Micronauts, My second game, results and observations

[hussar62]

We just played our 2nd game of Micronauts. The engagement pitted 5 US DD's (4x Fletcher, 1x Allen Sumner) against 4 IJN DD's and 1 CL (3x Akitsuki, 1x Shimakaze and CL Agano). Scenario was set in 45' with the IJN escorting a group of 4 transports. All IJN had type A radar with the majority of the crew being raw, and poor in damage control. The majority of the US ships had type C radar and a mix of trained and vet crews with normal to exceptional damage control. The action was fought in daylight with calm seas.

Suprisingly the IJN won this encounter by a fair margin. The 6" guns on the Agano contributed greatly, not by out right sinking any US DD, but the hits made caused relatively heavy damage (to a DD). These hits reduced the combat potential of the US DD's quickly taking out guns and reducing their speeds. The US relied on the respectable torpedo batteries on their ships and actually hit 2 of the Akitsukis with their spreads.

End result after 3 1/2 hrs of play:

1x Fletcher crippled and exiting area
1x Allen Sumner Sunk by Long Lance
Remaining 3 Fletchers had 1 5" gun remaining among all of them and were all reduced in speed due to hull or engineering critical hits. They were all out of torpedos and no where near the Japanese transports with the Agano closing to point blank range. That's when the US called game over.

for the IJN:

2x Akitsuki sunk by torpedos
1x Akitsuki with minor damage
1x Shimakaze with minor damage
1x Agano took only 1 or 2 hits the entire battle

Since this was only our 2nd game and the 1st game where torpedos were heavily used we had the following observations:

1. Sequence of play for torps conflicts between various charts and the rules. Some examples:

A. The big one page Combat Table Card list Torpedo Impact as Phase 4 and Tactical Movement as Phase 5. This is also the squence detailed in the rule book (5.2 Sequence of Play)

B. The Turn Sequence listed next to chart C-9 list Tactical Movement in Phase 4 and Torpedo impact in Phase 5. This sequence is supported by torpedo combat rule 10.4 which in part states,

"The range the torpedos travel is the distance from the launch point (marked by a torpedo counter in step 2) to the point where the target ship ends movement in the subsequent turn (unless the initial range is under 2 Kyrds as noted in rule 10.3)"

We used the sequence out lined in B as it made more sense, since rule 10.3 already accounted for an immediate impact under 2 Kyrds. If sequence in A was followed there would be no ship movement before a torpedo strike for an over 2 Kyd run.

2. In the game torpedos don't have the devestating damage potential they had historically. Sure, one torpedo will absolutely wreck a DD, but when looking at the possible damage they can cause to a larger vessel its not so bad. As a matter of fact looking at the hull points on the NC class BB (90) it would take 15 Long Lance torpedos to sink her (assuming normal 6 point hits). Seems excessive, even if we account for some of the hits doing double or triple damage it may take 9-10 hits.

In the actions around the Solomons in 42-43, no US cruiser survived more than 2 Long Lance hits ( don't recall any of them surviving 2 either). With the damage currently caused by torpedos a typical US cruiser can take a Long Lance hit and still be making 28 kts. (possible? yes, probable? no). Simple solution, possibly modify chart C-12 so that triple or double damage is now the norm, while still leaving some base damage results that may allow a DD to survive a hit. Another solution would be adjusting the values in C-13, however I feel this would take more carful consideration and work to yield historically accurate results.

3. Final observation. This came from some of the players who questioned why they had to have squadrons roll for cohesion. To their "gamers" mind they felt it was beneficial to have every ship independant and roll individual cohesion. This came up due to having the IJN CL designated as a Fleet Flagship, and a single ship squadron (which would not get a +4 modifier for being out of formation), while the DD's were broken into Divisions, with designated Division leaders. My response to this was every ship can not have a command staff and the additional communications gear to provide them with the "big" picture of the engagement. Should they decide (in a future game) to designate each ship as "independant" then all of them, with the exception of the one with the admiral on board will get the +4 out of formation modifier. (I'd even consider adding the +2 "flagship not in lead" to dissuade them from this idea).

Overall we had a good time. Most of our group are not "dedicated" naval gamers and they feel Micronauts is a good balance between playability and complexity. Me, being retired Navy, I lean to the more detailed rules (Command at Sea or Seekrieg), but I enjoyed the game as well. Since Micronauts is bringing people to the gaming table, it looks like we will be sailing with these rules going forward.

[saxophone]

Nice report.

What did you use for your ship data cards? Did you just scan them from the rulebook or did you create electronic versions of them?

[hussar62]

At first I did a cut and paste from the PDF file found in the free rules section. This PDF contains all the ship forms also included in the rule book (plus a few more as well). After that I decided to create some of my own in excel that also included the Gunnery Stradle Table below the individual ship stats. So far I have created a data card for all the ships used in my scenario, plus a card for CA Aoba, CL Oyodo, CL Cleveland and CL Atlanta.