Fleet File Vol 1R review + Maneuvers

    Fleet File Vol 1R review

 This R volume was created, I believe, to give people the opportunity to buy the Brunhild model as it is one of the most important ships in the series and was previously included in the Vol 1 which has been long out of print and extremely expensive to purchase. 

The only duplicate ships between the two volumes are the Asgrimm and Brunhild, both Goldenbaum and Goldenlowe versions.  This makes it a bit awkward as you really need to buy both sets as the other ships are extremely different but then you end up with 4 copies of each duplicate ship. 

There are some minor differences which I will get into with the Vol 1 review.

This set is mostly for imperial ships as the account for 80% of the included models.

  Brünhild (Goldenbaum and Goldenlöwe versions): probably the most iconic ship from the series, the model does justice to the animated series and it is really impressive.

 

As I mentioned above if you want to purchase all the sets you will end up with 4 copies of the Brunhild, so i decided to create a mini-diorama using one of the spare copies.

 

    2x Alliance battleship, The included ship translated names are Oxiana and Lubjana. I am not certain that they are spelled correctly as I could not find english language sources with their names listed.  According to the booklet those ships were part of the Iserlohn battle diversion during operation Ragnarok. As admiral Ruenthal was setting up the siege of the fortress Yang orders general Fisher and Attenborough to sortie out and disrupt the siege. Ruenthal had anticipated this and quickly closes in with the alliance ships making it impossible for the fortress to fire  due to the risk of hitting friendly ships. The Oxiana and Lubjana are then destroyed in the ensuing fighting.

Grendel: Mittermeyer's ship before moving to the Beowulf

 

Morholt: Ruenthal's flagship before transferring to the Tristan

 

 Tannhäuser: Reinhard's ship before being promoted to the experimental design of the Brunhild after being promoted as a reward for the third battle of Tiamat

  Asgrimm (Goldenbaum and Goldenlöwe versions): Fahrenheit's flagship given to him after the Lippstadt campaign. The design is still similar to the general profile of most empire ships but the prow is slightly larger to accommodate for the powerful long range cannon mounted there. Tje armament was similar in style to Thor's hammer but of lower power.

     Imperial fast battleship (Schwartz Tiger) : Another Black lancer fast battleship, quite useful to bolster that army as normal fast battleships cannot be used due to the color scheme difference.The painting is slightly different compared to the Vol 9 models the details are not panel lined in white; personally I prefer it this was as there is less smudging and imperfections in the final result.

 

Maneuvers

One of the feedback points I got from the last playtest session was the wish for some sort of system to re-organize units within a formation to give more tactical decisions to each player.

An idea I got from playing Command and Colors Medieval (Strongly recommend that game BTW). That mechanic gives an allowance of tokens at the beginning of the game to be spent for extra movement or special abilities.

Some examples I've thought about are shown below. The red x shows unit that have had to move backwards due to failing morale checks, and blue arrows are the maneuvers that the player would execute in response.

The plan is to give the players a way to maintain formation structure but as the game goes longer it becomes harder and harder decisions need to be made as to which areas of the battle need to be bolstered and which ones are not worth.

Hoping for another playtest session next month, if that goes well I might start magnetizing the bases in advance of taking the whole thing to my local wargaming association to test a 2v2 scenario.