The Hunters - The hunting begins (Type IXA, Part 1)

"Hostilities with England effective immediately."

the time is: 1256 hours, 3 September 1939

The Hunters (German U-Boats at War, 1939-43) is a solitaire tactical level game placing you in command of a German U-boat during WWII. Your mission is to destroy as much Allied Shipping and as many Capital ships as possible while advancing your crew quality and increasing your commander rank culminating in special decoration ‒ all while remembering you have to make it home.

The game, designed by Gregory M. Smith, is published by Consim Press and was recently released via P-500 by GMT Games. It saw a remarkable amount of pre-orders and I decided to jump aboard. I've been reading the rules via PDF posted to the Consim Press downloads website for the game - http://www.consimpress.com/downloads/the-hunters/

There are also some great video tutorials by John Kranz on Screencast - http://www.screencast.com/users/consimworld/folders/The%20Hunters

Between reading the rules on a couple recent flights and watching the videos, I feel I have a pretty good grasp on the game play without even opening the box (still waiting on delivery anyway at the time of writing this). But the Vassal Module is already out and I want to see how well I'm grasping things. So that's the next item to download (also available at the ConsimPress website - they really make it easy for you!).

Among other things available on the download site is a Kommandant name generator to help you begin - if you want a little more detail for you AARs and aren't necessarily the most creative or up to snuff on your German.

So here we are, September 1939...

I've selected the Type IXA U-boat (it has a pretty hefty payload!) and using the Kommandant naming generator, I am sailing as Kapitänleutnant Reiner Lehmann. My trained crew are ready to embark.

A die roll of 8 (2+6) sends us to the shipping lanes of the British Isles. As there is not an (M) after the 8's British Isles, this will be a standard mission. Had a 9 been rolled, I would be performing a mine laying mission. But alas, we are on a seek and destroy mission requiring that we sink at least one Allied vessel to be considered a Success. 

Before leaving port, I will need to refit my U-boat with torpedoes and deck gun ammo (notice the 10.5 cm on this bad boy!). Fortunately, we will not be heading through the Bay of Biscay just yet - not until July 1940 - unless of course we are assigned to the Mediterranean in the near future... assuming we make it back ;)