Cruel Seas: A Naval Noob’s Experience

By Troy A. Hill

I confess. I’ve wanted to play a naval wargame for the past 30+ odd years and never have.

Back in the halcyone days of university, I remember the HMGS chapter renting out the “old” gymnasium on campus once a year and playing with their 1:350 (or was it 1:700?) waterline models. That event took all weekend, and they had binders full of charts and ship information. It was glorious to watch, but seemed an impractical way to game with your mates. Not everyone has access to a gymnasium floor, nor room to store all of those models.

Since that time, I’ve had my eye out for a tabletop naval game that had a player base of regulars that met in a game store. A game that I would not mind investing my gaming dollars in, nor storing the minis in the limited space available to me in my tiny Los Angeles apartment. Negotiating berthing rights with my spouse in such cramped quarters for large ships, even in 1:700 scale would be daunting.

Fortunately John Stallard at Warlord Games decided to build and release .

John’s PT boats were zippy little buggers that were tough to keep up with, and had way too many guns on them if they closed to Machine Gun range!

This game ticks all the boxes I needed in a Naval Wargame. The basic vehicle to build is the Motor Torpedo boat. Those fit nicely in the Plano brand plastic storage trays I had laying about from previous games.

The rules allow larger ships, up to Cruiser and Destroyer class, but those won’t be more than one per player in most games. So the need to negotiate dock space with my spouse will be limited. One or two large ships per fleet seems to be a reasonable level of collection (for me with my cramped living quarters).

After my first game using borrowed boats, I learned that Cruel Seas was fun and fast to play. The game mechanism was fairly simple. Movement was the most confusing part of learning. That was only because I had read the FAQ prior to playing, and my mentors were still working with their initial reading of making three turns per move, no matter what speed they moved at. Once that was sorted out, all of us had a grand time.

Playing the Game

Plumes! Remember, it’s only 3 cm guns and up that generate plumes. And the plumes help you see the craft and give a bonus on your to-hit rolls.

I joined up the Bruce, Gary, and John for a two vs two game. Gary and I fielded (or would that be floated?) the Kriegsmarine against Bruce’s Royal Navy Vospers, and John’s US PT boats.

We played a modified form of Scenario Five, Destroy the Convoy. Running with 800 pts per player, we opted for a 4-ft by 6-ft table, and had the convoy run the length of the table, instead of heading across the short 4-ft width.

Since we were all still learning the rules, we missed the rule that all guns firing must be allocated target before rolling dice for that boat’s firing phase. Since boats can fire anywhere along their movement, this may prove tricky. “I’ll fire my MGs at PT Boat #1 as my S-Boat passes at 13cm, but the rest of the guns are going to fire on the Vospers once I move the full 26cm…”

But, we’re gamers. We’ll get it figured out. I’ve discovered that even if I don’t pay attention to where all of my guns are firing, my opponent, who wants to keep their force from taking unnecessary damage, usually knows where every one of my rounds is heading.

We had several near collisions, and one attempted ramming by a certain German Captain.

Another tricky aspect of the No Measure Ahead of Time was figuring movement and speeds. We held each other to announcing a boat’s speed before measuring to move. That made for some dicey maneuvering once the forces closed enough to get into a real dogfight.

Fortunately, collision and ramming rules are clarified in the FAQ. Boats don’t stay locked together once collided.

Finally, we did missed that critical hits can be saved against to be avoided. I’ve since added a note to roll the save (skill test) to the top of each Critical Hit table in the book. My S-Boats had quite a few engine fires and crew hits that could have been prevent by my veteran crews if we had remembered that rule.

Since my teammate Gary had to leave early in the game, I took over his fleet of four S-boats. By the end of the game, I had managed to sink eight boats. All German ones, unfortunately. But we had terrible fun giving the Brits and Yanks heck!

Fleet Assembly

I was taken enough with the game that I grabbed both the boxes. My idea was that I’d build the S-boats in the smaller Flotilla box with various gun options, or paint them up for a different theater. I was considering both a set for raiding in the English Channel as well as a force in the Mediterranean, since the Desert War is my favorite theatre for land battles.

This is where I have to gripe about what Warlord has done – or not done in this case. The sprues for their plastic boats are limited in weapons options. I’ve assembled a couple of Bolt Action armies, and have been pleased with the options available on the sprues to outfit the troops with a variety of poses.

You can see some of the discussions on the Warlord Cruel Seas forum here about the limited gun options available to the initial release. An additional 37mm gun at least would have been a great option for the S-boat sprues.

The lifeboat launch cradle is on the opposite side of what Warlord shows in their box art and other photos. I’ve learned that it’s best to find images of the ships/boats/vehicles of whichever Warlord kit I’m building BEFORE I begin assembly.

Unfortunately, the other issue I would like Warlord to address is one their customers will be familiar with. The boxes don’t include assembly instructions. They do include the usual diagram of what part is located where on the sprue. But, especially for the larger boats ,like the minesweeper, one must do their own research on where various parts go. For the smaller boats – at least with the Kriegsmarine – this wasn’t an issue. I just pulled out the ship data card, and knew where the guns went. Even if the guns presented didn’t match the generally assigned guns on the boats. (The S-100 model gets a 2cm Vierling instead of the 37mm stated on the Ship Data Card).

But, the lifeboat mechanism on the Minesweeper took a bit more research to figure out exactly what to trim away from the metal piece, and how it fit on the boat.

Later, I picked up the Royal Navy Flotilla box of Vospers. I made the mistake of adding the masts before I installed the weapons. I mistook the aft machine gun mount on the Vosper Type I as the mounting where the mast went, and couldn’t figure out why the mounting hole for said mast was too wide.

A quick trip to google to pull up images of the Vospers showed me where the mast went (offset- to the side of the bridge). I finally realized that since these boats didn’t rely on sails, their masts didn’t need to be perfectly aligned on the central beam of the craft.

Rather than using the back of the reference sheet to show the covers of the product box (which look oddly like the product box the models cam in), the reverse of that sheet should include a top view and/or side view of the boats to aid in positioning the bits and bobs.

Another item on my wish list is that Warlord will post the painting guides, the ones which were only included as part of the Cruel Seas starter set (now sold out worldwide). These would be an easy PDF to post on their website. Just knowing what the main hull and deck colors are for each ship would be an awesome start, and make my boats not look primer-naked on the table. Again, more google-diving coming up to suss out colours.

If you’ve already got these colour schemes for your boats researched, and add the list and a photo or two. Your fellow gamers will appreciate any information you can share.

On a positive note, Warlord has made their wake markers – the trailing wakes used to denote the speed of the ship, as well as show potential trouble spots for untrained crews passing behind another ship –  Gamers who already have collections of the coastal defense boats should be able to use the rules, with the free download wake markers, and a copy of the rules to jump straight into the game.

You can also find the here, and the . I have to applaud the game designers for how fast they were able to fire off an errata that is easy to cut out, and tape or glue into the appropriate spots in the rules. We gamers like our rules to be perfectly worded for no misunderstanding, and free of both typos. Yet few, if any, new rules sets seldom are.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, my S-boats have just spotted some enemy craft in the water. Schnell!