Cruel Seas M-Class Minesweeper
After the decision fell towards the Flower Class Corvette as the large ship of the Royal Navy fleet, I was looking for a fitting counterpart for the German Kriegsmarine. My choice went towards the German M-Class Minesweeper.
The Minesweeper was in competition with the Marinefährprahm (basically a landing ship) and the Vorpostenboot. The landing ship would be something to keep in mind, if I wanted to extend the Operation Sealion / Gigant towards Cruel Seas. The Vorpostenboot is an armed civil ship, similar to the armed trawler of the British and looked a bit to improvised to counter the proud British Corvette. So the decision was clear, it must be the Minesweeper, Minensuchboot M1940.
Cruel Seas British Flower Class Corvette
In extension to the fleets of the Strike Fast! Strike Hard! starter kit I chose a large vessel for both sides. For the British that was the British Flower Class Corvette.
Among the large British ships would have been a Landing Craft Gun or the armed trawler. The landing craft looked more like something for the pacific and the armed trawler was a bit too close to the merchant tanker, and this is a Corvette, a Corvette! So the choice was pretty clear.
Cruel Seas Merchant Tanker
The Merchant Tanker is one of the firsts vessels that were available for Cruel Seas and has a cardboard stand in included with the Strike Fast! Strike Hard! starter kit.
As a "neutral" ship that could be found in service of every nation this kit bears the potential to be part of most scenarios, either as a mission objective to defend / attack or for example to claim its cargo. Merchant tankers had the objective to ferry supplies such as food, fuel, steel, clothing or munitions and weaponry.
Multiple Vessels incoming, new White Dwarf
I have the reviews on some of the larger vessels for Cruel Seas in the box and ready for next week to be published, with the merchant tanker, the flower-class corvette and the m-class minesweeper waiting.
Jams, Titans and Vessels
Radaddel celebrate 25 years of tabletop in their store, and even added a delicious jam to your orders during the celebration. I know Matthias for more than 10 years now and that jam thing caught me, so I ordered two boxes of Adeptus Titanicus and got strawberry jam on top of it. Yay!
Why Reaver and Warhounds? Well, I had a blast reviewing both kits last december during the Titan themed week, the regular Reaver is a fine kit, but the "evil" one with Melta Cannon and Chainfist is really great. Originally I had planned on buying the battlegroup, but that one is currently not available through my resellers (I'm simply not paying retail on a box with that price tag), I went with the Warhounds that they had on sale with 25% during the celebration and added the Reaver to it.
Look up to the Sky, look at the Horizon
I just did the Cruel Seas unboxing and review and Warlord Games introduced the next naval wargame, Black Seas. Similar to how Cruel Seas ties in with Bolt Action, Black Seas will tie in with Black Powder, focussing on the naval battles between 1770 to 1830.
Cruel Seas – Strike Fast, Strike Hard! starter box
With Cruel Seas Warlord Games expands the world war 2 brand of Bolt Action, after Blood Red Skies and areal combat, into naval wargaming. We will look into the Strike Fast, Strike Hard! starter set for Cruel Seas today, that gets you started with the 1:300 scale naval combat game.
The Strike Fast, Strike Hard! boxed set is one of two ways to get into Cruel Seas. You can either buy the 50 GBP boxed set, or go for the stand alone rulebook at 20 GBP. Similar to what we know from the Bolt Action range, you receive a special miniature when you order either the boxed set or rulebook directly from Warlord Games. In this case, a very fitting "Das Boot" miniature, the top part of the iconic U96, the german Type VII C submarine.
Naval and nostalgic wargames
To continue the preparation of more Oldhammer, it is time to strip some plastic. I showed you the Rhino the last time, as well as some stripping of metal parts. Now we move on to the next level of complexity, larger kits and more fragile materials. Get a properly sized container and get on to it. I'll keep you posted in the next Rhino and Oldhammer posts.
Korea, Tanks and even more Boats
I am currently preparing the Cruel Seas review, along with the Flotillas and larger ships. I mentioned the resin ships in my last short update, Civilans, Romans and Boats, and I find it very appealing to build something completely different to the very dominant 28mm kits that I usually cover.
Assembly goes fast, as does the cleaning of the models, but the instructions could be clearer. I'll go into detail on that in the review.
Civilians, Romans and Boats
Since Wednesday the Colony 87 Kickstarter is online. The range moved from Jon Boyce to Crooked Dice and has its third wave crowdfunded.
And the campaign was funded within 15 minutes (with myself among the first backers!) and now already has unlocked the initial four stretch goals. Might be even more as there is a small delay between me writing this article and it going online. So I assume there is further progress.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/c87-3/colony-87-the-third-wave-28mm-sci-fi-civilians