Cruel seas; Faction overview (IJN)

Now the game has been out a while and we've had chance to get more than a few games in, I wanted to get some thoughts down about the various faction's fleet lists for fellow gamers/non-history-specialist folk out there. I've been playing kriegsmarine and IJN against royal navy , so those three are the ones I'll be focussing on.
These are intended purely as a gaming overview for those who aren't history buffs or those intent on recreating specific actions from ww2 with this ruleset.

So, the Japanese, in ww2, they started their attack with the element of surprise and rolled through large swathes of poorly defended territory with far superior troops but rapidly overexpanded, got stretched too thin and then pushed back by the allies.

This applies to the tabletop too, the IJN fleet box seems to be set late war when the quality of force was poor and all sorts of odd craft got merged in with the remaining bigger ships (hence additions like suicide boats and civilian wooden sailing craft levvied by the Navy).

Historically the Japanese didn't really "do" MTBs (motor torpedo boats) in the way that the European and American forces did so right off the bat, you're effectively playing a different game with the IJN in cruel seas. Because of their long campaign pre-WW2 in China and the opening struggles against Russia, mainline Japanese forces are easy to justify as Veteran crew, though desperation set in in the late war period and inexperienced is just as easy to justify.. To that end then, here's the headline breakdown:

IJN strengths

-Cheap and easy access to big guns on escort sized ships

-Cheap activation dice in tiny boats

-Good distraction capability with suicide boats

-More reliable torpedo level damage with suicide craft (Kaiten/Maru-ni)

-Best torpedoes in game

IJN weaknesses

-MTBs!!

-Torpedoes restricted to expensive platforms

-Long lances on destroyers only

-Dependent on big ships for heavy lifting

-Eggs-in-one-basket

-Vulnerable to torpedoes

List breakdown:

Tiny Boats

These come in three flavours, Shin 'yo (rockets), Maru-ni (depth charges) and Sampans (HMG).

All of them come in under 50 points with inex crew (with the sampans coming in at 15pts!) and represent seriously cheap activation dice to stop you getting "outdrawn" as much with the dependence on big, expensive ships. The rockets are nifty if you're doing a beach assault and have ground targets to hit but are very random when used against shipping. If they hit, they'll either be devastating or whiff-tastic and the more consistent option is the Depth charge loadout, functioning more like guided/aimable torpedoes.

The benefit of all of these craft is that A) they're cheap B) they're hard to deal with. They first have to be spotted to be targettable and then you have to actually have to hit a tiny boat at speed and with range modifiers which is easier said than done. Given its relatively easy to dodge torpedoes, Maru-ni are excellent because if they're not dealth with, can work out as x3 reliable torpedo hits to whatever you choose. Clearly the opportunity for abuse is rife with units this potent and this cheap, so you're limited to one choice in your fleet.

Given you're likely to have odds and sods of points left, the activation dice and potential destruction is well worth investing in once your big hitters have been made up to veteran crew.

Small craft

T-14

Currently the only MTB equivalent for the Japanese forces, it is extremely fragile (only 15 damage to sink) and can easily be one-shotted by a vosper, even a single 20mm can zap it with one hit on a decent roll before the free MGs and any other armament joins in. It's not particularly fast either and with only a single 20mm as its armament, doesn't really pack much punch with its gunnery. It does carry two torpedoes (by the book these are long lances, but this is incorrect so you could save yourself 20pts per boat with a downgrade to regular torpedoes), which gives you an option of using them as extremely fragile glass-cannon craft, but you'll need to dump torps into the water early as you're unlikely to survive to launch them once ranges close in and modifiers drop off.

Smoke is nifty however and one of these can at least give smoke coverage to smaller craft like landing craft in the rear of it or protect it somewhat before laying an ambush. You'll need to use islands, smoke and other terrain well to screen your advance but don't count on keeping these guys alive long.

Diahatsu landing craft

They're basically only paying for the HMGs here as they're primarily going to be your objective-running craft for invasion missions. They pack 20HP a boat but are abysmally slow, so you'll likely be running at max-throttle and won't be hitting anything with the HMGs anyway. These aren't really fleet boats and shouldn't really be put into a fleet. If you were going to for whatever reason, realistically you should add 20pts to the cost for the hull points that aren't factored in as an objective-runner.

Medium craft

Large sampan

These have been costed up as fleet boats given that their hull points feature in the cost and come armed with a 20mm as standard. They can upgrade their gun to a twin 20mm or swap for a mortar and add an optional HMG for minimal cost. The question is though, why would you over bother?

With a movement speed of 3/6/9 they'll need to spend so much time moving into range that the negative modifiers for speed and range mean they'll hit very little and they're quite easy to deal with with only a modest 40HP and no negative modifiers or smoke to keep them safe. As objective runners they're fine as freebies, but I wouldn't put these into a casual pick-up game.

Ro-16 class submarine

Submarines are a bit "tacked on" in the rules with only fairly bare-bones/generic armaments. They do however, come with a 3" gun, a 20mm and 6 torpedoes plus the free MGs. at 205pts before crew and more HP than the minesweeper, these guys work really nicely as an all-rounder for the IJN and are one of the better assets to build around. Submarines have a natural -1 to hit for being low in the waterline and as a medium vessel have less modifiers to be hit in the first place. The 3" gun hits really hard and has a long range and the loadout of 6 torpedoes gives you some solid anti-big ship capability to boot. Because the submarine models are relatively slow but incredibly thin, they're excellent for slicing between incoming torpedoes and are pretty difficult to hit. 

They are prone to being swarmed from the flanks however, because they're very long and make lovely targets for torpedoes from the sides as they're long and slow. 

Red turning angle and slower speeds does give excellent maneuverability though and even the bigger craft can swim through a lot of torps.

Large craft

101 class landing craft

A big ship built for getting tanks and troops on island chains, it is fairly punchy vs enemy MTBs given its armament of 6x 20mm guns, a 3" gun (with fire director!!) and its MGs. With 110 HP it can take a battering and still keep swinging as well which makes it a pretty good fleet asset at its bargain price of 165pt pre-crew. It is slow and large though with a yellow turn, so all those enemy guns won't struggle to hit it and as a barge, should be immune to torps in the same manner as allied landing craft.

Escort type Hei

The big boy of the IJN fleet box (and soon to be available as a single item for purchase) is a veritable beast, able to evaporate vospers with a hit of the 4" guns (which are also boosted by the fire director) and benefit from its radar in case smoke starts getting used. It also has a bevy of 20mm armaments which put out reliable and steady damage, though don't get the benefits afforded to the 4" guns from the ancillary equipment. The mortar gets a noteable mention too as its a nifty weapon you can easily forget but on a veteran ship, is capable of helping whittle down bigger enemies at decent range. This is moderately priced at 235 points pre-crew. but it is a large craft; vulnerable to torpedoes, not particularly fast (capping out at 18cm/turn) and only having a yellow turn. With only 100hp to go at, a single torpedo can wipe out the vast majority of your hit points and larger calibre fire from enemy 3" guns or above can easily ruin your day. It is also a tasty target for enemy aircraft as unless its veteran, will struggle to actually utilise its 20mm flak guns due to negative modifiers. This would be a very wise choice for a veteran crew to really get the most out of those big guns and give better repair bonuses when you inevitably take damage/criticals.

This class also forms a good basis for modding up your own stats for the available Ukuru class escort model too.

Huge craft

No1 class landing ship

With a model on the radar, this brings more hit points, higher speed and bigger firepower as well as optional x4 diahatsu landing craft which it can presumably deploy near to the shore making objectives/invasion games more reliable. It is pretty modestly priced at 285, making it only 50pt upgrade from the minesweeper which for the better speed, better armament and more hull points should make it a strong contender, though its "huge" classification does enhance the enemies chance of hitting with certain weaponry.

New ship models for the type 1 and type 101

Fubuki-class destroyer

There is no way this counts as "large" lol, so expect in the next FAQ to see this returned to "huge" as I've classified it here. Destroyers are the epitome of eggs-in-one-basket play, but my god, what a basket. It has huge firepower with its 5" guns, x14 20mm (inc triple mounts), x10 HMGs and a massive 9 long-lance torpedoes mounted in rotating turrets for ease of targetting. It also packs smoke to help it hide from return fire, though most craft with big guns will also have radar. It is very fast (as fast as MTBs) and has punishing amounts of firepower and is a real force to be reckoned with, but as you'd image, is absolutely massive, giving a humoungous cross section to slam torpedoes into and its inherent speed and length makes it difficult to keep from ramming into other craft, islands and loose torps. Currently the only model I'm aware of that is the right class is the Ayanami model by Fine-molds, but this would make a good starting point for costing up the Tamiya Yukikaze/Shimikaze models that are also out there.

Aircraft

These are really generic in cruel seas but a large variety of models exist in 1:300 scale. The default choice for the Japanese is the D3A "Val" divebomber which is armed with one decent size bomb (does 5D6 damage) but there's nothing stopping you from using a B5N kate and paying the upgrade cost to a torpedo as the profile remains the same. You could in theory cost up a heavier variant like a ki48 that carried two bombs and pay for veteran crew to enable a double attack as per the rules too. 

Aircraft are a one-shot use, so don't represent fantastic value but unless you're overpassing well armed veteran crews with flak weaponry, you're very unlikely to take any flak given you're tiny, moving flat out and over half range if you're using bombs. to that end, you're usually better off taking bombers rather than torpedo bombers due to the way the flak rules work. 

They are cheap with inex crew however and to be perfectly honest, there's little reason to not just take a few at inexperienced (35pts) and just use them as kamikaze weapons to eat up any remaining fleet points as its even thematic for a late-war style force!

Sample 1k list
Escort type Hei (veteran) 325pts
Ro16 class Submarine (veteran) 295pts
101 class landing ship (veteran) 255pts

Maru-Ni suicide boats x3 (inex) 45pts
Kamikaze plane (inex) 35pts
Kamikaze plane (inex) 35pts

This gets you some distractions, cheap throwaway units that still pack some serious punch if left unmolested plus three big ships that carry versatile armaments of large and smaller calibre weaponry and have the skilled crew to put them to use and repair when you do take damage. there's lots of 20mm fire for dealing with MTB swarms and torpedoes and big calibre guns for dealing with heavier targets. The landing ship can also put troops down for invasion missions and is immune to torpedoes too. The biggest problem you'd have here is that you're going to be steadily out-diced by your opponent so you need to spend your early turns using your radar and fire directors to thin out the swarm of enemy MTBs if they go for a numbers-based approach to list building and use your kamikaze planes early to put the hurt on something big and juicy if they go for a quality over quantity approach.

Hopefully these overiews will be helpful, thoughts and comments are always appreciated!