One Hour Jutland

Having finally finished work for the year I have been able to get the paints out again over the past couple of nights. I started the last couple of Seven Years War battalions but then changed tack and thought I'd slap some paint on my 1/3000 WWI ships. I found and downloaded Martin Rapier's WWI Jutland One Hour Wargames variant, and selected the models I'd need to play this, 16 in total.

This morning I laid out my Sea board and started playing out the game:

The battlecruiser fleets move onto the board,

The first turn over and some major damage done to the Von der Tann. Blue gems indicated 6 hits and reduced speed and gunnery.

Revenge is not far away. Von der Tann fires at the Inefatigable. A natural 6 and the British Battlecruiser must roll again. A 5 and the magazine explodes! First blood to the Kriegsmarine!

The German main fleet arrives on the board.

Von der Tann has taken 12 hits - indicated by the white smoke. The German cruiser fleet is on the verge of destruction and begin to crawl their way south.

And the Royal Navy battlefleet appears from the North-West.

The main battlefleets steam towards each other, but the Germans unleash salvos on the withdrawing British cruisers before they meet.

The Calliope is destroyed. 2-0 to the German High Seas Fleet.

As the main fleets pass each other the Royal Navy seems to be getting the better of the gunnery duel.

That's as far as I got before being interrupted but with 7 turns left it is still very much anyone's game. It was nice to get some ship models on the table and to have such a simple set of rules to play with. I'm not a natural naval gamer and the thought of having to bracket an enemy and then calculate specific damage to aft turret 2 makes me cringe. I do have a soft-spot for dreadnoughts (and triremes - more on that at a later date) though, and appreciate getting the chance to play an enjoyable and fast game with them.
Apologies for the amount of shiny in the photos. It is a very reflective playing surface. But I suppose the sea is a bit like that really.

Nate