for the guns and ladders, copper for the pipes, and gold for the finials.

The sculpts are incredibly detailed and almost daunting to paint, but at this scale I reckon I can get away with my usual block-and-wash method.

Next up should be the surface skimmers.

Dystopian Fleets QRS

To make our games play faster, I decide to create a quick reference sheet for ourselves.

The basic layout was easy, and the "Algerian" font gave a nice VSF look to the headers.

I was planning to print them on faux parchment paper, but then the idea occurred to me to print them on paper that already has some VSF themed graphics printed on them.

A quick google provided a few possibilities (tip: search "steampunk" instead of "VSF"), but those with too much artwork or too thick a border would obscure the tables or require me to shrink them, and so were abandoned.

I eventually picked one with faint artwork, but the original background colour was a yellow that was a little too bright. I loaded the picture into my photo-editing programme and "sepia-ed" it, printed it out, then printed my table over it (OK, I had to do it twice because I printed on the wrong side...), and this is the result.

Unfortunately I couldn't get my printer to do borderless printing, but all the tables are legible, and the background is atmospheric enough. If I can find more graphics, perhaps I can have a unique QRS for each player?

Dystopian Fleets ship cards

One of the things I wanted to make for our Dystopian Wars - Grand Fleets 2 project (which I will call Dystopian Fleets from now) is ship cards. I wanted them to be small enough to fit onto a standard collectible card sleeve so we can use non-permanent markers over them, yet be able to hold all the information required for gameplay.

After a night of mucking around with a word processor, I managed to come up with this, with a little help from my new printer.

The British and Ottoman ships will have their own ship cards with a different coloured header and their respective ensigns; I am using the Dystopian Wars ones for now.

I was able to fit everything on one card because we standardised the gun ranges and eliminated some elements; we do lose the granularity of WW1 naval gunnery, but with something like 15 ships/flyers and 8 plane tokens to look after each turn, we have to simplify things to make the game playable in an afternoon. It will still be a bit of work keeping track of 15 ships at once, but having a stack of cards may be preferable to loose sheets of paper.

Now if only they will tell me when they are going to release the Ottoman models...

Making a splash

One of the nice things about naval wargaming is - let's face it - the chance to use splash markers.

While we are thinking of the really cool ones from Litko, I nonetheless decided to try my hand at making some after reading a post on TMP - it just so happened that I recently recaulked my bathroom sink and had a tube of white silicone sealant which was going to just dry up in its tube anyway...

On the way home I dropped by a general store and bought myself two packs of flat-headed screws. Once I got home, the clear plastic front of the packaging is kept aside for potential basing material, and the screws are glued to the cardboard backing itself - talking about being environmentally friendly!

After letting the glue dry, I squeezed the sealant over the screws and shaped them into plumes of water... as much as I could, anyway.

As you can see from the end result it's pretty... irregular. The few taller ones on the right actually have a second 'layer' of sealant added on top of them to achieve the height. The sealant is sticky fresh, but dries soon, allowing more sealant to be 'piled' on top.

The will probably need some final touching up to ensure all the metal is covered, but so far it's been a cheap and quick way of getting some splash markers done... even if it gets a little messy.

Dystopian Wars project - Grand Fleet 2 playtest

One of the projects our little group is embarking on this year is Spartan Games' Dystopian Wars.

To be precise, we are using their models in a VSF setting, but using a set of WW1 naval rules, with flyer rules bolted on.

Here's a picture of the first test game, using WizKids plastic card ships (without their masts), Majestic 12's Grand Fleet 2 rules, with some Litko Savage Worlds markers, on my desert terrain cloth with a few Heroscape hills as islands... Is that confusing enough for you yet?

I came up with a set of formulas to convert the Dystopian War stats to Grand Fleet 2 stats, and fg and I played a small game with 1 Battleship, 3 Cruisers and 3 Frigates per side. The Germans had bigger guns with longer ranges and more powerful torpedoes than the Brits, but the Brits had better fire control and more guns.

After the first few tuns we got the hang of the rules, although it is still rather tedious having to roll for each battery, then penetration, then damage (and this is with half the number of models we expect to field in a full game).

I made the mistake on not capitalising on my ships' strengths and fg took advantage of that, closed in with his cruisers, and hit my Battleship so hard that it had only 2 hulls left (out of the starting 24) so I decided to strike colours.

With a little experience (and the proper markers) we can probably play the game faster. As it is we both like the rules enough to want to use them for the project. Majestic 12 is coming up with the third edition of Grand Fleet soon, so that may be something to look out for - in any case, we can continue to use the same models regardless of the set of rules used.

fg plans to get the French ships when they are released in March, while I will have to wait longer for Spartan Games to release their Ottoman fleet. We will need to get a sea terrain cloth, and a set of Amera islands is also on the cards.