From: "Patrick R. Collins" Subject: Queen Victoria's Navy I just finished playing the beta version of QVN from BoneGames. It's a game of the predreadnought era. The turn sequence is interesting, as you roll each turn to see who is "advantaged" (and gets to move last), and you select you speed for the turn before either side moves. Torpedos are launched, then the disadv. side moves, followed by the advantaged side. Gunnery combat is last. It is a beta version, so I'll try not to be too hard. There is a lot of wristage, as BROG would say. Firing on a ship is not too difficult. There are several lines on the CRT, from -3 to +3. Modifiers are actually column shifts, not die roll modifiers. So, you figure your shifts, roll two die, and see if you hit. Then the fun begins. You may have 1,2, or 3 hits scored. Each hit does damage equal to your battery's damage rating. So, two hits with a gun that's a 6 is 12. You now roll to see where EACH damage point is applied. Two die for that, and if you get a hull/belt, you roll odd/even to see if it's the belt or hull. And, you must be sure that the gun you hit with can penetrate the armor at the point. If not, no damage. Torpedos work the same, but the matrix you roll on gives you mostly hull/belt results. I realize that much of my dislike for the game is personal taste. Many naval gamers WANT to know where each shell hits, and want to see a gun caliber vs armor penetration roll. Those people will really like this game. The combat modifiers really encourage you to close the range, which is realistic for this time period. But that means that not only primaries, but secondary and tertiary batteries come into play, and cause damage. Indeed, your secondaries will often do more work for you, as the system gives a bonus to more guns firing. Since most ships have lots of secondaries, but few primaries, that's where the execution will happen. Torpedo hits are rare, but will often kill or severly cripple. Again, you want to be up close and personal for torpedos. Another really fun aspect, is the maneuvering. Your ships move by division, and can be line ahead, abreats, or echelon (but the diagrams in the current rules are all wrong as to what is what). You must move one hex forward in order to turn a hex. Given that you must plot your speed in advance, the possibility of ramming, and fouling ranges is not just present, but rather likely. Ramming is also a valid combat tactic. I played the last scenario, between 8 Italian and 9 French ships. I tried to maneuver three lines of the Italian ships into one, to cross the "T". What I got was a bunching of ships, fouled ranges, and two near collisions. Let's just say I learned why navy ships like lots of room between them. A four player game, with limited communications would be a blast. In about 5 turns, two French cruisers went to the bottom, one Italian battleship was barely afloat, and another in very bad shape. The French B's were about the cross the stern T of the Italians, while they were well positioned to finish off the last of the French cruisers. One thing that might help would be a sensible ship listing. The curent system of using letters for armor (and reverse, so that Z is the best A the worst) along with a different system to describe ships batteries would make this much more playable. I would prefer a more streamlined damage system but I know that sea dogs may like it the way it is. In any event, it is certainly worth a look. Send an email to bonegames@bonegames.com for a PDF of the rules. Regards, Pat pcollins@prairienet.org Last Played: Great War at Sea I, Bodyguard/Overlord, Fortunes of War (Mini) http://www.prairienet.org/~pcollins From: Bruce Biskup Subject: QVN comparison to Jack Greene's Tsushima RGS48@aol.com asked for a comparison of Queen Victoria's Navy (QVN) and Jack Greene's Tsushima. I believe that I can provide a descent comparison of the two games since not only do I own a copy of Jack Greene's Tsushima but I am the designer of QVN. Tsushima was published by Strategy and Tactics magazine in 1989, issue 130. It is a tactical simulation of the final naval engagment of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. Capital ships are modeled individually while torpedo boats are grouped into flotillas. Jack Greene is also the designer of Iron Bottom Sound, a simulation of the night naval engagments around Guadalcanal during WWII. Iron Bottom Sound is currently being republished by Moments in History as Iron Bottom Sound II. QVN beta5.0 is the latest version of a tactical naval combat game that covers the period from 1880-c.1907. QVN is currently available as a freeware boardgame from BoneGames and QVN b2.0 can be downloaded for free from www.bonegames.com. My partner and I have not decided what to do with the game and that is the reason why we have not updated the beta version to the latest version. In QVN, each hex is approximately 500m and each turn is ~5 minutes long. QVN is intended to be the first part of a three part game system that consists of basic rules, advanced rules, and ship lists for nations. Like Tsushima, QVN models capital ships as individual units. Smaller vessels like torpedo-boats are not included in this version of QVN since I ran out of room in the rules. We are trying to design our games to be easy and quick to play. We accomplish this goal by leaving out all but the most important details. Each ship is described by a alpha-numeric ship control log to facilitate the printing of ship logs on computers. QVN b5.0 includes rules on torpeo combat, intentional and unintentional ram attacks, fire damage, visibility, sea state, night fighting, and command and control. In the advance rules, I intend to include a more detailed command and control system, rules for multi-ship units like torpedo boats, mines, shore batteries and a design your own scenario/campaign system. Jack Greene's Tsushima uses a split movement system in that each ship's speed is expressed as the total number of hexes traveled over 2 turns. QVN uses a simpler speed system based on speed per given turn. Jack Greene's game uses many tables and 2 types of dice (6 sided and 10 sided). QVN is designed to use only 6 sided dice and has a total of 9 tables. Tsushima groups guns as heavy, medium, and light and assigns a strength factor to each battery an armour has only 6 grades: none and I-V. In QVN, batteries are grouped as primary, secondary and tertiary and correspond to Tsushima's heavy, medium, and light. There are more armour grades in QVN. Like Tsushima, combat in QVN is a two step process. The first step is to see if a hit has been scored. The second step is to determine the location of the damage. The actual details of combat are quite different between the games. Tsushima, is a detailed simulation of a specific naval battle and Jack Greene has provided extensive notes and commentary as part of the magazine article. QVN has much simpler game mechanics to keep the playing time short. All scenarios in QVN are ahistorical so that I could protray some of the more unique vessels of the period like the HMS Inflexible and French Redoutable. I believe that the QVN game engine is robust enough to simulate a historical engagement but I would need to add a host of new rules and quite a bit of special scenario rules to adequetly simulate an engagement like Tsushima. The advanced rules are intended to fill in these gaps that the bacis game suffers from and will include battles like Tsushima, Yalu (Sino-Japanese war) and Santiago (Spanish-American war). As we create our games as a hobby and not a business, I will not speculate on if or when we will ever finish the game. Final comments: Tsushima is a detailed tactical naval game of that battle. I believe that it is of moderate to more than moderate in complexity and is unfortunately out of print. QVN is a simpler game but is still an adequate simulation of naval warfare of that period. QVN b2.0 is available for free at the listed website. Bruce Biskup bonegame@nol.net www.bonegames.com