Draco’s Cruel Seas – British
Recommendations: 2
About the Project
So, I got a hold of the stater for Cruel Seas a week or so ago, and one visit to my games club, consisting of two games sold it for me. So, what's the next step? Putting together a flotilla, of course! My initial thought was to put together an Italian Flotilla only, given how nice the Corvette in that starter set looked - but after playing around with the lists a bit, and looking at the size of the models, it became apparent that I should be able to put together a few flotillas, rather than just one. And that first game sold me on S-Boots, anyway. This is one of three projects I'm doing, each for a different nation. The Brits will be the final fleet I put together, given the large selection of ships they have - I'm going to do a few boats for now, but most of it will be once the Corvettes and Destroyers are available.
Related Game: Cruel Seas
Related Company: Warlord Games
Related Genre: Historical
This Project is On Hold
Recruitment
When I was in high school, my father gave me a book to read called “Three Corvettes”, written by Lt. Commander Nicholas Monsarrat. The book is a true-life (but wartime censored) account of the author’s time aboard a trio of Corvettes that participated in mainly Convoy protection, and also battles in the Channel against German E-Boats. Ever since then, I’ve had a bit of a thing for the Flower-Class Corvette, which is somewhat strange, since, according to accounts, they were wet, cold, miserable ships to serve on, that “rolled on wet grass” so that noone really got away from sea sickness, and were slow to boot.
So you can imagine my delight when I read the entry for the Flower-Class Corvette in the British flotilla list.
I’m planning on the British flotilla to be the “Big Ship” list (if you can consider Corvettes and Frigates “big”). Whilst I can appreciate having boats only in a game about Torpedo Boats, I also like the idea of one larger ship with a few escorts as the strike force, especially since the larger ships have plenty of firepower and HP. But Vospers and Fairmiles will still make up most of the strength in my Brit flotillas (after all, this game is about MTBs), and will be used as required in the scenarios.
So which other big ship will there be? What else but the Black Swan-Class Sloop? Never heard of it? Well, anyone who’s played World Of Warships will recognise this vessel as the Tier 1 (starter) British ship. I like World of Warships, and when I’m having a bad time, I like to go back and do some Tier 1 matches to work off the frustration. Tier 1 games seem to have so much more tension than others, and it just reminds me why I play the game.
So, of course the Black Swan will make an appearance in my flotilla.
Eventually…
Incidentally, Monsarrat wrote another historical fiction book about crewmen serving on Corvettes on convoy duty. It’s called The Cruel Sea…
