I was never impressed with the rules Mongoose published, and Warlord has a tendency to release rushed rules without adequate playtesting, incomplete rules, and generally an unfinished product. Bolt Action was the exception. As these rules are supposed to be just re-written VaS rules, I don't hold a lot of hope.
I was never impressed with the rules Mongoose published, and Warlord has a tendency to release rushed rules without adequate playtesting, incomplete rules, and generally an unfinished product. Bolt Action was the exception. As these rules are supposed to be just re-written VaS rules, I don't hold a lot of hope.
This worries me a lot too. Mongoose rulebooks were a scrambled mess in my experience. (Starship Troopers, VaS). The VaS rules were also being updated by volunteers, and the last I heard their revised rules had exploded into a much larger volume. Part of that was adding stats for every ship class down to harbor tugs, but I also saw a thread on "starshell rules." Starshell were important early in the war, but that hardly suggests a simplification of the rules they were claiming. We shall see. I will still likely buy at least the starter. But if the game takes 8 hours to play I hold no hope of finding anyone to play with.
The IJN Carrier Liberation Force - "Because We Care" Join the IJNCVLF. Service Guarantees Citizenship!
I'm not too excited about the rules, I'll use Naval War instead. But I am very excited that I can at last point people to a decent miniatures line in 1:1800! Not too thrilled about the bases, but for beginners they are excellent. No need for basing or labeling, something everyone would want to do anyway, especially if you cannot ID WW2 ships on sight.
"That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been"
The latest release I saw indicated resin minis, which if true (and combined with the bases), sux. The starter indicated 15 ships, non-random, consisting of 3 US cruisers and 6 Fletcher DD's, and 3 cruisers and 3 DD's for the Japanese. All the cruisers appeared to be heavy cruisers.
Prices are up for preorder. Starter kits are $80, and fleet boxes are $128 for about 9 ships and 4 planes. Ships for IJN and US are 1 BB, 1 carrier, 3 cruisers, and 3 DD. Ships for KM are 1 BC, 4 cruisers, and 4 DD. Choices are all over the place. IJN gets Shokaku, and 4 Zero. No DB or torp planes. US gets New Mexico and Essex, and 4x Corsair (? !). KM gets Scharnhorst, all 3 Hippers, and 4x Stuka. I'd think they'd make the ships initially equal in performance and time period, then branch out.
Bill, they appear to be 1/1800, same as the ships. They are on a flight stand, with 4 planes in a Y formation. They are not independent of the stand, but rather it appears to be all one mold. I could easily be wrong. I will take the chance for my group and get the starter, $62 at my FLGS. And you do get a free Altmark with purchase of the starter.
After seeing the ships in an unboxing video, I will cancel my starter. The bases are taller than the ships, they are made of resin, and you need to assemble turrets, superstructure, etc on the ship. The ship cards are a very basic black and white, and look very cheap. They carried over the flimsy paper damage sliders too. All in all, looked like a very sub-par production effort. Quite a bit bummed, as I had so wanted a new ship game to get into. At least Oak * Iron arrived, and with a VERY high production standard. But it's just not WW2.
I ordered the starter mainly because I want to have the rulebook. I doubt I will buy anything else. I can use the WaS miniatures for the game once I have the rulebook if I actually want to play.
The IJN Carrier Liberation Force - "Because We Care" Join the IJNCVLF. Service Guarantees Citizenship!
I ordered the starter mainly because I want to have the rulebook. I doubt I will buy anything else. I can use the WaS miniatures for the game once I have the rulebook if I actually want to play.
The starter only comes with the cards for the ships in the starter, so if you want to branch out to all the other WAS ships, you'd need to create new cards for them.
I ordered the starter mainly because I want to have the rulebook. I doubt I will buy anything else. I can use the WaS miniatures for the game once I have the rulebook if I actually want to play.
The starter only comes with the cards for the ships in the starter, so if you want to branch out to all the other WAS ships, you'd need to create new cards for them.
So they have taken the ship class stats out of the rulebook and put them on separate cards? Interesting. Actually, I think the cards make it easier to play the game. It was a pain to manually create the fleet sheets for each build in the old game. I will just have to see if the game is something I could get anyone else to play before I invest any further.
The IJN Carrier Liberation Force - "Because We Care" Join the IJNCVLF. Service Guarantees Citizenship!