Tuesday, June 17, 2025

Battle of the Denmark Straits

Last night saw Morgan trek out from Philadelphia to spend the night with us. We are going to the Iron Pigs game tonight in Allentown, assuming it's not rained out. And we'll be meeting the "new" boyfriend in the process. They've been dating for a few months, but our schedules just have not aligned. Anyway, I asked Morgan if they'd help me play a game with my new naval rules, Find, Fix & Strike by David Manley. 

Always willing to help Dad embarrass himself with dice, they readily agreed. 

I took the part of the Dastardly Germans, Morgan had the RN ships. 


We used 1:1200 scale ships, but retained the movement and ranges from the rules rather than doubling them. This made for a bit of an awkward visual look of the game, but it works in my mind. Next time I'll try it using the larger distances. I also made small ship cards to help keep some ship data handy. 


My Prinz Eugen sunk by Turn 4

I won't go into a deep dive of the rules, but they do promise a fairly quick game, once you've mastered some of the concepts. I can see why. There are no damage points, or anything like that. Damage is graded by levels. And damage is inflicted by rolling a single D6, checking a small list of modifiers, adding in your Attack Factor, and comparing to your opponent's roll on their Defence Factor. 

Once you get into a rhythm, it's not bad. It's just finding that rhythm was a bit choppy for our very first game with FFS. 


My Bismarck trying to escape...it didn't


End game. Bismarck keeps taking hits. No escaping the Royal Navy! 

So, we played 12 turns before calling the game. Bismarck suffering Heavy Damage and still being shot at by Hood and Prince of Wales. Prinz Eugen sunk. I'm sure there will be a carrier or two on the way with Swordfish torpedo bombers and RN submarines to deal the final blow... And HMS Hood did not replicate a Roman Candle. 

It was a fun game. Always great to have my kiddo as an opponent. I will get these ships painted up, hopefully soon. XP Forge ships are really beautiful models. I'm impressed by the quality of the printing. And I think in FFS, I have my set of go-to WW2 naval rules. 

2 comments:

  1. Very nice looking game. The ships are first class and I am thrilled the HMS Hood survived! Will have to look at the rules you suggest.

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    Replies
    1. Mark, I do think you'll like them. Enough decisions to make, but not the pages and pages of chart busting. And the XP Forge 3D printed ships are really, really good.

      Eric

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