Cruel Seas and a painting update

Another mixed bag this post. First up I had painted up a number of Warlord Cruel Seas 1/300 WW2 boats about a year ago, with a short game planned for Saturday afternoon a chance to get them out for a first time. After reading the basic rules through I needed a few bits to help run the game mainly the stat cards required for each boat, these I was able to find on the web suitable for our purpose.

Our scenario had the British Navy attacking the Kreigsmarine somewhere off Northern France to knock out a U boat, 4 MTB’s against 2 German E boats supported by a shore battery.

The MTbs split around the small island, and you can see some of the stat cards to the right

The Germans move out of their harbour

One of the things we discovered during the game was the ineffectiveness of torpedos and most gun firing at long range and with the boats moving at high speeds both sides needed to get in close. The cotton wool represents plumes of water where larger caliber guns have missed their target.

After several turns the British Navy manage to knock out one of the e boats 

The British are then able to target the U boat and with some lucking rolling they were able to knock it out. A fun run out with the boats which gave us a good idea of how the game works. Hopefully we’ll get another chance to play it again sometime.

I mentioned in the last post I would do a parade of my ECW mainly to check what else I might need to get the collection ready for a battle. The photo above shows it all set out, six infantry and six cavalry regiments for each side. A couple of things are now needed….so here they are hot off the painting table

Some more generic command figures 

And some artillery 

I have now completed pretty much all the plastic cavalry I had so I decided to try some Peter Pig figures to complement the collection these arrived and are being moved into the painting queue. Together with some more command figures.

I have also finished another infantry unit which didn’t make the parade

A few Warlord American command figures have also been painted while I waited for other figures to dry etc…. These are mainly resin although the General Patton is metal. All these for Sicily battles.

Finally on the painting I finished this sleeping/dead Spartan who strangely sat on the painting desk for ages

..and yet more secondhand books, I just can’t help myself at the moment.

The battles book is basically fantastic with maps of numerous famous battles with appropriate details I wasn’t going to miss this one.

Even I am nearly worn out by this post, lots going on more battles next week and no doubt some more painting to come.

Thanks of course for taking the time to check through this post Matt ♥️