At least I presume so, there is no mention that I could find in the article that they had bought it off Mongoose.
https://www.warlordgames.com/countdown-to-victory-at-sea/

Full Contents:
A4 Battle of the Pacific Rules manual
Die-cut game tokens sheet
Ship Cards and damage sliders x 15
Ten-sided dice x 4
Six-sided dice x 12
A0 Sea Mat x2
15 Warlord Resin model ships:
USS Indianapolis 1944
USS Northampton 1942
USS Chicago 1942
Mogami 1939
Kumano 1944
Furutaka 1939
Fubuki-class Destroyer x3
Fletcher-class Destroyer x 6
Ship Cards and damage sliders x 15
Ten-sided dice x 4
Six-sided dice x 12
A0 Sea Mat x2

Releasing in 4 days, not sure of what to think at the moment, I like Victory at Sea by mongoose so if its the same game then it will be good but my goodness are those bases on the ships ugly.

It would be a totally different game if you painted those bases flesh colored with a heavy red wash.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It would be a totally different game if you painted those bases flesh colored with a heavy red wash.

What horrible game are you planning on homebrewing?

I kind of want to see, but don't. But I do.

Looks completely...okay, in a typical Warlord way. Hope the ships can be assembled without the awful bases though.

Nice to see the game being supported, i have been playing it for years. i use the axis and allies war at sea miniatures for the game.

Brigade miniatures also has some great naval terrain in scale for victory at see including sea forts, sea walls, lighthouses, warfs etc...

I'm excited to have an accessible WWII naval game with miniatures.

Oh boy the Indianapolis that's an infamous choice. Watch out for the sharks!

Ooooo, I loved axis and allies war at sea. This looks juicy

The bases are horrible. It looks like a flotilla of hovercraft.

So, at that scale the ships aren't very big, but what's with the humongous bases? They're as tall as the ships' hulls. Just look at the models set up on the mat. Gigantic, dark blue shapes with indistinct small thingies on top that may or may not be ships. Horrid look.

A friend told me about this a while back and I thought I was down for it, but aesthetically the game looks like a dud to me.

Warlord picked up VaS from Mongoose a few years back, guessing the models have those horrible bases as they will be a resin base and hull with metal turrets and a few metal details the same as the Mongoose ones

which were horrible because of the bases.

the "ship cars with damage sliders" bit is a concern for me, VaS 1 was ok, ship record chards with checkboxes on worked nicely but was up to the players to sort out.

the mechanics were not bad, a bit "40k at sea" with buckets of dice but it wasn't actually a bad game - Mongoose were way too slow bringing out models so I went 1/2400 and the GHQ models which were a lot better.

however won't be buying into this, largely because I have V1 and the expansion set, plus ships in a different scale so I don't really need it but if its similar to V1 in how it plays it won't be a bad little game

Didn’t Warlord just release a WW2 naval game with plastic ships (and metal and resin ships) a year ago? What happened to that?

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Didn’t Warlord just release a WW2 naval game with plastic ships (and metal and resin ships) a year ago? What happened to that?

"Cruel Seas", that ones a torpedo boat scale game, VaS is a full on fleet battle line slugfest game, though expect a lot of somewhat non historical matchups, historically navies have been very good at avoiding fair fights

this one is for sinking the Bismark etc.

decent choice of having the starter set be the war in the pacific though

Never got into VaS initially, but the massive bases are a bit of a turn-off.

It's the same scale as my Axis & Allies War at Sea ships, so I'm a little tempted to pick it up and just use those, if the bases aren't removable.


Although the flimsy looking cardboard parts aren't looking too appealing.

WLG acquired the rights from Mongoose some years ago, announced as much, but I never heard anything about it til now. I am keen to get the starter.

It looks like the bases are set sizes, probably for rules/maneuver reasons. I don't see why someone couldn't hypothetically just plop A&AM ships on flat acrylic bases with identical footprints.

Interesting.

Fireforge Games is working on their own 1:1800 WW2 naval game. Some miniatures have been previewed (including the Fuso), and iirc the game is expected late this year. If it comes out as planned, then there might be a nice assortment of retail store friendly models out soon. Very useful if Warlord does its usual "slow down the support after release" thing.

Or you can just go to Shapeways, which is where I recently picked up Myoko and Salt Lake City.

Also, the four individually listed ships are Warspite, Bismark, Yamato... and Idaho!?

Iowa (or Missouri) would have been the no-brainer. South Dakota or Washington are perhaps the most important battle veterans. Who picked Idaho as the signature USN ship?

I emailed someone at Warlord games, and he thought the bases were NOT removable.

Bummer!

But I'll likely pick up the rulebook. I too have piles and piles of A&A War at Sea minis lying around in a box somewhere, waiting for some love!

There are lots of alternative ships for WW2 in all kinds of scales, and resin, metal, etc in historical circles. So there is no lack of choice.

There are also tons of rulesets for WW2 ship fighting too - some very much simulation, and some "beer and pretzels".

The challenge with WW2 naval is that, aside from the Pacific, there weren't many surface engagements with fleets, and even there, the Pacific had a lot of nighttime engagements.

WW2 was not like Jutland. There were some duels, but battleships ended up more effective as artillery support, rather than in ship to ship (especially as planes and carriers evolved).

Seeing the setup, the board, and the ships being mentioned, really doesn't sell it for me.

That wouldn't stop the game from creating heaps of naval engagements - much in the way we do with many wargames (armies often fighting when they shouldn't, ignoring mass casualties, etc. etc.).

One of the more "what if" style games. Shame since you could combine it with submarines and aviation units - abstract the scale and have something a bit more interesting, perhaps. The boxed set does nothing for me, as it screams 'Warlord Games". A feeling that this was nobody's passion project but rather a by-the-number "investment" in another purchased property. The boxed contents scream minimal effort, just churning out another game. I'd like to be wrong, but that's the distinct feeling I get from a lot of Warlord Games style products.

At least I know the book should be okay - I played some Victory at Sea maybe...7-8 years ago with the re-released book of the time. Completely okay, nothing ground breaking or thoroughly immersive/enjoyable.

 Elbows wrote:
That wouldn't stop the game from creating heaps of naval engagements - much in the way we do with many wargames (armies often fighting when they shouldn't, ignoring mass casualties, etc. etc.).

One of the more "what if" style games. Shame since you could combine it with submarines and aviation units - abstract the scale and have something a bit more interesting, perhaps. The boxed set does nothing for me, as it screams 'Warlord Games". A feeling that this was nobody's passion project but rather a by-the-number "investment" in another purchased property. The boxed contents scream minimal effort, just churning out another game. I'd like to be wrong, but that's the distinct feeling I get from a lot of Warlord Games style products.

At least I know the book should be okay - I played some Victory at Sea maybe...7-8 years ago with the re-released book of the time. Completely okay, nothing ground breaking or thoroughly immersive/enjoyable.

The fleet boxes prominently - excepting the Kriegsmarine box, for obvious reasons - feature aircraft carriers. And it's not just cover art. Painted aircraft carrier figures are visible on the one side of each of those three boxes that are visible on Warlord's store page, indicating that the boxes do contain at least one miniature representing an aircraft carrier. Air is presumably incorporated into the game in some fashion. Whether it's a good fashion is anyone's guess. But I'd be surprised if they included carriers in the roll-out fleet boxes - which they evidently are doing - but didn't include any rules for carrier aircraft.

Submarines during this time period had uses during fleet engagements. But that use was primarily for spotting and reporting the locations of enemy ships, and harassing enemy ships both before and after the actual fighting. Submarines did kill warships. But none of those kills happened during the middle of the battle. Yorktown's death was about as close as any submarine ever came to sinking a warship during the actual fighting, and that didn't occur until shortly after Hiryu's second and final airstrike had inflicted critical (though still - amazingly enough - non-fatal) damage to the carrier.

and the ships being mentioned, really doesn't sell it for me.

About that...

Interestingly enough, one of the four battleships presented as the prominent ship for its nation is HMS Warspite. Warspite fought in a number of engagements in the Atlantic. In one of those, it earned fame by hitting an Italian battleship - Gulio Cesare - at the incredible range of over 26,000 yards. I think it's safe to say that it earned its spot on the list.

You can argue about Bismark and Yamato. Neither ship accomplished much during their respective careers (Bismark sank an outdated battlecruiser, and damaged the Prince of Wales; Yamato accomplished even less, and got stood off by Taffy 3 during its sole surface engagement), but both ships have a certain amount of notoriety due to their prominence within their respective fleets. Players will look for them.

That leaves USS Idaho. As I mentioned above, I haven't got a clue why Warlord chose to use her as the prominent USN ship.

WW2 was not like Jutland.

Even Jutland wasn't really Jutland. For all its fame, it was extremely anti-climactic. The German navy sailed out, both sides fired shells at each other, and then the Germans ran back to port before the British could force a decisive confrontation. No battleships were sunk during that fighting. The last war that actually had prominent - and significant - confrontations between opposing battleship squadrons was the war between Russia and Japan. And that was pre-Dreadnought.

 Cruentus wrote:


The challenge with WW2 naval is that, aside from the Pacific, there weren't many surface engagements with fleets, and even there, the Pacific had a lot of nighttime engagements.

Decent amount of scraps in the Mediterranean, and their are choice battles across the globe - plenty in the Pacific, as you say.

 Elbows wrote:

Shame since you could combine it with submarines and aviation units - abstract the scale and have something a bit more interesting, perhaps.

We focussed on this a great deal this time round, to the extent that aircraft only 'fleets' are both possible and enjoyable - we have the scenarios for Taranto and Pearl Harbour, for example, all written up and ready to go. Aircraft fulfil a range of decent missions, including ASW and observation roles, and Submersibles will be integrated into their own 'mini-game' that will see you using sub-hunters to track them down before the lethal torpedo shot gets launched.

Added to that, motor torpedo boats, coastal craft, plus a whole coastal invasion system that will see a fleet bombarding the shore line (as the coastal guns fire back) while landing craft take troops and armour ashore to capture tactical points such as airfields, MTB harbours, HQs, etc.

There is a great deal coming for Victory at Sea.

Eumerin wrote:

Warspite fought in a number of engagements in the Atlantic. In one of those, it earned fame by hitting an Italian battleship - Gulio Cesare - at the incredible range of over 26,000 yards. I think it's safe to say that it earned its spot on the list.

I would say that might be the least of the reasons to include Warspite - the ship seemed to be practically unkillable

Are you still doing the rules Matt?

As for theatres of operation, when i built up my fleets using the A&A war at sea minis i built my japanese fleet for an open ocean fleet engagement. for the british fleet i set up for a north atlantic anti-raider force and as such it is a far lighter skirmish force. so it is perfectly reasonable to do fleet engagements in the different conditions and still feel historically immersive.

 ingtaer wrote:
Are you still doing the rules Matt?

We are! Happy to answer any questions

Hi Matt,

What's different from the last version of VoS? Are there any examples of play up online yet?

...Any chance it's possible the ships could be removable from their bases...? To give us more hobby options? (I realize that last one might be a bit of wishful thinking)

Thanks!

 ingtaer wrote:
At least I presume so, there is no mention that I could find in the article that they had bought it off Mongoose.

There was an announcement in January 2015 and had it running at Warlord Games Day May 2015

 pancakeonions wrote:
Hi Matt,

What's different from the last version of VoS? Are there any examples of play up online yet?

...Any chance it's possible the ships could be removable from their bases...? To give us more hobby options? (I realize that last one might be a bit of wishful thinking)

Thanks!

Warlord's going to open the pre-orders tomorrow. Hopefully there will be more info at that time. For starters, they still need to tell us what's in the fleet boxes.

I'll pick up a couple of starters.
I don't mind the bases but I will scrape the names off. Those are pointless and limiting.

MongooseMatt wrote:

 ingtaer wrote:
Are you still doing the rules Matt?

We are! Happy to answer any questions

Great to hear, will definitely pick up a copy of the rules then! Any chance that you can tell us what has changed in the new edition? and/r a quick rundown on it works for people not familiar with the game?

My group and I did not like cruel Seas. How do these rules differ? Can anyone share their insight and understanding?

 Shrapnelsmile wrote:
My group and I did not like cruel Seas. How do these rules differ? Can anyone share their insight and understanding?

It's too early to say. However, this is the second edition of a game with the same name that was previously released by Mongoose Games. So I would expect what Warlord is releasing to be very similar to Mongoose's version.

Hey there,

 pancakeonions wrote:


What's different from the last version of VoS? Are there any examples of play up online yet?

Well, there has been a veritable salvo of changes, far too many to list here. This really is a complete revision, though the core system will be instantly recognisable to VaS veterans (or ACTA veterans, for that matter...). However...

This edition went through a lot of playtesting - in-house, an Open Playtest, and many, many, many revisions by a team we ended up calling the Official Naval Boffins, a group of gentlemen who either had extensive naval wargaming experience, real world naval experience, or both. We did not want to increase the complexity of the original rules, but did want to hone the historical accuracy down to a fine point. And that, I think, was successful.

We have, for example, compiled what we think is just about every refit every ship class, from destroyer upwards, went through before, during and (a little) after the war. Now, I might say a casual gamer should probably avoid that, but the refits are simple to work through, and if you are after hyper accuracy and want the AAA refit on your cruiser, you can do that.

As for the rules themselves, everything beyond the absolute core rules was tweaked and refined. I think the Movement Phase remained intact, but that was about it! For example, unless you get Battleships trading broadsides at point blank range what will normally 'kill' them is not the removal of Hull points but an accumulation of critical effects - the removal of speed, weapons, etc. We have also added escalation rules to the critical hit tables so you take a small handful and have a gentle eroding of capabilities, but you will not worry too much about that. However, there is a threshold where fires and secondary explosions start taking over and, unless you do something drastic, you _will_ lose that ship.

Quite proud of the way that works out in the game

As I said before, we now have submersibles in their own 'mini' game of hide and seek, coastal invasion scenarios are now a thing where you actually land troops and start marching to objectives while fleets tussle and bombard the coast, we have a bunch more historical scenarios to play through, aircraft are now properly effective, there is a new 'core' scenario that integrates many different objectives for both fleets and adds scouting, and, well....

There is just oodles of new bits and pieces. I am also quite proud of the 'background' text we included for ships, fleets, the real battles, and other topics - as well as a set of fun to play rules I also wanted these books to be interesting to read. You know, like when you have not got a game on, don't fancy painting, but you want to do something game-related, so you grab a book and just immerse yourself in the 'setting'. GW do this well for 40k and AoS, and I wanted to do the same for sea battles in WWII.

That might be just me

Incidentally, the playtest pack we were using for the Open Playtest is still available for download. Some caveats here though - this is not [i]the final version of the rules, nor is it final layout. Consider it a draft, as a lot has been changed since, the 'look' of the rulebooks is now completely different (better!), and the playtest pack did not include any of the (extensive) background text we wrote. However, you can get a feel of what the new rules are like, as well as their breadth.

https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/VASPlaytestPack.zip

Please also note that the Starter Set does not include things outside the Pacific, subs, coastal invasions, and other bits and pieces. It really is a starter set, though Warlord's approach means that new ships can be added without us printing new books (as all the stats are included on cards included with the ship models), which is a definite improvement for both publisher and player.

Oh, and look out for the 'photographs' we managed to find of the what-if? ships

 pancakeonions wrote:
...Any chance it's possible the ships could be removable from their bases...? To give us more hobby options? (I realize that last one might be a bit of wishful thinking)

I don't think so - Warlord took a lot of our 3D models (they have already started working on their own though) and gave them the new style bases. However, hand on heart, it was us who pushed for the bases to be included.

We knew they would not be universally appreciated (!), but we had our reasons. The two biggest were that a) people always tended to add their own anyway, so why not save them a step and give them moulded waves and wakes into the bargain and b) we figured it would greatly aid newcomers to the era.

Warlord have taken this a step further by adding the names of the ships onto the base, which obviously speeds identification - this is important because we have managed to cram so much detail into these models (in most cases working from the original deck plans) that at Cruiser level and above you can actually see the difference between individual ships. So, we do not just have a Leander-class model - you can tell the difference between Ajax and Achilles, say. Having the names on the bases marks each vessel as unique which, of course, it was!

This also allows us to produce ships that went through extensive refits, so if a ship noticeably changed between the start and end of the war, the models can reflect that. I don't know if Warlord will go down that path, or even if it is desirable for a wargamer, but the potential is there. I think we only experimented with this on the Richelieu and Yamato, but it is a possibility...

Happy to answer more questions!

Thank you very much for the comprehensive answer Matt (as well as the link!). Have had a quick scan through the rues and fleet lists and like the look of it, though I do miss FAPs... What size games do you recommend and were used most in playtesting?

leopard wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
Didn’t Warlord just release a WW2 naval game with plastic ships (and metal and resin ships) a year ago? What happened to that?

"Cruel Seas", that ones a torpedo boat scale game, VaS is a full on fleet battle line slugfest game, though expect a lot of somewhat non historical matchups, historically navies have been very good at avoiding fair fights

this one is for sinking the Bismark etc.

decent choice of having the starter set be the war in the pacific though

In life if you get into a fair fight you've done something very, very wrong.

For a wise man, all fights should come down you and your 20 buddies jumping a lone dude in an alleyway when he's drunk.

Preorders live: https://store.warlordgames.com/collections/victory-at-sea

Pricey...

Yamato for £15?... I'll definitely grab one.

 ingtaer wrote:
Thank you very much for the comprehensive answer Matt (as well as the link!). Have had a quick scan through the rues and fleet lists and like the look of it, though I do miss FAPs... What size games do you recommend and were used most in playtesting?

I wanted to have no points at all, but the playtesters were very clear about their thoughts on that However, we wanted to give a nod to competitive play without compromising on the historical side. So, we gavce all the refits possible for each ship, but recommend they are not used for competitive/tournament play. We present the core Victory at Sea scenario, but recommend only certain combinations of fleet objectives be used. Things like that.

Our demo games always revolved around smaller actions, with the River Plate and (especially) Denmark Strait being popular. These give games that can be played out in half an hour or so but still give plenty of action as the ships are large enough for interesting things to happen.

However, the game scales up well and the separate cards Warlord are doing help that greatly. You will still need to set a good afternoon to get through something like Guadalcanal, but you will find the game entirely manageable.

Playtesting went in two phases - 'general' fleet bashes (mostly based around the core Victory at Sea scenario, though some of our playtesters really went into the weeds when we were balancing individual ships) and the historical ones. The latter, for obvious reasons, needed quite a few sweeps as they tended to be a little one sided in real life, so we had to make sure victory conditions were achievable even if it meant that you were basically losing the scenario (so, try not to get blown up in the first three turns, to give a very simple example, get Ship A off the table, don't let your flagship die, and so on).

I like the fact that the starter and fleet boxes aren't redundant, with different designs.
Combining the starter box and an IJN fleet will get you the 4 ships of the Mogami class. Neat.

Went over the the site to look since I just got back from pearl last week. Saw the bases.....nope, that is ugly as heck. Would rather just use cut out cardboard.

I've just hope you've fixed radar.
That + smoke was always an auto win for the allies.

 ValentineGames wrote:
I've just hope you've fixed radar.
That + smoke was always an auto win for the allies.

You should indeed find Radar good now, as well as the abolition of the Destroyer Rush

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
It would be a totally different game if you painted those bases flesh colored with a heavy red wash.

"In 1945, the Evil Welsh-Nepalese Scientist Doctor Morgan Andras used his time traveling machine to beam the entire pacific fleet into the 34th century. On distant Mars, ancient earth battleships and aircraft "skimmers" traverse the sand seas of the red planet, continuing their fight against the forces of the Imperial Space Japan! Grab your skimmers and rocket into the 34th century in the new hit game "WWII Martian Sand Victory Battles"!

"I'd like the US cruisers at Salvo island box, please
- There you are, it just arrived.
- .Hey, that box is empty !
- Well, yeah..."

There are some odd ship choices. I've already discussed the rather odd choice of USS Idaho as the representative USN ship. Her class leader, New Mexico, is in the fleet box. The US aircraft in the fleet box is the Corsair instead of the much more common Hellcat (though in fairness, the included carrier - Essex - did start carrying Corsairs in 1944). The Royal Navy carrier is HMS Eagle, which was a converted battleship originally earmarked for the Chilean navy.

Coupled with the odd ship choices is the base issue along with Warlord's habit of being slow in getting out new releases. If you're a player that likes to focus on historical engagements, then the two US battleships are completely useless to you, as neither one fired at an enemy ship (which makes their choice as ships even more puzzling, since the third ship of their class - USS Mississippi - did fire at enemy ships (albeit exactly one salvo only)). So if you want a USN battleship that actually fought against other surface ships, then you need to either get that ship seperately and add a baee that doesn't match with the ones on the Warlord ships, or you need to wait until Warlord releases the model for the ship you want. And Warlord's support for their more niche games with new figures often leaves much to be desired.

And actually, I'm not sure how viable buyung a ship seperately will prove to be, since we are apparently relying on cards included with the ships for stars?

I look forward to a "modern" Navy game from someone next!

That being said, i might go ahead and look into getting this. I do enjoy a naval scrap!

Is there a stated 'ground scale' to this game? Are we going to see aircraft carriers actually on the same playing surface as cruisers and battleships during a surface engagement? (Cringe).

I'm also not a fan of named ships with bases. I get the idea of the upgrades and mods that were made to different ships or ship classes as the war progressed, but I think I'd be more likely to buy a class of ship, and then name it what I want.

And re: smoke, in the Pacific, the superior radar of the US caused untold problems for the Japanese navy in nighttime engagements, and with the use of smoke. So if it's OP, that's actually how it worked in real life. But I get wanting it balanced for matched play (which naval engagements rarely were).

The explanation on the last page was great of how the game works, does that mean that you can or cannot have a situation like the Bismarck/Hood, where a lucky salvo blows the ship up? It sounded like ships would slowly degrade instead, meaning outliers like that event would not occur? And again, I get it that to balance the game, it wouldn't be fun to be on the receiving end of that one shot, but it would in rare instances be historically accurate.

 Cruentus wrote:
Is there a stated 'ground scale' to this game? Are we going to see aircraft carriers actually on the same playing surface as cruisers and battleships during a surface engagement? (Cringe).

You _can_ have them on the same surface... but we have something called 'Deep Deployment' which allows aircraft carriers to sit back and throw their planes at the enemy. In the core Victory at Sea scenario, this is handled by scouting. Basically, if you seriously drop the ball on scouting, you can get caught out and have your carrier forced onto the table, but a few aircraft, destroyers and cruisers dedicated to scouting should usually avoid that.

 Cruentus wrote:
The explanation on the last page was great of how the game works, does that mean that you can or cannot have a situation like the Bismarck/Hood, where a lucky salvo blows the ship up? It sounded like ships would slowly degrade instead, meaning outliers like that event would not occur? And again, I get it that to balance the game, it wouldn't be fun to be on the receiving end of that one shot, but it would in rare instances be historically accurate.

Ships degrade - but we have built in a chance for a lucky hit, that simulates things like a rudder jamming hard and, yes, a catastrophic hit that instantly annihilates a ship. It is very, very rare... but it can happen.

There was mention of cards being included with each ship, with the ship stats. This is handy, but it also prompts me to ask -

Are ship stats going to be available seperately? Let's say, for instance, that I want to refight the battle in which Kirishima sank. Kirishima was a Kongo-class ship, so I can substitute Kongo (in the Japanese fleet box) if I have to. Assuming that I can do similar things with the IJN cruisers present in that battle, that leaves the destroyers (which apparently are just dealt with by class in this game) and the two USN battleships - Washington and South Dakota. Would I be forced to wait until Warlord releases a North Carolina-class and a South Dakota-class, so that I could get stats from the bundled cards? Or would their be some other way of getting the stats for the two USN battleships?


Edit -

Is there a stated 'ground scale' to this game? Are we going to see aircraft carriers actually on the same playing surface as cruisers and battleships during a surface engagement? (Cringe).

AKA the HMS Glorious and Taffy 3 scenarios, both of which were caused by collossal screw-ups by the Allies.

Why the huge jump from $80 for the starter which has 15 ships (and pretty much everything else for the game), to $128 for the Fleet Boxes which have 8?

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Why the huge jump from $80 for the starter which has 15 ships (and pretty much everything else for the game), to $128 for the Fleet Boxes which have 8?

Yeah, it feels like someone really screwed up the pricing there. The starter set fleets seem like they should be $40-50 dollars.

I thought maybe I was looking at Canadian or Australian prices for a moment - also they're listed as resin...which is a massive turn off, and strike two if they're attached to the bases. But yeah, $128 for a handful of small resin ships? That's...brave. Still, buying the rulebook from an eBay seller should be easy.

Deep Deployment sounds interesting, as do some of the concepts. Might be worth a look at the rules.

But those starters and ships...pass.

Thanks for the info Matt. I'll second the question about rules being available separately - Do you know if there is any chance of a rules-only pack at some point?

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Why the huge jump from $80 for the starter which has 15 ships (and pretty much everything else for the game), to $128 for the Fleet Boxes which have 8?

I would guess because the starter is priced to be an attractive starting point, while the fleet boxes are priced to actual cost.

For the cost, don't look at the number of ships. Look at what those ships are.

The starter has six cruisers and nine destroyers. The fleet boxes have one battleship, one aircraft carrier, three cruisers, and three destroyers. They also have 16 tiny aircraft. The battleship and aircraft carrier are bigger than the other ships, and the battleship in particular likely has more fine details. Note that the battleships that are sold seperately are selling for $24US each.

Meanwhile, on Shapeways, the first 3-D printed 1/1800 Yamato I found runs from $24 - $28, depending on the material. USS Portland runs from $8 - $14. Given those prices, the fleet box costs seem to be competitive.

I enjoyed V1 I have to say, one thing I liked especially was the ship profiles being in the book, and with the Order of Battle add on pretty much most ships you would want. the whole "ship data is in the boxes on cards!" thing is essentially a hard "no" from me.

I have models, the delight of historical gaming is having a collection and being able to use multiple sets of rules with it.

trouble with this business model is two fold, firstly its no good for people with a collection already and secondly this is Warlord.. what rate will models come out?

plus the idea that the starter is just the Pacific with what sounds like a lot of rules left out to follow reminds me of a few other Warlord games, or Warlord released ones - Test of Honour was great fun, but trying to find a rule across all the booklets was a pain, never mind trying to actually get them in the first place.

BRS suffered from the "rules come with the models!" thing, with models dripping out painfully slowly.

not to mention the whole issue currently dogging flames of war, you put rules on cards, and suddenly they become very hard to change.

I have little doubt the rules, when they are eventually all released, will be good, and I hope it gets a "V2.1" rulebook at some point with them all in the same place, ideally without the fluff and artwork which is all very nice but nice as a separate book. no issues with it being included but please don't make me carry it.

V1 was a fun game, only had a few problems with it as a set of rules, I gather most of which have been addressed, but I ended up collecting GHQ 1/2400 models because I could actually get hold of them.

and to be honest I have zero desire to start fleets in another scale, so if the stats are indeed in the boxes and not in the book then it will have to remain a pass.

Still wish it well as a set of rules though, Love naval gaming and want to see more of it (and play more of it).


Aware Warlord are in this to sell models, but I have to say just about every game I've played that doesn't have an attached model range to shift ends up a better game - make a good set of rules and it will shift, make good models and they will shift too - but don't use one to try and force the other.

I sounds good though that its all been developed, deigned and written, which is without a doubt the way to avoid 'codex creep'.

agree on point values, the idea made me cringe a bit as well, largely because such things are impossible to get right better than 'close enough' - you can probably balance an IJN ship against a USN one, but through the IJN against the Germans and its harder, take a late war IJN against an earlier war German one, with the same "points" and its much harder.

scenarios are better, nice generic "battle ship in service in 1942, plus two cruisers and four destroyers from the same year" then have mitigations around the differences in the missions - e.g. Germans being essentially commerce raiders or trying to tie up then escape others. aiming for a 'balanced duel' or 'balanced fleet engagement' removes half the fun

Eumerin wrote:


Are ship stats going to be available seperately? Let's say, for instance, that I want to refight the battle in which Kirishima sank. Kirishima was a Kongo-class ship, so I can substitute Kongo (in the Japanese fleet box) if I have to. Assuming that I can do similar things with the IJN cruisers present in that battle, that leaves the destroyers (which apparently are just dealt with by class in this game) and the two USN battleships - Washington and South Dakota. Would I be forced to wait until Warlord releases a North Carolina-class and a South Dakota-class, so that I could get stats from the bundled cards? Or would their be some other way of getting the stats for the two USN battleships?

I don't know - we just provide the rules, Warlord handles everything beyond that. However, I would say that if you are happy substituting the Kirishima model for a Kongo, why not substitute the stats too? They will be very close...

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
Why the huge jump from $80 for the starter which has 15 ships (and pretty much everything else for the game), to $128 for the Fleet Boxes which have 8?

We have nothing to do with pricing, that is all Warlord's wheelhouse. But a post just above did a good breakdown of the contents.

 insaniak wrote:
Thanks for the info Matt. I'll second the question about rules being available separately - Do you know if there is any chance of a rules-only pack at some point?

There is indeed - we submitted it to Warlord as a three-volume set - don't know if it will stay that way with the stats being on cards, but yes, the heavyweight rulebook is already with Warlord right now and, given the questions and clarifications they have been sending to us, they are working on it this moment.

leopard wrote:
plus the idea that the starter is just the Pacific with what sounds like a lot of rules left out to follow reminds me of a few other Warlord games, or Warlord released ones - Test of Honour was great fun, but trying to find a rule across all the booklets was a pain, never mind trying to actually get them in the first place.

You won't have this issue with VaS. The rulebook we submitted... well, it did not have everything, but damn near it. You might find the odd obscure ship waiting for a supplementary release but the main rulebooks contain submersible warfare and even coastal invasions. We really wanted this rulebook to be 'complete' so there was no flipping around trying to find something.

Put another way, you will find this edition more complete than the combined first edition rulebook and Order of Battle...

leopard wrote:
agree on point values, the idea made me cringe a bit as well, largely because such things are impossible to get right better than 'close enough'

You and I can just pretend they do not exist

I do love all the people against points, but if you ever suggested using no points and playing scenarios generally you'd have the community and some of these same people of other games in a childish uproar

However, I would say that if you are happy substituting the Kirishima model for a Kongo, why not substitute the stats too? They will be very close...

That was the intent behind my comment about substituting Kongo. However, I'd still be missing the two USN battleships until Warlord releases those classes.

Then just wait until they release them...

Do we know when's the release date ? The pre-orders are in, but I couldn't find any actual release date on Warlord's site.

Shipping is early April I believe, so around then

 ValentineGames wrote:
Then just wait until they release them...

And how long am I going to need to wait, oh great and wise one?



HudsinD - The release date is late April. There's a sentence to that effect in the pre-order bundle pages, though it's not where you would expect to find it.

Eumerin wrote:

 ValentineGames wrote:
Then just wait until they release them...

And how long am I going to need to wait, oh great and wise one?.

As long as it takes.
No wargame exists that releases EVERYTHING on day 1. That's a fact you should be very well aware of.
Even the great almighty GW who can do no wrong don't release every single unit for a release.

 ValentineGames wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

 ValentineGames wrote:
Then just wait until they release them...

And how long am I going to need to wait, oh great and wise one?.

As long as it takes.
No wargame exists that releases EVERYTHING on day 1. That's a fact you should be very well aware of.
Even the great almighty GW who can do no wrong don't release every single unit for a release.

Warlord has a track record of having a big roll-out, and then only releasing dribs and drabs for the new game over a long period of time afterward. So "just buy the game and wait until they release the other stuff you want" might be a bad idea. We have someone affiliated with the game who has been kind enough to post here and answer questions. Asking whether he knows the level of support that Warlord is going to provide - such as getting more ships out, along with the ship cards that we will apparently need in order to use them - is a very reasonable question to ask. Though based on what he's said so far, I'm guessing he doesn't.

Unless you're planning to die before everything is released why rush? Just add what you want when it comes out.
My Hungarians didn't get a Pak36 for bolt action until a month ago. But I managed to survive

 ValentineGames wrote:
Unless you're planning to die before everything is released why rush? Just add what you want when it comes out.
My Hungarians didn't get a Pak36 for bolt action until a month ago. But I managed to survive

I know that GW isn't going to stop producing 40k. Warlord have a history of dropping games and lines. I'd like to have an idea of a company's plans into at least the short term future before I buy into a game. Not "just wait", cause next thing I know, its a dead game with an incomplete line in a non-compatible scale.

Solution is simple - don’t buy Warlord stuff if you’re worried about indifferent support or the line being dropped. Their track record speaks for itself. And it’s not a realistic expectation that they’re going to come out in advance and proclaim ‘we’re going to ignore this game once we’ve bagged the release suckers!’.

Also, there’s no escaping those ‘bases’ that take up more volume than the ship on them are hideous.

Might get the release/rules and use Micronaughts line from GHQ.

They've only dropped games that did really badly. Such as the abysmal terminator game.
They've not dropped hardly as many games as the naysayers will say.

What I find funny is saying how warlord has dropped so many games yet GW has dropped... 10+ games in the past.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm
But that comes down to double standards.

Warlord drops terminator and loses the licence to a samurai gane: warlord drop games all the time!!!111!!!
GW drops Gorkamorka, blood gulch, warmaster, inquisitor, bfg, necromunda, road warrior, mordheim, space crusade, warhammer fantasy, space hulk etc etc etc: WeLl At LeAsT wE hAz 40k!¡!

I'm not sure how you missed all the people complaining constantly about the death of Specialist Games when they were gone, but, really, this isn't the thread for that discussion. Let's stick to discussing this release, not GW, please.

Thanks again for the responses Matt. So can we expect a big scenario book? Really wished that Warlord was just keeping it to scenario play and releasing the ships accordingly, a Battle of the River Plate box or Pursuit of the Bismark set would be much better than the current set up in my mind. The Royal Navy fleet makes no sense from an historical perspective.

I saw Victory at Sea at Warlord's GAMA booth. I really like the models, even the bases.

From above, the bases look quite cool. The side view just kills them, though. They're way too thick.

MongooseMatt wrote:
Hey there,

Incidentally, the playtest pack we were using for the Open Playtest is still available for download. Some caveats here though - this is not [i]the final version of the rules, nor is it final layout. Consider it a draft, as a lot has been changed since, the 'look' of the rulebooks is now completely different (better!), and the playtest pack did not include any of the (extensive) background text we wrote. However, you can get a feel of what the new rules are like, as well as their breadth.

https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/pdf/VASPlaytestPack.zip

Just started skimming through it. Haven't had a chance to read the rules, but I did start taking a look at the ship lists. How comprehensive were the ship lists in this version? I'm asking because I noticed that the Unryu-class and (never completed) budget version cousin Ikoma-class carriers are missing.

Eumerin wrote:
We have someone affiliated with the game who has been kind enough to post here and answer questions. Asking whether he knows the level of support that Warlord is going to provide - such as getting more ships out, along with the ship cards that we will apparently need in order to use them - is a very reasonable question to ask. Though based on what he's said so far, I'm guessing he doesn't.

I am afraid I am only the Rules Monkey - manufacture, marketing and sales is at Warlord (where we like it to be ).




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ingtaer wrote:
Thanks again for the responses Matt. So can we expect a big scenario book? Really wished that Warlord was just keeping it to scenario play and releasing the ships accordingly, a Battle of the River Plate box or Pursuit of the Bismark set would be much better than the current set up in my mind. The Royal Navy fleet makes no sense from an historical perspective.

The large rulebook has plenty of scenarios, and I cannot imagine we will not do more. River Plate and Bismarck are all in there, along with many, many others.

=Eumerin 786189 10741709 null]
How comprehensive were the ship lists in this version? I'm asking because I noticed that the Unryu-class and (never completed) budget version cousin Ikoma-class carriers are missing.

Sounds a lot like Firestorm Armada from that game overview. Minimum distance before turning, turns being 45 degrees, compulsory movement, initiative phase, alternating activations, firing arcs - sounds very reminiscent of Firestorm, which is fine by me as I find that game a lot of fun too. Really looking forward to this! Hoping I can strongarm my group into giving this a go. I absolutely love that it uses abstracted sight rules. Not being able to see as far as you can fire sounds very cool.

I may actually pick up the starter set with some discount. Right scale for me.


Only thing I dislike is that Italians are not in the initial release. Leaving the possibly sexiest ships of the war out is just not okay with me, at all! That is like trying to play any WW2 game with Panther tank on the cover but said game missing Panthers, you just don't do that!

Although having the mighty "Furious Taco" in starter set does kinda remedy this.

Thanks Matt!

What's the timeline for the release of the rulebook by itself?

Sotahullu wrote:
I

Only thing I dislike is that Italians are not in the initial release. Leaving the possibly sexiest ships of the war out is just not okay with me, at all! That is like trying to play any WW2 game with Panther tank on the cover but said game missing Panthers, you just don't do that!

The Italians are coming (the French too)!

 pancakeonions wrote:


What's the timeline for the release of the rulebook by itself?

I haven't got a date, but it will not be too long - it is being laid out right now.

Matt, good to hear that both French and Italians are coming, any of the minor powers planned?

MongooseMatt wrote:

The Italians are coming (the French too)!

Awesome !
The only complaint I'd have, right now, is that even the big fours have a pretty small selection of ships. We need more.

 HudsonD wrote:

MongooseMatt wrote:

The Italians are coming (the French too)!

Awesome !
The only complaint I'd have, right now, is that even the big fours have a pretty small selection of ships. We need more.

Aside from the two New Mexico-class battleships (which, as I've already noted are a *really* odd pick for the first USN battleships), the starting assortment is a fair mix for a game roll-out. There are changes I'd prefer (an Illustrious-class, for instance, instead of HMS Eagle), but the New Mexicos are the only real "What the heck are they thinking!?" pick. The big question is the release rate of subsequent ships. I bought into Blood Red Skies at launch, and then had to wait quite a while for more fighters to be released.

Well there is certainly going to be lot of arguments "this ship instead of that ship" as there is lot of ships.

But as there is someone answering questions:

How spotter planes are being represented, are there going to be models for those or just some tokens? Kinda interested as Japanese used lot of those.

 ingtaer wrote:

Matt, good to hear that both French and Italians are coming, any of the minor powers planned?

We have already statted up some Dutch ships (needed for a couple of the historical scenarios), and we do have the full Russian list already written up - needs playtesting, and there is a lot of ground to cover before we get to them... but they are there!

Eumerin wrote:
The big question is the release rate of subsequent ships. I bought into Blood Red Skies at launch, and then had to wait quite a while for more fighters to be released.

From what I have seen, monthly releases are planned after the launch of the starter set.

Sotahullu wrote:


How spotter planes are being represented, are there going to be models for those or just some tokens? Kinda interested as Japanese used lot of those.

We did have these as models, and even worked the 3D up (they look kinda funky!). However, for now, they will be abstracted - they were not really adding anything for to the game to have them on the table so, for example, you can use a ship with the Aircraft trait to spot against an over the horizon stationary target, so long as there are no enemy planes nearby. ASW changes that, but you have changed the role of the aircraft in that regard (no 'opportunity' ASW missions, you have to plan for it!).

I'm reviving this thread to announce that there's been an update on the release date. The game is now scheduled to come out in August.

https://www.warlordgames.com/warships-sighted-ready-torpedoes/?fbclid=IwAR2aH_q3q6Enz5NMAmljH1Q0xu71vTAqLyIdy6Mfg9xA7geCSHQA8laGEH0

There's also a World of Warships promotion now, too. Every item available for pre-order will come with a code for WoWS stuff, including - in some cases - ships.

Just in case you're interested in that game.

Victory at Sea is definitely shipping! My pre-order from the Warlord store just arrived yesterday (US East Coast)!

How are you getting on with it Ruckdog?

I see the starter set is due to go on general sale from tomorrow on the Warlord site.

There are a couple of neoprene mats on the Warlord site - which size is recommended, is it 4x4 or 6x4?

 Pacific wrote:
How are you getting on with it Ruckdog?

I see the starter set is due to go on general sale from tomorrow on the Warlord site.

There are a couple of neoprene mats on the Warlord site - which size is recommended, is it 4x4 or 6x4?

I have barely started to go though it all to be honest! Looking through the rulebook, I couldn't find any specified table size. The diagrams for the setup configurations show a 4x6' table, but the only labeled dimension is the width, which shows 4' (including the deployment zones). So, I would guess that either the 4x4 or the 6x4 could work. My preference would be to go for the 6x4' if you can afford it, as it will be more versatile; you can always block off 2' of it with tape if you want to do a 4x4 battle area (I do this with the 4x6 neoprene mat I have).

Can't wait for the regular rulebook to come out!

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
Sounds a lot like Firestorm Armada from that game overview. Minimum distance before turning, turns being 45 degrees, compulsory movement, initiative phase, alternating activations, firing arcs - sounds very reminiscent of Firestorm, which is fine by me as I find that game a lot of fun too. Really looking forward to this! Hoping I can strongarm my group into giving this a go. I absolutely love that it uses abstracted sight rules. Not being able to see as far as you can fire sounds very cool.

Its based on ACTA - which draws on Battlefleet Gothic - Firestorm def has some similar mechanics.

It looks like a bunch of the UK sellers (Wayland, Firestorm, The Outpost) have immediately gone out of stock. Bit of a bummer as a few of them were offering 20% off the starter set..

 Ruckdog wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
How are you getting on with it Ruckdog?

I see the starter set is due to go on general sale from tomorrow on the Warlord site.

There are a couple of neoprene mats on the Warlord site - which size is recommended, is it 4x4 or 6x4?

I have barely started to go though it all to be honest! Looking through the rulebook, I couldn't find any specified table size. The diagrams for the setup configurations show a 4x6' table, but the only labeled dimension is the width, which shows 4' (including the deployment zones). So, I would guess that either the 4x4 or the 6x4 could work. My preference would be to go for the 6x4' if you can afford it, as it will be more versatile; you can always block off 2' of it with tape if you want to do a 4x4 battle area (I do this with the 4x6 neoprene mat I have).

Thanks very much !

It does sound like the 6 x 4 option sounds the better one.

Got a few minutes to pull out the USS Arizona mini last night, assemble it, and pull out the old WotC W@S mini to compare it to:

[img width=450 height=600]https://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2020/8/28/1075146_sm-.jpeg[/img]

The model consists of a resin hull/base, with multiple metal add-ons.



Some of the parts (masts and cranes especially) were a bit fiddly and a challenge to get off the "sprue" without damage.



Sadly, the posts for the turrets are too long to permit magnetizing without modification (this pic shows two 1/32" thick magnets in the well, with the "B" turret on top.



Here is the mini next to the WotC mini. As one might expect, the overall proportions and level of detail are nicer, though the barrels of the turrets on the Warlord version do look a bit chunky.



The tripods in particular are much nicer than the WotC mini, and the new model also has more details such as the boat and aircraft cranes.



Overall, I think the level of detail on the new Victory At Sea mini is much nicer than the WotC mini, though were not quite up to GHQ level here. Not sure how it compares to a 3-D printed one, though.

 schoon wrote:
Can't wait for the regular rulebook to come out!

The rulebook in the starter box was included with the August Wargames Illustrated.

Follow-up releases have already been announced. The aircraft in the fleet boxes are getting an immediate seperate release. USS Missouri is due out in October, and Graf Spee and Admiral Scheer are releasing together in December. That's a bit slower than I'd prefer. But things are a bit weird right now in the world.

Currently waiting on the US West Coast for my order to arrive. I've got 3-D printed copies of Portland and Myoko at the same scale that I can compare the models with once my package arrives.

That looks pretty cool Ruckdog - thanks for posting.

Eumerin wrote:

 schoon wrote:
Can't wait for the regular rulebook to come out!

The rulebook in the starter box was included with the August Wargames Illustrated.

Follow-up releases have already been announced. The aircraft in the fleet boxes are getting an immediate seperate release. USS Missouri is due out in October, and Graf Spee and Admiral Scheer are releasing together in December. That's a bit slower than I'd prefer. But things are a bit weird right now in the world.

Currently waiting on the US West Coast for my order to arrive. I've got 3-D printed copies of Portland and Myoko at the same scale that I can compare the models with once my package arrives.

That rule book has pretty much all the aircraft stat blocks messed up - not sure about the rest of the rules.

nice freebee though

My pre-order arrived last night. Took a quick peek and cleaned the resin, but I only had enough time to put together Mogami and Furry Taco (Furutaka).

Will post more later.

The real question is: can you take the ships off those terrible bases?

 lasgunpacker wrote:
The real question is: can you take the ships off those terrible bases?

Nope.

But the bases look fine when seen from typical game table angles. They only really look overly thick when seen from close to horizontal.

Eumerin wrote:

 lasgunpacker wrote:
The real question is: can you take the ships off those terrible bases?

Nope.

But the bases look fine when seen from typical game table angles. They only really look overly thick when seen from close to horizontal.

Please post pics when you get a chance. I was all in but when we saw the bases both my wife and I noped right out.

Of course there's nothing preventing you from getting the rulebook (when it comes out) and purchasing whatever miniatures you desire.

Particularly if you like a different scale.

 Phobos wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

 lasgunpacker wrote:
The real question is: can you take the ships off those terrible bases?

Nope.

But the bases look fine when seen from typical game table angles. They only really look overly thick when seen from close to horizontal.

Please post pics when you get a chance. I was all in but when we saw the bases both my wife and I noped right out.

Ruckdog posted pictures of the USS Arizona up above.

Eumerin wrote:

 Phobos wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

 lasgunpacker wrote:
The real question is: can you take the ships off those terrible bases?

Nope.

But the bases look fine when seen from typical game table angles. They only really look overly thick when seen from close to horizontal.

Please post pics when you get a chance. I was all in but when we saw the bases both my wife and I noped right out.

Ruckdog posted pictures of the USS Arizona up above.

Yeah, and that base is just terrible. Oversized, too thick, and with the name on the side? No thanks.

No, the separate rule-book is probably the way to go here, provided that it has decent editing.

Does the rulebook have stats for the navies, or do you need the cards which come with the ships?

 CptJake wrote:
Does the rulebook have stats for the navies, or do you need the cards which come with the ships?

The video that they released a little while ago states that there will be a book of ship stats. For the time being, the ship stat cards included with each ship have stats and refits for every ship of the class. For example, the Northhampton-class card has the refit schedule for every Northampton-class cruiser that was in use during the War. The starter rule book also includes the unrefitted stats for each of the four battleships that are available separately, on the odd chance you have a hankering to have a battle between the Yamato and the Bismark (a battle between either of those and the USN representative - USS Idaho - is likely to be rather one-sided).

I'm also pretty confident that a bigger rulebook is planned. The rulebook in the starter has some rather obvious gaps. For instance, some of the battleships get radar. But the starter rules currently only incorporate radar in smaller ships. Ergo, there's likely some missing rules that will apply to radar-equipped battleships.

Yeah, and that base is just terrible. Oversized, too thick, and with the name on the side? No thanks.

Given that if you get the starter, the US fleet box, and the US battleship, you have two Portland-class cruisers, four Northhampton-class cruisers, two New Mexico-class battleships, and two Mogami-class cruisers (the IJN starter has the remaining Mogami-class cruisers), you need to put those names somewhere. The ship stat cards track refits on cruisers and larger vessels on a year by year basis. And those vary between individual ships in each class. So it's handy to be able to tell at a glance which Northampton-class is Northhampton, and which is Chicago (smaller ships - including destroyers - within the same class are all identical, which makes sense given the huge numbers of the things built during the war). In any case, to each their own. I'm fine with the bases, and I think the horizontal shots that Warlord keeps releasing are horrible.

Could anyone tell me what an average point level for games would be (not including scenarios)?

Pahil wrote:
Could anyone tell me what an average point level for games would be (not including scenarios)?

The rulebook doesn't include recommended point values. The included generic scenario generator merely duggests that players come up with their own points value for a game, and then - based on dice rolls by each - adjust the points for an individual player by ten percent either upwards or downwards based on the randomly assigned objective for that player.

I'm not at home right now, so I don't have my cards available with their points costs. But I do have the rulebook handy, and that has a few costs. The Northhampton-class is 130 points. Warspite is 375 points. New Mexico is 400 points. Bismark is 600 points. Yamato is 1000. The costs for a stand of aircraft ranges from 10 points to 25 points (the later F4U Corsairs).

Pahil wrote:
Could anyone tell me what an average point level for games would be (not including scenarios)?

We don't specify a 'standard' points value for games, but ensured things scale well. You will have perfectly decent games with a couple of battleships on each side (Denmark Strait) or have a couple of dozen vessels on the table across all types without getting massively bogged down. It also allows for 'unusual' battles where one side is all aircraft, for example, or all MTBs.

The War at Sea scenario was written with a nod to tournament style games in mind, but I would also expect TOs to make their own adjustments to it (something we go over when it comes to the variable objectives, for example), and I would imagine the variable points values would also be taken out.

Recommend you use them all in your club night games though

To further emphasize MongooseMatt's comment about aircraft -

The scenario pdf book from the beta testing that he linked earlier contains a Pearl Harbor scenario. It'll be the perfect place to use the USS Arizona model, if you got it.

Thanks for your replies.
I saw the Pearl Harbour Scenario (and also the similar Midway Scenario)
Im waiting for my stuff to arrive to have a deeper dive into it.

I've got a couple of rules questions for Matt -

The first question is regarding Dual Purpose guns with the Restricted trait. The Dual Purpose trait allows you to fire the guns as anti-aircraft, but with only half of the usual attack dice. The Restricted trait only allows you to fire half of your dice (rounded up) at targets in the Port and Starboard arcs.

USS Idaho in her default configuration has a set of 5", 360 degree guns with 6 attack dice that are both DP and Restricted. She's being approached by a flight of Kates on her starboard side, a flight of Vals on her port side, and a flight of Zeroes from her bow. Her priority is to deal with the Kates, so her captain announces that she's firing her DP guns as anti-aircraft, and targeting the Kates. Her attack dice for this are halved from 6 to 3. Because the Kates are on her starboard side, and the guns are Restricted, are they halved again (rounded up) to 2? Or is Idaho allowed to use all three dice against the Kates? If the dice are halved again, can she use the remaining die against the Vals on her port side? Or is she only allowed to use it against the Zeroes flying toward her bow?


The second question regards the USS Essex. She has a battery of light DP guns that have a 360 degree firing arc. But they also have a special rule that prohibits them from firing at targets in the starboard arc. Is there any particular reason why they have this special rule instead of having a firing arc that only includes fore, aft, and port?

Eumerin wrote:
I've got a couple of rules questions for Matt -

Of course!

Please bear in mind I have not got my rulebook beside me, so I may come back and change my mind (!), but...

Eumerin wrote:
The first question is regarding Dual Purpose guns with the Restricted trait. The Dual Purpose trait allows you to fire the guns as anti-aircraft, but with only half of the usual attack dice. The Restricted trait only allows you to fire half of your dice (rounded up) at targets in the Port and Starboard arcs.

USS Idaho in her default configuration has a set of 5", 360 degree guns with 6 attack dice that are both DP and Restricted. She's being approached by a flight of Kates on her starboard side, a flight of Vals on her port side, and a flight of Zeroes from her bow. Her priority is to deal with the Kates, so her captain announces that she's firing her DP guns as anti-aircraft, and targeting the Kates. Her attack dice for this are halved from 6 to 3. Because the Kates are on her starboard side, and the guns are Restricted, are they halved again (rounded up) to 2? Or is Idaho allowed to use all three dice against the Kates? If the dice are halved again, can she use the remaining die against the Vals on her port side? Or is she only allowed to use it against the Zeroes flying toward her bow?

Yes, apply both DP and Restricted so you will be using 2 Attack Dice. You can also split fire, but you are still subject to the Restricted rule, so that last Attack Dice can only be used against the Zeroes.

Slightly deeper answer... Yes, you are right in thinking that perhaps it _should_ be able to get a dice off to the Vals and, if you choose to play it that way I am not going to send the Gaming Police round to your place. The answer above comes purely from keeping things simple, which is where I would lean in an 'official' capacity. It may also encourage you to escort the Idaho with some decent AA ships

Eumerin wrote:
The second question regards the USS Essex. She has a battery of light DP guns that have a 360 degree firing arc. But they also have a special rule that prohibits them from firing at targets in the starboard arc. Is there any particular reason why they have this special rule instead of having a firing arc that only includes fore, aft, and port?

This is down to gun positioning - again, I don't have my notes to hand, but if you take a gander at the Essex you will see that those weapons physically cannot fire to starboard.

Thanks for the first answer.

The Essex question was more about the decision to go with a special rule for Essex instead of creating a firing arc that did the same. I was curious whether this had some rules interaction that I was missing. But it doesn't appear to be the case.


As for better AAA escorts for Idaho...

Idaho's got AAA that's as good as any of the other USN ships currently available. Maybe when the Atlanta class eventually shows up?

Hello all, I very recently got into the new VaS game, and I'm having a lot of fun so far.

I know that I might be going against the popular opinion, but personally I love the bases - they make me think of ships-in-a-bottle, or small dioramas. And they also allow me to handle my ships without touching the most fragile parts; for a klutz like me, that's a big plus!

Got some photos of my Japanese fleet and my pre-order Altmark, but as this is my first post, I'll link to them later...

Matt, could I ask you to clarify something I saw in the beta-testing docs and which was never addressed in the documents themselves or the short rules published by Warlord?

1. Can carriers not scout for themselves? From what I can see, scouting can only be conducted by catapult-launched Observation Flights and ships (cruisers, DDs..) Can't CVs detail some of their strike planes to spotting duty, if floatplane-equipped cruisers are unavailable?

2. The topic of Green and Veteran pilots is raised but never addressed in the rules. Specifically, the beta-test document mentions that Green and Veteran crews may be purchased to improve or degrade plane performance, and it is noted that 'fleet lists will allow you to purchase...', but how such pilots may be assigned to a flight is never specified (costs).

Any comment on that? Thanks in advance, and thanks for the fun my friends and I have been having over the past few days...

Hey there,

As always, these comments should be considered unofficial, and I do not have the starter set rulebook in front of me, but...

1. The main rulebook (forthcoming) will allow you to use Flights to scout with. So, a big carrier might all but guarantee you those high scouting rolls, but it won't be much use to your carrier if you have nothing for it to launch

2. If I recall correctly (I may not), the green/veteran pilots were considered an over-complication so they came out of the fleet lists, but the rules were retained as we figured they would be useful for historical scenarios.

Hope that helps!

It does indeed, thanks Matt!

So (yes, while fully acknowledging the unofficial nature of your response), it should be possible for the CV to assign X number of flights to scouting, assuming it's willing to sacrifice their availability in combat? And would those flights be returning (with the necessary rolls) à la scouting ships, or gone forever à la scouting Observation Flights?

Apologies for hounding you with questions, but my mates and I are running a couple of Discord-based tabletop games, where I host the game and the two players send their orders in via messages, and we are really fascinated with the air aspect of VAS, but we keep getting games where the CVs are outspotted by a couple of cruisers and it seems a bit off...

Veteran / Green crews being unavailable for purchase is a bit of a disappointment, but I can definitely see why you would choose to not include them in custom scenarios, would have definitely been a nightmare to balance.

Also, apparently I can post images now. Hooray! Have some Japships:









I've magnetized all my turrets for extra shiny, too.

The ships from the starter box have gone up for pre-order. The cruisers will be available individually, and the destroyers will be sold in packs of three. They'll be available in December. These will join Hood, Admiral Graf Spee, Admiral Scheer, and a convoy box with a variety of transport ships, all of which are scheduled for December as well. Iowa is due out next month. And the aircraft sold in the fleet boxes are already available separately.

So in December, you'll have all of the ships that you need to refight Denmark Strait (with Duke of York standing in for Prince of Wales).


Given the starter ships being available individually, and the convoy box, I suspect that the rule book(s) will be available by December. There hasn't been an announcement about them yet, though.

Enioch wrote:

So (yes, while fully acknowledging the unofficial nature of your response), it should be possible for the CV to assign X number of flights to scouting, assuming it's willing to sacrifice their availability in combat? And would those flights be returning (with the necessary rolls) à la scouting ships, or gone forever à la scouting Observation Flights?

Gone for the battle - they will be busy refuelling and will miss the fighting (or still be flying off in completely the wrong direction as they continue searching for more ships).

You will have to make the choice between scouting and fighting for those planes.

Hey MongooseMatt,

I got the rules booklet from the recent WarGames Illustrated, but I can't seem to find any way to play - there aren't any ship cards. Am I just missing something, or are there examples we can use for a test game?

 pancakeonions wrote:
Hey MongooseMatt,

I got the rules booklet from the recent WarGames Illustrated, but I can't seem to find any way to play - there aren't any ship cards. Am I just missing something, or are there examples we can use for a test game?

Matt's not involved in that part of it. That's due to the release policy that Warlord Games is following.

Currently, you need to buy the ship models in order to get the cards. However, iirc the broadcast that Warlord did a little while back mentioned that there would be a ship book released with the stats for all of the various ships used during the War. This makes sense because it'll take Warlord a *very* long time to release an exhaustive set of ship models. There's been no announcement on when such a book will actually be released other than "soon". But I believe that there's a good chance that we'll see at least one rulebook by December, since that's when the convoy box (which is really only useful in a convoy scenario) will be released.

Until then, you can use the ship stats in the beta packet that Matt linked earlier in this thread.

Just bought the starter set for this game and was wondering if anyone could provide a resource for painting the ships. Most photos I've seen are ships in Port in your typical battleship Grey but I feel like that would look boring and samey when playing matches. If that's how they went to war I'll paint them all Grey for authenticity, just figured I'd ask first.

 creeping-deth87 wrote:
Just bought the starter set for this game and was wondering if anyone could provide a resource for painting the ships. Most photos I've seen are ships in Port in your typical battleship Grey but I feel like that would look boring and samey when playing matches. If that's how they went to war I'll paint them all Grey for authenticity, just figured I'd ask first.

For US ships, look here - http://www.usndazzle.com/index.php

It's a very exhaustive resource of camo schemes on every single USN warship during the war, including how the pattern changed from year to year.

The IJN largely didn't use camo on its warships. There were exceptions primarily centered around carrier decks. But the typical warship - including the ones found in the starter - were left in their original solid color. The specific color was one of four, and depended on the port that they'd originated from. I don't have a link for the colors handy (I learned this while researching what color to paint a Myoko miniature that I got from Shapeways about a year ago, and only needed a reference for her at the time), but you can get that easily enough by doing a little research on the internet. You'll also want to look up the specific ships, and where they were launched from, to determine which of the four colors that specific ship should be.

Ships that were permanently positioned as harbor anti-aircraft batteries (which included Myoko after she got stranded at Singapore) were painted in camo for those duties. But if the ships in question had ever returned to service as warships, the camo likely would have been removed before they returned to the open sea.

Hi peeps,

For those people who picked up the starter set did you notice a size difference in the turning templates? One of mine is defo different to the other, and I see no reference to this size difference in the starter rulebook. Maybe MongooseMatt can shed some light on this.

Have played the game a few times now, loving it so far although haven't tried aircraft yet. Was disappointed there wasn't more consistency in damage dice, US 14" guns do same damage as UK 16"? Just my thoughts.

thecardinal5483 wrote:


For those people who picked up the starter set did you notice a size difference in the turning templates? One of mine is defo different to the other, and I see no reference to this size difference in the starter rulebook. Maybe MongooseMatt can shed some light on this.

This is to handle different sized ships more easily (compare destroyers to battleships...), no other reason. 45 degrees is still 45 degrees

thecardinal5483 wrote:
Have played the game a few times now, loving it so far although haven't tried aircraft yet. Was disappointed there wasn't more consistency in damage dice, US 14" guns do same damage as UK 16"? Just my thoughts.

This is intentional - not all guns are built equally and our Official Naval Boffins went into a great deal of detail during their research into the weight of shells, composition of their warheads, potency of their explosives, etc.

Did anyone else have warped resin in their starter? None of my ships can lie flat on the table. Any suggestions? Been a while since I've had to deal with warped resin.

Drop them in some hot water for a minute, then straighten them out and 'set' them by running some cold water over them.

Or, if it's only a small amount of wobble, you could also just sand down the bottom.

Heating them up with a hair dyer will work, as well.

I didn't get any problems with my ships, but what you're describing is a persistant issue that shows up from time to time. I had a problem once with a Warlord tank track that wasn't flat.

MongooseMatt wrote:


This is intentional - not all guns are built equally and our Official Naval Boffins went into a great deal of detail during their research into the weight of shells, composition of their warheads, potency of their explosives, etc.

Thank you for the answer, that does make sense. Myself and a friend looked at the movement templates and thought they were just slightly different. Maybe just out eyes haha. I look forward to the full rules in due course!

Also one of my ships was very badly warped, it took some heat and time to straighten it out. I’ve heard elsewhere that this was a significant problem during the release, hopefully WG have looked into their mix.

Some news -

Apparently the starter has been selling well, as Warlord has revealed that it's currently sold out. It'll be restocked. But until then, I hope everyone who wanted a copy got one.

Eumerin wrote:


For US ships, look here - http://www.usndazzle.com/index.php

It's a very exhaustive resource of camo schemes on every single USN warship during the war, including how the pattern changed from year to year.

While I would encourage painters to do the Dazzle designs on their US ships if they want to, there are some thing to keep in mind. US paint schemes during the first half of the War were fairly bland designs that often didn't do more than use a simple two-color scheme that appears to have partially obscured the waterline of the ship. And then in mid-1943, the Dazzle schemes were rolled out, and US ships started to look very exotic. Finally, at the beginning of 1945, the USN recommended that ships in the Pacific revert to the earlier pre-Dazzle schemes, as Dazzle was ineffective against aircraft, and the sole remaining threat at that point in the Pacific theater were Japanese suicide aircraft.

Of the US ship models currently available (and ignoring the destroyers, which are generic), five of the cruisers and two of the battleships (including USS Arizona) have configuration dates that are pre-Dazzle. Of the two remaining battleships, USS Idaho is set in her 1945 configuration. And the website I linked earlier suggests that USS Missouri only had her Dazzle scheme for the amount of time that it took her to transit to the Pacific in 1944. That doesn't have to stop you from painting the ships in a scheme that they historically had at a different time in their careers. But three of the Northampton-class cruisers (and, of course, USS Arizona) were sunk before Dazzle was unveiled, which means that there was never an official Dazzle scheme for those ships. So you'll need to either get creative and paint some ships that never actually used Dazzle, or have a fleet that has a mix of camo schemes.


The Royal Navy used Dazzle as well. But afaik, that organization used it over the entire length of the War, so the possible issue of a hodge-podge of camo schemes isn't as big of a problem for them.

Time to give this thread another bump. Releases for January have been announced. The hard-back full rulebook will be released (along with a limited edition version that looks nicer, and has Matt's signature). The new rulebook will also be bundled with new single-player starters that are composed of the new book and the existing national fleet boxes (so you won't need to buy the two-player starter with the basic rules). Finally, there will be a "subs and MTBs" box for each of the initial fleets (to attack the convoy box scheduled for December), and new aircraft (Hellcat, Val, Gladiator, and FW-190).

Eumerin wrote:
Time to give this thread another bump. Releases for January have been announced. The hard-back full rulebook will be released (along with a limited edition version that looks nicer, and has Matt's signature). The new rulebook will also be bundled with new single-player starters that are composed of the new book and the existing national fleet boxes (so you won't need to buy the two-player starter with the basic rules). Finally, there will be a "subs and MTBs" box for each of the initial fleets (to attack the convoy box scheduled for December), and new aircraft (Hellcat, Val, Gladiator, and FW-190).

I've got my pre-order down for the big fancy book and some USN subs and MTBs!

https://www.warlordgames.com/victory-at-sea-rulebook-a-preview/



As Eumerin said, the book comes in both a standard and special edition version. It's a large hard-back book, so even the standard edition isn't exacutly cheap, and the SE book is 2x the cost! However, this book has loads of stats for hundreds of ships, dozens of scenarios, and full rules for the game (including rules for submarines). If you are an established naval gamer that already has a ton of WWII minis, this is what you need to get into V@S in my opinion.

Here is the announcement for the Subs and PT boats:



https://www.warlordgames.com/submersibles-and-mtbs-in-victory-at-sea/

Good to see we are getting more aircraft released. The way they are constructed (aircraft are separate from the stand), I might get some to use for deck-park purposes and stick to my 1/900 aircraft from War At Sea for gaming purposes.

Hello again, fair folks, and apologies for the semi-necro, I have some rules questions for MongooseMatt, if I may, once again?

I'm having some trouble with the interpretation of VaS rules, particularly aircraft performance, smoke, and battles that focus primarily on lots of airplanes attacking lots of ships (think Midway scenario in the beta). Would it be possible to give me an answer to the questions below? There's no rush, but I would like a definitive ruling, so feel free to take your time. It's very possible that these questions have been answered in the final edition of the rulebook, but as we don't have access to that until two months down the road...

1. First and foremost - how do Devastating criticals work? The rules state that a critical is scored on a 5 or a 6 with Dev weapons, and previous wording in the starter rules seems to imply that criticals are not 'scored' until after confirmation. Does this mean that Devastating weapons bypass the confirmation stage, or do we still need a 4+ on a confirmation die to get the crit?

2. Second - do Devastating weapons care at all about target armor? What about Dive bombers and Armored Decks? In the beta, Dive bombers HP damage used to be reduced by the ship's armor if the ship had an armored deck ; this is no longer stated in the starter rules. Has this been nixed?

3. Third - Is a 1 on a Devastating Damage Die an autobounce, like in a regular Damage Die? Or does Devastating supersede that, and the die causes the 1 damage?

4. Fourth - does the smoke cloud after 3" of movement spawn from the bridge of the ship or from the aft part of the base?

5. Fifth - If a ship's bridge is inside a smoke screen and the ship has no Radar / Advanced Radar, can the ship fire at anything, or is she safe but also blind?

6. If a ship's bridge is in smoke and an enemy plane touches the ship's base, can the plane attack the ship? Or does smoke protect the ship from air attacks as well? Can the ship fire AA at planes, if in smoke?

7. Do plane bases have to respect the same non-overlap rules as any other base?

8. Final question (and assuming that a) ships in smoke are safe from air attack and b) that planes need to respect base non-overlapping rules) - I present to you this hypothetical scenario:



Imagine this (slightly cheesy) arrangement in a Midway-style scenario. The CV's bow is touching the aft of the central DD; the central DD is Laying Smoke and covers the bridge of the CV, making the CV impossible to see. There is no LOS limitation to air operations, so the CV can continue to launch and recover planes as usual.

The central DD is flanked (at base-touching distance, or as close as possible) by two other DDs that are Evading. This only makes it possible for planes attacking from directly ahead to get a hit on the central DD. Also, any planes hitting the flanking DDs must reroll hits because of Evasion (which severely hurts their odds of scoring a final hit).

Now, imagine that there is a whole line of ships stretching behind of the CV, and that the CV is also smoking. Every ship in that line is smoking. And the CVs in that line are spamming fighters for CAP. We essentially have a line of invisible ships, launching planes, and waiting out the scenario clock. The only weak point is the first ship in the line, which is very protected (and hell, if in doubt, just add a second DD to the line, behind it, to take up point duties if it dies).

Obviously, in a scenario with enemy surface ships, said surface ships can focus heavy fire on the first ships and work their way down the line (especially since Line of Sight does not care about other ships body-blocking and allows gunships to fire directly at the center DD). But is this a formation that outright no-sells plane attacks, or are we missing something?

Note that the smoking player does not need to cause any significant damage (and if he needs to, he still has his own planes to dogfight / farm the attackers). All they need to do to win, in this instance, is limit their own losses / wait out the scenario clock (e.g. like the Midway scenario).

Apologies for the wall of text - I hope I've stated my questions in a way that's easy to understand. Looking forward to your reply, and wishing you all the best.

Enioch wrote:
Hello again, fair folks, and apologies for the semi-necro, I have some rules questions for MongooseMatt, if I may, once again?

I'm having some trouble with the interpretation of VaS rules, particularly aircraft performance, smoke, and battles that focus primarily on lots of airplanes attacking lots of ships (think Midway scenario in the beta). Would it be possible to give me an answer to the questions below? There's no rush, but I would like a definitive ruling, so feel free to take your time. It's very possible that these questions have been answered in the final edition of the rulebook, but as we don't have access to that until two months down the road...

1. First and foremost - how do Devastating criticals work? The rules state that a critical is scored on a 5 or a 6 with Dev weapons, and previous wording in the starter rules seems to imply that criticals are not 'scored' until after confirmation. Does this mean that Devastating weapons bypass the confirmation stage, or do we still need a 4+ on a confirmation die to get the crit?

2. Second - do Devastating weapons care at all about target armor? What about Dive bombers and Armored Decks? In the beta, Dive bombers HP damage used to be reduced by the ship's armor if the ship had an armored deck ; this is no longer stated in the starter rules. Has this been nixed?

The Armoured Deck rule in the starter rules states that dive bombers and suicide aircraft have a -1 penalty to their damage dice rolls.

3. Third - Is a 1 on a Devastating Damage Die an autobounce, like in a regular Damage Die? Or does Devastating supersede that, and the die causes the 1 damage?

4. Fourth - does the smoke cloud after 3" of movement spawn from the bridge of the ship or from the aft part of the base?

The rules read "... in contact behind the ship..." That reads as off the stern of the ship to me.

5. Fifth - If a ship's bridge is inside a smoke screen and the ship has no Radar / Advanced Radar, can the ship fire at anything, or is she safe but also blind?

The rule specifically says that no attacks may be made *through* a smoke counter. "Through" typically means in one side and out the other. That would tend to argue that the targeted ship needs to be fully on the far side of the smoke screen marker. Also note that the starter rules don't contain provisions for shooting at targets using radar. That will be in the full rules that are due out next month.

6. If a ship's bridge is in smoke and an enemy plane touches the ship's base, can the plane attack the ship? Or does smoke protect the ship from air attacks as well? Can the ship fire AA at planes, if in smoke?

Planes don't use normal targeting rules. You might be able to argue that a plane can't attack if the section of the ship base that it's in contact with is inside of a smoke screen. But even with that argument, any part of a ship base that is outside of a smoke screen should be fair game. And it would be difficult to completely cover up anything larger than a destroyer with a smoke screen.

7. Do plane bases have to respect the same non-overlap rules as any other base?

The rules about overlapping bases only specify ships. But sanity would dictate that it should apply to aircraft as well. And realistically speaking, aircraft formations do tend to spread out a bit for safety reasons.

8. Final question (and assuming that a) ships in smoke are safe from air attack and b) that planes need to respect base non-overlapping rules) - I present to you this hypothetical scenario:



Imagine this (slightly cheesy) arrangement in a Midway-style scenario. The CV's bow is touching the aft of the central DD; the central DD is Laying Smoke and covers the bridge of the CV, making the CV impossible to see. There is no LOS limitation to air operations, so the CV can continue to launch and recover planes as usual.

The central DD is flanked (at base-touching distance, or as close as possible) by two other DDs that are Evading. This only makes it possible for planes attacking from directly ahead to get a hit on the central DD. Also, any planes hitting the flanking DDs must reroll hits because of Evasion (which severely hurts their odds of scoring a final hit).

Now, imagine that there is a whole line of ships stretching behind of the CV, and that the CV is also smoking. Every ship in that line is smoking. And the CVs in that line are spamming fighters for CAP. We essentially have a line of invisible ships, launching planes, and waiting out the scenario clock. The only weak point is the first ship in the line, which is very protected (and hell, if in doubt, just add a second DD to the line, behind it, to take up point duties if it dies).

I can't speak for the other carriers. But I'll note that most of the smoke counter is not as wide as the base of the USS Essex that I picked up. So even if you had a continuous string of smoke markers, you would still have space on the carrier not covered by a smoke marker, where aircraft could come into contact and initiate an attack even if smoke screens are allowed to interfere with air attacks. Might screw up your defensive anti-aircraft fire from nearby supporting ships, though.

That is a lovely and detailed reply, Eumerin, and thanks for taking the time to answer in the VaS forums as well!

The rules read "... in contact behind the ship..." That reads as off the stern of the ship to me.

Arguably yes, but that definitely clashes with the usual rule of 'the ship exists where its bridge is'. Which is why I want a game author ruling.

"Through" typically means in one side and out the other

So, per your interpretation, a ship inside a smoke screen is not invisible? Interesting. Definitely want a ruling for that, because it definitely sounds counter-intuitive to me.

Also note that the starter rules don't contain provisions for shooting at targets using radar. That will be in the full rules that are due out next month.

Yes, I am aware. We are using beta rules, pending official release.

Planes don't use normal targeting rules

That's what's in question, now, isn't it? Do planes only need to touch the base or do they also need LOS to the ship bridge?

I really appreciate your response, it's well thought-out and matches a lot of my own opinions on the matter but we're both working by our own interpretation of the rules and what

sanity would dictate.

What I need at this point, however, is a 'rules as intended' statement by Matt. :-/

I always want to know the original rule before I start to tinker with it, I guess.

I agree that the "in the smoke screen" argument is up for grabs, and that Matt should probably answer it.

I stand firmly by the others, though, as strict RAW.

Good afternoon, fellow Admirals!

Thank you for the shout out to get me here - always busy before we break up for Christmas, so I haven't been able to do my daily website round up!

Second, my usual caveats - please do not take what I say here as official. Also, I do not have the rulebook to hand, nor the proofing PDF, so I am working off original Word docs, which have changed since they were properly laid out.

Basically, feel free to consider what I say here but do not take it as canon, and I reserve the right to completely change my mind a little later

Enioch wrote:


1. First and foremost - how do Devastating criticals work? The rules state that a critical is scored on a 5 or a 6 with Dev weapons, and previous wording in the starter rules seems to imply that criticals are not 'scored' until after confirmation. Does this mean that Devastating weapons bypass the confirmation stage, or do we still need a 4+ on a confirmation die to get the crit?

Do not confirm, they are automatic. Devastating attacks are devastating.

Enioch wrote:
2. Second - do Devastating weapons care at all about target armor? What about Dive bombers and Armored Decks? In the beta, Dive bombers HP damage used to be reduced by the ship's armor if the ship had an armored deck ; this is no longer stated in the starter rules. Has this been nixed?

Devastating weapons laugh at your puny armour. You will tend to find that targets that should have extra protection against them have additional rules, such as Torpedo Belts. As far as I am aware, Armoured Decks will still reduce Damage Dice in the main rulebook (starter set and main rulebook were effectively working from different Word files).

Enioch wrote:
3. Third - Is a 1 on a Devastating Damage Die an autobounce, like in a regular Damage Die? Or does Devastating supersede that, and the die causes the 1 damage?

Rules as written... strong argument for the bounce, I have to say. Go with that in your games for now, we will review in a FAQ.

Enioch wrote:
4. Fourth - does the smoke cloud after 3" of movement spawn from the bridge of the ship or from the aft part of the base?

Aft of the base. Just pop it behind the ship, nothing complicated should be considered here or, indeed, in any part of the rules - if you are wondering about something in this detail, you are probably overthinking it, if you want to take that as a guideline.

Enioch wrote:
5. Fifth - If a ship's bridge is inside a smoke screen and the ship has no Radar / Advanced Radar, can the ship fire at anything, or is she safe but also blind?

I would go with blind. Could be an irritated Captain on board as well.

Enioch wrote:
6. If a ship's bridge is in smoke and an enemy plane touches the ship's base, can the plane attack the ship? Or does smoke protect the ship from air attacks as well? Can the ship fire AA at planes, if in smoke?

Now, for this one I would want to consult with the ONB, as my only experience here comes from simulations and I don't know of one that handled smoke well. As written, the Flight can attack... and I think that is the way I would lean. When you think about the different angles aircraft can come in at and the visibility advantage they may enjoy from altitude... it feels right.

Enioch wrote:
7. Do plane bases have to respect the same non-overlap rules as any other base?

Yes. The no-overlap rule is a convenience rather than being derived from anything historical. We don't want to stack nicely painted models on top of each other

Enioch wrote:
8. Final question (and assuming that a) ships in smoke are safe from air attack and b) that planes need to respect base non-overlapping rules) - I present to you this hypothetical scenario:

Think this is covered now in the above advice?

Happy sailing!

Thanks Matt, all answers are to the point and make sense!

Looking forward to the final rules, already pre-ordered!