Enemy in sight. Task Force G sights the Pocket Battleship Admiral Graf Spee

Task Force G separates as per Harwood’s battle orders while Graf Spee increases speed to engage turning to Port to bring her broadside to bear

As the opposing forces close to firing range the Graf turns 180 degrees to engage the stronger Exeter

(British win initiative) Exeter opens fire but misses.

Graf Spee returns serve straddling Exeter (this applies a -ve mod to shooting)

The British cruisers close to medium range.

British have initiative as Exeter again straddles Graf Spee

Graf Spee comes under fire from Ajax and returns fire with secondary battery straddling her

Exeter fires her starboard torpedoes at Graf Spee but misses

Graf Spee moves to engage Exeter Achilles and Ajax cannot engage because Exeter blocks LOS

British won initiative again! Exeter finally scores hits on Graf Spee causing light damage and straddling her.

Graf Spee fires port torpedoes and very narrowly misses

Graf Spee is hit again by Exeter. Taking on water and firepower diminished Langsdorff makes smoke and turns away from Exeter

Graf Spee continues to make smoke and makes evasive manoeuvres. Things are not looking good for her

Ajax fires her port torpedoes but misses

Exeter moves through the smoke screen to again fire on Graf Spee. This time the salvo is devastating and finishes the Graf Spee as she sinks beneath the waves.

My thoughts on the game & rules. I really like the rules. Some nice simple mechanisms, fast play. I could easily see us playing some large engagements with these rules. A couple of sections could do with a rewrite to make it clearer but I think we played the game correctly

Unfortunately for Langsdorff the Germans i.e. me rolled terribly. Once engaged I only won initiative once and couldn’t hit a thing. Also rolled badly when hit so took some nasty critical hits which severely reduced Graf Spee’s effectiveness.

We definitely need to play again as the poor dice rolling did make it harder to judge the balance. We will make one scenario modification allowing Graf Spee to fire at extreme range to better reflect historical events where the Graf Spee significantly out ranged the British ships