Stealing from Starfleet Battles, the WYN live in this little pocket of space protected by a zone of dirty space that affects all those electronical things that Iron Stars ship don't have, but which would suffice as a "heavy gravity" zone.

As I recall, those scenarios have the zone occupying either the board edges, so that it takes a while to recover before you can operate normally - perhaps invoking the Searchlights optional rules too (it's really thick 'n' dark space), then off you go to get the bad guys;

or, have a zone in the middle of the table, extending the entire length and maybe 6" thick, and place each side's objective on the other side of that morass. 

Maybe it's a gaint comet's tail and entering it pushes you sideways 2" for every 1" you attempt to move through it. Perhaps the zone damages your ship (as a x1 torpedo) for every turn stuck in it.  Really dangerous to a fast ship, since its hull boxes are few; unpleasant for a very large ship, since it'll be in there for 2 turns or more.

MRB

I always use terrain in miniature games, regardless of scale. It gives a focal point of the battle. Battles are usually over something, my fort, my rock, whatever.

As for scale, planets are out. I usually make one edge of the map a planet.

But small moons, asteroids, or wrecks of ships are easy to create. Brigade Minis makes a simple crashed 'nef. Maybe they could make a crashed ship for Iron Stars.

I use styrofoam balls. Round for moons (poke in lotsa craters), crushed for asteroids (poke full of holes first), and if you wanted a crashed ship, then poke in a model or part of a model into the asteroid and add other bits depending on the strength of the impact.

Stealing from other miniature games, you could add listening posts, variations on the Russian redoubts without guns; airbases (on asteroids), heavy gravity zones, automated weapons, lifeboats, derelict freighters, and ...well that's a start.

frigatesfan.

Thank you for your assistance. I will pass your comments along!

Michael B.

If using spotting in a battle with lots of ships milling around, you spot your target at the end o f one turn, but in the following movement phase, several other potential targets come into range. Now, your lit target is further away from many other potential targets, that you must attack at double range.

Starshells would certainly solve the problem, but I haven't picked up that expansion yet.

Could one assume that ships constructed during 1904-5 (the first IS book) could be picked up at a cheaper price 10 years on (since we seem to be discussing the economies of these countries at the brink of the first World War)?

Could congeve rockets (1904-05) be picked up cheaper than hale rockets (1908-09)?

Or is every technology meant to be available at the same time? And does every nation have to be at the top of the technological tree?

Would a 225 point BB with all the bells and whistles cost the same as a 225 point BB with just guns and torpedoes? Since the construction system allows one to arrive at the same point total in a variety of different ways, then surely something else has to be factored into the economic cost of warships.

Mike B.

My only concern is seeing a lightning projector ship with a poison gas battery and hale rockets and fire arrows too across the table.

That about sums up my concern here.

I actually enjoy the ship ideas people are throwing about. My Japanese destroyers are 10 thrust ships. That's how I want to play them.  And I'll stick a canon escort with them.

This is my last post on the subject. On to better things. Or the sub discussion... :wink:

Ah. My bad. I haven't bought SF yet.

But if every nation has access to every weapon, and every nation is fighting in the same "ocean", and every nation's admiral uses the same tactics (one player will play with the same style for any nation's navy), then what makes one nation's navy different from another? Why have individual nations at all? :?: