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http://www.warhammer-historical.com/Trafalgar/Trafalgar.asp

Hmmm... Interesting!

That is pretty interesting.
Especially since it give me another game to use my thousands of ships I have from the Wizkids "Pirates!" game.

Ooh, interesting. Is it based off another GW naval-ish ruleset, like Battlefleet: Gothic or Man O' War, or is it a totally new set of rules?


And Hellfury, literally thousands? That is a lot of ships.

A buddy of mine has some of the ships, maybe I should try a game sometime.

They were saying on TMP that it is based on Man o war.

Nice, good reason to order some GHQ ships.

I don't know since I haven't played BFG or MOW.

The downloads available on the Warhammer Historical site may give some idea for people who have played the other games. I would be interested to know your opinion.

I immediately started looking at 1/1200 scale Napoleonic ship models. They are not cheap, at about £6 to £9 for a single model. You need 60 to do Trafalgar, ignoring frigates. So Wizkids Pirates ships are the way to go.

Hordini wrote:And Hellfury, literally thousands? That is a lot of ships.

Sadly, yes. I have nearly every ship in the game, and numerous duplicates of the majority of those ships. Lots of binders full of unassembled ships itching to be played with.

Its really sad about how this game jumped the shark. Really good system, but bad handling by the company trying to grasp for the quick buck.

60 ships? The design of the material available suggests more like 1-20. Looking at the roosters they are more like the ones found VaS.

At Trafalgar the British had 27 ships of the line and the Allied fleet had 33. Both sides also had frigates who took no part in the action.

A first rate SoL in 1/1200 scale like HMS Victory is nearly 6cm long and tall. A more common 74 is about 4.5cm long. So the Allied fleet would be about two metres long including the gaps between ships. Given the gunnery range of 30cm (in Trafalgar) and the need for manoeuvring space, the battle would be unplayable on a table top but you could play it on the floor.

By reducing the size of the fleets, it can be made doable on a table top.

The other option is to trade down to 1/2000 or 1/2400 ships.

Clearly the scale range of the guns is much less than the model scale. The effective range of naval artillery was 1,000 yards.

Hellfury wrote:

Hordini wrote:And Hellfury, literally thousands? That is a lot of ships.

Sadly, yes. I have nearly every ship in the game, and numerous duplicates of the majority of those ships. Lots of binders full of unassembled ships itching to be played with.

Its really sad about how this game jumped the shark. Really good system, but bad handling by the company trying to grasp for the quick buck.

I hear ya, Fury. But among friends, with some house rules support, it's still really fun. Plus the ships can serve in other contexts: Just last night I used some of the ships for a naval combat from the Savage Tide D&D adventure arc. Those ships (and monsters etc.) are gonna be handy for decades to come.

Well I am not saying that it isn't still a playable game, as it very much is. WK just went in a horrible direction with the property.

Consumers asked for a Dutch fleet, and they gave us vikings... *rolleyes*... that type of idiocy. It could have been a great game where it maintained a semi historical idea instead of going all over gods creation of fiction with it. In not sticking with one idea, the whole thing jumped the shark. Hell, they even named a ship that.

But yeah, This game definitely still stands on its own merits, even though WK is folding it up.

(Sorry Killkrazy, not trying to derail the thread. At least this digression is still slightly on topic.)

Working on getting some demos of this lined up for AdeptiCon. See if we can make that happen.

It's definitely based on Man o' War .. which was definitely one of the best games GW produced. Same artwork for the Ablaze marker!

I really wish GW would re-visit/update Man O' War for Warmaster or as a standalone

Well, I've gone and done it.

I've ordered Trafalgar, and Kiss Me Hardy from Too Fat Lardies, and Signal Close Action from Rod Langton. And some ships and a building guide.

One way or another there's gonna be some Napoleonic naval played this spring in the Kilkrazy household.

The great attraction for British gamers of the era is that there is absolutely no doubt we RULED.

I'm going to make a Spanish fleet because their ships were the biggest. They had a 140 gun monster, and it was painted red.

Kilkrazy has caught the Grognard disease. Welcome to the club.

And it is cool that it's based off of Man O' War. It looked like a fun game. Since it was a discontinued GW game, I assume the rules are pretty solid?



Das Wort: plagen

Hordini wrote:Kilkrazy has caught the Grognard disease. Welcome to the club.

And it is cool that it's based off of Man O' War. It looked like a fun game. Since it was a discontinued GW game, I assume the rules are pretty solid?



Das Wort: plagen

Actually, for my money, Man O' War was the worst of the 'specialist' games I've played, and I've played them all sans Gorkamorka.

If it is actually based on Man 'O War, and plays like Man 'O War, then I'll pass.

What was not so good about it, if you don't mind my asking? I've heard a few people say positive things about it, but not much negative (but I haven't heard a lot of talk about the game in general). I really have no idea personally, I've never actually played it.


Das Wort:
bevorzugen

Hellfury wrote:

Hordini wrote:And Hellfury, literally thousands? That is a lot of ships.

Sadly, yes. I have nearly every ship in the game, and numerous duplicates of the majority of those ships. Lots of binders full of unassembled ships itching to be played with.

Its really sad about how this game jumped the shark. Really good system, but bad handling by the company trying to grasp for the quick buck.

Was this the face that launched a thousand ships?

Hordini wrote:What was not so good about it, if you don't mind my asking? I've heard a few people say positive things about it, but not much negative (but I haven't heard a lot of talk about the game in general). I really have no idea personally, I've never actually played it.


Das Wort:
bevorzugen

Its been quite a few years, but I remember the combat taking forever. Sort of like damaging a vehicle in 2nd edition 40k. It took forever to sink a decent sized ship. So what was an average size battle took the better part of an afternoon and evening. There was a lot of bookkeeping in tracking what part of the ship was hit, how much it took, etc.

Without seeing how the Trafalgar rules actually work, if they're talking about 20 or so ships per side, the bookkeeping better be easy and the broadsides decisive.

I'll likely follow any reviews on TMP before deciding whether to purchase.

I'll be reading all three rulesets (Signal Close Action has a fastplay system and a detailed system) and give my impressions.

The good thing about historicals is once you have a bunch of figures you can usually use them with various different rules.

They made mention of Dutch fleets, makes me wonder how well they are represented.

Age of Sail naval warfare didn't change dramatically between the mid-17th and mid-19th centuries.

Obviously the technology improved a bit, but there were no huge leaps forward like steam propulsion or armour. Signalling and command also developed slowly.

In short, the same rules can easily be used for the Anglo-Dutch wars in the 1660s or the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars around 1800.

One good thing about warships is that they were such hugely expensive pieces of equipment that not many were built. The designs, costs and effectiveness are usually available today, for rule design.

http://www.rodlangton.com/
Supplier of 1:1200 ship models
See the pictures of the Napoleonic ship and the Anglo-Dutch ship just below.

There is a good range of Dutch ships available.

http://www.ghqmodels.com/store/211.html
GHQ do 1/1200 scale ships – better availability in the USA of course.

There are 1:2400 scale Napoleonic ships, but I think 1:1200 gives a nicer, more detailed model and battles up to medium size can be played on the table top at true scale.

I am SO all over this.

I wonder if my opponents would get it if I taunted them with comments like "Slack in stays, there!" or "Flog the last man off the yard!"

Man O War was a great game. Recently retrieved my bits and bobs for it from storage.

Just like a Naval Game should be, it was predominantly about manouvering yourself into as favourable a position as possible before launching overwhelming firepower against single ships or squadrons.

Boarding was also suitably deadly, if you picked your fights right....

Just like 2007 was the year of the Wild West in wargaming fads, and 2008 was the year of Weird War Two, I wonder if 2009 will be the year of Age of Sail?

I've just started with Uncharted Seas, and now this!

Splice the mainbrace!!

(P.S. never got on with WK's Pirates game though - I disliked the mechanic that says you could either move OR shoot every turn, not both. Just made the games cumbersome for me, although fun for the odd evening's drinking game. Didn't stop me getting a crap ton of the press-out li'l ships too though!)

Thanks to being off work ill today, I had the surprise bonus of my copy of Trafalgar arriving by post. I had forgotten it was due!

First impressions
Very much a Warhammer Historical production; A4 size, colour softback, 144pp, perfect bound. The inside pages are coour throughout and a good variety of illustrations in both colour and mono. If you have any of their other rules, like Warmaster, you will know what to expect.

Just to get my gripe in early -- is it too much to expect the game reference pages to be printed on separate sheets or cards? Using these in play will inevitably lead to having to cut up the book or break the spine by photocopying the pages needed, some of which are in colour. If it’s too expensive to print separate cards, print half the book in mono and use the money saved to add the play reference sheets we need for the game.

Having got that out of the way, back to the good stuff.

The game rules occupy 25 pages and cover everything you would expect, from basic sailing through gunnery, boarding actions, and advanced options such as towing with boats. Apparently they are based on Man’o’War but I haven’t read those so I can’t compare. It deserves a full read-through and separate review so I won’t go any further here.

The rest of the book contains the following sections:

Shipyard -- A list of the basic ship types from 1st rates (100+ guns) down to little courier ships, and merchantmen.

Fleet Lists -- The ships available to each nation and points costs for special upgrades. This includes the minor powers like Denmark as well as the obvious main players.

History -- A quick reference to the period 1793-1815, including a timeline and list of major battles, glossary, and a section on the Trafalgar campaign.

Six scenarios

Naval wargaming -- Covering the whole business of choosing, building, painting and rigging ships (rigging is covered better in the Rod Langton guidebook available here www.rodlangton.com) and making bases and seascapes. Very good because the illustrations are superb.

Campaign section -- Two pages of campaign rules and some campaign scenarios.

Legendary commanders and legendary ships -- Some of the most notable captains and ships of the period, with special rules for using them.

Reference section -- This contains the quick reference sheets, ship roster ships, compass and so on which ought to be provided as separate sheets or cards.

Overall a nice production which hopefully will encourage some new entrants into the age of fighting sail.

Thanks for that.

Any feedback regarding how it plays? How quickly? How many ships are reasonable? How are the campaign rules?

Despite my reservations, I might have to get it, just because I'm a sucker for campaign rules (even if they're only two pages).

I am working through a review at the moment.

I'd just like to know what fleets are available.