Bat-rep Cruel Seas day at D6 Game, or how organized play for Cruel Seas is a lot of fun
By Tom Gall
Saturday February 23rd, seven of us gathered at D6 Games in Rochester to play some Cruel Seas. Seven became eight, then nine as people watching became interested in the action on the table top.
We used the to play some games. We didn’t call it a tournament, but I was looking to validate a number of the missions to continue to try and eek out any bugs. (Note this document is player generated and not official by Warlord games.)
The great attribute of this kind of play is, people can just show up with an agreed to point costed fleet for a day of Cruel Seas gaming.
Across the Flames, Star Wars Armada, X-Wing and other communities, it’s a pretty popular and fun style of play.
Here Chuck getting in his first game with his Germans is taking on Pat’s scratch built Finns.
The mat is by F.A.T. mats and you can purchase from the firelock games website. It’s 4’x6′ which in my opinion is a perfect size for Cruel Seas.
Round 1
On the second table, we rolled up an Interdict mission where Mike and I were the defenders. We played Chuck and Bill in a 2 on 2 match. We played this way since both Bill and Mike had never played before. The mission goal is to escort a tanker off-board. It’s akin to the starting module in the book, but with a few twists. First, we played at 750 points, meaning each player fielded exactly what they want. Weather, terrain etc are die rolls. 
Bill and Chuck took command of the Germans and Mike and I were playing with my British fleet. We just had a few rocks out on the table so a pretty open sea.
Daytime was rolled up and the weather was squalls. Each turn we’d have to roll and on a 4+ it’d be raining and thus causing an extra -1 to shooting.
Bill and Chuck decided to field one S-100, and 2 S-38s along with the Voorpostenboot which was Veteran. On my side, I had two regular Vosper Type IIs, 1 Vet Type II, and a Vet Fairmile,
I had my tanker hit the gas and to get ready to be able to turn as much as possible as the torpedo swarm would invariably head its way.
The goal of the Vospers was to try and pick off the S-boats. The Voorpostenboot held back to take advantage of the range of it’s 88 and hoping to plink away.
Unfortunately, while we were able to get a hit in or two against the S-boats it just wasn’t enough to turn them away nor stop them from dropping fish in the water.
Meanwhile, Mike was able to get one of his Vospers into a decent range of the Voorpostenboot and connect. This was a huge development but at a pretty major cost as his boat was very badly shot up. If the Vosper hadn’t activated first, it would probably have been a much different story.
Unfortunately for the tanker it too would be sent to the bottom, taking a bunch of damage. We picked it up at that point as we were at a pretty clear result.
Round 2
Pat and I squared off next. We rolled up Scramble which features a night action where both sides have gotten separated during a storm. Both fleets are placed randomly with the potential to be intermingled for an instant dog fight, presuming either side seas each other. Of course, if you don’t open fire, you’re not an autospot.
One of the great things about testing this mission was the discovery that for a stormy sea, you can only go at slow speed and that you have a -2 to shooting as well.
For large ships, this makes for an interesting problem. As both would be going slow, that’s a +2 (1 for slow speed, and 1 for large ship), and then a -2 for the bad conditions.
In deployment, I ended up better off then Pat. My two regular Vospers were close together and the Veteran off in the distance trying to keep up. The Fairmile likewise lucked out and deployed in fairly close proximity to the action. There are two other Finnish boats one way up in the upper left corner of the table and the other just out of the frame behind the island on the right.
A close range duel quickly erupted as the initial spotting rolls weren’t bad. We used the red damage marks to mark night fire so those ships that didn’t want to fire and allow themselves to be auto spotted could be easily identified.
As luck would have it the Fairmile would activate late and have a great target in the lead Finnish large ship. It had a forward 75 and rear 75, 20s and other goodies, so it became my primary target given it was bristling with guns. With the help of a veteran crew, slow speed and the close range my Fairmile 6 pdrs started to really deal the damage landing about 60 pts for the first round of shooting.
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With the next round I lucked out with the first activation and the Fairmile again fired which finished off the lead boat with another effective hail of shells.
Who needs star shells when you have close range, awful weather and a large target.
Pat quickly got rid of one of my Vospers with equally great shooting from his other Finnish ship. Sorry I really need to get the exact ships he was running. It’s a great fleet.
With turn three, again the Fairmile opened up and with yet another amazing round of shooting the question was pretty much settled with another Finnish ship going to the bottom.
Round 3
Pat and I decided to get in a rematch. This time we rolled up an Interdict but this time I was the attacker. We rolled up Fog for the weather and put out a couple of fog banks in addition to the four rocks that we rolled up.
Excuse the paper as that was what we easily had at hand. It worked great tho, of course, it was an eyesore and something we had to constantly fight not picking up as it looks like table clutter.
I decided to deploy behind the fog and try and time my attack such that my fleet would emerge and then fire in force with hopefully enough torpedos that the question would be settled quickly.
With the last game, Pat sunk a Vosper in one turn with hits from a 75, so I knew I had to strike fast and do my best to turn tail and run.
What’s that about best-laid plans again? Unfortunately, we didn’t time coming out of the fog in unison. This allowed Pat to pick ships off one by one.
The Fairmile and all it’s fire power lagged coming out of the fog last, to be greeted by the very best and most effective guns in the Finnish fleet.
I did manage to get some torpedos in the water. They even contacted their intended target the Finnish tanker I needed to sink for the scenario but both times, I just missed the roll and the torpedos continued harmlessly on.
Organized Play for Cruel Sea Thoughts
I think the game is a great one for organized play. Adding a point structure that awards for accomplishing missions as well as sinking enemy ships works well.
Cruel Seas is not a game that takes hours and hours to get to a result. Starting at approx 10:30am we managed to play 3 games and be done by 5:30pm and that included a lunch break. I suspect 90-100 minutes for a round is about right.
Cruel Seas offers much promise not only as a fun environment for one off games but for something a little more competitive. The next question is are ships appropriately point costed for this kind of play?
For this day, we just used the Finnish, British and German fleets. Things seemed balanced, so it’s an open question had there been Americans or Japanese how well would they have done?
We’ll have to find out next time!