"HX" Board Game add-on for Atlantic Fleet

Foxendown · 11-30-17, 08:29 AM

Atlantic Fleet has been a firm favourite of mine for some time and I have been working on an add-on for it, a solitaire board game called "HX", which IMHO allows the convoy war to be presented more directly and realistically than at present. The add-on has been created in Vassal, which is an open source game engine for building and playing online adaptations of board games and card games (there is no physical version yet, but there may be later).

What's HX about? I quote from the manual:

"In HX a series of convoys sets out across the Atlantic from west to east. At present 30 variations are available which differ greatly in size and composition, the biggest being 60 ships including escort. Sometimes the odds will be very poor and the convoy will take serious losses, exactly as happened in real life. Some convoys straggle and face greater danger as a result and the escort just has to make the best of it. There will be high value assets including tankers and troopships to defend. For the Allies, the only criterion for success is whether the lifeline between North America and the UK is maintained. Warships sunk and concepts like “renown” are irrelevant; the survival of the merchant ships is all that matters. For the Axis, even if its whole surface fleet goes to the bottom, the Allies can be defeated if enough merchant shipping is sunk."

Originally I made HX for my own enjoyment but I hope others might like it too. So far I have enjoyed playing it enough to start sketching out an outline of a sequel about the Arctic convoys. I am close to having a version of HX for people to test if they want to, but in the meantime, here is a link to the manual (and a screenshot of the game being played).

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nkxp6brf7...HYzQTWV7a?dl=0

Paul at Killerfish Games has been very generous in his encouragement of my efforts as has Onkel Neal; thanks guys for your support. If this post generates enough interest I will follow up with a summary of my current play test (7 convoys to date) and then an AAR so you can see how the game works in detail.

11-30-17, 08:29 AM	#1
Foxendown Bosun Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 67 Downloads: 79 Uploads: 0	"HX" Board Game add-on for Atlantic Fleet Atlantic Fleet has been a firm favourite of mine for some time and I have been working on an add-on for it, a solitaire board game called "HX", which IMHO allows the convoy war to be presented more directly and realistically than at present. The add-on has been created in Vassal, which is an open source game engine for building and playing online adaptations of board games and card games (there is no physical version yet, but there may be later). What's HX about? I quote from the manual: "In HX a series of convoys sets out across the Atlantic from west to east. At present 30 variations are available which differ greatly in size and composition, the biggest being 60 ships including escort. Sometimes the odds will be very poor and the convoy will take serious losses, exactly as happened in real life. Some convoys straggle and face greater danger as a result and the escort just has to make the best of it. There will be high value assets including tankers and troopships to defend. For the Allies, the only criterion for success is whether the lifeline between North America and the UK is maintained. Warships sunk and concepts like “renown” are irrelevant; the survival of the merchant ships is all that matters. For the Axis, even if its whole surface fleet goes to the bottom, the Allies can be defeated if enough merchant shipping is sunk." Originally I made HX for my own enjoyment but I hope others might like it too. So far I have enjoyed playing it enough to start sketching out an outline of a sequel about the Arctic convoys. I am close to having a version of HX for people to test if they want to, but in the meantime, here is a link to the manual (and a screenshot of the game being played). https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nkxp6brf7...HYzQTWV7a?dl=0 Paul at Killerfish Games has been very generous in his encouragement of my efforts as has Onkel Neal; thanks guys for your support. If this post generates enough interest I will follow up with a summary of my current play test (7 convoys to date) and then an AAR so you can see how the game works in detail.