Imperial Skies Battle Report 5 - Battle of Denmark Strait

I played yet another game of Imperial Skies using a Victory at Sea scenario.  This time I played Battle of Denmark Strait.  Again, I had to adjust the scenario to fit my collection of models (the Germans are on loan from Randy), but it worked out fine.

I upped the ship number to 4 ships for this game.  I know, I'm getting a little crazy.  It was a fun game and played pretty quickly.

I think I need to expand my choices of ships, but I am making due with what I have.

I will be adding some Imperial Skies ships to my paint queue soon.

Imperial Skies Battle Report 4 - Clash of Giants

I managed to get my another game of Imperial Skies played.  I played another scenario from Victory at Sea game, but this time I chose a historical scenario; Clash of Giants.  I adjusted the scenario a little and made it work with the ships I have available.

This was a very small game with only 1 ship on the French side and 2 ships on the German side.

It played well enough and I will be playing more of these small scale scenarios.  It gives a little different feel to the game, but that isn't a bad thing.

The great thing about any game is trying out different scenarios and seeing how it works.  I encourage you to check this game out.

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 2

I thought it would be a good idea to show the basic mechanics of Imperial Skies by Rottenlead Publishing.  I put together a couple of small fleets and set up my game table.

In this battle a small fleet of German ships have come across a fleet of French ships and a skirmish ensues.

The German's didn't have the best dice in the game and came out a little short because of that.  I had a good time playing the game and since there isn't any hidden information, the game worked well as a solo experience.  I will likely be playing more solo games in the future.

I didn't play until all the ships were dead as I thought it made more sense for Germans to break off once the battle had turned against them.

Maybe next time, the Germans will have a better showing as they have not done well in the last 2 games.

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 - French Fleet - Part 3

Next up for my French Fleet was a couple of Formidable Class Light  Cruisers.

These ships turned out well.  I like the way they look and I might need to get a couple more to add to the fleet once I get the rest of them painted.

Stay tuned to see which ship gets painted next.

Imperial Skies - French Fleet - Part 2

I finally got back around to my French fleet for the Imperial Skies aeronef game.

I used the first French ships as a guide and painted these Le Brouchet Class Torpedo Frigates with the same colors.  I like the look of the ships and think the fleet will look great when it all comes together.

Stay tuned to see this fleet grow as I continue to expand this fleet.

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.

Imperial Skies - French Fleet - Part 1

I've been working on painting some French ships to face off against my Turkish fleet using the Imperial Skies rules.

I put together a video showing how I painted the models.  I used CorSec Engineering stands on the ships.

I'm pleased with the results and look forward to adding more ships to the fleet.

Imperial Skies - Thoughts after my first few games...

I finally managed to get a couple of games played of Imperial Skies.

Both games so far were played with only class A and B ships and a pretty low number of ships.

The first game was a training exercise between two fleets of Turkish ships.  I took 2 Muin-I-Zaffer Class Dig Cruisers.  My opponent (Doug) took 1 Muin-I-Zaffer Class Dig Cruisers and 3 Keyk Class Patrol Digs.  We set up fairly close and had no terrain on the table.

A couple of rounds of fierce battle and I had claimed victory.

After the battle we discussed our thoughts and our primary concern was that the group activation action seemed very powerful.  Of course, I'm certain that wasn't written with this size game in mind, but if we play more games of this size, we may need to make some adjustments to that command action.

The second game saw a small clash between a Turkish force of 3 Keyk Class Patrol Digs, and 2 Muin-I-Zaffer Class Dig Cruisers (commanded by Randy) and a French force of 5 Hussard Class Motor Torpedo Nefs and 1 La Brouchet Class Torpedo Frigate.  Again, we set up on an open table, and this time we started about 3 feet apart.

This game was very close with both sides taking heavy damage.  The torpedoes seemed to be very powerful, but since they are limited to 2 shots per turn and the ships carrying them only had 3 structural points, they didn't seem over powered.

The French flotilla took the advantage and managed to dispatch the Turkish forces.

Overall Thoughts...

I want to play more games with some larger ships before I give a final opinion, but for now, I like it.  The game mechanics are pretty simple and plays quickly.  Some might think that is a bad thing, but I liked it.  I really hope that as we add in bigger ships, the speed of play stays.

There is not a lot of book keeping, but you do have to keep track of which ship is which (if you have multiple ships of the same class).

We have not used all the rules yet (elevation, fighters, ground targets, etc) so we still have a bit to learn, though I am not sure we will use all of the possible options.

I also think use of scenarios will spice things up quite a bit.  I wish some had been included with the game, but I think I can come up with some decent scenarios for future games.

I will put together a more complete review after I've played a few more games with larger fleets and larger ships.

Imperial Skies - Assembling Italians and Austro-Hungarians

I took a little break from my Walking Dead project to help my friend Doug get started on some aeronefs.  My task is to clean up the models, assemble them, and prime them white.

These models are from Brigade Models and look pretty good.  A little time spent trimming flash and drilling a few holes for masts and I'm all done.

A quick coat of white primer and I will be done and will give them back to Doug so he can do the painting.

Italians

Giulo Cesare Class Light Battleship
It is missing its tail fins

Pisa Class Cruisers

Palestro Class Destroyer

Austria-Hungarians

Budapest Class Light Battleship

Huszar Class Destroyer

Prinz Eugen Class Destroyer

Danube Class Patrol Nef

These models look very nice.  I look forward to meeting some of these ships among the clouds and battling against them.

Imperial Skies - Turkish Fleet - Part 1

I previously posted about my first attempt at painting models for Imperial Skies.  You can read all about it here.

Muin-I-Zaffer Class Dig Cruiser

Now that I have colors picked out, the rest of the fleet should be easy to finish up.

With a couple of cruisers painted, I wanted to paint some patrol ships.  I figure a cruiser and a couple frigates will give me a decent starting force for a few test games of Imperial Skies.

The small ships at the bottom are Keyk Class Patrol Digs.  The slightly bigger ships at the top are Yarhisar Class Fast Torpedo Digs.  The Yarhisar will be painted at a future date.

Next I needed to decide how I was going to mount them on the stands.  I drilled 2 holes in the bottom of the ship and then bent a paperclip so it would fit in the holes.  I filed a notch into the top of the flight stand and glued the paperclip in place.

This isn't going to be how I mount all the ships.  It is just too fiddly.  I decided to put in an order for some CorSec Engineering stands and mounts.  These appear to be a pretty slick option, but they are a bit pricey.  I hope I get them soon so I can try them out on my next batch of ships.

I followed the same pattern for painting these ships as I did for the cruiser above..

I started with a spray coat of light brown and applied a wash of Agrax Earthshade.  I painted the structure neutral grey and highlighted that with stonewall grey.

The turret was painted black and the smoke stack was painted white.

The smoke stack got a dot of black and the windows were painted blue and highlighted with a light blue.

Quick and easy paint jobs are my specialty.

I still need to figure out some markings for the tail fins.  I got some flags along with my order from Brigade Models, but they are too big to fit on the tail fin of these models.  I tried one on the side to see how it looked.  I was unimpressed.

Instead I thought I would paint the tail fin red and free hand a moon and star.

Not perfect, but I like the look.  Any ship that doesn't have a flag on a mast will have the tail fin painted.

The completed squadron is now ready for battle.

Stay tuned to see how this fleet grows.