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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.