Battle Stations! (2006)

Battle Stations! 1/2400 Naval Rules by Decision Games.

Battle Stations! Battle Stations! Naval Rules for Fleet Sized Combat for Miniatures

So now that you have the ships how are you going to fight with them? There are only just a few rule sets out there and all but one are mired in detail and lend themselves to small actions of four ships that is if you want to finish the battle in the same day. Battle Stations is different in that its emphasis is on medium to large sized battles which can be completed in a day or even in hours. The designer reckons for each ship involved in the game it adds ten minutes of playing time.

Have it all in one package! Inside you will find ship stats for all the naval powers which fought in World War II: Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Soviet Union, and United States. All of the major naval aircraft are here too like the US Hellcat, the Japanese Zero, the Re 2001 (for the Aquila), the British Swordfish, the D520 for the French carrier Bearn.

The ship charts include a comprehensive listing of ship classes ranging from aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, escorts, commerce raiders (all the German raiders are here), merchant ships, MTBs, submarines and even the experimental battleships like the German H39 class, the improved Gneisenau class with 15” guns, the Graf Zeppelin and Seydlitz German aircraft carriers and the not to be forgotten Italian aircraft carrier Aquila.

But that is not all, you receive extensive listings of the number of ships in each class, when the class became available and when certain ships in the class were sunk.

Damage and speed is kept track of on the game table eliminating extensive paperwork. Two sided counters tracking speed and damage are provided. Each turn represents a half hour of time so action is fast, furious, and realistic. Rules are very comprehensive covering fleet morale, surface combat, mine warfare, torpedo launches, carrier combat, submarine warfare as well as surface combat and damage control (which varies by nation as well as by year). Charts are intuitive, easy to understand and speed play.

Components: 82 page rulebook (17 pages of rules, 31 pages of ship stats, and 10 scenarios), two card stock combat charts, one card stock sheet of templates, 140 counters for marking damage, speed, and submarine depth.

Ten Scenarios: River Plate 1939, Montevideo 1939, Punta Stilo 1940, Spartivento 1940, Sinking of the Hood 1941, Sinking of the Bismarck 1941, Java Sea 1942, Cape Esperance 1942, Guadalcanal 1942, Komandorski Islands 1943.