Naval Thunder River Plate

Graf Spee at the bottom and edge of the sea, I mean table

Graf Spee at beginning looking hopefully at the horizon for a win.

Graf Spee showing some pain-useless smoke cloud in the background

The beginning of the last turn-Graf Spee at the bottom of the screen

Game End - Graf Spee and one British Ship down.

Second play of Naval Thunder, but first with my painted ships! So much more fun. What was cool, as I got into it, I realized again what captured me about these rules. Very few rules, yet enough flavor for someone with a light interest in this theater of WWII to give them depth. Especially when the shells begin flying - the various hit results are engaging and I can completely picture what's going on.

I set up the River Plate Scenario out of the Bitter Rivals scenario book. Simple, just 4 ships:

Graf Spee

Exeter

Ajax

Achilles

I only had Graf Spee, but proxied the British ships. (I'm slowly getting better at doing this. Ridiculous because so many of my games are solo - it shouldn't matter. But hey, if I'm going to play, let's get it right - BRING YOUR A GAME SON!) 

Moving on.

This game, just like the last time I played this, was quick and bloody. Neither game did the Germans fare well. Perhaps I could bump up the command ratings to help in some of the recovery rolls. But Seriously, these games have been blow outs. Okay as a solo player, but putting this on at a con, it would not be cool for the German player.

Though, it hit me that it may be cool to be a one sided scenario. Meaning the participants play the British ships and the GM plays the Germans.

Litko Bases Arrive - Quick Preview

Received the wooden Litko bases yesterday. This wood feels like I could snap it, but it also feels sturdier than balsa wood. The surface is also very smooth. The edges appear to be burnt.

They are 1.6mm thick (They also make a 3mm version). I bought 4 sizes and realized just a few minutes ago as I was measuring up the ships to them that one of the sizes, 60mm x 30mm, isn't for the ships. I got these if I decide to try painting up some 6mm samurai for Impetus.

Naval Thunder Comparison Littorio v Renown pt 2

 In a previous post I gave some of the basics to compare two ships in the Naval Thunder game, the HMS Renown and the Italian Littorio.




Target Number
NT uses d10s and each category of ship has a particular “Hit on” or Target number. For example, every Battlecruiser and Fast Battleship are hit on a roll of 7+. (A Battleship is hit on a 6+, and destroyers are hit on 9+. Though, there is talk of making destroyers have a “hit on” or target number of 10+.) This number can be, and is usually modified by a number of factors such as the range to target (ranging from 0 to 5); if the shooter has Fire Control (0 or -1); Rate of fire (shots at 20” or less); various conditional criteria (how far target moved, shooter has severe list, etc.); Crew and other technical modifications; and modifiers for torpedoes.


Advantage: neither.


Hull Points

Littorio

Next stat is the Hull, these are a number of points, in this case, Renown has 138, and Littorio has 150. After each hit, penetration and damage are determined and each gun does a specific amount of damage. For example, the main guns on the Littorio does 10 points of damage for each hit. So, one hit would take the Renown down to 128. Of course, when this reaches 0, the ship is out of commission. You can run the ship at full speed and shooting even if down to 1 hull point. 

However, this is very unlikely because, other issues like flooding, fires, bridge hits, rudder hits, main/secondary battery loss, etc will usually take effect, making a 1 hull point ship a very ineffective ship.


Advantage Littorio..


Speed
This is based on inches moved each movement phase. Both ships move 8”.


Advantage: neither.


Move Step
The sequence of play for NT is quite long. However, after a couple of turns, most of it becomes second nature. Each turn is broken down into phases. They are:

I. A/C & Submarine Battle Phase
II. Movement Phase
    A. Battleship Movement
    B. Cruiser Movement
    C. Destroyer Movement
III. Shooting Phase
    A. Battleship Shooting
    B. Cruiser Shooting
    C. Destroyer Shooting
    D. Torpedo Shooting
IV. End Phase (damage and command checks, etc)

Renown

Within each phase are several steps, but you get the point. Movement is simultaneous. For example, at the beginning of the Battleship Movement phase every player writes down their orders for how each Battleship, Fast Battleship and Fleet Carrier is going to move. Then, at the same time all players move those ships. You then do the same for Cruisers and Destroyers.


(Side note: I didn’t think I would be a fan of the simultaneious movement. However, after a couple games of Johnny Reb III and then a solo run through of NT, I like it.)


As you can see, it’s advantageous to move in the later steps because  you can see where the slower and bigger ships moved. In this case, the Renown is classified as Battlecruiser and therefore moves in the second Cruiser Movement step. Littorio, though a Fast Battleship, still moves first in the Battleship Movement step.


Advantage Renown.


Shoot Step
Similar to movement, shooting is simultaneous within each shooting step. So, in this case all ships classified, for shooting, as Battleships will shoot at the same time. Their hits on each other won’t affect their shooting during the current turn. However, their hits on the smaller and later shooting steps will be  affected and may not get a chance to shoot if damaged during the Battleship step. Battleships, Fast Battleships, and Battlecruisers all fall into the Battleship category for shooting.


Advantage: Neither.


Fire Control

This is broken down into four categories based on the nationality. In this example, the Renown as RDR which gives it a -1 modifier to the Target number for targets in the Short, Medium, and Long Ranges. (Note: There is an X-long Range. Also,German radar only gives a -1 to the target number at Long range.)  The Littorio is just STD, or standard and gets a modifier to target of 0.


Advantage Renown.


Armor Value (AV)
This represents the main armor of the ship that recieve the bulk of the hits when fired upon. When a hit is a achieved on a target, the shooter takes the “Penetration” factor of the gun they shot, add a d10 roll to it, add or subtract one of 5 modifiers and if this number is greater than the target’s AV then full damage is taken and another roll is made to see what critical damage is taken. 

If the Penetration+d10+modifiers is equal to or less than AV then half damage is applied to the ship. If there is no way the shell, with Penetration+d10+modifiers, can equal AV even if a 10 is rolled, then there is no hull damage. However, if a natural “10” is rolled then a “superstructure critical” roll is made...more on that in a later post.  Renown is 14 and Littorio is 18.


Advantage: Littorio


Secondary Armor Value (SAV)
This is the protection against torpedoes. It operates the same as AV, but just with torpedoes. Littorio is 6 and Renown is 5. Close, but in this case Littorio doesn’t have torpedoes and Renown does.


Advantage: Littorio


Anti-Aircraft/Submarine Warfare (AA/SW)
I’ve not played with Aircraft or submarines yet. However, basically every ship in the fleet, against an air attack, totals their AA number and rolls this number of d10 against all aircraft attacking them.  10+ hit and knock down the aircraft.


The same manner of play is used when defending against submarines. Total the SW ratings and roll this number of dice against the subs. 8+ hit.


There are more nuances to the rules, modifiers etc. But that’s about as much as I’m going to say about these since I’ve not experienced them before. But looking at the numbers:


AA Advantage: Renown
SW Advantage: Neither


Conclusion

If you look at a chart with pluses and minuses of advantages for the basic ship stats, it appears that Littorio has a slight advantage with  3 to 2. The movement advantage is a big deal because the Renown Captain can adjust their placement to get out of a harmful shot or to position for a better shot. The fire control is nice...if the ships had similar guns. More on that later.


The Littorio has advantages on stats that can help it to be much more resilient to damage. The AV 
difference is big, 4 points. This will help them not take serious damage more often than the Renown. In addition, more hull points means it will be in the fight longer.



In a future post we’ll compare their guns by looking at the stats and looking at a couple turns of firing.

And thank you all, we reached 50 followers!

Naval Thunder Comparison Chart - Renown v. Littorio

As you've seen from previous entries I've been working on some 1:3000 Davco ships. These are British, Italian, and German as I want to play the Atlantic and Mediterranean in WWII. After the last game convention I did a bit of research on Naval rules and not being a huge draw I wanted something fairly straight forward. I.E. less stats and detail.  I certainly see the appeal of General Quarters, but I knew I would never play something at that level on my own. Though, Adam, if you're reading this, I would certainly play in a hosted game.

HMS Renown

Victory at Sea was another, more closely considered, WWII naval game. It also abstracts more things than GQIII. At the moment I can't recall why I moved over those for my own use...but again, The Composer, if you're reading, I would love to play a game your hosting...especially since your miniatures are so well done!

Ultimately, I decided to go with Naval Thunder and I'm pretty happy I did. I've done a couple of solo runs and look forward to trying them with an opponent.

(Side note: Go here to the View from the Turret review of GQIII and of Victory at Sea. They also review Naval Thunder here.)

Littorio on the Right

While working on the ships, I've thought it would be interesting to take a couple of the ships and compare the stats to each other. For the first time, I picked the two ships that looked the coolest to me. Actually, the Italian ship Littorio looked the coolest with all the round secondary guns. Then I perused the British ships to compare it against and picked the Renown. Hindsight, I should have chosen a stronger British candidate, but they're fairly close... or are they?

I also thought this would be a good way to introduce some of the concepts of the Naval Thunder rules. I'll probably do this in 2-3 parts to avoid a book of an entry...wait, this is already a book.



In fact, I may end this now. In the next post, I'll discuss these basic stats and what they mean in the game and how they affect the performance and survivability of the each ship.

Though I will leave you with these little tidbits:
FC is Fire Control (RDR is radar and STD is not what you think it is...it's Standard)
AV is Armor Value, this is the main armor
SAV is Secondary Armor Value
AA is Anti-Aircraft value and
SW is Submarine Warfare value

d10s are the dice used in the game
move and firing for each ship type is simultaneous
move and firing is done in inches
each gun has a specific range band based on diameter and barrel length
each gun also has specific penetration and damage values as well

And, on a slightly different note: I just saw that The Composer has posted some new tutorials on how he built some of his ships. He knows how to model and paint 1:2400 ships - go check out the series beginning with this post.

Drydock part 4 or 5 - Italian Ships

Zara

Trento

Italian ships are fun because they have the red and white recognition stripes. I don't know if they all had them, but they look cool, help differentiate the ships and aren't too hard to paint. Easier than a flag.

Drydock pt 3 - More Progress

HMS Dorsetshire

KMS Hipper

WIP & Fleets in Drydock

So here are pics of the hobby room and home office I mentioned in an earlier post. Also, here are the ships that I've purchased for Naval Thunder. The ships turned out to be Davco ships from 1977. They were only $1.00 each at The Miniature Market so I picked up 8 Italian and German ships. And 8 British. I had to take what they had because they'd obviously bought these at an auction or something. There were a few more there I could get. We'll see how these paint up. I'll post a list of what I acquired in the near future.

Hobby Room Beginnings

Home Office WIP

3 of the Davco ships now in Dry Dock

The Naval Thunder Dry Dock Fleet