Pre-Dreadnought - The Rules of the Game

After a thorough read-through of the Battlefleet 1900 rules I decided they're a mite too complicated for what I want. They also seem to have an issue with missing sections, particularly those governing gunfire: not ideal. WTJ do produce a basic set of pre-Dreadnought rules called Quickfire, which look more my speed as a solo gamer. The record sheets are easier to produce, too. I'm going to use the rules as-is then add more complicated factors like signalling as I grow familiar with them.

At the moment I'm planning a quick play-through of the rules in a scenario involving a handful of light cruisers and armour cruisers then work up to battleships from there. I already have enough shell splashes for a game, but what I need are some fire and torpedo hit markers.

Bring on the foam.

I cut up a chunk of foam rubber, making a lot of small pieces and three vaguely wedge-shaped bits of increasing size to represent fires of increasing ferocity. A splash or two of yellow and red acrylic ink mixed with spackle plus a dollop of black craft paint later, and I got something usable. The small black pieces are going to be glued in a suitably messy fashion to the two plastic 'easels' on the right. These I made from leftover bits of clear plastic, suitably glued and embellished by a few passes of the hot glue gun. The theory is they'll go hard up against the side of a model so they look like the massive black sprays of dirty seawater and Torpex soot that are the signature result of a torpedo hit. I've only made two such markers, as I figure the odds of getting more than two torpedo hits in the same game move are pretty remote. Watch me get proved wrong in the first game...