First thoughts:
~ Looking forward to an updated Victory At Sea!
~ Without having an initial play-through (will do my best), thoughts as below
Introduction
~ I know it's a personal thing, but 'counting up' always feels like it saves a moment's mental effort here and there compared to 'counting down'; why not simply have the Warspite's crippled stat be 26 - i.e. 'you are crippled once you have taken this much damage'.
~ Agreed AD, DD, AP makes sense as an order. I need to know how many dice I'm rolling before I need to know the score I need to get on each die.
The Turn
~ No Comments
Movement
~ Minimum move 1" - a capital warship being able to spontaneously go from max chat to a dead stop at will feels a bit wrong without a special action being involved.
~ "Ships may never be stacked on top of one another and so you may never end your movement ‘on top’ of another ship. If this is impossible, simply place the moving ship to one side of the other vessel." Which side? Given that if this situation occurs it is likely to result in one ship crossing the other's T at point blank range, who gets to decide which way round the ships are placed?
~ "Rules for motor torpedo boas are on pXX" - snakes with torpedoes. Almost as scary as sharks with laser beams.
Attack
~ See comments about counting up vs counting down. I'll happily admit it's personal taste and makes no real difference to the mechanics of the game.
When Damage Dice are rolled, the resulting number on each dice is compared to the target’s Armour score. For every Damage Dice that equals or beats the Armour score, 1 point of damage is deducted from the target’s Damage score.
"Any Damage Dice that roll a natural 6 (before any modifiers are applied) may also cause a critical hit. If you roll a 6, roll the dice immediately again. If you roll a 4 or more then, in addition to causing damage as normal, you will also have scored a critical hit!"
"A natural ‘6’ does not always cause damage."
So it is possible to cause a critical but no structural damage against a heavier ship (like the Armour 7+ Rodney)? Just checking, rather than objecting.
"Main Guns and Light Guns fired at a target that is at Long or Extreme Range gain a +1 bonus to their Damage Dice."
Could be read as meaning a +1 to the roll, or +1 dice rolled (although the 'Heavy Armour' section below clarifies)
Possibly word as increasing the AP by one?
When a ship is crippled, its speed is halved. Is it halved before or after the reduction in speed from engine criticals? (I.e. if a ship with a 4" speed and Engines 3 is crippled, is it immobilized?)
Mostly a question for carriers because most other things with 11+ hit points have some main guns, but what happens if a ship with no Main Guns takes a turret destroyed critical? Are effects other than the extra damage ignored?
I note there's still an 'instant death' critical. On the other hand, a damage die needs a 6 for a potential critical, a 4 to confirm the critical, a double 1 or 6 for the vital systems critical and a 6 for the catastrophic explosion. That means you're likely to see it something like 1 in 1296 shots, which is often enough to see it in the game but not that it should be a major thing. Obviously at some point, someone will have a battleship taken out by a 6" gun rolling a string of 6 6s in a row, and will be deeply cross, but it's not like you can avoid having the 'HMS Hood Killshot' as an option in a WWII naval game.
End Phase
"To repair a critical hit by Damage Control, select one location that currently has a Critical Score and roll 1D6, adding the ship’s Crew Quality score. For every point you roll above 8, the Critical Score of that location is reduced by one. Any traits lost by a critical hit on this location will also be repaired."
What else is restored? Are light weapons AD recovered? Speed? Re the post above, a destroyed turret is not restored.
Given that a ship is immobilized by high engines critical, under what circumstances does the compulsory movement rule come into play. I can't find any example of a ship being rendered adrift in the playtest pack.
Special Actions
"If the total matches or exceeds that listed in the Special Action’s description, the action is successful and will be performed. If not, the ship moves as normal."
...And suffers no other penalties associated with the special action?
Does a failed attempt to run silent or evade still mess with me attacking?
Come About!
This is presumably intended to only be a single extra turn, the first time you turn, whether it's after a 2" move, or more, or whatever. Equally does the 2" prescription interact with a destroyer with the agile trait? They should be able to turn after a 1" move, after all.
Evasive!
"However, all attacks the evading ship makes suffer a –1 penalty to their Attack Dice" - again, is this -1 die rolled or -1 on rolled results?
"and it may not move a distance more than half its Speed in this turn" again, interaction between half speed and fixed speed penalties from critical hits. Crippling automatically applies lumbering, which prohibits evasive, so no issue with half-half speed....
Flood Magazine!
"However, one random Turret is put out of action for the remainder of the game and cannot be repaired (if no Turrets are present, halve the Attack Dice of all Light Guns, rounding down). " See comment about destroyed turrets on ships with no main guns, and repairing turrets. If this is the 'standard definition' of a Destroyed Turret effect, then copy-paste where appropriate.
Special Traits
"Devastating: This weapon is exceptionally powerful, capable of blasting small targets apart and causing serious problems for even the largest vessels. Instead of causing one point of damage with each successful Damage Dice, a Devastating weapon will cause an amount of damage equal to what each Damage Dice actually rolls, regardless of whether it exceeds the target’s Armour score or not. In addition, a critical hit is scored for every Damage Dice that rolls a 5 or 6. Any critical hits scored will have a Critical Score equal to the roll of one dice."
So torpedoes essentially ignore armour and can jump you strait to a critical-6 score?
"Sub-Hunter: This ship carries specialised equipment designed to locate submerged vessels. Rules for hunting submersibles are covered in the forthcoming supplement XXX."
I rather hope they're in the section on Submersibles, which will ultimately be in chapter 14 of the same book....
Advanced Rules:
Bad Weather
"• Once an enemy ship is within 15-25” of a friendly vessel, make a Crew Quality check (as described on pXX) with a target number of 8. Success means the enemy ship has been Spotted and may be attacked normally by any friendly ship within 25”, as its location will be communicated to allies. Once a ship has been Spotted, it will remain so until it moves beyond 25”. "
What if I fail the CQ check? How often do I get to make repeat attempts to spot the ship, assuming it remains between 15" and 25" away and does not fire main guns?
Evading Torpedoes
"Ships that did not move at least 3” in the turn or are performing Special Actions may not attempt to evade torpedoes."
Including the Evasive! action?
Aircraft:
"To make an attack against a ship, each Flight must first roll to hit, using the table below. If the Flight is attacking a submersible or motor torpedo boat section and is not a Fighter or Bomber, a –1 penalty is applied to this roll."
Since no comment is made about a 6 being an automatic hit, Level Bombers can never hit an MTB. Which seems fair.
"To make an attack against a ship, each Flight must first roll to hit, using the table below. If the Flight is attacking a submersible or motor torpedo boat section and is not a Fighter or Bomber, a –1 penalty is applied to this roll."
Meaning that technically a carrier observation aircraft can attack a capital ship, it just will roll no DD if it 'hits', so can't inflict either damage or criticals.
I'm not sure if there'd ever be a rules situation where that matters, of course. Possibly relevant for some sort of equivalent of the ACTA border clash mission where repeatedly buzzing someone with observation planes might count towards victory?
Shorelines
"Land blocks all Line of Sight, and ships cannot target one another if land lies between them." - even with indirect fire with observation planes and anchored ships?
Coastal Structures
A civilian freighter is not exactly armoured, but more fragile than a wooden house? Would probably make this armour 1+, especially since it has 4 damage points.
Coastal Invasions
Am I missing a generic statline for a transport aircraft? Don't see any in the fleet lists.
Kamikaze
No comments.
Sumbersibles
"A submersible that is Submerged may either Surface or Run Deep.
A submersible that is Running Deep or Surfaced may sink or climb to be Submerged."
Should be "may change it's depth to...." otherwise the wording does not support maintaining depth.
Night Battles
"If the battle is taking place at night, Surfaced submersibles cannot be Spotted until they are within 10” of a ship, and are only automatically Spotted if they are within 3” of a ship."
How about Bad Weather? Obviously you would never voluntarily take a submarine into a bad weather engagement, since without torpedoes or light weapons they're essentially unarmed....
Also, how does detected and spotted interact? What happens if I spot a submersible, then it submerges, then surfaces again. I assume - but it's not stated - that I have to roll to spot it again?