Warhammer Historical’s Trafalgar
Reviewed by Kilkrazy, 7th March 2009
Trafalgar is the latest rules released in Games Workshop’s “Warhammer Historical” imprint.
As the name suggests, Trafalgar is a game of naval combat in the high Age of Fighting Sail -- 1793 to 1815 -- the time of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. It was during this period that Great Britain won a string of crushing victories over the French and their allies, and established a worldwide naval hegemony that lasted for 100 years.
The rules don’t make the British automatically the best, though, so don’t worry about choosing a different navy. Although the big battles mostly involved the British, French and Spanish, there were many smaller and more easily playable battles involving Americans, Russians, Swedes and other nations.
First impressions
Very much a Warhammer Historical production; A4 size, colour softback, 144pp, perfect bound. The inside pages are colour throughout and have a good variety of illustrations in both colour and mono. If you have any of their other rules, like Warmaster Ancients, you will know what to expect.
Just to get my gripes in early...
No.1
Is it too much to expect the game reference pages to be printed on separate sheets or cards?
Using these in play will 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.
No.2
Players need a proper index, not just a contents list. Modern publishing software builds indexes automatically. Learn how to use it.
Having got that out of the way, back to the good stuff. ..
Basic Layout
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.
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 -- These are for one-off battles.
Naval wargaming -- Covering the whole business of choosing, building, painting and rigging ships (rigging is covered better in the Rod Langton guidebook, see at bottom for contact details) and making bases and seascapes. This section has superb illustrations.
Campaign section -- Two pages of campaign rules and some campaign scenarios.
Legendary commanders and 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.
The Rules in More Detail
Scale
The basic scale is 1:1200 and measurements are made in centimetres or half-inches. All measurements can be halved for the use of 1:2400 scale models, or doubled for use with 1:900 or 1:600 scale ships.
Each ship is represented by a single model and the playing area recommended is four feet square (48 inches = 121
cm) or 4 feet by 6 feet for large scenarios. This will allow battles to be played on a normal table top, though it does not cater for chase scenarios. You could of course drop this rule to play chases and campaign battles.
Beware of touching the table edge, since ships which sail out of the battle area are considered sunk!
Turn Sequence
1. Weather and determination of initiative
2. Movement (sequential depending on initiative)
3. Shooting (simultaneous)
4. Admiralty
5. Tidying up
Movement
Each ship has a set movement allowance ranging from 18 for the fastest to 10 for the largest first rate battleships. Speed can be increased by using full sail, or decreased by battle damage and factors such as shallow water. The position of the ship towards the wind is crucial, with ships unable to move directly upwind and getting their best speed with the wind on the quarters rather than directly behind. Turning is done by moving around a turn indicator card, which limits the speed at which you can manoeuvre your ships.
It is easy to calculate that the move allowance of 10 to 12
cm for a typical line of battle ship equates to an average speed of about 4 knots (8,000 yards per hour) and a turn length of 1 minute. This should not be taken too seriously though as the rules are clearly written with a game in mind rather than detailed simulation.
The Weather Gage
Ships are moved in order, starting with the most downwind and moving to the ship most upwind. This gives a tactical advantage to the fleet holding the weather gage. There is a 1/6 chance of the weather changing each round. This can move the direction of wind, increase or decrease wind strength, or bring fog or storm. This is obviously a very rapid pace of change of weather.
Thanks to inertia, the slow speed of movement and the wide turning circles, ships move carefully and slowly, however, due to the short range of the guns tactical manoeuvring is still possible within the small table size. Once in gun range, the action hots up quickly.
Gunnery
Unlike movement, all gunnery is considered simultaneous.
Large ships carry guns in broadsides and small batteries of stern and bow chasers. Small ships and boats usually only have chasers.
The guns are organised into three classes, Heavy/Light/Carronades. 10 guns on the original ship become a gun factor of 1 in the game, allowing you to roll 1 die in gunnery combat. A first rate ship like the Victory (104 guns) has a rating of 4/4/2, though if you shoot both sides at once the factors are halved due to lack of crew.
Heavy guns are given a range of 30cm, light a range of 20cm and carronades a range of 10cm. Guns can fire every turn (every minute.)
This is not historically accurate since the maximum range of guns was about 1,000 yards for light, and 700 yards for heavy, while guns fired about 2-3 times in 5 minutes. However, historical engagement ranges were often short since the accuracy at theoretical maximum was low, and despite having longer range, light guns would not always penetrate a distant target’s hull. It is a compromise to allow the game to be played reasonably quickly.
When shooting, you roll 1D6 per gun factor and 4+ is a hit -- Victory would roll 10 dice at point blank range. Each roll of a straight 6 is a critical hit unless you needed already a 6 to hit due to modifiers. Critical hits can cause crew panic, dismasting, fires and other mayhem. A roll of 1 is always a miss, regardless of modifiers.
Hits are taken in three areas, high (sails and masts), low (crew and guns) and below the waterline (hull.) In each area, the target gets a saving throw against the incoming fire. Unsaved hits mark a box off the target’s relevant damage track.
Once a whole line is marked off, the ship’s capabilities are reduced. For instance, on losing the first row of ‘low’ boxes, the ship loses its carronades.
Obviously in real battle, guns are not lost in a neat sequence, but this method speeds things up. Basically, the gunnery is more game than simulation and is designed to make battles rattle along quickly.
Gunnery also includes mortars and rockets as ‘guess’ weapons, since these were used for shore bombardments.
Admiralty
Sometimes a crew must take a command check, for example if panicked by a critical hit. Each ship has a command rating from 2 to 6 depending on its size and seniority of the captain. This is added to
2D6 and a result of 10 or higher is a pass. Admirals and squadron leaders can give +1 to the command rating of nearby ships.
Tidying Up
This phase is just used for clearing away things like ‘fired’ markers and sunk wreckage.
Winning the game
The side who sinks half the enemy fleet first is declared winner. This includes ships moving off the edge of the map.
Advanced Rules and Boarding
Boarding is found in advanced rules since it didn’t often happen historically. It takes place during the Gunnery phase.
When ships grapple, each side get 1D6 plus some modifiers, which can be extra dice or plusses and minuses. The higher roll beats the lower roll and the difference is crew squares knocked off the loser. Once the crew rating is reduced to 0, the ship is captured. Winners roll a
D6 for each casualty they inflict, and take a casualty for each 1.
Other advanced rules cover towing with boats, the effect on firing of holding the lee or weather position, and a few other minor points.
Fleet Building
The basic way to set up a game is rather like Warhammer
40K. You choose a point value, say 1,000 and buy ships out of the selection available for your nation. The largest ship becomes the flagship.
Most ships can have optional upgrades (anti-boarding nets, grenades, marines and so on) added, which are like wargear in
40K. There is even a small selection of legendary commanders and ships, which can only be used in big point games, much like special characters.
Final Impressions
The rules mechanisms are simple and effective in giving a good flavour of Napoleonic Naval combat without bogging down. The lack of fine detail makes them more suitable for playing big battles quickly than small combats or duels.
Resources (with URLs where known)
Rod Langton (1:1200) http://www.rodlangton.com/index.html
GHQ (1:1200) http://www.ghqmodels.com/store/napoleonic-micronauts-battle-sails.html
Portsmouth (1:900) http://www.portsmouthminiatures.com/
NavWar (1:1200) Cheap but less good detail. http://www.navwar.co.uk/nav/default.asp?MMID=75
Skytrex (1:700 and 1:1200) http://www.skytrex.com/
Valiant (1:2000)
Figurehead (1:2400)
Thoughts on Models
1:1200 is the best scale for Napoleonic naval as it ideally combines detail with the practical ranges and movement speeds of the era. In a two minute turn, a ship about 2 inches long might move 8 scale inches and fire an effective broadside at a target 15 inches away. A normal size dining room will easily accommodate two fleets of multiple ships. The largest battles of the period (Trafalgar involved 60 Line of Battle ships) can be played out on larger surfaces. The models can be built with a variety of sail settings and riggings, which not only enhance the look but also increase the strength of the masts.
The best 1200 scale models are reckoned to be Rod Langton for the Euros, or GHQ for the Americans. Rod Langton's range is more complete, but harder to get in the USA.
The smaller scales are suitable if you don't have the money or space for 1200, or if they are too much effort to build and rig.
