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But there is not a whole lot out there for that.

I mean you can find a ton of space ship games.
And you can find a lot of decent fantasy and historical games.
And a few steampunky mixes of the above.

But I just haven't seen the game I am looking for.

I have rather a bit of free time, now, but I still don't want to jump in here all by my lonely.
I'd even be satisfied by a game of smaller vessels, sort of a speedboats and sail yachts.

I've never played it and don't really know anything about it, but I thought that was what Dystopian Wars was?

Dystopian Wars is steampunk.

Ah, sorry then.

Interesting that you should ask. While I was developing the rules for MechaWar and its companion games, my father -a former Royal Marine and lifelong naval enthusiast - asked if I would consider such a game.

We sat down to discuss it and, looking at modern and emerging naval tactics, realized that it would be astonishingly dull. Modern naval warfare operates "over the horizon", with long periods of manoeuvre and electronic warfare combined with aerial reconnaissance before a single, decisive strike followed by disengagement.

Whilst it would be possible to design a game to replicate this, the part played by miniatures would be negligible to the point of making them irrelevant.

However, I welcome dissenting opinions, a it is something I'd love to do if it could be made interesting.

R.

Plus, I would imagine sea ships are largely irrelevant in a time period where massive space ships can easily fulfill.all the roles of them.

Not necessarily, if you assume a mundane future, with no massive spaceships, and a rising sea level, ergo lots more ocean to fight over and a lot less land to manoeuvre on!

R.

Well a possibility is that air defense systems and anti-missile systems become effective to the point that 'the only way to be sure' is to get a big gun in sight of the target and punch a few holes in it.

Of course as soon as that happens people start investing in anti-shell systems and armour. The counter quickly becomes mass volleys of heavier shells and . . . I hope you see where this is going.

 precinctomega wrote:
Interesting that you should ask. While I was developing the rules for MechaWar and its companion games, my father -a former Royal Marine and lifelong naval enthusiast - asked if I would consider such a game.

We sat down to discuss it and, looking at modern and emerging naval tactics, realized that it would be astonishingly dull. Modern naval warfare operates "over the horizon", with long periods of manoeuvre and electronic warfare combined with aerial reconnaissance before a single, decisive strike followed by disengagement.

Whilst it would be possible to design a game to replicate this, the part played by miniatures would be negligible to the point of making them irrelevant.

However, I welcome dissenting opinions, a it is something I'd love to do if it could be made interesting.

R.

That game has been made, a long time ago...called Harpoon. Last edition was harpoon 4 in 1997, with supplements up to 2003. It was/is a very accurate and usually quite boring game. Think of it as Starfleet Battles for modern naval warfare.


OP...look into the Battletech naval rules. It uses all the weapons from Battletech on boats. Could be exactly what you are looking for.

As it happened, I was at MiniCon yesterday, and at the Mongoose Publishing stand I saw their game, Victory at Sea.

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/miniatures/victory-at-sea-core-rulebook.html

It's a WW2 naval game, but if you're looking for something quite pulp SF, I bet it could be modified to a SF setting.

R.

I'm going to be honest, the way most spaceship games handle their physics means you could probably use the exact same rules on a blue tabletop instead of a black tabletop and still feel like you're in the ocean.

For example Firestorm Armada might work. Aside from the mandatory forward movement they don't really have anything space specific.

 Chugosh wrote:
But there is not a whole lot out there for that.

I mean you can find a ton of space ship games.
And you can find a lot of decent fantasy and historical games.
And a few steampunky mixes of the above.

But I just haven't seen the game I am looking for.

I have rather a bit of free time, now, but I still don't want to jump in here all by my lonely.
I'd even be satisfied by a game of smaller vessels, sort of a speedboats and sail yachts.

Maybe you can use Battlefleet Gothic rules and 1/1200 scale ships with details filed down and jet engines/nacelles glued on?