Axis and Allies-War at Sea-HMS Saumarez

The HMS Saumarez was an S-class destroyer that was commissioned in 1943. The Saumarez saw action in the Atlantic and earned the following battle honors for the following campaigns: Arctic 1943-44, North Cape 1943, and Normandy 1944. During operations in the Pacific the Saumarez earned the following battle honors: Malaya 1945 and Burma 1945.


As part of the East Indian Fleet the Saumarez together with four other destroyers intercepted the Imperial Japanese cruiser Haguro and sank her with torpedoes, this fight being the last surface action of the war.
Some of the Axis and Allies-War at Sea statistics for this vessel are:

• Speed (Movement): 2
• Armor: 2
• Vital Armor: 7
• Hull Points: 2
• Rarity: common

Another Source for 1/1800 Scale Ships

I have been searching for other sources of 1/1800 scale ships without avail until I hit upon the offerings at Shapeways. Shapeways offers a large collection 1/1800 scale, modern, WWII, and one my current interests 1890 Pre-dreadnought battleships. These models are on the expensive side though, usually in the $5.00 to $10.00 range. The 1890 Pre-dreadnought and other battleships can be had for considerably less in smaller scales.

Axis and Allies-War at Sea-Nagato-Class Battelship

Two Nagato class dreadnought battleships were built for the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War I, although they were not completed until after the end of the war. The Nagato, served as the flag ship for Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Although Nagato saw action in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the Nagato did not use her guns on an enemy ship until October 1944, during the battle of Leyte Gulf.
Some basic statistics for the Nagato-Class Battleships are:

Displacement:	39,130 t (38,510 long tons)
Length:	224.94 m (738 ft 0 in)
Beam:	34.6 m (113 ft 6 in)
Draft:	9.49 m (31 ft 2 in)
Speed:	26 knots (48 km/h; 30 mph)
Range:	5,500 nmi (10,200 km; 6,300 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph)
Complement:	1,333
Armament:
	4 × twin 41 cm guns
	20 × single 14 cm guns
	4 × single 76 mm AA guns
	8 × 533 mm (21.0 in) torpedo tubes

Some of the Axis and Allies-War at Sea statistics for this vessel are:

• Speed (Movement): 2
• Armor: 8
• Vital Armor: 14
• Hull Points: 5
• Rarity: rare

Special Purpose Keywords for Pirates of Mysterious Islands and Davy Jones Curse

Since Pirates of Mysterious Islands and Pirates of Davy Jones Curse include some new characters, special purpose islands, and ships the following terms and topics have been added to the general rules, which were posted in a post a few days ago. These terms represent special abilities that were added to some of the said characters and ships.

These special abilities are printed on crewmember tokens, Ship desk cards, and on special islands. These keywords add to and take precedence over the basic rules.

Black Mark

The black mark indicates that the crew member belongs to the cursed nation, instead of the nation of their origin.

Broadside Attack

At the roll of a 6 this ship can reduce the distance of its gun to 0. Also if dice result is higher than each cannon, all cannon hit and the ships gets one extra hit

Ex-patriot

The Ex-patriot can be assigned to any ship. Any ship that this crew member is assigned becomes a Mercenary nation.

Fear

The ability limits, with the roll of dice roll of five, the crew abilities of a ship that is a SHORT away from your ship.

Galley

The ship with this keyword cannot pin or be pinned. If this ships rams it cannot eliminate a mast from the ship being rammed. As a free action, this ship can rotate her stern in any direction. Also, if this ship becomes derelict, this ship can move one SHORT.

Ghost Ship

If the ship or a crew member on that ship has this keyword, you must decide at the start of your turn whether the ship is ghostly. If the ship is ghostly, the ship gains the following abilities. She ignores islands and other ships when she is moving. The terminology is a bit vague; does that mean that the ship can go through island and other ships as if they are not there? A ghost ship cannot be rammed or pinned, or cannot dock.

Junk

This ships mast does not block her line of fire.

Limit

Not much said here about this ability, except that you can only have one ship in your fleet with this ability.

Marine

A marine is a crew type that can be dropped off on any island except on the opponent’s home island. On each turn this crewmember with a 2 SHORT gun rank can be given its own shoot action. Opposing players may target this crew member only if they are on an island, but must hit the marine twice in the same turn.

Mercenary

A mercenary ship cannot dock at any home island and begins the game one SHORT away from your home island.

Ransom

If a crew member is transferred to an emery ship, the ransomed crew member is worth a treasure of 5 to the capturer. If eliminated by an opposing player it becomes a treasure worth 1 gold and appears on the player’s home island as a free action.

Sea Monster

A sea monster can take the form of sea serpents or a Kraken and is made up of segments. These segments come in different forms; they can be coils, tentacles, heads, and tails. The segments act like masts in the game.

At the start of the controller turn, they must decide whether the sea monster is a float or submerged. If submerged they cannot shoot or be shot at, however when not submerged they may take a shoot action.

Sea monsters cannot carry crewmembers, but can take treasure from a pinned ship. If it chooses to take a unique treasure that treasure is eliminated from the game. If the sea monster succeeds at a boarding party, it also eliminates one mast.

Once all the sea monsters segments are eliminated the sea monster is removed from the game.

Submarine

A submarines hull is made-up of two or three pieces. These pieces act like masts. Submarines cannot be pin or be pinned, or tow or be towed. Submarines have the ability to either move on the surface or under the surface. The submarines player must decide at the start of their turn whether the sub in submerged or is running on the surface.

Submerged subs can only more and cannot shoot, be shot at or be rammed. A submerged sub can ram another ship while she is submerged, but regardless whether she is successful or not she must move a SHORT away from the targeted ship in any direction as a free action.

On the surface a sub can be rammed and boarded, but will not be damaged by the ram. If she is hit by a cannonade a piece of hull is removed. When all the hull pieces have been removed she becomes derelict.

Schooner

As a free action this ship type can rotate her stern in any direction after she completes a move action. This action cannot be used after she rams another ship.

Turtle Ship

When ship is hit, one of her panels is removed. When all her panels have been removed, start removing her masts. This ship cannot be boarded if she has any turtle shell panels. If derelict, this ship gains a base move of a SHORT.

Note: The terms SHORT and LONG are basic movements used in this game. A SHORT is a width of a card, whereas a LONG is the length of a card.

Adapted from Whizkids complete game rules.

Frank Reade Jr. Mercenary

Frank Reade somewhat of a swashbuckler preferred contracting his services than to sell his technologies to the US government. He and his team provided cover for US troops, either from his airships or land ships. The land ships were first powered by steam and then electric, were manufactured out of iron, and usually had at least one turreted cannon. Frank Reade Jr. participated in the following combat conflicts (banana wars mostly):

1916	Dominican Republic
1915	Haiti
1914	Mexico
1912	Nicaragua
1910	Nicaragua
1907	Honduras
1906	Cuba
1903	Honduras
1903	Panama
1902	Venezuela
1898	Cuba
1885	Panama

Air Ships Mentioned in Adventure in a Age of Invention

Frank Reade was the inventor of many ironclad sea, land ships, and submarines. However, some of his more fantastic inventions were his airships. These airships were kept aloft by a series of horizontal rotors, much like a helicopter. These are a few the airships mentioned in Frank Reade: Adventures in the Age of Invention:

• Flying Scud
• Calamaran
• Queen Clipper of the Clouds
• Flight
• Sky Pilot
• Zephyr
• White Cruiser
• Thunderbolt

Although there are many fanciful designs, judging from the illustrations I don’t see how these airships stayed aloft. The bodies of these airships look too bulky and the main rotors, that resemble oriental umbrellas, do not look like they would be all that effective in keeping these airships aloft.
Although I haven’t seen a mention of how these rotors are being driven perhaps they are being driven by some type of chemical reaction, like the Flying Fish in the With Airship and Submarine.

Pirates of Mysterious Islands-Battle Report- #02

Over the weekend three of us that got together for a game night; the Pirates of Mysterious Islands strategy game was one of the games we decided to play.

My current fleet consists of ten ships. We decided to play a forty point game, which means we all were able to choose ships and crew that equaled up to forty points. That meant that we all had three ships and at least two crew members. Crew members usually take-up a cargo space, so unless the crew member has some pretty impressive attributes you may want to run without them.

Like I mentioned each of us had three ships and we all had a mixed fleet, meaning we might have had French, American, British, Spanish, or Pirate ships in the same fleet. This is permissible, but when using a mixed crew, the crew member can only use their special abilities on a flagged ship that they belong.

Besides our home islands we had a total six wild island in which to dispense the gold pieces. These wild islands are suppose to be set at least 4 Longs away from a home island.

Gold was dispensed evenly on all the islands and we rolled to see who would go first. After the first player completed an appropriate action we took turns going clock wise. I went last.

It seems that the two girls that took part were at odds with one another, that night and were in almost consistent conflict with one another and fired their cannons back and forth at one another. This severely hindering their ability to collect gold. Since this was the case I had ample opportunity to cruise to the wild islands without any mischief and pick-up as much gold that my ships could carry and ferry the booty back to my home island.

I ended up with more gold pieces and thus points than the girls and won the game. I have learned that unless you are able to completely destroy your opponent’s ship, that it is probably not worth the effort to attack another ship.

One option, that might prove profitable, but that no one pursued, was to ram another ship and board her. Depending on the roll of a die, you may eliminate one mast, capture a crew member, or take one gold piece from that ship.

Axis and Allies War at Sea-Flank Speed

I received my Axis and Allies naval miniatures booster pack in the mail not too long ago. The booster pack contains 5 randomly selected collectable miniatures. There are 64 miniatures, 33 Allies and 31 Axis, of these 1/1800 scale WWII pre-painted miniatures in all. They are meant to augment the miniatures that come with their two player starter sets like War at Sea.

In addition, to the five miniatures there are five statics cards, one for each miniature. Each stat card includes the name of the vessel or plane, and what flag it flies. There are also rarity, attack, defense, amour and basic movement figures.

The five figures that I received are:

• HMS Saumarez, England
• Milan, Vichy France
• Pegaso, Italy
• Nagato, Japan
• JU88A-4, Germany

More information will follow about the above vessels and aircraft.

Basic Play for Pirates of the…Constructible Game

Once per turn a player can perform one of these actions:

Move Action

Each ship can move a predetermined distance as her indicated base moves. The base moves are based on a Short, a Long, or a combination of both of these movements.

Explore Action

Once you are docked at a wild island (one that is not a “Home” Island) you may explore the island for gold.

Shoot Action

In attempt to sink a ship, you may, when within cannon range, fire your cannon(s) at the ship.

Repair Action

When docked on your Home Island you may, once per turn, repair one mast.

NOTE: A ships actions may be altered by the ships or her crew’s special abilities.

Ghost Town Gallery

The Ghost Town Gallery features dozens of images of abandoned western mine towns located in Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Montana, Arizona, and Utah. These towns like Bodie CA, Stedman CA, Glendale MT, and Clarkdale AZ, once were populated with people and flourished when precious metals, like gold, silver, and lead, were abundant. Once the metals gave way they were abandoned and left to decay.

Pirates of Davy Jones Curse-First Impressions

The Pirates of Davy Jones Curse strategy game was released by Whizkids in May of 2006, their seventh iteration of this pocket sized strategy game.

This iteration includes the following nations:

• France
• America
• Barbary Crosier
• Pirates
• Cursed
• England
• Jade Rebellion
• Spain

The Barbary Crosier, Cursed, and Jade Rebellion are new to me and I look forward to seeing how these new combatants fit into the scheme of things.

Pirates of Davy Jones Curse includes 141 different ships, crew, and special treasure pieces. Pirates of Davy Jones Curse also includes new terrain types, such as Fog banks, Reefs, and a Sargasso Sea, which include their own sets of attributes. Both of which will be reported on in an upcoming post.

The game will take on new aspects with these terrain pieces; however, unless I missed this in the rules, I don’t see how ship could end up on one of these terrain pieces. It seems that it is time to create a set of situation cards, one set for the Move action and the other for the Explore action. I could include situation cards that put a ship into or on one these terrain pieces.

With Airship and Submarine-High Adventure

I have encountered several adventures already in this text, the first notable was the abduction of a Russian aristocrat and the forcible exchange of him for another Russian aristocrat, who happened to be innocent of the charges, imposed upon him, from a Russian prison ship; this a blatant act of piracy.

And now for another adventure, or rather a slight mishap; the professor accidently arouses a fairly large python and becomes entangled and struggles for his life. What other adventures will Collingwood conceive next?

Dr. von Schalchenberg being attacked by a 35 foot python. Image from With Airship and Submarine, Project Guntenberg, HTML version.

The Flying Fish

The Flying Fish is a vessel mentioned in "With Airship and Submarine" by Harry Collingwood. The Flying Fish reminds me of another vessel that is similar to the Flying Fish, one written about in Jules Verne’s “The Master of the World”. Verne’s vessel is named the Terror, which might give you some idea as to the plot of this story, is similar in the Flying Fish in capabilities. Both of these vessels are convertibles and can be propelled either in the water as submarines or in the air as airships.
The Flying Fish as described in “With Airship and Submarine” is cylinder in shape, pointed at both ends and is reported as being 600 feet long and 60 feet in diameter. The Flying Fish is powered by some type of crystals and to this point in my reading these crystals have not been identified.
There aren’t any images of this vessel included within the text, so its exact likeness is unknown, but could this depiction come close to what one could imagine? I will leave that up to your imagination.

Frank Reade Jr. a Life of Adventure

Frank Jr. and Barney O’Shea being attacked by a Giant Cephalopod (Image from Frank Reade: The Age of Inventions)

Like I had previously mentioned, the Reade’s were prolific inventors. Frank Reade Junior, more so than his father, craved adventure. It was Frank Juniors inventions and his wealth that facilitated his high adventures. Whether over the jungles of South America or Africa, Haiti, or the depths of the seven seas you could find Frank Junior in one of his airships or submersibles.