General Quarters 3 Rule Review

[@HardingWE]

GQ is a great system, our group has used their Fleet Action Imminent (WW1 version) regularly. In 2016 we managed to do the entire Battle of Jutland for the 100th anniversary, over the course of a weekend with 12 players. All told had about 150 ships on the table!

[@e-4airman124]

Where do you get WW1 ships? Please

[@HardingWE]

@@e-4airman124 we do 1/2400 GHQ micronauts either directly from them or our local store.

[@warrenbruhn5888]

@@e-4airman124 War Times Journal (WTJ), GHQ, C-in-C, Panzerschiffe, Viking Forge, Molniya.

[@michailwoolf64]

Great review. I am big in navel warfare, until GQ3 I was moving from rule set to rule set looking for a set which has much as wargames rules could bring to life the engagements on the table. My first game of GQ3 was the Battle of the River Plate where the game went for 33 turns and the result was has closed to the actual engagement, both sides disengaged. Since from that game the group I am in now only play Old Dominion Games GQ3 and FAI for these periods.

[@LittleWarsTV]

Thanks, Michail! We haven't played the River Plate yet but do have all the minis for it. Would love to give that a go...

[@mlkefisher5382]

I remember going to L.A. and meeting the writers of the rules and being invited to play them before final release. I maybe a little bias towards the rules, but they are very playable once you learn the system. Not to complex and not to simple compared to other navel rules.

[@spr5858]

I love GQ 1&2 so easy to pick up and play and as you say you dont need a lot of ships or terrain, a blue cloth will do, I do sometimes add Islands and Coastlines. I have been considering getting GQ3 for awhile I think this vid has convinced me to get it

[@robertmoffitt1336]

You guys sold me; GQ3.3 purchased. Great vid, by the way!👍👍

[@johnschultz6731]

Nice review. Thanks guys.

[@LittleWarsTV]

One of our favorite games. We still play GQ3 regularly at the club.

[@geewilli2080]

OH NO....a ruleset that has pages of words! You don't like fluff and glossy pictures in the rules and yet you don't like pages full of words. I don't understand what you really want in a ruleset. This ruleset is well written and the information presented is logical and straight forward. As a long long time war gamer, I feel that these pages of written words should not deter anyone interesting in a serious naval war game

[@LittleWarsTV]

GQ3 is and remains one of the favorite naval rulesets played in our club. Certainly it is the favorite for WW1 & 2 actions. The rules just might look a little nicer if they weren't wall-to-wall text, that's all. It's a minor point in the grand scheme of the review. We highly recommend this game.

[@gordonyork6638]

Steve really needs to publish a decent Sengoku Jidai rule set.

[@LittleWarsTV]

Hear hear!

[@scottmacphee35]

Great review, fellas, and you crack me up. I'll have to pick up the rules.

[@jamesvaughan9471]

Thanks for the video. Can you give any recommendations for miniatures? Seems like they can be very pricey. I'm interested in WW2 Pacific. I wouldn't want to go any smaller than 1:1800. My table is 6' wide by 10 to 20'. Interested in a Midway or Leyte scenario. Thanks

[@warrenbruhn5888]

1:1800 scale seems to be very large for post- Dreadnought wargaming. It's great for pre-Dreadnoghts. I think most WW2 naval enthusiasts in North America are using 1:2400 GHQ miniatures.

[@TheTazman49684]

You guys rock! I haven't done Naval in years, but you guys may have triggered a impulse...…...

[@scarfacejosh123]

Would it work for my 1/1800 Victory at Sea Miniatures?

[@warrenbruhn5888]

I play Fleet Action Imminent for WW1. But my brain bounces off the torpedo procedures (both). Seems like a level of control well below that of a squadron or flotilla commander. Otherwise really like FAI.

[@ScipioAfricanusI]

Thank you guys. This as the first time that I had seen your channel. You all are very engaging. My criticism however, is how does this set of rules compare to others in the field? I am an ardent admirer of the Admiralty Trilogy. HOw does this set compare to Command at Sea?

[@warrenbruhn5888]

GQ3 is less complex. Not a "rivet counter" system. But enough detail to give the flavor of the period.

[@warrenbruhn5888]

How do you like the Old Dominion campaigns for GQ3?

[@LittleWarsTV]

Love them. Very linear in their approach but we played a Slot campaign in 42 with the Americans and Japanese years ago in the club. It was very fun and easy to run

[@jamesvaughan9471]

I like the comment about "spending most of my time in 1942". That being said, I'm looking for a good set of rules to simulate MIdway at more of an operational level accounting for the fog of war in locating enemy forces, aircraft search, etc. Is there a set of rules you believe handles this well?

[@LittleWarsTV]

James, we've used the old board game MIDWAY to handle the operational side of things (including hidden map movement, air pattern searches, etc) and then paired the results of any clashes with GQ3 to game the encounters on the tabletop. You are almost forced into using a board game with a map to replicate the kind of operational fog of war you're talking about here.

[@jamesvaughan9471]

@@LittleWarsTV gotcha. I'll get a copy of the old AH midway...any recommendation between their various versions?

[@warrenbruhn5888]

Flat Top (1977) from the Avalon Hill game company and C.V. (1979) from Yaqinto are probably the best games on carrier warfare in the Pacific.

[@spqrd13]

Does it do sub vs convoy combat well?

[@trooperdgb9722]

One more question.... is there any obvious benefit given to the US in this game, especially a bit later, for its more advanced radar systems?

[@NefariousKoel]

There is 3 different quality levels of radar in GQ3. Same for radar fire control. When you purchase, you also get access to extra files on their site, if needed, such as the Radar Availability Table which shows who had what by date (for your scratch built scenarios).

[@jamesvaughan9471]

Which version of the rules includes the color ship cards?

[@shadowthewarlord705]

Have you guys tried sails of glory? It's a Napoleonic naval miniature game that you might like, just thought I'd suggest it

[@LittleWarsTV]

A few of us (myself included) have minis for Sails of Glory, but we've been using them with the rules Fire as She Bears. We have a copy of the Sails of Glory rules but never tried them. Perhaps we should break it out and give that a shot. Thanks for the idea!

[@shadowthewarlord705]

no problem

[@richardklug822]

@@LittleWarsTV I like Sails of Glory's simplified mechanism for plotting movement using cards vs. written plots. The ships are a bit expensive though.

[@ShipWreck68]

How does this rule set handle Aircraft and submarines/AntiSub Warfare in relation to the surface battles?

[@NefariousKoel]

I've read the surface warfare rules thus far, and skimmed through the rest. Aircraft and Sub/ASW can be played out during the game as flights of aircraft (4 each IIRC) and individual subs. There are also optional rules for resolving the air-related battles without having to play that part out on the table. I think that's done before or in between any surface-to-surface action that gets the full play treatment. Which would speed things up, especially during any sort of campaign. It seems to be the recommended method to use with the separate Solomons Campaign. I plan on using the quick, abstracted air rules for awhile. At least in the beginning. I don't recall a lot of WW2 naval battles in which surface ships were having a running gun battle whilst aircraft were dropping torpedoes and dive bombing at the exact same time. I get the impression that wasn't too common other than a few notables. You could certainly play out your Sub needs such as wolfpack attacks on convoys, although that would be a LOT of merchants to buy! Not sure how secret move/location is set up in the rules, haven't really scanned much of the ASW rules yet. So I'm not sure if you'd need a referee.

[@trooperdgb9722]

While the "blue tablecloth" aspect is fine....do any of you "model" a "battlefield" with islands and shoal water and reefs and other navigational hazards to take into account?

[@warrenbruhn5888]

I do, using cut out bits of cloth and small hills.

[@leejames929]

I may have to try and get into this. It seems cheap to get into for a tabletop game which is a big plus for my gameing group of cheapskates lol

[@LittleWarsTV]

Hard to beat the price of a blue cloth as terrain! And the smaller scale ships can be very affordable, too. You tend to not need that many of them.

[@leejames929]

Is there a good ww1 ship game?

[@LittleWarsTV]

Why yes! As a matter of fact, Old Dominion has a WW1 set called "Fleet Action Imminent" that shares most of the same mechanics as GQ3. The charts/gunnery tables are different but the core system is basically the same. We've used it for a number of WW1 actions in the North Sea and strongly recommend it.

[@leejames929]

Little Wars TV are the rules for playing with some of the lesser navy's out there for it. Greeks and ottomans for example?

[@stephencarroll5508]

@@leejames929 'Fleet Action Imminent' Has a PDF supplement available which covers WW1 Greek and Turkish Navies (among others) for $9.95.

[@e-4airman124]

where do you get the ships ? Please.

[@warrenbruhn5888]

1:2400 scale GHQ miniatures are great for WW2.

[@3tacoman]

Steve more samurai and zulus !!!!!!!!!! Now

[@stevepreston1652]

Had GQ 3 for a few years, but never played, mainly because of the Wall of text and sheer size of the booklet, The Guadalcanal game and the review makes me want to break out the Regia Marina again and have a bash.. PS, want to give a tutorial on the splash markers?

[@LittleWarsTV]

Great idea! We will work on a splash marker tutorial. You're right that GQ3 looks very intimidating. But you wind up only needing a handful of critical rules and a few lines from each chart/table. We love it in our club--even those of us who don't have good sea legs and are more land lubbers in gaming!

[@wombat7366]

Steve Preston Great reviews! I was active in a group in the 1970s that played about all the WW1 and WW2 Naval Rules out there before finding GQ1 and GQ2 met our needs. This was because we gamed many large battles with dozens of ships and GQ made that possible. I bought GQ 3.0 and the new WW1 version when they were released, but haven’t played them as our gaming group drifted apart over the years. Your review has encouraged me to setup some smaller scenarios that I can play solo. I will now look for other reviews you have done. Thanks, Jerry Winchell

[@leejames929]

What scale were you using in this?

[@LittleWarsTV]

Some of the guys have multiple scales for naval, but in this video we used GHQ 1/2400 scale ships. They aren't cheap, but they are best in class for quality and level of detail. www.ghqmodels.com/store/military-models-wwii-micronauts.html

[@HolyWarrior1]

GENQUARINST 2326.3A

[@MrCatalystguy]

boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/26305/general-quarters-third-edition Wow the system is listed as printing 2006 you would think it would need a major streamlining for 2018 And the production value, not a 6 or 7 more like a 5 it needs to be in a binded form.

[@LittleWarsTV]

For an older system it's held up remarkably well in terms of the game design and mechanics. Totally agreed on the appearance aspect of the presentation--it's below average, frankly--but the clarity of the writing is top notch. It's easy to find the information you need and the quality of writing does factor into an overall presentation score.

[@gordonyork6638]

Yay! It's not an IGOUGO game.

[@HillsgroveMike]

Try Battlestations Battlestations. Frankly I disliked GQ3.

[@LittleWarsTV]

I haven't heard of this one...but will totally check it out!