Playing small Craft Battles with Naval War

Yesterday i had a game of Cruel seas with 3 of my fellow Naval Gamers. It was our 3rd game and we are all utterly dissapointed. Maybe we are not the kind of gamers warlord games wanted to appeal to with this kind of rules. The problem is we really like the miniatures and the topic of the game. On my way home i thought about alternatives to CS....my first thought was that it would be cool to have naval war as a rules set. My question to the designer is...do you think your rules could handle small craft warfare? What changes would be necessary? You are my last hope to save two 1:300 Fleets from dismantling...

Well, to be honest I think small craft warfare is a way different topic than Naval War currently handles. Sure you could convert the movement, gunnery system etc to fit the small craft, but we all know that is not the heart of the game. To really convert it you need to convert the activation system and command stations. I think that is way to complicated since small craft operate at a way different level of detail than Naval War handles.

To still give you a ray of hope though, I've heard that David Manley is close to finishing his own set of Coastal Warfare rules. As a capable naval games designer I think he probably has a different angle to the small craft than Warlord. I'd say you might want to look into that set. I'll post a name as soon as I can find it.

There's David Manley's system which looks pretty promising from the playtest teasers. There are also a number of other freely available rulesets you could look at:

www.tabletoptitans.com/rules/0008.php
www.deepfriedhappymice.com/html/gw_coastal_command.html

Some more you can find through these articles, along with playtest games of Narrow Seas, DM's new system.
www.edinburghwargames.com/category/naval...fare/coastal-forces/

If you guys aren't organized play kind of folks, you also might take a look at these, and give Cruel Seas one more chance.
dtbsam.blogspot.com/2018/12/house-rules-for-cruel-seas.html
dtbsam.blogspot.com/2019/01/torpedoes-in-cruel-seas.html
dtbsam.blogspot.com/2018/12/submarine-rules-for-cruel-seas.html

Hope that helps!

Pugliese,
All good suggestions for Coastal Forces rule sets. I'm awaiting David Manley's Narrow Seas, but have had a lot of fun with his "Schnell Rules for Schnelleboote" and "Action Stations" as well as David Gregory's more detailed "Flaklighter" rules. Although Warlord's "Cruel Seas" models are beautiful, I have found the 1:300 scale off-putting for MTB gaming -- the scale is just too large for playing on the tabletop space available to me. This is a personal choice, but I much prefer 1:600 scale which allows for more realistic tactics and visual appeal.