Imperial Skies Battle Report 3 - Blockade

I pulled out my copy of Victory at Sea by Mongoose Publishing and found a scenario that I thought would work well for a game of Imperial Skies.

The blockade scenario was a good basic one that only needed a little adjustment to fit with the Imperial Skies game.

Table size:  4' x 6'

Fleets:  The attacking player (blockader) builds a fleet to an agreed upon point value.  The defender (blockade runner) builds a fleet using 50% of the points of the attacker's fleet.

Deployment: The blockader chooses a short table edge. He then chooses a ship and places that ship anywhere along the short table edge up with 24" away from his long table edge. He then rolls a die and multiplies the result by 12 inches. The ship must be moved to the right this many inches. He may deploy the ship anywhere within 6 inches of that position. This must be done for all ships in the blockader's fleet. When completed, all ships must be facing the same direction.

The blockade runner will move all his ships onto the table anywhere along the opposite long table edge in the first turn.

Scenario rules: The blockade runner has a "fee" turn at the beginning of the battle. In effect, he may move and attack with his ships normally, but the blockading fleet may do nothing - its ships may not move, fire, or use command actions. They must simply take any damage dealt during this turn. After this first turn, initiative is rolled normally.

Game length: The game continues until the blockade runner has either been destroyed or has left the table.

Victory conditions: The scenario uses Victory Points to determine who wins. The blockader scores victory points equal to the value of any ship destroyed. The blockade runner only scores victory points for moving ships off the blockader's long table edge. He scores points equal to the value of the ship that exits the table.

I choose a large selection of small ships for the French fleet.  I was thinking they would have the best chance of breaking through the line.  I plan to replay the scenario with a different make up for the French Fleet.

French Fleet
Perigeaux Class Patrol Nef x 6

Austro-Hungarian Fleet
Danube Class Patrol Nef x 3
Huszar Class Destroyer x 2
Prinz Eugen Class Destroyer x 1

Imperial Skies Battle Report 1

I took some models and the rules for Imperial Skies to the Recruits Gaming Convention in Lee Summit, MO.

I put together a scenario and ran it for some of the attendees at the convention and am counting this as my first game of Imperial Skies for my 6 x 6 Game Challenge.

The Allied Powers received intelligence that the Central Powers had developed a chemical weapon and were transporting it to the front lines.  The Allied Powers dispatched an available French force to intercept the convoy.

 The French forces could not simply shoot down the merchants carrying the chemical weapons because they were afraid that the wind would carry the weapons onto the nearby coast and kill many civilian lives.

 The Central Powers considered the weapon to valuable to destroy so would fight to maintain control of them and would attempt to retake the ships if they were boarded.

The game started out well for the Central Powers, but the dice turned on them and they had pretty poor rolls throughout most of the game.

The end results showed all but two of the Central Powers ships being shot down while the French only lost 7 ships and most were the patrol boats, not the cruisers.

The rules worked well, even with several new players that had never seen them before.  It was a fun game, and I look forward to more games in the future.

Imperial Skies - Austria-Hungarian Fleet - Budapest Class Light Battleship

The next and final ship for Doug's Austria-Hungarian fleet is a Budapest Class Light Battleship.

I took a few progress pictures so you can see how these come together without watching the video.

The fleet has turned out very nice in my opinion.  Using the Imperial Skies rules, this fleet totals 510 points.

This fleet is a great example that you don't need a complicated paint scheme to make a decent looking fleet.  Just spend some time putting some paint on the models and in no time at all you will have a fleet ready for action.

You can step up the detail and shading or you can even go for a more simple paint job.

Paints Used:
Army Painter
    Greenskin
    Matt Black
    Deep Blue
Vallejo Game Color
    Scorpy Green
Vallejo Model Color
    Tan Earth
    Sky Blue
    Flat Red
Games Workshop/Citadel
    Agrax Earthshade

Imperial Skies - Austria-Hungarian Fleet - Prinz Eugen Class Destroyer

The next ship for Doug's Austria-Hungarian fleet is a Prinz Eugen Class Destroyer.

I've used the same paint scheme on this as I have all the other ships for this fleet and they are starting to look like a nice group of ships.

I have one more ship in my queue for this fleet and it will be complete.

Paints Used:
Army Painter
   Greenskin
   Matt Black
   Deep Blue
Vallejo Game Color
   Scorpy Green
Vallejo Model Color
   Tan Earth
   Sky Blue
   Flat Red
Games Workshop/Citadel
   Agrax Earthshade

Imperial Skies - Austria-Hungarian Fleet - Huszar Class Destroyers

Next up for Doug's fleet are a couple of Huszar Class Destroyers.  These are painted the same colors as the Danube class ships.

There isn't really anything fancy about the paint job, but I think they look good.

Paints Used:
Army Painter
   Greenskin
   Matt Black
   Deep Blue
Vallejo Game Color
   Scorpy Green
Vallejo Model Color
   Tan Earth
   Sky Blue
   Flat Red
Games Workshop/Citadel
   Agrax Earthshade

I've got a few more ships to paint for this fleet and will share them as I finish them.

Imperial Skies - Austria-Hungarian Fleet - Dunabe Class Patrol Nefs

I am painting an Austria-Hungarian aeronef fleet for my friend Doug for use with Imperial Skies.  I'm trying to paint these to match the paint scheme found at Brigade Model's website for this fleet.

There really isn't anything too complicated about this paint job, but the great things about these models is that you don't need a complicated paint job to make them look nice.

I hull and super-structure is a basic green with some drybrushing to brighten it up.  I painted the guns and smoke stacks black and the deck boards tan.  A little detail on the tail fins and some paint on the windows and these are pretty much done.

Paints Used:
Army Painter
   Greenskin
   Matt Black
   Deep Blue
Vallejo Game Color
   Scorpy Green
Vallejo Model Color
   Tan Earth
   Sky Blue
   Flat Red
Games Workshop/Citadel
   Agrax Earthshade

I will share more videos as I continue to work on this fleet.