Cruel Seas Playtest

I had an opportunity to run a play test of my Cruel Seas scenario for an upcoming local gaming convention in May.  The scenario that I am running at the convention is based on the D-Day convoy crossing the English Channel on June 5, 1944.

Allied forces are American and British and include PT Boats, Fairmile D's, US Submarine Chasers, and a Corvette escorting some landing craft, a trawler and a tanker.  The Allied objective is to move their convoy across the long table edge without being sunk.

German forces are based around 6 S-Boats (2 x S38 and 4 S100), a Minesweeper and a Flakship.  The German objective is simply to sink as many Allied ships as possible.

Highest number of points is the winner - nice and simple for a convention game.

Here are some photos of the play test that I did at our local gaming store:

The Germans begin to chase the Convoy which is just out of the photo to the  right.  Allied escorts move out to engage the German torpedo boats.

The rest of the picture above showing the relative position of the Allied convoy.  Sort of dangerous for the Corvette to be heading out towards the torpedo boats as they would be launching their fish in an all-out effort to sink as many of the convoy ships as possible (of course)!

Shots being traded in a very high number!  Many of the boats were down to ten or less hull points by the end of the game.

Torpedos about to strike home on the LCT (G).  The results would be devastating and the LCT was quickly on the bottom of the English Channel.  At the bottom of the picture is the remains (flames and smoke) of a US Submarine Chaser which had been sent to the bottom by gunfire from a couple of S-Boats.

The melee continues.  At the top of the page two S-boats collide.  This would result in one of them sinking.  Above them, a US PT-Boat collides with the German Flakship which resulted in the PT Boat sinking!

We learned several lessons to incorporate into my game next month.  I will change the deployment of both sides in a couple of ways in an effort to speed up the first two turns of the game.  The convoy also has to start the game a ways down the table edge if they expect to exit any boats off the table by the end of the game.  Time will be limited in the convention setting.

Overall I think we should be able to get a good game in for participants.  I will keep you posted on how the game goes!