Close Quarters Review
Morning chaps, at vapnartak the other week I picked up Air strike! and Close quarters expansions for Blood red skies and Cruel seas.
I'll review both but for now, here's the rundown on Close Quarters.
Firstly: Art. Its the same gorgeous layout as the main book and features lots of bright colourful pictures. it reads well and is a good depth of pages for an expansion (68)
It is however an expansion, not a revised core book. for those of you out there who don't like the turning/torps/etc, none of that is changed here.
Content:
The book starts off with a "scenario generator" that allows you to play pickup games. By default it wants you to roll for everything off of a million bazillion tables which is gonna get old pretty quickly.
The victory conditions and force generators are gonna be good for "generic games" though and the mode is definitely welcome even if it is highly unlikely to make for "balanced" games between mates.
It then moves on to regional focus, giving some attention to pacific, baltic and meditteranean theatres befire returning to the channel and gives a slew of historical missions
From there we're then into the juicy stuff!
(the japs, ruskies and yanks also get some new ships!)
The addition of the Yugolsavs and Finns is a nice touch to expand the game but both lists (especially the Yugoslavs) are a bit paltry compared to the main nations.
Theres a nice section with transport capacities listed for various landing craft, ships and such with a view to running "invasions". It also lists a basic way of resolving ground to ground combat between these forces and some new coastal defences.
They are very sparse though and signpost you to "bolt action" for a better experience.
For me the biggest detractor in this is that there's absolutely no guidance on how to set up one of these "invasion" missions.
What would be really useful is a ration of defender to attacker, distance from the beach, guidance on secorting ships etc.
They're nice to have but its gonna take a lot of trial and error before players get the feel right for it.
Aircraft:
The underloved planes of "vanilla" rulebook get a good lick of paint with this expansion and finally get the ability to strafe, use rockets, air dropped depth charges and such. There's a roster of aircraft for the nations included and costings and armaments too.
There's a bit on german guided weapons, japanese kamikaze, "hummingbird" helicopters, flying boats and such.
Its a huge huge upgrade for aircraft in general and after the new missions, probably the "must-have" section of the book.
Submarines
Subs get their own section too and play out roughly similar to the christmas pdf rules warlord released.
Subs can now submerge and play a shell game with tokens to hide their true location. depth charges are expanded for anti-sub warfare and sonar now actually does something too.
Mini-subs get better rules and some nice fluff as do manned torpedoes.
The book then rounds off with a small section on Q-Ships and gives the rules for their "camouflage" and a small roster of available ships for some of the nations.
I guess they're kinda ok, but if playing matched play with points, your opponent is gonna know that the merchant man on the board isn't real as you'd be several hundred points under your fleet allowance.
And that folks, is that.
All in all, its really nice for rounding out aircraft and subs, plus brings a lot to the table for historical missions and a scenario generator breaks the grind of doing the same missions over and over which adds good longevity to the game.
However, it doesn't do anything for those that don't like the core mechanics and doesn't clear up many of the ambiguities present from core release.
Happy gaming guys!
I'll review both but for now, here's the rundown on Close Quarters.
Firstly: Art. Its the same gorgeous layout as the main book and features lots of bright colourful pictures. it reads well and is a good depth of pages for an expansion (68)
It is however an expansion, not a revised core book. for those of you out there who don't like the turning/torps/etc, none of that is changed here.
Content:
The book starts off with a "scenario generator" that allows you to play pickup games. By default it wants you to roll for everything off of a million bazillion tables which is gonna get old pretty quickly.
The victory conditions and force generators are gonna be good for "generic games" though and the mode is definitely welcome even if it is highly unlikely to make for "balanced" games between mates.
It then moves on to regional focus, giving some attention to pacific, baltic and meditteranean theatres befire returning to the channel and gives a slew of historical missions
The addition of the Yugolsavs and Finns is a nice touch to expand the game but both lists (especially the Yugoslavs) are a bit paltry compared to the main nations.
Theres a nice section with transport capacities listed for various landing craft, ships and such with a view to running "invasions". It also lists a basic way of resolving ground to ground combat between these forces and some new coastal defences.
They are very sparse though and signpost you to "bolt action" for a better experience.
For me the biggest detractor in this is that there's absolutely no guidance on how to set up one of these "invasion" missions.
What would be really useful is a ration of defender to attacker, distance from the beach, guidance on secorting ships etc.
They're nice to have but its gonna take a lot of trial and error before players get the feel right for it.
The underloved planes of "vanilla" rulebook get a good lick of paint with this expansion and finally get the ability to strafe, use rockets, air dropped depth charges and such. There's a roster of aircraft for the nations included and costings and armaments too.
Its a huge huge upgrade for aircraft in general and after the new missions, probably the "must-have" section of the book.
Submarines
Subs get their own section too and play out roughly similar to the christmas pdf rules warlord released.
Subs can now submerge and play a shell game with tokens to hide their true location. depth charges are expanded for anti-sub warfare and sonar now actually does something too.
Mini-subs get better rules and some nice fluff as do manned torpedoes.
I guess they're kinda ok, but if playing matched play with points, your opponent is gonna know that the merchant man on the board isn't real as you'd be several hundred points under your fleet allowance.
All in all, its really nice for rounding out aircraft and subs, plus brings a lot to the table for historical missions and a scenario generator breaks the grind of doing the same missions over and over which adds good longevity to the game.
However, it doesn't do anything for those that don't like the core mechanics and doesn't clear up many of the ambiguities present from core release.
Happy gaming guys!
Comments
Post a Comment