Coastal Forces Warfare Rules draft v1

The S-Boat menace...

Having finished the first three of my S-Boats this afternoon I decided it was time to have a look at my rules.  

I set out certain requirements for the type of games I wanted in a previous blog post.  As a reminder:

• The rules should be quick to play and easy, to learn, but give a simulation of Coastal Forces warfare.
• Personalities and leadership should be a factor in the game.

• Avoid book keeping and excessive detail. 

• Make the game mission driven. 

• I want my games to be playable as solo games, in a similar vein to Dan Mersey's Babbage rules.

•  My rules will have to work equally well on  a tiny table...  difficult one this.

• D6 is the only dice type I will allow.

Looking at some of the mechanisms I`ve come up with to address some of these points...

• Personalities and leadership should be a factor in the game.

The individual boat Captains would be the key to the game.  The declare their orders at the start of a turn before rolling d6 to implement each action.  Captains are assigned characters with a simple d6 roll. 

6  Inspirational Hero 3 Crew points, 3 Specialists

5  Bold Brass Balls 3 Crew points, 2 Specialists

4  Solid and dependable, 2 Crew points, 2 Specialists

3  Sound  2 Crew Points, 1 Specialist

2  Wobbly.  Losing it, 2 crew points.

1  Pretty raw, 1 Crew Point.

• Avoid book keeping and excessive detail. 

Crew points and Specialists are used to carry out an action in a turn.  Specialists gain a +1 on the dice for their action.  They are allocated in a blind draw from the depot ship. (or an opaque pot!) 

Individual boats get a number of free crew counters depending on their status.  For example an MTB is Trained (2) and automatically has a Captain and 2 crew.

The prototype

Specialists are:

1^st Officer

Torpedo man, 

Gunner, 

PO Motor Mechanic, 

Coxswain, 

Signalman, 

Leading Seaman, 

Specialists always roll at +1

Able Seaman  0

Trained Hand -1

The crew slots on the control panel are allocated to crew members and Specialists at the start of a turn.  If damage occurs to the section they are allocated to they may be exchanged for hits.

The mechanism to achieve this is right there on the control panel.  For example to increase the speed of the boat a Crew member is placed on the Wheel House Crew space.  

D6 is rolled during that turn and the boat will increase speed as ordered on a 3-6.  

A Coxswain on the wheel will give a +1 on this roll.

It is designed to be used independently of the Umpire, almost as a recording of use of resources and game status device.  Great for my solo gaming too!

With more combat there is a necessity to track ammunition use, and crew counters to enable the Captain to use the boat's equipment, as well as command counters.

Damage is also recorded on the panel, and crew can be allocated to hold damage at bay in Damage control.  The dice frames record levels of damage to hull/buoyancy, engines and weapons. 

Evening the odds:
My Fairmile B Gunboat

I have an unused dice frame I can't decide what to do with but have a vague idea of using a system of Command points similar to Dux Bell for the flotilla commander to issue orders to his boats. Heroic Johnny Quilp would have 4 command points that he could allocate as crew to his boats, but poor Horatio Farthingdale only two etc...

I think a player could control up to 4 boats, but typically the game would have two boats per player.

The weapons will rotate to track danger, if crewed, using the bow of the boat as a reference point.  Torpedoes to look and fire in a similar way to the E-Class sub over the bows... usually.

A work in progress...