Cruel Seas, what's in the box

A cheque for £50 from my old folks for my birthday has been sitting in my account for a month.  Who uses cheques anymore? And more to the point who posts them to Cyprus?  I decided to blow the lot on a memorable birthday present so went for Cruel Seas by Warlord Games.
Nice heavy box!

I had already scratch built some coastal Forces in 1:300, long before I heard of this game and it's scale so I was curious to discover if I had my model scale correct.

The starter set comes with ten plastic boats, six Vosper MTB and four S-Boats.  It has some dozen sea splash markers and torpedo markers, also in plastic.  The A0 double sided gaming surface was a nice surprise, one side being much darker than the other, perhaps representing night actions.

Cards for the boats, coloured cotton wool for hits, wake and plume markers, and heavy card terrain and markers.  The rules are glossy and come with a getting started booklet.  Since I was called back to the UK urgently the game cost £40 from the local model shop with a heavy 20% discount, I think that's well worth the money.

First things first I measured the plastic models against my balsa and bits builds.  I'm quite proud that they are pretty much spot on.  Not only that they are detailed as versions that the Warlord ones don't make up into.  This means my fleet now has 8 Vospers, 1 x MGB, 1 RAF Sea Rescue launch vs seven S-Boats.

Beyond building the plastic models and getting some games in I'm not sure what I intend to do with this in the way of linking the scenarios together.  It strikes me that Young Johnny Quilp may return to wrest control of the North Sea from the Hun, perhaps as part of a random patrol solo game.

My Vospers have a dice frame mounted on the stern to take a damage dice.  With 8 boats I have a lot of scope for games, but at 1:300 not too much tabletop...

My Scratch build List
Two more gunboats
British Corvette
Axis Minelayer
Trawler
Tanker
Coastal tramp steamer
Sinking S-Boats
Sinking MTB
Sinking ship bows & stern
Wreck or channel bhoy
Sandbar marker
Shoals
Coastline with port
Coastline with beach
Lighthouse
Mist
Squall
Tracer markers
Searchlight markers
1:300 aircraft

The fleet in dry dock...