August Digest #4

Vietnam War slow-grow campaign

Scenario 3: Escape and Evasion

The SAS team having completed their mission must now extricate themselves from a tricky situation. VC presence has increased within their locality ever since that night ambush. Vigorous patrolling day and night in their initial holdup location convinced the commander that it was time to relocate. 

However they soon learned that all their alternate locations have been compromised or heavily scrutinized so instead the team opts to make their way to an extraction point a few miles south of Ap Song. 

The Captain decides to avoid any contact with the locals fearing they might be pro-VC and thus rat them out. And with the chance of happening across an enemy patrol or two sooner rather than later, the situation appears dicey to say the least. 

The terrain is for the most part heavy jungle and therefore slow going. Visibility will be restricted by the terrain type and density. 

Ap Song is the main village in the area opposite a string of low hills due east that mirror the flow of the Song stream, roughly north-south. Scattered ponds and underground springs feed the stream that divides the region in two. 

Isolated and scattered homesteads are the norm out east of Ap Song with few trails that are designed for foot or beast traffic only. The locals here are also wary of strangers. 

Main aim for the SAS team with this particular mission therefore is to make it unscathed and unnoticed from one table edge to the other. Where possible, they must also avoid contact with the enemy hunting for them. 

They succeed if they make it undetected to the opposite table edge. If they spot the VC or locals first without being spotted themselves then the team must either wait for them to move on or else skirt around. Failing that they may engage the enemy VC bearing in mind they have limited ammunition. If locals, the Captain must decide whether they are hostile or friendly and act accordingly. 

Crossing the Song stream is necessary. The stream is waist deep for the most part and slow flowing that sometimes expand into shallow ponds. Movement penalty for crossing the stream is -1 pip per dice. 

Objective of the VC is to either kill or capture the SAS team. If they capture a SAS team member, it is a major success. If they kill any of the SAS team, then it's a minor success. 

For every turn, a VC blind is placed on the table randomly. The Blind can be stationary or moving (depending on the circumstance of their deployment, ie dice for it). 

Direction of movement is determined by the Deviation Dice. If the die roll is on target then roll again until a direction is determined. If moving, the VC blind will follow the direction until they exit the table. If stationary, they will perform spotting actions unless they decide to move. 

The SAS team deploy from the start.

Local civilians will also appear when the Civilian card is dealt. 

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World of Warships

Played two sessions today. First one was playing the bare minimum five games using my commander skill upgrade grind ships. Did this to obtain the 500 Voyage tokens and 2 GQ Johnny tokens. 

Second session was an evening one where I ran several ships that had "new" or transferred in captains. A total of six ships were played to raise their Commander XP level to 6%, a goal I had set which often saw me play said ship several times. 

Among the ships from this second session is my new favourite battleship, the German Tier X Mecklenburg. Sixteen 305mm guns is nothing to sneeze at. She performs beautifully smacking cruisers into oblivion with one salvo and is capable of whittling down the HP of powerful enemy battleships without breaking a sweat. I also keep forgetting she has 6km torps, handy for those real up close encounters. 

Played my second steel ship Svea for the first time. Liked her but still learning about her. Went for a secondary build and it seemed to work although I was in games mostly against lower tiered ships. Her 13km torps are great but I have not yet mastered their tactical use. Handy nonetheless.

Prinz van Oranje was a last Christmas reward that I forgot about. Came out at the same time as the Chikuma II. Part of the golden ships event. Her single air strike takes getting used to; small targeting area but lots of bombs. Slow reload means having to rely on her twelve guns between strikes. Played her from behind island cover as a result. 

Loyang is a Pan-Asian premium destroyer obtainable for doubloons. Her two centrally located five-torp salvos seem to be her trick although I believe she also has good guns which would make her a handy double torp-gunboat threat. 

At Tier X Louisiana is the top end of the American hybrid battleship line. She performed reasonable but I need to play her more to familiarise myself with her abilities. Always in two minds how to play a hybrid anyway.  

And what can I say about Pommern which, until the Mecklenburg happened along, was my go-to all-round brawler battleship. Her long range secondaries remain potent as ever and will melt down a destroyer with ease. A high end performer at Tier IX. Will be interesting to see how she goes when they bring back Asymmetric in the next Update. 

Speaking of the next Update (14.8), WeeGee are continuing their Tenth Anniversary celebrations with yet more goodies. How spoiled are we? he says to no one as he pisses into the wind.  

The main points from the Devblog are briefly summarised as follows:

• Changes to the daily Login Calendar with rewards changed to include Festive tokens, the new currency to earn greater rewards
• Battle Performance Bonus. Similar to last year's anniversary celebration. Unfortunately I forget how that went. Two missions need completing. The first mission requires of earning a certain amount BASE XP. The amounts increases depending on the Tier level ship used. Only Tier V upwards. Second mission earns extra bonuses based on how many ships you have in your port.
• Festive Rewards. Earn Festive tokens depending the ship Tier (superships/Tier XI earn steel instead). These Festive Tokens can then buy various rewards including enemy destruction effect, collection containers, supercontainers (limited quantity), economic bonuses, and signals. However, the one that interests me and which costs 10,000 Festive Tokens is the new Tier X Japanese cruiser Kushiro. 
• Honourable Service. For every year you've been playing WOWS (a minimum of 25 game played per year requirement to qualify), you will receive a collection of rewards in gratitude for your loyalty (or addiction) to the game. The rewards increment in quantity and quality depending on the numbers of years with your involvement. I read that it's cumulative as well which might mean something else to how I interpret the meaning of "cumulative" in context of the wording. Will only know the truth once it happens. 
• Blast from the Past. PvP. 12v12. Surface ships only (no subs, no carriers). Specific tiers. Temporary game mode that celebrates specific years starting with 2015. Years include 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2022, and current. Runs for a week up until 2022 and current (two weeks each). Only those ships from those specified years qualify. And with the same attributes of those specified years. With the current year, all ships with gimmicks are banned.
• Asymmetric Battles makes a welcomed return. Fun mode and keen to give it a go this time round as I missed the last time round for whatever forgotten reason. 

By far the most interest is for the Blast from the Past game mode. Many of the current nerfs and buffs on specific ships from that period will be removed. For example, the Mogami of 2015 will be way different to the current (2025) Mogami. So it should bring back many who quit as those early years were, so I hear, the glory days of the game. Once the carrier rework was introduced, along with submarines, it's been on the decline so many nowadays complain. 

Sadly I missed first two years (I joined in 2019), and can barely remember those times since. But I will actually participate from start to finish to see how different times truly were and how much those ships have changed. And in some cases, travel down memory lane. 

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Played three of my commanders today raising them to the next skill level. Used the red economic bonuses on a couple because they were available (no point hoarding them for something in the future that may or may not eventuate). Once done, I exchanged the Voyage tokens already accumulated for doubloons. 

If I can I would like to buy a doubloon ship. Haven't decided yet which one. Not a big selection left however.

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1/3000 Naval Wargaming

Of late I have a hankering to run a solo tabletop WW2 naval wargame. 

I have several rulesets to choose from but two stand out because I've actually used them. The other two, Nimitz by Sam Mustafa and Admiral of the Fleet by Seekrieg are recent additions to the library; the latter is a dreadnought set which I've assembled 1/24000 paper ships (glued to balsa); Nimitz has not been trialed yet. 

Stations Manned and Ready II edition 1.1 is by A and A Games Engineering (Englishmen Andrew Finch and Alan Butler). I playtested the rules with part of my Mediterranean fleets (British and Italian). Involved best describes it yet I don't mind it but there is a high learning curve involved. 

But my easy favourite has to be General Quarters III by L. L. Gill. Lots of detail and plenty of ship lists - military and civilian. Played it several times. I like it especially for its naval air ops (carriers). 

Lots of reading in bed therefore as I succumb to the flu.

Some pics of some ships from the collection. Some still need paint touchups before I can run the game especially if wanting to run a large game. More likely I will pick a scenario from the supplements available with SMAR II.

Above photo: The battleships Washington and Indiana escorted by the cruisers Chester and Minneapolis and destroyers Anderson, Roe and Russell.

Above: Japanese ships: Asashio (DD), Yamagumo (DD), Yamashiro (BB), Kongo (BC).

Above: Battleship Vittorio Veneto, cruiser Fiume, light cruiser A. da Barbiano. 

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Above: British carrier Illustrious with the cruisers Achilles and Neptune.

Above: German surface ships, three destroyers (Z7, Z8, Z16), one battleship (Ulrich von Hutten), and a carrier (Graf Zeppelin). The last two listed are historical but never completed. 

And a quantity of both coastal and ocean merchant vessels completes my small collection. 

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