ORIGINAL: Dixie
ORIGINAL: Terminus
Hey Dixie, anything special you want to know about the convoy combat mechanics in the game?
Mainly the setups, I'm interested as to how it lines up against Silent War. It appears to be a more complicated (realistic?) setup compared to what I'm used to, the setup is abstracted a bit in Silent War. The actual combat mechanics are pretty much the same from what I understand.
Well, good thing that U-50 just found this small convoy in the Western Approaches:
The first thing you do is position your U-Boat(s) in the submarine boxes at the bottom. You can always attack from the outer boxes, but obviously the targets are smaller. If you want to get inside the convoy, you take a modified dice roll as you can see in the text below the box. The U-Boat can attack the column corresponding to its box freely, and neighbouring columns with a penalty to its dice rolls.
Also note that there are lots of boxes, for Wolfpack actions, and a "Shadow" box for the boat calling in other boats.
Other than that, once you've determined that you're facing a convoy, the engagement tables tell you how big it is, and how many pieces you must draw from what cups. In the case of this small convoy, it was 10 each from the "inner" and "outer" cups; then you distribute them evenly in the columns.
Large convoys, "special" convoys and navy task forces are largely similar to this, although their combat displays have a few differences (obviously).
We are all dreams of the Giant Space Butterfly.