Modern Naval Battles: Global Warfare is a card based naval combat game from DVG. It is fantastic. So good that I have both the ship expansion and the Campaign module and we have played on a regular basis at home.
The youngest is a keen gamer and has helped out in a lot of games and has come up with some good ideas himself. He wanted to play MNB with models and I had seen someone else take the idea forward as a starter. Okay what did that mean. The fleets themselves do lend themselves to miniatures play. There is some fantastic work out there with 1/700th ships which picqued the interest. This MNB:GW 1/700th Game Report is an excellent example of the larger scale. My budget and eyesight however don't go that big so we have downscaled somewhat to use NAVWAR 1/3000th scale ships together with 1/600th scale airpower (and possibly missiles).
We haven't decided on playing surface as the idea is to introduce some concept of movement into the game which seems to be possible (thinking here of a straight double the range indicators and use a hex system) and then allow ships to move 2 hexes per turn. This might allow the land based targets and amphibious warfare ships to have some context. But to start with this will be RAW. I think we might use the "Passive" defense option to locate a submarine in the opponents half of the table though which does seem to be a viable option.
Anyway early days. Our starter pack has about a dozen or so ships in an eclectic mix. US CVN, JMSDF DDG, Krivak III FFG, OH Perrys, Knox Frigates, French Lafayette etc. The idea is for a small outlay we can gauge the size of the table/model to get a general feel for what may or may not work. Current thinking is 4" hexes and a 3' x 3' board which is plenty of sea room. Another one of those lets see how this develops.
Photos etc to follow and more updates once the metal arrives.
If you are looking to convert it to miniatures, you might want to look at: http://macslittlefriends.blogspot.com/search/label/Modern%20Naval%20Battles
ReplyDeleteThis guy has already done some of the conversion work.
Thanks Dave, Macslittle friends is the same DaveinSydney who I was exchanging ideas with a while ago. Which is where the 1/700th list of models came from. But my hands aren't up to the level of modelling on things that scale. He also made some littoral suggestions on TMP. So...I am heavily leaning on his work but at a lot lower scale. We played tonight (JMSDF v French Navy) and probably had no more that 7 ships a side at any point (JMSDF resounding victory).
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