BattleFleet Baltic - Updated Ship Sheets

We have continued our play-tests for BFB. The rules are pretty much done, expect for minor tweaks and clarifications, but the mechanisms as such are sound now.

The Teutonic Order and the Kingdom of Sweden an Denmark (a.k.a. the Union of Kalmar) have a fair few ship classes stamped green, i.e. the stats will not change anymore.
Swedish-Danish Fleet (British in Dystopian Wars)
Fleet of the Teutonic Order (Prussians in DW)

The New Finland Fleet has seen initial play-testing. The general shape of the stats is there, but details will change.
New Finland Fleet (Antarctica in DW)

The remaining fleets are statted, but have not been tested. Expect to see substantial changes in revisions.
Fleet of the British Commonwealth (French in DW; on the painting table, therefore next to be tested)
Fleet of the Novgorod Commune (FSA in DW)
Fleet of the Hanseatic League (Italians in DW)
Royal Polish Fleet (Japanese in DW)

Feel free to download, test and give us feedback.


On the horizon, CBDR:

• Point values for Teutonic Order and SweDenmark
• A report on the BFB presentation at Trave Spieler Treff in September
• An extensive battle report. 

Material für die Spieler der "Waisen der Vier Winde"-Kampagne

Hier sind die Links zum aktuellen Material zur Wd4W-Kampagne:

Aktueller Charakterbogen

Kampfregeln

Zeitstrahl (Spielerversion)

Why Kites do not drift straight downwind

Having just finished Frank Chadwick's highly recommendable contribution to the Space:1889 and Beyond series of novels, I was left profoundly disturbed. Mr Chadwick, it appears, has succumbed to the voice of reason in the matter of nautical physics as applied to Martian cloudships.

To elaborate: in material published for the original edition of the Space:1889 games, High Martian cloudships (kites for short) have been depicted with rigging reminiscent of Earth sailing ships. See the three ships in the example below (courtesy of Uhrwerk Verlag, publishers of the German version of Space:1889) This is, in my humble opinion, aesthetically A Good Thing (TM).

Admittedly, it does not pass any muster other than the aesthetic, though. How so? Wet sailing vessels work because they constitute an interface between two media: wind pushes against their rigging, and water pushes against their hull. Only because hull and rigging do not offer the same resistance (strength and direction) to the medium they are enveloped in, can a sailing ship convert this difference into movement. More specifically: movement in a direction diverging from wind or current. Thus a kite, being enveloped in one medium only (air) can plausibly only drift downwind, because it does not have any water to brace itself against and "divert" wind power for propulsion. Frank Chadwick, in A Prince of Mars, has done the sensible thing, and revised his concept of how kites work. Here, kites lift themselves to high altitudes by means of their liftwood lattices, pitch their bow downwards, reduce lift and use canvas sails (wings, really) extending horizontally from the kite's sides to glide forward. Plausible? Yes. Romantically reminiscent of the Age of Sail? Most definitely not!

This simply will not do for the game I want to present. So how can I reconcile vertical rigging to single-medium kites? Simple, by cranking up the old suspension-of-disbelief a notch and introducing another medium: the gravitational field. What if the liftwood lattices resist the gravitational field just like a keel resists water?

To illustrate:

The picture above is a rough illustration of what a liftwood panel already does. To wit, it provides a force directly opposed to the force of gravity, which is proportional to the surface area of the liftwood panel as projected onto a plane orthogonal to the gravity vector*.

To make vertical rigging plausible, we need to add the following assumption:

In addition to providing lift, liftwood also resists being pushed orthogonally to a plane defined by the liftwood's grain and the gravitational force acting on the panel. Figuratively, one might think of the liftwood lattices extending an insubstantial "gravitation keel"** straight upward and downward, parallel to the kite's longitudinal axis. If this gravkeel resists being pushed through the gravitational field, we have the same set up as in a wet sailing ship, allowing us to plausibly rig kites vertically, with towering pyramids of canvas, dont'cherknow.

I will close my ruminations here, as I can hear ominous creaking sounds issuing from my suspension-of-disbelief.


* Me old maths teacher would kill me for making such a hash of geometry nomenclature.
** Actually, it is more of a centreboard, not having any weight.

für eine Hand voll Würfel - Kampfregeln aktualisiert

Ich habe die Kampfregeln um die Werte für unbewaffneten Kampf und um eine Klarstellung beim Kampf mit mehreren Beteiligten erweitert. Neue Version hier.

BattleFleet Baltic - beta version

The rules for BattleFleet Baltic have proceeded past the initial test phase, and will now be made available to the general public (that's you out there), for play-testing, feedback, ranting, what have you.

What's all this 'BattleFleet Baltic' malarkey then? Simple: I bought a bucket full of Spartan's Dystopian Wars ships when they came out, because I loved the models to distraction (and still do).
When I got hold of the rules and tested them, however, I found that they do not agree with a hoary gamer like yours truly: they are too fine-grained for my taste.

To avoid the embarrassment of committing yet another consignment of lead (well, resin) to the bottomless storage shelves, there to gather dust until Judgement Day, I decided to cook up my own rules for them.
Having shanghaied a couple of gaming mates, we set out to design rules, sketch out a background set in 1912 in an alternative history Baltic Sea, and run initial play tests. The result of which labours you may download below:

Downloads

BattleFleet Baltic rules - The booklet containing the complete set of rules. You will also need some of the ship sheets below to play, as they contain the ship statistics.

Baltic Gazetteer (background) - An overview of the nations that form the faction in BattleFleet Baltic. As such, the first instalment in a number of essays that will detail the alternative history setting for this game.

Ship sheets for the Teutonic Order - These use the Dystopian Wars models for the Prussian Empire. The file provides you with everything you need to play all models in the Prussian starter box and some beyond that, based on our model collection. The file is in .pdf format.

Ship sheets for the Royal Swedish-Danish Navy - Same thing for the SweDanes. Again, the file has all you need to play with models from the Britannian starter box, and some more besides.

Feedback

So what's that got to do with you? Well, if you would like to give your DisWars ships a bit of a different spin, feel free to try out our rules. And, more importantly, we will be very grateful for any feedback you have. No matter if it is on rules, stats, background, what ship sheets you would like to see, or presentation, anything will allow us to continue our work and tune the rules while churning out ship sheets for the other factions.

Next Up

On the horizon, CBDR:

• the Gotland Incident, a demonstration scenario
• ship sheets for the Hanseatic League (French Models)
• ship sheets for the Finnish Fennoman Navy (Covenant of Antarctica Models)
• ship sheets for the Kingdom of Poland (Blazing Suns Models)
• ship sheets for the Commune of Novgorod (FSA Models)
• ship sheets for the renegade Finnish Merivoimat Marinen (Russian Models)
• 5 scenarios arranged in a narrative campaign, covering the Gotland Campaign waged by the Teutonic Order against SweDenmark, with guest appearances by other navies 
• an extension book covering submarines and introducing a new faction (hint: their leader empties his cups in one draught)
• a set of map-based campaign rules

... and the 'Vasa'

I have completed my SweDanish navy ships for BattleFleet Baltic, using the Britannian models from the Spartan's Dystopian Wars line. The last to hit the waters is the 'Vasa', so far the only aeroplane carrier comissioned by the Swedes. I chose a pretty simple paintjob, to quickly get the hull onto the table for play-testing.

More Infinity...

My Space Monkey Mafia is moving towards playability. Here's the diplomatic corps, complete with automatic rifle, jump pack and wicked knifey thing. Rather than mincing words, Morat diplomats mince their negotiation partners, it appears.

Thene there are the two remaining Morats, with the Hacker suffering from a severe case of "Too effing dark for a good photo".

And lastly, the HMG Intruder. I've been told that every Nomad force should have one.