"Your opinons of Naval Thunder?" Topic

I've recently discovered the rule set "Naval Thunder: Battleship Row" and I've been considering picking it up. Reviews I have read seam very positive but I've still got questions.

I'm under the impression that "Battleship Row" is a complete self contained set of the Naval Thunder rules, and not an expansion requiring me to own the base Naval Thunder rules.

In "Battleship Row", are destroyers dealt with as individual ships or as squadrons? I'm a big fan of smaller ships and smaller engagements (Cruiser and DD actions), but in other rules system it seams like DDs are one-hit-wonders not even worth wasting the paper record sheet on. Can you still have a fun, somewhat detailed game in Naval Thunder if you don't include the BBs and CV heavy hitters?

I've seen pictures of people playing with shell splashes next to their ships, while those look really cool do they play any part in the actual rule set?

I'm not overly enthusiastic about the "throw handfuls of dice" rule system, how bad is Naval Thunder at this? I've heard that when you add in aircraft things can get a little crazy, like 30+ D10s rolling around!

What about scale? Most of the guys I play naval games with started by getting into the Axis and Allies War At Sea game, and since they have a ton of them they like to use those miniatures. I have come to like the larger size of ship models too since they seam much less "fidly" and have greater visual impact. I don't mind some gaminess to the ranges vs ship scale since I feel true range scales are always a problem unless you go to tiny scales in huge rooms. So long as the game feels right, like movement and gun ranges are relative to each other.

Naval Thunder Does use one system to allocate hull boxes to ships across all ship classes, so that DD's are at the low end and are very brittle. It seems to me it is the on;y problem with these rules.

I've really enjoyed these rules. Easy to learn, fast to play. Complete lists.

They SEEM to give reasonable results, but I'm not a naval historian.

IF I was going to run a WWII Naval game, these would be the rules.

I played them a couple of times at conventions before taking the plunge and buying the complete set. Battleship Row only covers US and Japanese ships. You will need Bitter Rivals to include Britain, France, Germany and Italy. The WWI rules do not currently include anyone except England and Germany.

Games play fast with a flavor to them that surpasses GQIII but doesn't delve into the minutia of Seekrieg or Command at Sea. Not that I don't prefer the minutia, but it's not fashionable. You do roll a d10 for each tube firing but that's better than an all or nothing system IMHO. Destroyers are individual in WWII, flotillas in other time periods.

As a matter of fact, we're playing a game this afternoon.

I am not sure I would use the term brittle. Will DD's stand up against a full broadside from a battleship, no. Will they and do they stand up to light CA and DD, yes. We played a game not too long ago and really enjoyed it. I had six destroyers in a flotilla, they lasted long enough to sink two DDs, one BB and cripple another BB. I think they last long enough.

Mike

Been studying and playing naval for some 30 years and have seen many different rulesets come and go. Naval Thunder is a good solid set. The one downside I found was the way it handled DDs and below. In the games I've played they seemed brittle, ahistorically so (GQ3 does a better job here). If you look at the Solomons battles, DDs took a tremedous pounding, well beyond what you'd expect for their size. As to the flavor (and this is definitely a YMMV issue), it gives a decent overall feel and outcome for actions with CLs and above and plays fairly quick.

As to scale, you should be able to flex the 'ground scale' to match your playing area and minis without problem (BTW, this holds true for most of the better naval sets on the market).

We played two training games today to clear conclusions (Germans sunk) in four hours. Simple actions like the Graf Spee in '39 and Denmark Straits in '41 but it's still good that with no one but me having any experience with the rules we got them both in.

We have played several games of Naval Thunder and have enjoyed them greatly. This rule set has revived naval gaming in our club, after the diapointment of Victory at Sea. All of the games we have played have been points based games and have seen very balanced and provided good games with resonable results.

Lee

Very positive for mine… I've played a few games, mostly cruiser night actions in the Solomons, and all I have to say is that they are the best set of naval rules I've played. They reach the desired balance between simulation and game. I love the simple charts, and I'm ready to pay the price for these and roll the buckets of dice (cutting the numbers in batches helps too… )
Regarding DDs, I guess Daemon and Coastal2 have some kind of point here. It's hard to redo Tassafaronga, and other actions where Japanese DDs shone (or Surigao, the American DDs' counterpart). DDs will be most times sunk in the Cruisers firing phase before they can fire their torps. Not that this was not the general case : except for these, well, you find few DD successful actions (the Haguro in 45) and some complete misses (Vian vs Bismarck) or disasters (the French light squadron at Oran during Torch). This said, I'd suggest some optional rules for campaigns in which such events took place : I'd let the DD captain elect, at the completion of his move, to either roll for torps one range bracket under his actual position, or have the bigger ships firing at him one range bracket further than the actual distance : boldness, or caution…

I Just discovered Naval Thunder last fall and now cannot imagine going back to any other rule set.

Like the OP I have a huge WaS collection. For WWII actions these models work great with the Naval Thunder system. Naval Thunder is best suited for surface actions, but there is a mechanic that abstractly ties in carrier stikes and subs as well.

Naval Thunder is soley responsible for me delving into other periods of Naval gaminig like WWI, Russo-Japanese War and now Spanish American War. I had never played these period before NAVCON and now I have full OoB for Russo-Japanese war in 1/2400 as well as a nice collection of WWI ships that seems to increase monthly.

If you are only interested in WWII to start then yes Battleship row is the place to Start which gives you USN and IJN. I would highly recomend getting "Bitter Rivals at the same time which introduces the European theater as well as some more Pacific scenarios. With those two sets(Under $30 USD combined) some d10 dice and your models youe will be ready to game.

Be careful it is very addictive. :)

I would also encourage you to check out the NT forum as well for maore resources and quesions. The Game designer is there often and is very helpful.

link

Have Fun!

Tried it, loved it, bought it, can't paint and play enough.

There are tons of optional rules, one being destroyer squadrons (a single base with multiple DDs on it).

NT makes DDs hard to hit, a base 9+ (9+/d10). They can also evade (10+/d10). In the optional rules, they can be "overpenetrated" by large shells (same reason as AP shells might be ineffective v. a truck), use Smoke very effectively (they carry around a moving Line of Sight obstruction, and they can fight at night (IJN torps at night – ouch!). Yes, if they're hit by a single large shell, they might die, but they can usually survive a couple from cruisers.

So far I've played with both sides having them twice.
The IJN used them aggressively and we used no optional rules. They were all sunk. The USN was more careful with them, and they survived.

If you behave like a real captain, I think they'll usually live. If you throw them away they'll usually die. Seems historical to me. We are looking forward to trying out theoptional rules for them, which will make them more deadly and survivable.