Warlord Games: Sail Out on Cruel Seas
In today’s post, we take a look at the Motor Torpedo Boats of the British, German and American Nations in Warlord Games’ Cruel Seas. Now, Bell of Lost Souls has run a number of articles about Cruel Seas, but, in this post we actually get our hands on the miniatures.
My favourite of the previous posts is when BoLS broke the news about the game. The image in that post of the sea battle is just incredible. I’ve re-posted it at the end of this article for fun. Now, let’s take a closer look at the Motor Torpedo Boats of the British, American and German Navies.
The German E-Boat
We will start with the largest torpedo boat of the nations – Germany’s E-Boat. These boats clocked in at 114 feet long and could travel at just over 50 miles-per-hour. These boats are painted by Tony Stapells. Tony did a very fast speed paint on them the night before a game. One of the very nice things about a 1/300 naval game is that the miniatures paint up really fast and look very good for the effort put into them. Perfect if you are looking for another game to get quickly into. Thank you Tony for letting me photograph them.
This is the German S-100 boat. The Allies called all of these boats “E-Boats,” standing for “Enemy Boats.” It has an extra Anti-Air Gun compared to the S-38.
This is the German S-38. Both boats are very capable.
If you want to know more about the ship, come on over to my personal website and take a look at our German E-Boat Post.
The American PT Boat
The American PT Boat traveled at just over 46 miles-per-hour and were roughly 80 feet long by 20 feet wide. I think it is very interesting that the much larger German E-Boats were able to travel faster than the American PT Boat. Like the E-Boat, Warlord Games made two variants available of the PT Boat. These boats were painted by Wayne Renaud. I would like to quickly thank him for letting me to photograph his miniatures for this article.
This is a flotilla of US Navy PT Boats. If you look closely, you can see that there are two variants of the ship. If you look closely, you will notice two variants. The windshield style is an easy way to tell them apart. The difference is basically which company constructed the boat.
Check out this beautifully painted ELCO PT Boat painted by Wayne Renaud. That is some really nice painting. If you look closely, you might even notice that the boat is armed with two rocket launchers. How cool is that!?
If you want to see the difference between the two boats, come on over and check out my US Navy PT Boat Post.
The British Royal Navy Vosper MTB
The British Vosper MTB (Motor Torpedo Boat) measured in at 73-feet long and could travel at up to 37 miles-per-hour. Like the other boats, Warlord Games packs in two variants for people to make – the Type I and the Type II. The main noticeable difference is that the Type I had four torpedos while the Type II carried 2, but a six-pounder gun as well. These minis were also painted by Tony Stapells in a rush to get his Cruel Seas Starter Set to the tabletop. Thanks again for letting me photograph your ships!
The Vospers are some sharp looking ships of the Royal Navy. I gotta say it… I really like this picture. 🙂
For more on the British Vosper Ship, come on over and check out my Royal Navy Vosper MTB post.
Size Comparisons
Now a fleet of E-Boats has got to be a scary thing. The Allies, however, had numbers and that is reflected in this game. Now, I mentioned the sizes of each boat in their descriptions, but let’s see how that looks side-by-side.
From Left to Right… An American PT Boat, A German E-Boat, and a British Vosper MTB. Which is your favourite?
Wrapping it up…
Hopefully you enjoyed this quick post about the Motor Torpedo Boats of Cruel Seas. Special thanks goes out to Wayne Renaud and Tony Stapells for letting me photograph their Cruel Seas Miniatures. They look great and paint up very quickly from what I am told. They are perfect candidates for someone that wants to buy into a game and get a painted army to the table fast. Special thanks also goes out to Cigar Box Battle for providing the gaming mat that I used for these pictures.
To finish up, I would like to end with an image from a previous post on Bell of Lost Souls. This is from the article announcing the game and that preview table looks really awesome with all the boats on it.
The picture above is from the article I mentioned earlier. Look at that table. It’s Incredible!!! Image from Warlord Games.
Thanks for reading and until next time, Happy Gaming Everyone!!!
Read more about great Indy and Historical games on my site!
Aside from writing great gaming related articles, I am also working on compiling a list of all Miniature Gaming Conventions in Ontario (Canada). If you are in Ontario, this list should be of interest to you!
This week’s articles on Must Contain Minis includes…
A post about the British Vosper MTB. Link.
The United States PT Boat. Link.
The Kriegsmarine E-Boat. Link.
