Flagships - Borrowed that is!

[Hambone]

Der Kuenstler’s video on YouTube inspired me to adopt his house rule on flagships. (check out his video when you get the chance).  Also, for the first time, I tried my hand at painting A&A sculpts.

Quick version of DK’s rule: cost 24 IPC, 3 hits to sink, 4a/4d/2m (normal) & only 1 flagship allowed on the board per nation at a time (2 British in photo for 1 UK & 1 UK PAC).

I didn’t search the threads to see if he has posted this in the past.  If he has, sorry for the duplicate post.  I just thought this was a worthy house rule to be shared.

Credits:
Flagship concept - Der Kuenstler
Flags - Siredblood
Map - Cyanight (spelling?)
Battleship sculpts - Historical Board Gaming

[Caesar-Seriona]

It is an interesting idea but I’d rather see other units, I am still waiting to see if we ever will get a General or Admiral piece for the game.

[Der Kuenstler]

They look great!

[CWO Marc]

@Hambone:

Quick version of DK’s rule: cost 24 IPC, 3 hits to sink, 4a/4d/2m (normal) & only 1 flagship allowed on the board per nation at a time (2 British in photo for 1 UK & 1 UK PAC).

I haven’t looked at the video explaining the rule, so perhaps I’m misinterpreting this post, but do I understand correctly that a flagship unit is a battleship that costs more than a normal one and is harder to sink than a normal one?  The reason I’m asking is that a “flagship” isn’t a type of vessel, it’s an administrative classification: it’s the ship aboard which a fleet commander or task force commander is located, and from which he exercises his command.  A flagship can be anything, though typically it’s a large vessel, and it can change during a battle.  At Midway, Admiral Jack Fletcher initially commanded his force from the carrier Yorktown, then transferred his flag to the cruiser Astoria when Yorktown was damaged; his counterpart, Admiral Nagumo, similarly transferred his flag from the carrier Akagi to the cruiser Nagara, if I remember correctly.

[Hambone]

Yes, DK’s video give his ideas for this rule which make sense to me for this game format.  Could even be the admiral piece if you want to look at it that way.

Actual flagships were several different types of vessels altogether and did change during engagements due to damage as in the Midway example.

[Der Kuenstler]

@CWO:

@Hambone:

Quick version of DK’s rule: cost 24 IPC, 3 hits to sink, 4a/4d/2m (normal) & only 1 flagship allowed on the board per nation at a time (2 British in photo for 1 UK & 1 UK PAC).

I haven’t looked at the video explaining the rule, so perhaps I’m misinterpreting this post, but do I understand correctly that a flagship unit is a battleship that costs more than a normal one and is harder to sink than a normal one?  The reason I’m asking is that a “flagship” isn’t a type of vessel, it’s an administrative classification: it’s the ship aboard which a fleet commander or task force commander is located, and from which he exercises his command.  A flagship can be anything, though typically it’s a large vessel, and it can change during a battle.  At Midway, Admiral Jack Fletcher initially commanded his force from the carrier Yorktown, then transferred his flag to the cruiser Astoria when Yorktown was damaged; his counterpart, Admiral Nagumo, similarly transferred his flag from the carrier Akagi to the cruiser Nagara, if I remember correctly.

The Flagships described in my video basically add a little game flavor and layer of strategy. The Flagship is just a fun unit which represents the “pride of your navy” - a battleship which has the highest morale, best armor and is harder to sink. These Flagships aren’t really meant to mimic history. (As is the case with a lot of standard AA rules!)

Video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRrPnUvY8p4

[CWO Marc]

@Der:

The Flagship is just a fun unit which represents the “pride of your navy” - a battleship which has the highest morale, best armor and is harder to sink.

As a light-hearted comment, I have to say that if I was a sailor serving on a battleship with the best armor in the fleet and which is harder to sink than other vessels, this would certainly be a boost to my morale.  :)  Though in fairness, the sailors of the Japanese superbattleships Yamato and Musashi, which served in turn as IJN fleet flagships, started getting restless over the years as their floating fortresses spent much of their their time sitting at anchor at Truk, waiting for Tokyo to commit them to battle.  (Part of the reason for Tokyo’s hesitance was that the two ships devoured prodigious quantities of fuel that Japan could ill-afford to waste, and part of the reason was that they were considered to be strategic weapons that were being held in reserve for a decisive battle.)

Over on the U.S. Navy side, by the way, two of the biggest contributors to battleship crew morale during extended missions in the Pacific during WWII were: mail from home and new movies.  Both were eagerly awaited whenever supply ships rendezvoused with a naval task force.  On the consumables side, ice cream and lemon pie were particularly appreciated by U.S. sailors in WWII (and probably still today).  I think there was a tradition at the time which basically allowed battleship sailors to over-indulge on ice cream every Sunday.  On one particular such occasion, on the Missouri as I recall, a young bluejacket tried to jump the queue waiting outside the ship’s ice-cream dispensary, then saw to his consternation that one of the people ahead of whom he had cut was Admiral Halsey.  (Halsey, who was famous for his hell-for-leather personality but who was also known as a “sailor’s admiral”, quietly told the young man to “get back in line, son.”)  Beer was also appreciated, but it was tricky to handle because drinking aboard ship was (and is) prohibited in the USN.  US battleships in WWII were sometimes allocated a supply of beer for consumption “off the ship”, which in principle meant “when the ship is at anchor close to a beach somewhere” but which was a problem when the ship was out at sea for weeks or months at a time.  Understanding captains would skirt around the regulations by taking advantage of operational lulls when the ship wasn’t actually steaming anywhere: they’d allow their sailors to borrow the ship’s boats, in rotating batches of however many men could fit into them, and load them up with a ration of two beers per man; the sailors would row off until they were a few hundred yards from the ship, drink their allocation of brew, then row back to the ship and let the next group of their buddies take their turn.  This practice was probably considered to be a fine example of good old-fashioned American can-do wartime ingenuity.

[Der Kuenstler]

Heh heh - cool stories! Ice cream and lemon pie would raise the morale, although kind of sticky if it ended up on the game pieces….

[CWO Marc]

@Der:

Ice cream and lemon pie would raise the morale, although kind of sticky if it ended up on the game pieces….

The correct non-sticky solution is to have HBG produce an ice cream / lemon pie plastic game sculpt (or, alternately, game token) as a specialized extra A&A unit.  It would provide some sort of +1 morale bonus to any naval unit it’s paired with, which would put a whole new spin on the A&A concept of combined arms.  I don’t know what the IPC cost of such a unit would be, but I’m sure someone here could do the computations and work out an appropriate value.

[Der Kuenstler]

Heh heh - yeah and for an arms breakthrough you could add sprinkles!

(I think at this point we’re the only ones reading this.)

[taamvan]

I don’t think that a “Gedunk (Ice Cream) Tanker” for 4 IpCs would be much of a unit

A0/D0/M2 as transport does not fight.
“Deploys Ice Cream”
Adds +1 to hit to any one BB when paired or
One bombardment becomes first striking
Adds +1 to defend to any one DD when paired
Marines pair with artillery per BM rules when supplied with Gedunk?