Victory at Sea
"From skirmishes involving single destroyers hunting down merchantmen to the clashing of massive battleships, from invasions of islands across the Pacific to mastering waves of dive bombers, Victory at Sea enables you to fight exciting battles that take place on the oceans of World War II."
Publisher: Warlord Games
Type: Tabletop Miniatures Game, Skirmish
Playstyle: Competitive
Genre: Historical (WWII)
Mechanics: Dice
Assembly Required: Yes
Pre-painted: No
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How to Get Into the Action
If a friend already has a rulebook and you want to get into the game, you should be able to skip the starter box and go straight for the nation boxes.
Below are some affiliate links for things I myself have purchased and tried out. Good hunting!
Start Here
A Starter Box is usually a good way to get into a new game, and for this one, it's no exception. It comes with a basic rulebook, and a handful of ships to kick off your US and Japanese armadas. These do require assembly (and painting if you so choose). A crafting mat will also go a long way to saving your dinning room table from mishaps while assembling your collection!
I feel the starter rulebook will be great to see you through your introductory games, and as you expand your fleet with aircraft and submarines, etc, you'll want to pick up a copy of the full rulebook.
You'll also need a tape measure for this one!
Expansions
Expand upon your ship/plane/sub collection with nation boxes of your preferred country. These will come with a number of ships (and some with aircraft) to give you plenty of options in the battlefield!
Royal Navy (Britain)
Kriegsmarine (Germany)
Marine Nationale (France)
Regia Marina (Italy)
Extras
As far as terrain and battle mats go, naval games can be pretty simple. A nice blue/ocean mat will work quite well. I prefer neoprene (like mousepad material), but cloth can be more budget-friendly. For size, whatever fits the space you have available. Many games may have a predetermined size though, sometimes 3'x3' or 3'x6'. The link below is similar to what I use.
As far as terrain, open ocean battles require nothing extra, but you could add some little islands or other sea scatter as you choose.
Highly recommend a laser line to check firing arcs of ships. Google "army painter laser line"; can be hard to find on Amazon, but eBay is a good source for them. I also use some smaller d6 dice for marking ship movements (1 for didn't move, 6 for moved 6+ inches, else for in-between).
Some nice-to-haves are some ship dashboards to help organize your fleet and free your tabletop from clutter (and these look really cool, too!). Next, some tokens to replace the cardboard tools that come with the game.
Storage /Transport
Suitable options for storing your fleet(s) really depends on how large you foresee it/them getting, and how you want to organize everything. I have little doubt my collection will grow to incorporate most of the nations available in the game, and I prefer keeping them separated by country. Given that, I'll be using the Juoci storage solution with its 5-6 magnetized trays.
The bases of the ships are fairly big and flat, so they may be stable enough without magnets. If you do decide to magnetize the bases, an appropriate-sized drill bit to make a small hole in the middle of the bottom of the base for the magnet to go.
Painting
Here are some YouTube videos I used as a guide for painting up my fleet!