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Naval Thunder: Clash of Dreadnoughts
by andrew p. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 02/03/2021 16:51:13

I'm not a naval gamer but bought these rules to try out 7-8 years ago, as a change from WW2 - Blitzkrieg Commander. We've enjoyed them immensely over this time playing a game every 5-6 months or so as change of pace. Used top down ships on wooden blocks. The rules are elegantly simple, with nice period feel and enough detail to ships, gunnery, movement etc to keep me happy. Having looked at many of the other sets for dreadnought period, they all seemed largely over complicated to me and this set, fit the bill for me. I can see that this 'may' not be of taste,,,, to the hardened Naval wargamers or those who want 'massive' amounts of detail but for me and my main gaming mate, they were perfect. I'm a huge fan of Blitzkrieg Commander (also elegantly simple) and IMO this is in the same vein naval battles wise. Had some really fun close battles and can't recommend enough. Japan/Russia addition also really good as well and Battle of Yellow Sea great battle.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Naval Thunder: Clash of Dreadnoughts
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Colonial Battlefleet: Star's Reach
by Victor D. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 04/20/2020 06:14:23

Bearing in mind what I've previously said about the CBF core rules, I decided to enlarge my options with this add-on & see if this improved my perception of the basic games limitations. Unfortunately, no ...

As with basic CBF it's a good rules system - the rules are clearly & plainly written with respectable/suitable art, but again it's a little too much tied to the setting provided within - players seeking a 'generic' one size fits all system to use in their own settings might be a little disappointed.

With many years of space gaming fun/experience, what I think what CBF could do with is a 'Shipyard Designers Supply Catalogue' of weapons, missiles & other systems, so that players working their own game setting can create ships to fit it.

For the rules I'd give it 4 stars as a fair representation of the system, but again it's a little too tied to the supplied setting for my needs, so bearing that in mind 3 stars is better.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Colonial Battlefleet: Star's Reach
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Naval Thunder: The Atlantic Campaign
by Ian W. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/14/2019 08:35:54

A very nice basis for a campaign: it's a long decision tree which will result in some historical or historically plausible battles without, for example, the Royal Navy attempting to force its way past Denmark into the Baltic (one of Churchill's suggestions vetoed on the grounds of its suicidal nature!)

The historical reluctance of the Kreigsmarine to risk too much despite this meaning they sink fewer ships is covered by some battles possibly having major Royal Navy units turn up late on in battles, and a 'quit rather than sticking around' table.

The whole thing is also mostly rule system neutral apart from the way that, like Naval Thunder, it does not state the scale anywhere - all the distances are in tabletop inches, and times in 'turns'.

Looking at Steel Dreadnought's quiet forum suggests it's 1" = 500 yards and one turn is four minutes, but it would have been far better to have had the ranges in yards and had times in so many minutes in the first place.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Naval Thunder: The Atlantic Campaign
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Colonial Battlefleet: Core Rules
by Victor D. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 04/18/2019 14:31:42

These rules are OK, but hardly in the same league as Full Thrust or Starmada AE - some criticisms being ...

  1. Full Thrust is simpler, requiring less fiddling - EG: You won't see an FT player having to reduce shield stremgths before armour and damage.
  2. Both Full Thrust & Starmada AE are easier to access - and way more flexible. In FT your beam batteries are whatever you want them to be (whether it's lasers, particle beams or fancy meson/quark guns), in Starmada you can actually design your own weapon systems, but in CBF you get what they think your settings ships should be armed with (which all sound rather Star Warsy to me). For a generic system your surprisingly restricted to what options the designers have given you. It feels like a ruleset written for a specific setting with only a bit of extra thought given to playing non-setting specific games.
  3. Both Full Thrust & Starmada are visually much more appealing - FT with its ship displays and Starmada with it's printed records - even Starmada's Drake notation is superior. CBF relies on densely formatted printed record cards with written text records for each shield facing, armour, hull points - in a way it's mor elike some of the old 1980's wet navy wargames I played many years ago.

However ... the game itself is quite good as a ruleset, and plays better than it looks - if some of the niggles with it were tidied away and the limitations reduced it'd be better. But for me I felt rather disappointed with it.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Colonial Battlefleet: Core Rules
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Naval Thunder: The Atlantic Campaign
by A customer [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 02/22/2019 04:08:57

Excellent alternative timeline to the start of the Atlantic campaign without being unbelievable. For example the Graf Spee could have avoided/survived the Battle of the River Plate and returned to Germany. Therefore available for the Norway campaign.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Naval Thunder: The Atlantic Campaign
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Naval Thunder: World War II [BUNDLE]
by Nathan F. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/31/2018 06:18:08

Naval Thunder presents the basics of naval combat in a very easy-to-play format. Ship movement is simple to learn and play, but at the same time it captures the essence of the critical factors in changing range, speed, and direction.

Gunfire and torpedo attacks are nicely tailored to range bands which differ by ship class and gun type. Hits and resulting damage are straight-forward, with the excellent twist of Critical Damage. This accords well with my view on naval combat in the WW2 era - sometimes a ship would take a number of hits that do little damage while at other times one or two hits doom a ship. Some damage, such a fires, flooding, and listing, can extend across turns, gradually wearing down the ship's resistance to further structural damage.

A nice plus to the Critical Damage resolution is that offensive and movement capabilities do not degrade in a straight line. So a cruiser might have very heavy hull damage, and in danger of sinking, but the entire main battery may still be functional. There were certainly examples of this during the war. Conversely, it might be necessary to pull a battleship out of a fight (or attempt to) because several main battery turrets have been knocked out long before the ship is in any danger of sinking.

We've fought a wide variety of actions with Naval Thunder from battleline meetings to small ship skirmishes, including night actions in restricted waters, and the results have always been quite believable. This factor, in addition to ease of learning and ease of play, make Naval Thunder my top pick for WW2 naval gaming.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Naval Thunder: World War II [BUNDLE]
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Naval Thunder: Battleship Row
by Anthony A. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 02/02/2018 12:52:06

Very good set of rules for WW2 Naval Warfare. I am hoping more scenarios will come out for this game. The game is technical enough for us naval warfare geeks, but not overly complex. I will be buying any expansions.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Naval Thunder: Battleship Row
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Naval Thunder: World War II [BUNDLE]
by richard h. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 04/01/2017 04:22:05

A great set of rules been looking for a simple but realistic set of naval rules for ages and these seem to have got the balance just right .Well laid out and printed off perfectly and the links to the data base were great ,highly reccomend these.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Naval Thunder: World War II [BUNDLE]
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Naval Thunder: Battleship Row
by Mark A. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 06/03/2015 16:03:53

So far have only played too full games of NT. I find the rules to be easy to follow, fun to play and give a realistic outcome. I think so information if missing from the quick reference sheet which could be added as a second sheet, then printed and used double sided. We will continue to play them and hope to run a really large game during our July Alternative to Historicon gaming weekend.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Naval Thunder: Battleship Row
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Naval Thunder: Pre-Dreadnoughts [BUNDLE]
by Guy F. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 05/01/2015 12:28:10

Rules for the period 1880 to 1905 plus bonus WWI naval combat for the British and German navies. Haven't played the rules yet but seem to be between Avalon Hills Jutland and the more detailed rules like Seakrieg in difficulty. PDF is well formatted and presented and Excel Spread Sheet ship data printing function is excellent.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Naval Thunder: Pre-Dreadnoughts [BUNDLE]
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Colonial Battlefleet: Core Rules
by Chris Z. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 08/13/2014 18:06:39

Well according to the product description this is supposed to be a cross Genre set of rules, any genre, any ships, any weapons, and it is going to expand to cover other playable genre's, well dont believe it, while it's initial offering is solid even good, the author has decided not to support his initial product by expanding the playable and most sought after genre's with more offerings, letting a bunch of his customers down in the process. The Man vs Machine Expansion is good, but the Stars Reach expansion is just lacking. Also dont ever criticize the author he wont listen to any constructive criticism, dissent or anyone else's opinions.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Colonial Battlefleet: Core Rules
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Creator Reply:
While Chris is entitled to his opinion, this product does support the vast majority of the common sci-fi settings. Chris feels, however, that all future Steel Dreadnought Games releases ought to be tied exclusively to this system. He doesn\'t agree that to achieve a finer level of detail, some settings would be best served by their own custom rule sets. At Steel Dreadnought Games we always strive to create the best, most enjoyable games possible and player input is and will continue to be very valuable to us in achieving that goal.
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Colonial Battlefleet: Cyborg Onslaught [BUNDLE]
by Chris Z. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/29/2013 13:02:35

I like the rules, well done in that they cover nearly anything that can happen in cinematic space combat. Plenty of weapons, and defensive systems, fighters should be more lethal in my opinion but a bit of tweaking has shown me that is easily possible and seamlessly implemented. The system flows well and is simple to use and yet complicated enough to represent the details and nuances of good starship combat. Now for the parts I am not lollipops about, The MvM ships dont equate well to their supposed BSG models/counterparts. I dont like the fact that 6 hardpoints and size class 5 is the design limit, so those went away, the hardpoints just require more sizes of polyhedral dice (d8 for 8 hardpoints, d10 for 10 hardpoints), and I made the max size class 10. I also added a 360 degree fire arc for weapons and some bigger heavier weapons. I like the way fighters work but think that squadrons of 6 planes is too few per squadron, I made them flights instead of individual planes and increased the damage they can do per flight this seems to work for my vision. I have some issues with no stacking of fighters and missiles so that needs a look. Flak suppression fire mode needs to be added as well. Okay so I am particular, but not without precedent, I have played all the other Starship combat games and this one is actually better all around, it is adaptable, quick, easy to learn and use, is multi-genre and allows crossover very easily. Now they just need to get out some more fleet/genre books and supplements especially Star-Wars and Star Trek and rules for HUGE ships and space stations. I highly recomend this rules set (especially for BSG) and the price and content are excellant. Well Done Mr Pratt and crew... thanks very much and keep up the good work.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Colonial Battlefleet: Cyborg Onslaught [BUNDLE]
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Naval Thunder: Clash of Dreadnoughts
by Mark W. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 01/11/2013 21:07:31

This is a pretty standard set of naval rules. Less fiddly than some - which is good - but like virtually all other naval rules, it is simply a set of formulae for blowing things up. The player will never be presented with a challenging decision. He will simply maneuver his ship to maximize shooting, and then start rolling dice. At that point a lot of high rolls is 'better' than a lot of low rolls. This is the limitation of every naval set, not just Naval Thunder. The basic limitations are that the player always knows far too much about the enemy than he should. And for that matter, far too much about his own fleet!

To be fair, most naval gamers will be satisfied with this set. There is nothing illogical, and an adequate amount of 'chrome', but then there's nothing specially fun either. Just like all sets, you present your broadsides and start rolling the dice.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
Naval Thunder: Clash of Dreadnoughts
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Naval Thunder: Battleship Row
by John G. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 01/04/2013 12:32:57

Well written..great rules to play by. This is a very good value for anyone interested in the naval wargaming hobby.



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[5 of 5 Stars!]
Naval Thunder: Battleship Row
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Naval Thunder: Dreadnought Battlefleets
by Michael M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/04/2012 22:23:57

Another fine supplement to the best gaming system I've found. One that balances a measure of realism with high playability. We've been waiting on this supplement for some time to allow for numerous "what if" playing opportunities and it seems quite extensive and complete. As always the Excel file for quickly generating your playsheets is invaluable. Can't wait to match the naval powers in the Mediterranean!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Naval Thunder: Dreadnought Battlefleets
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