Wooden Wars Task Force: New Battle ship launched at Fossywick Ship Yards

 “Why is the Rum always gone? !”
- Cptn Jack Sparrow

Ship yard in action, with the USS Battley in the background.

Fossywick Ship yards

Nothing gets a shipyards production up and running faster than a war. Unless it’s a two year olds birthday party you kinda forgot about (Or an upcoming convention).  Last year I gave the 1 year old midshipman a cruiser, so wanted to add to the fleet, and had about 4 hours before the party to do so.  Luckily for me I have a few ship hulls (wooden rough cut blanks) in the ship yards, and a new belt sander, so away I went. 

The party was at 2pm, and she was dry and ready to put a ribbon on her at 1:30. Plenty of time for a cup of tea while shop-vacccing the dust. 

 

Dubbed the USS Wolflair, she measure about 18 inches long.

True colors

Now those of you with an astute historical acumen would call me out saying, “Thomas- that is a dreadnaught era design, and as such the colors are all off!”  Well, you’d be right, but I’ve been kinda just keeping all the ships grey for now for ease of well, painting. That and I have no qualms of mixing pre WW1 ships with WW2 designs in my Task force games.  At some point soon I do want to paint up a dreadnaught style ship in those true black, white and yellow ochre colors.  Such a curious choice, Yellow Ochre. ..

Back to the Oars!

That’s all for this week- I need to get back to cleaning up my Galleys Guns and Glory rules so they can be sent to the printer.  Again thanks to all of you who have playtested or just read the rules and provided me with great feedback. Rules sets are made to be played, and if they don’t work for you they wouldn’t be any fun.

Kublacon Battle Report: The Battle of Lengthy Gulf

“A ship is always referred to as “she” because it costs too much to keep her in paint and powder.”

~ Admiral Nimitz

The narrator points towards destiny.

Greetings everyone! I’ve finally gotten a chance to put fingers to key board and start posting about Kublacon.  Over all a great convention, where I met up with many friends, and kindled more relationships.  It was great to also have fellow bloggarts come by and introduce themselves. I may not say it enough, but I LOVE our hobby, and the folks therein. 

 This year I decided to not get a booth in the dealer’s room in, and instead focused on just running games. To that point I ran 5 battles of various types of Wooden Wars games, with anywhere from 10 – 14 players. Ages ranged from 4 years old to… well over 40. By Sunday evening, I had a very froggy voice, and was more than ready to head back to Fosshaus for a well deserved rest. (Actually, I really missed my own kids).

All the convention pics you see in this post are courtesy of Mr. Steven Bean, who was kind enough to send them to me. I took scads of photos, but still haven’t found my copy of My Adobe Photoshop/ Illustrator- etc, to set them up... sigh... And now, I’ve typed enough- pictures! 

The Japanese fleet

Some of the American Captains

Your's truly goes over the rules.

Wooden Wars Task Force! The battle of Lengthy Gulf

This particular battle report focuses on the two games I ran on Friday featuring the Wooden Wars Task force game. It was scheduled only to be run once, but the first battle only lasted about an hour, and there were many more in the sideline that wanted to play, so another game was quickly set up and off we went! 

 

There were lots of dog fights. This Zero claimed 3 kills before being shot down by the battleship.

If you squint, the game looks almost real!

The Japanese carrier, Onimini loads it's planes.

Swarming about the battleships

Zeros launching

Heck cats launch against incoming threats

This is what the battleships looked like

TaskForce - The Game

Those of you who have been following for a while know that I've built up a fleet of wooden ships for my children over the years, some which can be seen here.  Being the game designer type that I am, I also built a game which involves very open movement, using dice as the projectiles and... MATH.  I have a decent two page working beta set of the rules, and once I clean them up a bit, I’ll have them on my webstore as a free download. 

Winner Winner Chicken Dinner! (Thanks to Dave Taylor for that catch phrase)

Those I put two entries into this year’s painting exhibition/ competition. I usually don’t get to put anything I’ve just painted in, as I am using in the games, but this year the entry deadline was after some of my games ran. I put in my Wooden Wars Highland Dwarf, and a unit of British infantry with mounted officer. I’m a bit amazed, but my dwarf single figure took silver, and the unit took bronze!  Yay for Wooden Wars! (These pics are from the Kublacon painting competition site)

Wooden Wars: Fosswick's ship yards

“I wish to have no Connection with any Ship that does not Sail fast for I intend to go in harm's way.”

~ Capt. John Paul Jones, 1778

Greetings everyone! First off - I wanted to thank all of you for visiting Skull and Crown. This week we hit over 65,000 visitors! I really appreciate you stopping by, and love your comments so please keep them coming.   Now, on to this week's exciting skullbloggery!  

Battleship and Cruiser bristling with guns!

In The Navy!

As busy as I have been getting my web store running, the rules updated for print and painting up a storm for the upcoming Pacificon, I needed a change of pace - so, I built some ships.  These  filled my artistic need to create, and create something not soldiers, not to mention fulfilled a birthday present for a keen 6 year old boy, and helped get me pics for another article for the Campaigner Magazine, this one under the guise of "Gamer Dad".   I'm also building up a second fleet so I can start running games at my local club and eventually conventions. 

Two cruisers in the doc yards. I laser cut tops for the turrets.

Cruisers
Here we have a couple of "cruisers". These fine ships are based upon dreadnaught era ships, which are just chock full of beautiful lines. It really was a time when killing was not the science it is now, and artistry lent itself to the "shock and awe" factor.  Now my humble ships are just a ghost of that, but the inspiration, I hope you will agree, is there. 

Inspiration

Wooden Cruiser

These are made of poplar, with wooden wheels as the base for the turrets, and dowels for barrels. As a rule, my attitude to building the ships is pretty "slapdash"; that is to say, part of the fun of making these ships is that I more or less eyeball everything, so nothing is really true, but it all seems to work.  This frees up my creativity, and I find I get some pleasing silhouettes over all. 

Someday I may actually template the parts. I have a friend with a CnC cutter who really wants some ships, so a deal may be in the making. In the mean time, I'll be building two more similar to these, and then a battleship or two... and possibly a carrier. 

 Fresh coats of paint and hunting the seas

 

Fosswick's ship yards in full production!

TaskForce - The Game

Those of you who have been following for a while know that I've built up a fleet of wooden ships for my children over the years, some which can be seen here. Being the game designer type that I am, I also built a game which involves very open movement,  using dice as the projectiles and... MATH.  I have a decent two page working beta set of the rules, and once they get a couple more passes I'll toss them up here as a PDF for those interested. 

This picture sums up the game dynamics. Yes, that is a d20.

Battle ship and cruiser. Each barrel (not turret) equals one shot.

Seriously, Why Is Your Web Store Not Open!?

I know, I know...  there was a snafu with my rules, which is currently being cleared up. In the mean time I am building up more stock and hoping to have a British-ish foot gunner crew ready for "Launch".  My new battle cry is "Two more weeks!"

That being said, I will have a dealer's table at Pacificon, so please drop by. I'll have lots of Napoleonics and some Queen Victoria's Robot Wars for sale!

Okay, off to paint and paint, oh...  and paint.  Chat with you soon!

Task Force: Wooden Cruisers

 Project Wooden Cruiser:

Last Christmas I made my son a wooden battleship.  It was looking lonely, or out of place amongst the lego cargo ships, so I decided to make a couple of "cruisers" to go along with it.

ships are moslty poplar, with toy wheels for turrets.

Captain Fossling between the devil and the deep blue sea.

As per the house tradition, the children name the ships. My son named his the USS Helpful. When pressed, he stated it was  because it helps his battleship. USS Battley. My  2.5 year old daughter christened her cruiser the USS Alanana, which she assures us is Spanish, yet the definition changes from time to time.

The task force on manuevers on the Saltillo sea

The Hook:

There is a method to my madness, and in this case the madness is math.  You see, I have been designing more games that I can play with my kids, and Taskforce is now one of them. The Rules are very simple:

Each player gets either the battleship, or the two cruisers. Battleships have 100 hit points, the cruisers each 50.

Each ship gets to roll one D20 attack per barrel on the turrets

The Battley fires her mighty guns!

During a player's turn, they may move ( totally Krieg spiel about  this) adjust turrets towards the target and fire by rolling the dice at the target. Any dice that strike the target and bounce are hits, and the number shown is the damage done.  Natural 20 on the dice also means a turret was hit and  is removed for a turn ( IE lose a die).

When a ship has been damaged past her hit points , she sinks. 

USS Battley takes a pounding!

We keep score on a chalk board, and, using  a lot of fingers and hooks, do the math each time.  They are learning math and don't even know it!  If ever a time I felt like Bill Cosby....

Next will be either a sub, or an aircraft carrier... or another battleship.....