We played the Battle of the Denmark Strait tonight. Obviously the British had an advantage. Looking at some of the other historical scenarios, they seen to be horribly imbalanced.

Which ones are close enough to make good games?

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"Bringer of Warmth, Carrier of Carrion, Prophet of Dilgarness, Speaker of all thing Llort!"

Part-time Narn.

ACTA playtester
Victorious Grand Admiral

Most historical battles are not balanced what balances them is the VPs. Objectives like survive to get away stuff like that. go over the scenario and figure out what the objective is.
then set each side an objective vs the other. If you email me at rcbecker1@bellsouth.net, I have a few small scenarios that are perfect to start with and let me know what area your playing most of mine are Med and atlantic but I have a few for Pacific also.

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"Official Naval Boffin"

Indeed, and this is something we are paying particular attention to in the new VaS. The problem with real world battles is that if one side has got it right, the fight will _never_ be balanced. It might be 'fairer' if it were, but Admirals and Generals are not really interested in fair

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Matthew Sprange

Mongoose Publishing
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com

Although I would agree with Ray, that historical scenarios should be objective based, versus who sinks the most tonnage, I have played Denmark Strait with VaS and I find this scenario to be very balanced. The German DKM usually comes out on top in this one. Consider that visibility was so low that the ships were at like 26,000 yards when fire commenced. This is well within range of Prinz Eugens 8" guns. Also, Prinz Eugen has an excellent opportunity for a torpedo run in this scenario.

Another suggestion would be that Prince of Wales can only fire every other turn to simulate technical difficulties, since she was new out of the yards and had some trouble with her main guns turrets. In the game I played, Prince of Wales did not suffer any game limitations and Bismarck still beat both Prince of Wales and Hood. The Germans lost PE, and Bismarck was too beat up to continue on her raid. Hood was sunk and PoW was so beat up she would have spent a year in the yard I'm certain. A strategic victory for the UK but a tactical victory for the DKM.

In the actual historical battle Prince of Wale withdrew after suffering a hit in the conning tower (if I remember correctly the captain was one of the only survivors on the bridge). The KGV class BB's had the single flaw of not having an armored conning tower.

Every time I play it PE dies Bismark is sunk or beat to death and both British ships have major damage but in the end germans loose but british are out of action for at least a year. now depending on the scenario it could be a German victory if both germans get away with minor damage to escape into the atlantic then it becomes cat and mouse all the way to france where the germans can repair then become a real problem. It really comes down to stlye of play for the players, grudge match vs chase game.

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"Official Naval Boffin"

We played it twice. Both times the British won. In one the Hood was crippled, in both the PoW had only minor damage. The PE did get a torpedo run in one, but damage from it was minimal.

There are several very unbalanced scenarios: Clash of Giants, Final Battle, Prelude to Matapan 1, Matapan, Cruisers off Guadalcanal and Bombardment of Guadalcanal.

There are only two that seem balanced straight up fights: Guadalcanal Finale and Arctic Skirmish.

Others have slightly different victory conditions: Death of a Giant, River Plate, Prelude to Matapan 2. What I'd like to know is how balanced these are. Has anyone played them that can tell me how they turned out?

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"Bringer of Warmth, Carrier of Carrion, Prophet of Dilgarness, Speaker of all thing Llort!"

Part-time Narn.

ACTA playtester
Victorious Grand Admiral

Sorry I use all my own scenarios.

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"Official Naval Boffin"

The historical OOB for San Bernadino Strait in which Halsey leaves a heavy covering force under Lee and Kurita runs into them instead of the Taffys is actually pretty balanced.

The Battle of the Barents Sea is pretty balanced as a game (historically the Germans were excessively timid and achieved little).
In the First World War, Dogger Bank is reasonably balanced.

The simplest way to do this is play the VAS scenario. Give each player a BB, CA, 2xCL, 4xDD's. This gives each player the same then it comes down to game play.

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"Official Naval Boffin"

Having an Italian fleet in miniatures means I pay particular attention to the balancing part of Med actions. Perhaps a few "what if" adjustments can be added to historical battles? For instance, what if the CV Aquila was completed by the Italians before Matapan and was in that battle (and the Italian pilots are capable )? Or, one of the British BBs, or the CV, didn't make it to the skirmish?

Here's a scenario: Battle of Alexandria (port attack on Taranto in reverse), with the CV Aquila conducting an airstrike on the port of Alexandria.
If a few British biplanes can do that much damage, a few more modern Italian airplanes should be able to do the same. Right?

Hey, I got the miniature of Aquila and I would like to be able to use it.

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Glen

Why do you wan't a balanced scenario in a historical game? They almost never happened that way. If you must play a balanced battle then make up your own and give each side similar ships.
For me the historical refight is most fun and to win you just need to do better than your side did in real life.

Historical fights are interesting in a historical war game. But while the real battles were not balanced, the victory conditions in the game may be altered to make scenarios balanced.

My question was which of the scenarios in the book are balanced. I know the battles weren't.

There are several generic scenarios in the book and they pitch equal forces against one another. I can quite easily use those. But I think the historical ones are more interesting to play - but only if the scenario (not the battle) is balanced.

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"Bringer of Warmth, Carrier of Carrion, Prophet of Dilgarness, Speaker of all thing Llort!"

Part-time Narn.

ACTA playtester
Victorious Grand Admiral

The scenarios in the book should be balance based on VPs.

Heres a small but good scenario.
If the transport makes it the Italians win if not they lose.

Battle of the Cigno Convoy
A sharp shortage of fuel, forced the Italians to use small and fast destroyers or torpedo boats to escort their cargo ships heading to Africa.

One of these small convoys, comprising two Italian torpedo-boats, the Cigno and the Cassiopea escorting a 4,200 ton former French transport, the Belluno, sailed from Naples bound for Tunis on April 15. A similar convoy was scheduled to depart a couple of hours later. On 2:38 AM of the 16th, the escort spotted two British destroyers approaching. These were the P class destroyers HMS Pakenham and HMS Paladin. This was one of the few night engagements in the Mediterranean in which the British failed to take their opponents by surprise. This circumstance was decisive to the outcome of the battle. However, the fire power of Pakenham and Paladin was fairly superior to that of the Italian side. In fact, they were armed with five 4" guns against three 3.9" of the Italians. The armor protection also favored the Royal Navy ships. The first vessel to suffer the effects of gunfire was the Cigno, which was almost immediately knocked out. The Italian unit continued to fire on the British ships until a torpedo sank her. Around 100 seamen went down with the ship. Nevertheless, the Cassiopea, albeit also struck by several rounds, was able to counter attack by launching a torpedo at Paladin and raking Pakenham with gunfire. The port side of the latter was hit at least six times and the engine room was seriously damaged. Several of her crew where scalded by the explosion of a boiler. Nine men were killed, another died of his wounds two days later. Paladin was also damaged by shell splinters. During the clash, the Belluno managed to slip towards the north, where the second convoy was in advance, still unaware of the events. Meanwhile, the British ceased fire and withdrew. The Cassiopea, almost disabled, was assisted by the Climene, one of the torpedo boats in the second convoy. After trying to reach Malta with an auxiliary engine, Pakenham broke down off Sicily and the Paladin, unable to take her in tow, scuttled her sister ship with a torpedo. The Belluno reached her destination safely some hours later.


Italian Side
Torpedo Boat , The Cigno
Torpedo Boat , The Cassiopea
French transport, The Belluno

Brittish Side
Destroyer, HMS Pakenham
Destroyer, HMS Paladin

Use a good gaming area and spread them out far enough that they wont be able to intercept (british) and block interference (Italains) till the 2nd turn. then go from there.

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"Official Naval Boffin"

I want a chance to win the battle or scenario, if playing the historic losing forces, and just not see if I can lose later than historically. ("Yay! My BB sank two turns later than historical!" ... yeah, not exactly a thrilling "yay" there).

Playing generic scenarios can get old. I play a lot of generic science fiction starship combat games and they tend to get stale without some overall flavor or background to the situation (Here's battle #451 of Feds vs. Klingons at <insert planet name here>, yay!). Playing historical scenarios with some variability has a little more meaning to it (in flavor, anyway).

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Glen