Dreadnought: Great War at Sea

This is my prototype box, with the Battle of Coronel tucked away inside!

Hi all, big news today!
As you've no doubt been aware, I've been furiously making a scratch-built fleet of WWI-era ships. My faithful readers out there will also note that I've not put an update on those models in ages, and they're absolutely correct. I've not been building models, but what I have been doing is putting on the finishing touches on a Dreadnought-era rules set. This has been a project that I've had in the works since the mid 90s and it's stuck with me. Rebooting my scratchbuild project also rekindled my desire to reboot my rulebook.

So after two years of refactoring, designing, and laying up graphics, I'm finally ready to roll out some alpha testing on my project. I think I've got a good set of quick-play rules, but the jury (that's you!) is still out on that verdict. So I need your help to test out my game and shoot me some feedback so I can improve mechanics, rip out ones that aren't working, and generally bash these rules into shipshape, if you'll pardon the pun.

Ships and ship cards. My magic spreadsheet put the German four ships equal to their British counterpart, with is more fair to the British than was historically the case. So we'll see how it goes with a bit of testing!

Damage decks seem to be all the rage these days and I resisted using one. But the alternative was a dusty old table, so these will have to do!

This is the only major table in the game, so I've made it into a reference card.

I also ran my first playtest game in today with a couple of volunteers. This was a Coronel refight at 50pts per side. Ended up with all ships sunk with the exception of an undamaged Leipzig and a crippled Monmouth. It was perhaps a bit too bloody but was a good game that lasted about an hour.

German ships charge at the British

Glasgow scores a catastrophic hit on the Dresden which sinks immediately.

Ortanto takes enough damage to start sinking but it's guns score a few last hits on the Scharnhorst before the crew abandons ship

Germans split forces to deal with the British Armoured Cruisers

Monmouth finds the range on Scharnhorst

Good Hope steams against Scharnhorst

Scharnhorst destroys Good Hope's funnels causing problems for the British gunners

Main batteries all but gone, Good Hope fires it's secondary batteries at Scharnhorst, and the German cruiser starts taking on water. However, Scharnhorst similarly pummels Good Hope, ensuring mutual destruction

If you're keen to help out, just follow these quick steps and I'll get you set up in my private playtest group where you can access the print-and-play files I've prepared.

1. Join my SBS FB page here: https://www.facebook.com/ScaryBiscuitsStudios/
2. Send me a PM asking to join the Dreadnought: Alpha playtest
3. I'll add you to the private testing group
4. Download rules and such from the group files.
5. Play some games!
6. Report back! https://forms.gle/xxhZYUmbFrMMYZqE8
7. Discuss the game's strengths and weaknesses in the group

Thank you all so much for your support and kind words regarding my project. Hopefully this game can be a way for me to give something back to the amazing wargames community out there.

Cheers, and happy sailing,
Mike