Part 2 of the Cape Esperance games

The Kirishima goes down from a  vital hit at close range by the USS West Virginia

Here's the second part of the Cape Esperance commemorative games I recently played.

As always, Andy did an excellent job of writing up the session.

A little commemoration of the Battle of Cape Esperance -- War at Sea style

The USS West Virginia advances under the steady hand of Admiral Owen in War at Sea

Andy R. and I played a doubleheader of War at Sea Thursday in commemoration of the Battle of Cape Esperance from the naval campaign around Guadalcanal. He reports on the event with one of his fantastic write ups as always.

What?! A Type 13 winning the game!?

Really!?

Check out Andy's blog for the amazing story behind this picture.

New session report for War at Sea

B-25s attack two Japanese cruisers while P-40s engage Zeros

Another nice session report at Andy's blog.

Mongoose goes 1:1800 scale

HMS Achilles from Mongoose Publishing

Mongoose Publishing, which publishes Victory at Sea, says it will be releasing the first set of its new line of 1:1800 naval miniatures in September with a boxed set depicting the classic Battle of the River Plate.

According to the Mongoose announcement the boxed set will be available at retailers while the company will offer by mail order the sister ships of the various ships that appear in the boxed set.

As regular readers know, 1:1800 is the same scale as the Axis & Allies War at Sea miniatures, so this is good news. But, as the picture shows, the Mongoose miniatures are going to come with a base, and will therefore not be directly compatible with the War at Sea line. This is unfortunate, but not a complete surprise. I suspect Mongoose decided to do this in order to head off the problems the War at Sea line had with the smaller ships when they were not based.

Still, more ships in 1:1800 are a good thing and it's possible that determined players will be able to get around the problem if Mongoose should happen to fill in any notable gaps in the War at Sea line. All the ships at the River Plate have already appeared in War at Sea and the next announced set is The Battle of Denmark Straits, which is also pretty well covered by existing War at Sea ships.

There is no indication that the Mongoose models will be pre-painted, so purchasers will probably have to do that themselves. There is also no indication of the pricing.

The Mongoose blog also mentions that the new edition of Victory at Sea won;t appear until the middle of next year, although no reason is given for the delay. They also recently published a supplement for their World War I version of the game, so Mongoose seems to be making a concerted effort with historical naval gaming. This is a bit of a departure from their usual fare, which is general fantasy and science fiction. (Although they do also have Battlefield Evolution modern tactical rules and miniatures as well).

Whither Axis & Allies miniatures?

Well, based on this thread, it appears that WOTC has unofficially cancelled Axis n& Allies War at Sea and we won't be seeing a Set 7.

This doesn't come as a complete shock, as indications have been mounting that this was going to be the outcome. WOTC seems committed to coming out with a second set of the Axis & Allies Angels 20 air game, but I'd be very surprised of they keep going after that. While Angels 20 is a good game and has been generally well-received, it's hardly the sort of runaway hit that might make WOTC re-evaluate things.

The entire Axis & Allies miniatures experiment was, overall, a positive thing from my point of view as a historically minded wargamer. The fact that the original Axis & Allies land miniatures  appeared at all, given the popular hunger for dragons, orcs, zombies, space cruisers, superheroes and five-story robot battlemechs, was a fantastic development. Let alone getting multiple sets, followed by the even better naval game and an air game as well.

While naturally wargamers are going to look at this through their narrow lens, I don't think the end of the Axis & Allies miniatures lines has much to do with the lines themselves. They were always a niche line and an inherently small market. They were mostly doable at all because of a unique set of macro-economic factors that made pre-painted miniatures affordable. They took advantage of production lines and procedures pioneered by the aforementioned dragons, superheroes and 5-story battlemechs.

But things have changed. The Great Recession has hit Hasbro hard and the macro-economic dynamics have changed as well. It's not quite so cheap to make things in China as it used to be. The increased costliness of the models in recent sets is a symptom of this, although I don't think it directly caused the demise of the lines -- mostly because I see little evidence that increasing the cost of the boosters by a $1 or $2 per box depressed sales. But that increased costliness may very well have affected sales of the various fantastic lines that A&A was free-riding with and the aggregate effect was the same.

The case of lead Axis & Allies designer Rich Baker helps illustrate this reality, I think. While War at Sea was his main claim to fame in my eyes, from the POV of Hasbro, his main job was Dungeons & Dragons and he was let go because Hasbro decided to go in a different direction after the perceived failure of D&D Fourth Edition.  Now, I'm not a D&D player and I don't have an opinion on D&D 4th edition, but it seems clear that the corporate take was the D&D 4 was a failure.

This "failure" came at a bad time because D&D was already under a lot of stress. Hasbro/WOTC was already backing away from the pre-painted miniatures market -- it seems because of reduced demand and increasing costs (not sure which is the chicken and which is the egg).

But the bottom line is that the historical miniatures lines were never viable as a standalone product and when the much larger D&D portion of the business ran into a rough patch then the historical lines were doomed.

I think the eventual fate of the three historical lines will diverge from this point because of the nature of each game, the usefulness of its models and the strength of their fan bases.

The newest game. Angels 20, has the roughest road ahead. In many ways it's the best game of the bunch. It's easy to play, visually stunning because of the large models and requires a relatively small investment to get into despite the high per0unit costs. The Starter provides a viable stand-along game, for example.

But working against it is the fact that, with just 2 Sets, there really won't be enough options available to keep the game alive. There won't be  enough to satisfy collectors and the game won't be able to cover many important aspects of aerial warfare -- basically being limited to dogfighting. It's not compatible with other lines.  It's entering a market with a couple of other viable alternatives, notably the Wings of War/Wings of Glory line of planes and games. Angels 20 planes are not tremendously cheaper than WoW/WoG and being larger makes them more challenging to store. I expect interest in the Angels 20 to wane and it will, at best, be something that people pull out on occasion but won't have a real community around it.

The prognosis for the land game is a little better, mostly because the miniatures are usable with other rules and the line is big enough to be attractive to collectors. As a game, it's the weakest of the trio. While not  a bad game, it's nothing special in the universe of similarly scaled tactical wargames. Like the air game, I expect that interest in playing the game by the Hasbro/WOTC rules will wane significantly, but players will often hold onto their collections because they can use the models elsewhere. The V1 to V2 scale change hurts the game in this regard. While unimportant within the context of the Axis & Allies minis game itself, it does reduce the usefulness of many of the models for other games. I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of people sell off their collections down the road, which will be helpful for those who are using the model s for the Flames of War rules.

The naval game, I think, stands the best chance of hanging around as a significant community. The published rules fill a need unmet by any other set for an easy to play tactical naval wargame. The line got large enough over six sets to cover most of the important ships and, while it inaugurated a new scale that is not compilable with previous scales, the development of Shapeways and 3D printing has created a way around that problem. Already craftsmen and entrepreneurs are filling in the gaps. With the Team Poseidon project of new semi-official cards there's reason to think that the naval game is here to stay.

Unlike a proprietary line like Star Wars, Hreoclix or even D&D, there's really no reason at all why other manufacturers can;t make 1:1800 scale warships. Dozens of manufacturers have coexisted for years in the existing model naval wargame market with 1:900, 1:1200, 1:1250, 1:2400, 1:3000, 1:4800 and 1:6000 models. Most lines cover the basics -- just about everybody has a Bismarck or Fletcher class DD -- but each also specializes. Naval wargaming has always been a niche within the niche market of wargaming anyway, but this hasn't been a problem. Partly, I think, this is because of the nature of naval wargames. You really only need  a small handful of ships to have a game-worthy collection, especially if you specialize. And once you pick a scale there's no reason why you can't expand on it indefinitely. 

So I expect the War at Sea line to retain its fan base and even continue to grow, although probably seeing more use as models for other rules as time goes on. Still, I won't be surprised to see games of War at Sea going om 10 years from now, while I'll be very surprised indeed to see any Angels 20 or AAM.

In Harm's Way, again

The HMAS Perth (left) and the USS Houston land an early hit on the light cruiser Natori

Another excellent session report from Andy Rucker on his Blog.

I don't have much to add, except to congratulate him on a very convincing victory. Yeah, the Japanese Long Lances were very disappointing, but he took good advantage of the  opportunity and had this been the historical outcome the event would have been remembered as a very glorious chapter in the naval histories of Australia, Netherlands and the USA.

While the Allied squadron was wiped out, just as it was historically, they devastated the invasion fleet and sunk several Japanese warships including a heavy cruiser! This would have been a notable victory at a time when Allied fortunes were riding low.

War at Sea session report

Check out this excellent session report.

A sample

Game 1 Turn 6

At this point, it was pretty clear this was going to be the last turn; Seth advanced both Prince of Wales towards the center, and the crippled Tirpitz could not get away. In the end, I managed to get enough torp hits to sink one more battleship, but alas a final salvo from the lesser damaged Prince of Wales sent the Tirpitz to the bottom. British victory!

Well, yeah, I picked the game I won. If you want to see the game I lost, see Andy's blog!

Session of revised In Harm's Way scenario

Last turn position

The other day I played a session of my revised In Harm's Way WAS-2 scenario.

I took the Allied fleet, as it seems they have the harder task. The Japanese player was a denizen of the game shop who has played War at Sea before, although he is, like most of the game shop crowd, primarily a Magic: The Gathering player.

As we shall see, he handled the Japanese fleet competently.

A couple of solitaire play throughs while I developed the revised scenario revealed that it was a very poor strategy for the Allies to come in with guns a-blazing as it just freed up the Japanese sooner, so my plan with the USS Houston and the HMAS Perth was to ignore the Japanese pickets and make a beeline for the transports. My analysis of the victory conditions indicated that it was vital to take out all three Transports because they represented a 20-point swing each (8VP for being sunk and 12VP the Japanese DIDN'T get for having the undamaged at the end.)

The Allies got a little luck as the Japanese lost two of the Fubuki-class DD's (proxied by Kagero's) due to the set-up die rolls.

The first turn saw the Allied cruisers slip through a gap in the Japanese line without being within range due to the Night Surprise rule. This couldn't continue, of course, and on the second turn the Japanese got close enough to shoot -- but did no damage. A return shot from the Perth crippled one DD while a maximum range shot by the USS Houston sunk a transport outright.

The loss of 2 ships was more than enough to let the Japanese shock wear off and also brought in the reinforcement group as well -- so the time pressure was on the Allies!

The next turn the Allied cruiser split up, with the Houston taking the more shoreward path while the Perth was towards the center of the channel to draw fire. I wanted to have at least 2 shots on the next turn -- which the Houston's secondary would provide.

The Perth was, of course, buried under a deluge of Japanese fire, but it was mostly ineffective as only one point of damage was caused by gunfire. A long Lance from one of the IJN heavies was all it took, though, to dispatch Perth. The Allied fire was able to damage the Natori, sink another transport and damage the third one, though.

The fourth and final turn saw the Houston continue its "death ride" into the transport area. As it turned out, friendly fire from one of the IJN ships took out the last transport! The Houston, of course, stood little chance of surviving under the IJN fire and was sunk. It's return fire took out one DD.

The final score was 28 VP for the Japanese for the two Allied cruisers (14 VP each) while the Allies earned 30 VP (24 VP for three sunk transports, 2VP for the crippled Natori and 4 VPs for the sunk DD).

The Eversten did not make an appearance as I figured it was very unlikely it would do as much damage as the Japanese would earn for sinking her.

So it ended up being a very close-fought contest. The point total for the Allied force on the revised OB is significantly less than the original scenario (30 VP is all three ships are used instead of 41 VP). The Japanese force is also somewhat reduced in point value but only the cruisers are worth their full VP value for the Allies if sunk. In the original scenario the Allies really have to sink the Natori as well as the three transports while in the revised scenario the transports are enough so long as some damage is also done to the CL/DD covering force.

Revised 6-set OB for WAS-1 Action Deferred scenario

Revised 6-set OB for WAS-1 Action Deferred scenario

Changes Bold

Italian

Admiral Campioni’s Task Force

Vittorio Veneto BB

Guillio Cesare BB

Luca Tarigo DD x3 (Freccia, Saetta, Dardo)

Ascari x 4 (Alpini, Granatiere, Fucilieri, Bersagliere)

Italian must split DD lost by scenario special rule evenly with odd number his choice)

Admiral Iachino’s Task Force

Bolzano CA x1

Gorizia CA x 1

Zara CA x 2 (Fiume & Pola)

Trento CA x 2 (also Trieste)

Ascari DD x1

Camicia Nere DD x6 (Carabiniere, Lanciere, Gioberti, Alfiere, Carducci, Oriani)

First 3 DD lost by scenario rule must be Camicia Nere, after that, Italian choice)

British

Admiral Somerville’s Task Force

HMS Repulse BC x 1 (Renown)

HMS Royal Oak BB x 1 (Ramillies)

St. Laurent DD x 5 (Encounter, Faulkner, Firedrake, Forester, Fury)

Vasilissa Olga DD x 4 ( Gallant, Greyhound, Griffin, Hereward)

All Allied DD have Lay Smoke SA; British must split DD lost by scenario special rule evenly with odd number his choice)

Admiral Hollands’ Task Force

HMS Kent CA x1 (Berwick)

HMS Sheffield CL x 3 (also Southampton & Newcastle)

HMS Belfast CL x 1 (Manchester)

British Carrier Support Group

Swordfish Mk. II x 2 (Special rule applies to both squadrons together, i.e. one shootdown or 12 DR affects both units)

Discussion

The official scenarios were published when War at Sea was brand new, as part of the marketing effort, Being so early, they required a crazy amount of proxie and some pretty extreme ones as well. A good example is this scenario, where, as originally published, the American battleship USS Tennessee stood in for the Guillio Casare! I’m not sure how many of these scenarios got played as written anyway because few people would have had the models required, such as FOUR Bolzanos (a rare) or up to 14 Luca Tarigo’s.

I thought it would be interesting to revisit and revise those scenarios now that we have six sets worth of units to choose from In the case of scenario WAS-1, The Battle of Cape Teulada we go from having just one actual ship and a couple of sister ships with all the rest proxies to having no fewer than seven named ships and all the others either sisters or near-sisters with no proxies required at all.

Notes and rationales

Vitttorio Veneto – no change

Guillio Cesare – we now have the actual ship, so it is used.

Luca Tarigo x 3 –can cut down on the number of Luca Tarigo’s now that we have Soldati-class DDs available.

Ascari x 4 – we substitute Ascarisfor the four Soldati-class DDs in Campioni’s task force

Blozano – We only need one now for the actual ship.

Gorizia – actual ship now available

Zara x2 – Two Zaras are used to represent sister ships Fiume and Pola

Trento x 2 – We have the actualship for the Trento and use another one for sister Trieste

Ascari -- we have the actual ship

Camicia Nere x 6 – I think it’s a bad idea to require inordinate numbers of particular model when sister ships are available. Here we substitute a half-dozen Camicia Nere for the other Soldati-class DD’s present. Due to the scenario special rule you’ll always lose at least one DD from each group, so you actually only need four Ascari and five Camicia Nere models in practice.

HMS Repulse – Substitute for sister ship Renown, and as everybody knows, the model is actually the Renown anyway, so we could consider this as having the Actual Ship.

HMS Royal Oak – Substitute for sister ship Ramillies.

St. Laurent x 5 – C class DD substitutes for near sister of the E and F classes)

Vasilissa Olga x 4 (Greek DD substitutes for near sisters of the G and H classes)

I added the Lay Smoke Screen SA as a special rule to keep an important tactic available to the British side that the Javelin DD’s had made possible.

HMS Kent – Substitute for sister ship Berwick

HMS Sheffield x 3 – One is the actual ship, with the other pair representing sisters Southampton and Newcastle.

HMS Belfast – Substitute for sister ship Manchester

Swordfish Mk. II x 2 – I doubled the number of Swordfish to make up for the increased point differential between the two sides cause by the various substitutions and also because the British carrier Ark Royal was the carrier present, not the Illustrious. Optionally you can add the Ark Royal and one more Swordfish to Admiral Somerville’s Task Force and skip the special rule, although I am not sure this helps the British overall.

Some Thoughts on War at Sea Special Abilities in the post-RB era

With the departure of lead designer Rich Baker from WOTC and the subsequent uncertainty about the future of War at Sea Axis & Allies Naval Miniatures, it's worth considering how fans of the game will cope with various issues related to the game.

One of those is what to do about the various ships that never appeared in the six sets that were published. While custom units have been a popular feature at Axis & Allies Fourmini all along, these were always 'unofficial' and subject to be superceded when the ship finally appeared in official form. The problem now is that there will be no 'official' versions of some ships, but it would be nice to have a consensus among the players on the accepted game stats for some of the ship's likely to appear, epecially given the Shapeways ability to make models compatible with WAS.

Generally the basic stats like speed, hull points and even firepower dice are not too controversial, but special abilities are another matter. They're improtant for giving the game it's flavor, but at the same time they can be highly subjective.

I think the current SA fall into three broad categories.

The first are the ones that are inherent abilities of a ship or weaposn system as will pretty much always appear when the ship's hardware warrants it. Some examples include the Long-Lance Torpedoes SA of most Japanese surface combatants, the Extended Range X SA of most battleships and the Submerged Shot SA for most submarines. These aren't so much "Special" abilities as they are standard abilities that just don't occur often enough to have a spot on every card. Most of these are pretty uncontroversial and if a ship has the hardware it gets the SA.

The second type of SA that is all-about giving a ship a unique flavore based on some unusual event in its history. Examples of this include the Fatal Flaw SA for HMS Hood, the Embark B-25 SA of the USS Hornet or the Inspiring Example SA of the USS Arizona and Giogios Averof. Often these SA aren't even much of an advantage and they are always highly subjective and often controversial. In my opinion these sorts of SA should probably be avoided in the future without RB's explicit endorsement. I think they'd likely be contentious when ap[lied, which defeats the purpose of having widely accepted semi-offfiical stats for new models.

The third type is, by far, the largest, and these are historically justified SA that are selectively applied to certain units -- generally for game balance and interest -- but are by no means exclusive to those units. A good example of this is the Lay Smoke Screen SA, which every destroyer is the game could legitimately have, but is limited to certain units. Other examples include Sub Hunter, Radar Fire Control and the various Expert plane SA that many aircraft carriers have. Most of the game's current SA fall into this group and it would be interesting to see where opinions fall on how often to include these for new models and if there are any criteria that should be applied.

Rich Baker starts a blog

War at Sea designer Rich Baker has started a new blog which I'l be keeping a close eye on. With luck we will find out that War at Sea isn't quite dead yet.

Very bad news for Axis & Allies and D&D fans

Lead D&D and A&A miniatures designer Rich Baker just posted that he's been let go from Wizards of the Coast!

This is, of course, awful personal news for him. Being laid off a week before Christmas sucks. Actually, speaking from experience, being laid off at any time sucks pretty bad, but the holidays is even worse.

It also throws the entire future of D&D and Axis & Allies miniatures products into doubt. WOTC has already indicated it was backing out of the painted miniature category. It appears that Pathfinder may have eaten in to D&D's market share a bit, but I'm inclined to think it's bigger than just one line's market share issues. I've suspected that the "Golden Era" of boxes full of plastic and painted collectible miniatures we have enjoyed over the last decade or so was an artifact of some temporary economic conditions (specifically the price differential between China and USA) and was coming to a close.

I'm not sure what WOTC's plans are for the D&D stuff. They were working on a new set of skirmish rules, but I don't know if that's going to see daylight now.

As far as the Axis & Allies miniatures line go, Baker said that his layoff did not mean any miniatures lines were being canceled and he seemed to offer some hope that he'd be able to work on some projects on a freelance basis. Realistically, I've thjought that the land miniatures line was all but certainly dead already and that the hoped-for Late War set was never happening. There was just too long a break since the last set and it would basically mean restarting the line. I also think Angels 20 (the new air game) is a dead duck. Whatever is already paid for in the pipeline will come out, but I doubt very much there's bee anything new started. I suppose there's a small bit of hope for a Set VII for War at Sea, but it's a slender one.

I think we can also lay to rest any thoughts of a reborn Heroscape. Among the other layoffs was the brand manager for the Avalon Hill and Axis & Allies lines, so even the future of the board games may now be in doubt. I know there was some talk about an exapnsion for Battle Cry and Larry Harris was working on a final set of rules for 1940 Global Axis & Allies. Without someone to guide these along I have my doubts. The sort of intensive attention wargames/RPGs need was never a good fit for Hasbro/WOTC anyway -- they're certainly no GMT!

Overall, a very sad day for fans of a number of popular games.

Opening Salvos preview -- 8 ships revealed!!

USS Montana

Rich Baker's blog revealed 8 sip images with data cards that will likely be the 8 ships in his Opening Salvos for Set VI -- and an interesting bunch it is, too.

The big boys are the USS Montana, weighing in at 80 points with absolutely monstrous stats and a new version of the Yamato.

For cruisers we have the Sheffield from the Bismarck hunt and an Italian fast light cruiser.

For carriers we have the Japanese Taiho, which was expected and the British Eagle, which was not.

And for support units there's a common LST and a German minesweeper! All good stuff.

Gale Force Nine license for Axis & Allies products lapsed.

I don't know if this has been mentioned elsewhere, but I didn't see it at first glance: Gale Force Nine reports that there license for Axis & Allies products has lapsed so they can no longer produce or sell those items.

this means that the vinyl War at Sea map, the tokens and the stands for the ships are all gone. I liked the map, especially, and I'm sorry that's gone. I used the tokens for both AAM and WAS but I believe Litko has tokens that are usable substitutes. I never tried the stands.

Bismarck saga -- spotted

The Swedish warship Gotland as depicted in the Axis & Allies War at Sea naval miniatures game

Around 1 p.m. the Bismarck was spotted by the Swedish warship Gotland in the Kattegat, the sea region between Norway, Sweden and Denmark. As Sweden was a neutral power there was nothing the Bismarck could do about it and the Germans assumed that the British would learn about the Bismarck sortie from the Swedes. And, in fact, they did, although it's easy to overstate the impact of the Gotland's sighting report because it was just one of three, independent, sources that reported that the Bismarck was at sea. The British also learned about the sailing from an agent in Gotenhafen and from a spotting report from the Norwegian resistance.

The Gotland was an interesting and unique ship. Since the invention of flight there have been various attempts to combine the advantages of an aviation ship with the conventional capabilities of a surface warship. Some famous examples include the Japanese scout cruiser Chikuma, the Japanese hybrid battleship Hyuga, the French helicopter cruiser Jean Bart and the Russian ships Moskva and Kiev. Generally these experiments have come up short, with a vessel that's not robust enough for it surface role and yet inadequate in the aviation role compared to a dedicated ship.

The Gotland was on the small end for such hybrids at 4,600 tons, and was never tested in actual combat in its role of providing spotting aircraft for the nation's fleet of coastal battleships. It carried an air group of six recon float planes and a main battery of 6 6-inch guns. Yet in spotting the Bismarck the odd little cruiser arguable played a bigger wartime role than most other hybrids. While the British had reports from several sources that the Bismarck sailed, a spotting by a regular professional naval unit had to be considered definitive.

More hints from Baker about the upcoming War at Sea set

His latest blog contain a big hint that the Montana will be among the ships in the new set. It's already been figured out by sharp-eyed bloggers that an O-class German battlecruiser will be in the set, so we have at least two hypothetical ships in the set already. This will bring complaints from the usual quarters, of course, but I don't have any problem with hypothetical ships myself. One of the nice things about naval wagrames is the ability to test out interesting what-ifs in any case.

There simply aren't that many naval battles in history to be restricted to historical match-ups. Naval battles are much more rare than land battles for a host of reasons, so hypothetical s have always been part of the landscape for naval gamers. I don't see an awful lot of difference between a game that allows a duel between the Bismark and the Iowa and one that allows a duel between the Friedrich der Grosse and the Montana. Both were impossible unless history played out quite differently.

I do agree that RB's plans need to make sure that the key historical pieces make it to collectors before the line ends, but we're in pretty good shape on that score. I think the only gaping hole in the line at this point is the Hiryu, which is a mandatory ship given its participation in Pearl Harbor and Midway.

Battle of the Starter Sea -- analysis and strategy for the Axis & Allies War at Sea 2010 Starter -- Part II: The Allies

Continuing the discussion of strategy and tactics for the 2010 Starter Set, we now turn to the Allied Task Force.

Like the Japanese squadron, the centerpiece of the Allied force is a high-quality cruiser, the Cleveland-class light cruiser USS Montpelier. In the context of World War II there's little operational difference between "light" cruisers and "heavy" cruisers built under the terms of the interwar naval treaties, as the 6-inch gun "lights" made up in rate of fire and number of guns any deficiency in firepower they might have had compared to their 8-inch gun "heavy" sisters. War at Sea reflects this as well, with Montepelier's point value, armor and attack dice comparable to many heavies. The Montpelier is just one point less than Haguro. While its close-range main battery gunnery is a little lower than the Japanese ship's, it has higher secondary factors and a longer range main battery and its armor value is higher as well. Indeed, the only major hole in its capabilities is a lack of torpedoes.

On the other hand, the Montpelier really doesn't want to get close enough to use torpedoes anyway, as its biggest advantage over the Haguro is range. The Extended Range 4 special ability allows it to fire at the Haguro without being shot at in return if teh Montpelier is undamaged and the Haguro is four squares away. Montpelier's Flagship 1 SA makes that happy state of affairs slightly more likely than not because the Allies will tend to win the initiative more often. It is a slight edge, however, and it's hard to guarantee the Haguro won't get within range on occasion. The Montpelier's 5 Armor value gives it a reasonable chance of avoiding damage from a long-range Haguro shot, which is important for retaining that range advantage and the Radar Fire Control SA which gives the US cruiser an extra die when attacking. The Montpelier's Heavy Antiair SA allows it to provide an AA umbrella over the entire task force if they stay close, which is very useful in thwarting the Betty's attempts to pick off a destroyer.

The Montpelier in the larger game: A useful unit at a reasonable cost that should figure in US fleet builds.

The second-most powerful Allied unit is the TBF-1 Avenger torpedo bomber. While its attacks are not execptionally strong, they are enough to provide a real threat to the Japanese ships and sub. But the more frustrating value from the Japanse standpoint is the Avenger's more value of 5 and Vital armor of 8, which mean that it's hard to abort the plane and even harder to shoot it down. The Haguro's AA value is just 7 and the Terutsuki is a 6, so it will take a better than average rill to abort the TBF and a very good roll to shoot it down. But wait, there's more. The Aenger is also "Rugged," so an attack that rolls exactly 8 successes only succeeds in shooting the Avenger down half the time, otherwise it's aborted. Once per game the Avenger can make a 6-die bomb attack instead of its torpedo attack, which is a good way to crippled the Terutsuki.

The TBF-1 Avenger in the larger game: This version of the Avenger is slightly less capable than the one in the Task Force set, but it's also cheaper, so it a useful addition to the US order of battle.


The two Allied destroyers are very similar in combat value and points. The USS Taylor's special ability of Sub Hunter, its 3 armor value and 6 AA value mark it as the unit that might risk an indepedent foray to hunt the I-25 or claim the objective. Besides being slightly more vulnerable, the HMAS Nizam's smoke screen ability can come in handy if the Allied side loses an inititiative roll.

The USS Taylor and HMAS NIzam in the larger game. Both ships have multiple sister ships in the game with a varying assortment of special abilities, so which one gets used will depend on the build strategy in play and nationality/year restrictions. Compared to the HMS Javelin the Nizam is more surface battle oriented while the Hr. Ms. Van Galen is not quite as good -- but it's Dutch. The US has a bunch of Fletcher-class destroyers to choose from, with the Taylor in the middle on points.

Overall strategy for the Allies involves trying to keep the range long so the Montpelier can gain an early edge over the Haguro. Meanwhile the Avenger and the Taylor try to suppress the I-25.

Battle of the Starter Sea -- analysis and strategy for the Axis & Allies War at Sea 2010 Starter -- Part I: The IJN

The current Starter Set for the War at Sea Axis & Allies naval miniatures game provides an interesting tactical puzzle for the players as well as being a good introduction to the game system.

At less than 50 points worth of units per side and just a total of 8 pieces it's definitely on the smaller side, but there's a considerable amount of reply value as the Starter shows that you don't need battleships to have a good game.

Each side has its strengths and weaknesses but they're evenly matched and good play will generally prevail even in a game as dicey as WAS. Either side can win, but winning consistently will mean paying close attention to both sides' values and special abilities.

The Axis side is represented by a pair of surface ships supported by one sub and a patrol bomber, giving the Japanese player a wide variety of threats.

The centerpieces of the Japanese force is the Heavy Cruiser Haguro, which fought throughout the Pacific campaign and met its demise in the last surface action fought during the Pacific War.

At 18 points it's the highest valued unit in the set and it justifies that high value with a nice array of powerful attacks. At a range of 0 or 1 the Haguro will roll 10 dice with its main battery gunnery, which is the highest total available in the set. This is 2 more dice than the base roll of the Allied forces' counterpart, the USS Montpelier, and is enough to almost guarantee getting at least a hit on the Montpelier. The Haguro's advantage drops off rapidly with range, however. At range 2 the Haguro only rolls 9 dice, while the Montpelier still rolls 8 and may roll 9 dice if it's still undamaged and has its Radar Fire Control SA. At Range 3 both ships roll 7 base dice and an undamaged Montpelier actually has a 1-die advantage. The American cruiser, if undamaged, also has a Range 4 shot of 8 dice. So the Haguro generally wants to close the range if possible. The Haguro's secondary gunnery factors of 4-4-3 are adequate to pose a threat to either of the enemy destroyers, but its AA value of 7 is only enough to occasionally abort the American Avenger and it will take a very good roll to shoot it down.

The Haguro's nastiest punch rests with its torpedo battery. With 3 dice at ranges of 0-1 and 2 dice all the way out to Range 3 the Haguro threatens instant death to any Allies ship within range -- the Montpelier being just as vulnerable as the Allied destroyers because of the Long Lace's 3-point slam.

The Haguro's special ability of "Tough Cruiser" is useful, with two Allied DD's in the game. Most of the time DD gunnery will fail to damage the Japanese heavy cruiser.

The Haguro in the larger game: The Haguro is the third Nachi-class cruiser to appear in the game and arguably the best of the lot. The Myoko from the base set is vastly too expensive at 24 points to justify a competitive purchase, there being cheaper ways to get a +1 flagship. It will probably only be used in games with class restrictions or historical scenarios. The Nachi from the Task Force set costs 1 point more than the Haguro, which probably doesn't justify its "Cruiser Killer" SA. Overall the Haguro is one of the better values among the IJN heavy cruisers with powerful surface gunnery and a strong torpedo battery.

The Terutsuki makes a good consort for the Haguro, although it's a mistake to consider it an escort for the larger ship. It benefits from the Haguro's proximity much more than the Haguro does from the Terutsuki. Dispatching the Terutsuki off independently (perhaps to seize an objective) is nearly suicidal as long as the Avenger is around -- and the weak Japanese AA means that the Avenger will be around. A bomb attack from the Avenger is almost certain to at least cripple the Terutsuki. The Terutsuki should stick to Haguro like its shadow, providing an extra chance to abort the Avenger, an additional anti-DD gunnery shot and a extra torpedo factor or two.

The Terutsuki in the larger game: The Terutsuki is pretty comparable to other IJN destroyers, although its "Rapid Fire" SA may be attractive if you expect to face a surface-heavy build.

The I-25 submarine is actually the No. 2 unit on the IJN side and the Japanese player will face an early decision on employment. It's tempting to send it to operate away from the Haguro-Terutsuki pair, but a bit risky as the Allies have three units that can credibly attack it. I think it's better to operate within supporting range of the surface group to force the Allies to choose between ASW efforts and dealing with the Haguro. I think it's worth stacking the I-25 with the surface units the first few turns to keep the Avenger from scoring early on I-25 until the main battle is about to begin.

The I-25 in the larger game: It's cheaper than I-26 and has a better SA than I-19, so its worthwhile considering for IJN builds.

Betty is the weak sister in the IJN lineup, but the G4M1 is hardly useless. The key, I think, is to be patient. Resist the temptation to try for a potshot torpedo run in the first turn or two, as all this will probably do is cost you the Betty for no result. The Montpelier's Heavy Antiair and the decent AA values on the other ships, combined with the miserable defenses of the Betty, mean there's little chance of getting through. On the other hand, if the Allied player splits off one of the destroyers to hunt I-25 or try to grab an objective then the Betty should strike. A little luck and the Allies will be down a DD. The Excellent Endurance SA will give you another chance if, as is likely, you get aborted the first time.

The Betty in the larger game: This Betty is the same 6 points as the Base Set version of the plane and the SA's are comparably useful -- which is to say not too much given the short expectancy of the plane against USN AA fire.

So the basic approach for the Japanese is to maneuver the Haguro/Terutsuki pair as a unit, looking for a chance to combine against part of the Allied fleet is the split up to grab objectives or otherwise slug it out at close range with guns and torpedoes, with the aide of the I-25. The Betty should be used cautiously at first, saving it for use against an isolated DD or a cripple.