British Steam Gun Boat for Cruel Seas

Here is the latest addition to my Cruel Seas collection, a Steam Gun Boat (SGB). The British had 7 of these built between 1940 and 1942, originally intended for escorting the North Sea convoys, but ended up being based in the Channel.

I've been really interested to see the large number of suitable ships out there designed for 3D printing, especially covering those not available from Warlord. I wanted another escort for my British fleet and really fancied the SGB, but I don't have a 3D printer. Looking around online there are various companies that will print your files for you, with prices ranging from very expensive to quite cheap. The best deal I found was Treatstock, which is an umbrella company who take your order and deal with the payment, then pass your order on to a more local, small business to print it and post to the buyer. So I downloaded the file from Wargaming 3D and placed my order for printing.

A couple of weeks later, the boat turned up in the post. The printer had been in touch a couple of times to discuss a couple of small problems before printing, he was worried that the gun barrels were too fragile and might break off. I said to go ahead, if they did break I could easily fix that with a bit of brass wire and this was really an experiment on my part anyway. In the end all the barrels remained intact.

So here are some pictures, firstly straight out of the bag.

Then with a light grey spray undercoat.

And the finished result, it could probably do with another wash of dirty rust, it looks a bit too clean still in the pictures.

With a couple or Warlord plastic models from the starter set for scale.

So what are my thoughts? I was really pleased with the model, some of the detail is not as crisp as the resin & metal models from Heroics and Ros or the Warlord plastics, but perfectly adequate for a 1:300 wargaming model.

Good value, considering it's quite a big beast, slightly longer that a Fairmile D. It cost £9.60 including shipping, so that was about £6 for the boat. That compares nicely with £5.50 for a Fairmile from H&R and much better that £15 for a Fairmile from Warlord. Obviously it would have been even more economical to have bought 3 or 4 boats in one order, as the postage would have been the same, but this was a trial run for me, in future I'll order several boats at once.

The process itself was good, very easy to upload the file to the Treatstock website. I was then offered a variety of printers and their respective charges to chose from. I went for Seaside 3D because I had read a good review of their quality, but there were some even cheaper printers available. I may give one of those a try in future.
Communication through out the process was excellent as well.

I will definitely be getting some more 3D printed models. Will I be getting my own printer? Not at list stage, I know printing my own models would bring the cost down to pennies each, but I don't see myself getting enough use to warrant the investment in a machine. Of course that may change in the future.

After being directed to some superb contemporary images of SGBs, I've added a camouflage scheme.

Sellswords in the Desert

I forgot to post this and it's been sitting in drafts for a few weeks! Ian had a day off and came over for another installment in our on-going Sellswords campaign.

I have been a bit lax about recording their adventures so a summary to bring you up to date. After a journey into the frozen north and fighting their way through a horde of undead, our heroes "liberated" an ancient book from a mysterious tomb. Unfortunately, once they had the opportunity to study it, they realised it was written in an ancient language none of them understood. Fortunately, Sintamo the Ranger had heard of a mystical hermit who was reputed to understand all the languages ever known, so the party trotted off in search of the mystic.

They arrived just in time to save him from a band of robbers (although they "accidentally" managed to burn down his house in the process). In exchange for escorting him to a place of safety, the mystic agreed to translate the book. the journey was a fraught one, as it involved fighting off the attentions  of the Black Knight (and self-styled King of the Bandits") and his over-armoured goons. It was made more stressful by the mystic's habit of criticising Edwardo's pronunciation when his failed his spell casting!

Once translated Edwardo got very excited as the book contained the formula to construct a charm than would give the holder "untold magical power". Most of the materials required were fairly mundane, except for the egg of a feathered serpent.
"Where do we find that?" Oh course the mystic could provide the answer "They nest in the deserts of the far south, where they are worshiped as gods by a race of lizard people!"
"South we go!" cried Edwardo and led the party off, before Sintamo grabbed him and turned him through 90 degrees. "If the sun's rising in front of you it's east" he muttered. "Oh really, who knew?" said the magical genius.
As our band of adventurers disappeared into the distance the dwarf was heard to grumble "If it's been "untold" for centuries, it's probably because it's a bit crap!"

After a long and tedious journey to the South Lands the party made contact with a local merchant who is prepared to sell them a map that locates the nesting region of the Feathered Serpents. He then sent a message cancelling the meeting and telling the PCs to travel to a more remote village where his agent would meet them. The reason was that he was frightened for his life as the local Assassins Guild is also after the map. Apparently, a northern stranger who got drunk was thrown out of one of the city taverns and was heard shouting in the street.

“Don’t you know who I am? I’m the greatest fire wizard in the world! And when I come back with a feathered serpent’s egg I’ll be the most powerful wizard of all! You’re be begging me to drink in your miserable little hole then!”

The merchant feels it is too dangerous to be seen meeting with the PCs in person now. He has given the map to a trusted agent who will meet them in the village on market day, when strangers in the village will not be as obvious. The PCs have been given a password to identify the merchant’s agent.

Set up, a village of small houses with various out buildings, paddocks and gardens etc. There are a number of villagers present (2 per PC) and one of them is the disguised agent. To locate the agent a PC must more within 2” of a villager and spend one action to give the password. Roll 1d6:

1-4 – Bemused local who wanders off muttering.

5- Disguised Bandit who will charge the PC (treat as ambush)

6 – Roll another d6 1-3 = The Agent  4-6 = An assassin

If he hasn't already been found, the last villager will automatically be the agent.

The peaceful village, before the bandits are placed. The PCs will enter from the left.

One of these villages is the disguised agent, but can our heroes find him? First move, first activation, Sintamo the Ranger treads on a scorpion and loses one HP. Not a good start.

As the party rush forward, Robin is ambushed by a bandit leaping out of the well! Eddie is muttering about something interfering with his magical manna (-2 on a Manna Flux card!). Brother Christos approached a villager who turned out to be an assassin! After a fierce battle, where Christos narrowly avoided several deadly blows with some nifty shield work, the assassin was cut down. Sintamo followed Brother Christos into the courtyard to get him to take the scorpion sting out of his foot.

Eddie gathers his power to  blast the bandits that have just come around the corner with a mighty fireball....phutt! (Rolls a 1 to cast, his magical energy is depleted for the rest of this game! Oh bugger!!!).

Lots more bandits and a bandit thug turn up!

The Dwarf gets distracted by an interesting wooden box on a nearby stall, whist Brother Christos heals the Ranger's splinter sting.

This time it's Eddie who gets ambushed, "Ouch, that hurt!".

As Robin tries to find the agent, he is set upon by a horde of bandits. This was a cue for Crash, Bash and Slice n' Dice. After wiping the blood off his sword and moving a body aside with his foot, Robin politely knocks on the door, only to be told to "Sod Off!" by the grumpy householder.

Things got unpleasant for a while as Gunnar Lanlarolilison was cut down by another assassin, whilst Edwardo and Eldayondo were taken down by ambushers, Brother Christos and Sintamo killed the various bandits. then went around healing the casualties and getting them back on their feet.

Just in time for another bunch of bandits to turn up. Sintamo and Christos fight a rearguard to allow the wounded party members to escape, but both take hits themselves in doing so.

Fortunately the party managed to find the agent and get hold of the map, before anyone else got killed.

Old Toys for New Toys

Whilst I was looking around for other sources of ships for Cruel Seas I found this little lot.

Matchbox Sea Kings, I remember these from when I was a kid. I got these for a tenner, so at £2 a pop that seemed a bargain. I don't know what scale they are meant to be (knowing these old die-cast they probably had no set scale, just whatever fitted into the box), but lengthwise they look OK with my existing ships.

Left to right is 2 x Convoy Escort, Guided Missile Destroyer and 2 x Frigate.

The Convoy Escort is 7.9" long and the other two are 8.6" long. That makes the Escort between 200 and 230 feet at 1/300 and 1/350 scale, and the others 215 to 250 feet long. A Hunt class Destroyer is 262 feet long and a Flower Class Corvette is 205 feet, so they are a reasonable length.
The superstructure looks like a smaller scale, not 1/600 but a lot smaller than 1/300 or 1/350. I'm not sure whether to use then as they are, with some minor adaptation, or take all the superstructure off and scratch build new stuff.

I'm going to start with the actual WW2 model, the Escort Corvette.

Here's a comparison shot with a Warlord S-boat and a 3D printed Isle Trawler. 

I'm going to start off by just giving it a new paint job and see what that looks like before I start any remodeling. Starting with a grey spray undercoat.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to add some more paint over the next couple of days.

More Cruel Seas

Ian came around tonight and I introduced him to Cruel Seas.

We started off with the first scenario from the book as a learning exercise. Then we played a S-boat attack on a British convoy, 3 S-boats vs 2 Merchantmen and 2 armed trawlers.

Ian tried launching all his torpedoes in the same turn, with a crisscrossed spread hoping to catch one of the merchants, which he did. The trawlers did a lot of damage to one of the S-boats, almost sinking it, but the surviving merchant moved in their line of fire in order to avoid torpedoes.

The trawler narrowly avoided a collision and the S-boats escaped in the confusion.

 The convoy steam ahead.

 The S boats move up.

 A narrow escape!

Oh bugger!!

Once again, it was great fun to play, |i'm hving a lot of fun with these rules.

Cruel Seas Mini Campaign

I had Henry and Colin over to play Cruel Seas today. As we had plenty of time I wanted to try out a mini campaign with two linked scenarios for a S-boat raid on a British coastal convoy. The first scenario would be the actual attack on the convoy by 4 x S-boats, the second would see the S-boats fighting their way past ambushing Fairmiles on their way home.

Scenario 1

The Germans are waiting with their engines switched off, just out of sight (off table) and enter along the E edge (long edge) at any point after turn 3.

The allies enter from the NW corner (within 30cm) and exit from the SW corner.

3 x Armed Trawlers

2 x Merchant ships

1 x Tanker

Each turn a Merchant ship plus escort enters the table.

The merchants move at combat speed (the escorts move to keep pace) until the S-boats are spotted (ie enter the table)

Between scenarios the S boats make spend 1 turn repairing damaged systems or restoring damage points.

Scenario 2

The Germans enter along the W edge (short edge) and need to exit from the E edge.

The allies enter from E edge.

2 x Fairmile D 

Victory Points

Merchant/Tanker sunk = +100 pts

Fairmile destroyed = +25 points

S boat destroyed = -50 points

Score 101 (or more) German Victory

1-100 Draw

0 (or less) British Victory

Some pictures from our game.

 The full convoy steams ahead.

 Their nemesis lie in wait.

 The S-boats start to close in.

 The escorts move up.

 Launching the first torpedoes.

 The situation at the end of turn 1.

 That's a lot of torpedoes!

 A gap appears in the defending screen as a trawler explodes and sinks below the surface.

 Another view of the incoming torpedoes.

 The second game, a Fairmile moves forward.

 The other dogboat comes in from the other side.

The surviving S-boats put on speed to try and outrun the Fairmiles.

We had great fun. In the first game the S-boats sunk a trawler and two merchantmen, but lost two boats themselves. With one of them badly damaged, they decided to cut their losses, rather than pursue the last merchant. Especially as the two surviving trawlers were dropping 3 pounder shells all around them!

In the second game the S-boats ganged up on one of the Fairmiles, charging forward a full speed hoping to rush past the dogboat before the second boat could bring all it's guns into range. They badly damaged the Fairmile, almost sinking it (the British gunnery was pretty appealing in this game, not a patch on the expert shooting displayed by the trawlers). One of the S-boats escaped safely, but the other had it's rudder damaged and careered of the table from the southern edge. As the S-boat had not escaped from the eastern edge, but had not been destroyed, we decided to call it a 25 point loss for the Germans.

The end result was +75 VPs to the Germans, so a draw overall.

 .

A New Ship!

I have added a new vessel to my British fleet, an armed Isles Trawler with a 3 pounder gun and two twin 20mm. It is my first 3D printed model, from this chap https://www.magpiedesigner.com/.

I haven't really had much experience of 3D printing and I was pleasantly surprised. It's a nice model, perfectly adequate for my standard of painting, and will look fine on the table. It isn't as crisply detailed as the Warlord plastics or Heroics and Ros resin, but then again it's half the price of the Warlord trawler or the upcoming H&R ship! My only gripe was it comes with two masts, but the hole for the rearward mast was filled in. Because it's situated between the funnel and the superstructure the gap was too small for me to fit a drill in to re-drill the hole, so my ship will only have one mast. I'm sure I'll find a use for the other one sometime.

Here are some before and after pictures, I needed to get it ready quickly for her first outing on Thursday.

As it comes out of the packet.

The finished model.

And with a Warlord Vosper for scale.

Cruel Seas Convoy

I had Mark over for a game of Cruel Seas, to give my new ships an outing. I'd come up with a scenario for a S-boat attack on a British convoy. We had great fun!

Mark had the 4 S-boats and I had the convoy of 2 merchantmen and a tanker, escorted by 2 armed trawlers. I also had a Fairmile D bringing up the rear of the convoy. On turn 1 the S-boats arrived and a merchant man and a trawler entered the table, turn 2 the tanker and a trawler came on and turn 3 the last merchantmen entered torpedo alley. On turn 4 the Fairmile would turn up like the 7th Cavalry!

It started well for the Germans, they got two torpedoes in the water lined up on the first merchantman and shot up the trawler with two S-boats. For the first two turns my trawlers' gunnery was appaling and I didn't score a single hit. Then, literally just before it slipped beneath the waves (it had 2 damage points left!), one on my trawlers got their eye in and hit one of the S-boats and took it's rudder out. The other trawler hit a second S-boat with both of it's 3 pounders, blowing some very big holes in that.

The first merchant dodged the torpedoes, but the tanker captain wasn't so lucky with the two aimed at him, he avoided the first but too a fairly central hit with the other. The tanker remained afloat after the explosion, but only just, and was quickly sunk by close range gunfire, but almost took out a S-boat in the process. With only one escort left in play two S-boats concentrated their guns at close range on the merchantmen, eventually taking him out. But now the Fairmile arrived and a badly shot-up S-boat captain found himself looking down the barrels of most of her guns, scratch one S-boat!

The last merchant came on to see 3 fish heading her way, so steamed straight ahead at full speed, hoping to get out of their path. In the end she managed it, just (had a German dice been pulled before she move a second time she would have taken two torpedo hits). In the meantime the fairmile finished off a second S-boat and the one with damaged steering left the table (whether Mark wanted her to or not!). At this point Mark's last boat decided to call it a day and legged it. He had lost 2 S-boats, but sunk a merchantman and a tanker, as well as one of the escorts, so we considered that a German win.
Some shots of the game.

 The tanker and armed trawler enter the fray.

 A S-boat fires two torps.

A S-boat slips between the gap (there had been a trawler the other side of him) and finishes off the trawler at close range.

 Things are getting crowded, watch out for that......

 ....tanker. Opps!!!

 A hit! But a dud this time.

 The Fairmile races up in support of the trawler.

A S-boat gets in close to the merchantman to finish him off.