Der Tag= The Day

[mikeh]

Is a game by Gary Graber on the battles on the North Sea between the British and German fleets in WW1.

Gary puts out fairly simple games in book format under the names Panzer Digest or Panzrschrek.

The board and counters are of my making with the German fleet having the red dot.

The board is broken up into 3 zones and each zone has its own weather roll, see markers on right hand side.

The activity roll has the German fleet make a Tip and Run raid on Scarborough. The British fleets, on the left each roll for interception. Due to weather in the Scarborough zone being bad only the ships out of Rosyth are capable of making the run to engage. There are usually three rounds of combat but due to weather this is cut to two rounds and the British are outgunned so maybe a lucky break for them not having to endure 3 rounds. Number of rounds being fought by an individual fleet can also be reduced by distance it has to travel.

And now both sides are set to engage.

[mikeh]

Action card, they say cut them out individually shuffle and draw but I just roll a D10, if 10 is rolled I just reroll. You can see each card tells you the type of raid, where the raid is and number and types of German ships that will sail out. No event is just that, you skip it this time around, there are 4 rounds per campaign. Der Tag card is the big battle Jutland, all fleets set out and engage.

[mikeh]

Here's how the opposing forces compare. The ships at Forsyth is one of the smaller units and unfortunately for this turn have 2 Battle cruisers and 1 Battleship out for repair.

[mikeh]

After two rounds the British ships break contact, 2 Battle cruisers sunk all the rest damaged with no damage to the German ships. The Germans return to Kiel with a major victory.

All damaged British ships return for the second turn. The 2 sunk battle cruisers are out for the rest of the game plus the 3 ships that were under repair are also ready for sea.

[Whiterook]

That looks like a very cool game! I’ve been getting into sea-warfare games the past few years, very slowly but surely… so when I see see this game, I not only take notice, but notice the similarities of how grand scope these can be! I mean, there’s a lot of “battlefield” in the sea!

That’s a cool map, sir! Is it on poster board with acrylics? That’s a great representation of the area! The ship counters are super nice, too. I like what I’m seeing for the mechanics. And great ending art!!!

As an aside: I really appreciate it when I see gamers Print ‘n Play games, especially when they make some or all of the components. It’s the latter, why I put the War College in the forum… I love when games share their creativity in the hobby, and it’s the little things, like how you made a map that may just be the inspiration of a future designer, or just to give confidence to another avid gamer to try and make something themselves.

[mikeh]

Thanks Em. The map is from a dollar store and about the size of a standard sheet of paper and painted with big box acrylics. The booklet for the game is only the size of an older Readers Digest from back in the 60's or 70's so pretty small.

I have also been getting in slowly to some naval warfare, WW1 period. I have a couple GHQ miniatures that I would like to expand on.

As for the counters they are just slivers of balsa wood mounted on a piece of floor tile sample. I still have a paper ship navy also.

[Whiterook]

Mar 5, 2023 14:23:49 GMT -5 mikeh said:

Thanks Em. The map is from a dollar store and about the size of a standard sheet of paper and painted with big box acrylics. The booklet for the game is only the size of an older Readers Digest from back in the 60's or 70's so pretty small.

I have also been getting in slowly to some naval warfare, WW1 period. I have a couple GHQ miniatures that I would like to expand on.

As for the counters they are just slivers of balsa wood mounted on a piece of floor tile sample. I still have a paper ship navy also.

Cool! That’s much smaller than I envisioned. Looking at the cards, with the glasses as a size reference, this idea may be too small but… I noted on Greg Smith’s gladiator game playtest mock-up, that he used stiff card sleeves to put his paper-printed “cards” in, which made them sturdy enough to shuffle. I’m keeping that in mind for anything I might make that uses cards in the future.