Micro Fleet Napoleonic Naval Components

I spent an hour or so this morning happily cutting out the components for the old TTG game Micro Fleet Napoleonic Naval including the British and French ships from the core set plus some extra Spanish and British ships from the Trafalgar expansion. I have plenty to play with and still have loads of ships leftover, although I will stick to small actions rather than try anything too spectacular! 

The components are exactly as I remember them including the very nifty sailing gizmo, which consists of three separate circles of card held together with a drawing pin. You align the large circle with the compass, rotate the middle circle to line up with the wind direction, then rotate the inner small circle to align with your ship counter to determine if you need to wear or tack. Very clever. 

I'll be setting up a game to see if I remember how to play it after thirty or more years and to see how clunky or smooth it is, although I suspect it will fall foul of the numerous tables and modifiers problem that characterises rules of this particular vintage, even the supposedly fast play variety? It will be interesting to find out if I enjoy playing it as much as I did back in the early 80's?

Micro Fleet Napoleonic Naval

 

I used to play this TTG card and counter game all the time when I was a kid in the early 80's but lost my original copy in a house move years later. I have now found a second hand but unpunched copy on eBay, which includes all the card components and the Trafalgar expansion set as well. I'll be taking this on holiday for some old fashioned solo naval wargaming, so it will interesting to see if it stands the test of time?

Fleets in Profile: The Battle of Trafalgar

I had an Amazon voucher that one of the kids didn't want and swapped for a tenner with the bank of Dad, so I've splashed out on a paper ship book containing all of the British, French and Spanish ships that fought at Trafalgar.

Unlike the other books from Helion, these card models are fully coloured and can be cut out of the book without any need to photocopy anything, so they will be perfect for the holidays. There's a set of simple rules available from the Helion website that you can download:

http://www.helion.co.uk/warm-work-final.pdf

...or I may just write my own 'beer and pretzels' rules, to use as the basis for some naval skirmishing when I'm in Brittany in a couple of weeks.

I really like the idea of being able to set up a game without the time, expense and frustration of having to assemble, rig and paint fiddly models, although I have plenty of those in at least two scales in the leadpile!

Exploding Kittens

I picked this up in Tesco's of all places this morning. It's very strange but also very simple, so perfect for a bit of Beer and Pretzels style gaming. The kids thought it looked like a lot of fun, so I'll be taking it on holiday in a couple of weeks time, just in case the weather turns nasty or they get really bored on the ferry over to France. Boom!

Table Air Combat Lancaster

The Avro Lancaster has just been published for Table Air Combat and includes new rules for night fighting, which will open up all sorts of potential scenarios using existing aircraft in the series and hopefully some new ones, including the Mosquito and Uhu (fingers crossed!). The Lancaster also includes four scenarios which feature strategic bombing raids over Germany but also the famous Dambusters raid and the tallboy attack on the Tirpitz! How nifty is that? I haven't brought my TAC stuff on holiday with me but will download the Lancaster anyway so that I can set up a game or two when I get back home. Brilliant!

Zombies Solo

I played a solo game of Zombies to learn the rules yesterday and had a great time, with one player being wiped out but making it to the helipad at the second attempt. The rules worked really well and were quick to pick up, with the event cards adding some gameplay value and throwing a spanner in the works for both survivors at different points in the game. I really enjoyed this first play test so will be setting up some further games to try out more of the optional rules.

Tank on Tank Campaigns

The one game I did remember to bring on holiday this time is Tank on Tank: Westfront, including the new Defenders of the Rhine scenario expansion which I want to play through. This includes an enormous double sided map but uses the standard counter mix from the original core set. I was wondering about some sort of linked campaign using the scenarios in both the rules and the expansion, with a narrative to tie them together?