Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have a copy of Osprey's Fighting Sail: Fleet Actions 1775-1815

I am by no means an expert on sailing ships or the time period beyond basic knowledge of Naval history. However, I know many people love it thanks to a few famous fictional heroes of literature. My interest has mostly been in passing. However, there are a few things I love about Naval wargamingin general:

1, Typically a smaller model count
2. Easy to make terrain
3. Small gaming room foot print

Therefore, I was eager to pick up these rules when I saw them become available. It is a fleet game, and designed to use Ships-of-the-Line more than Frigates and small craft. It is not really meant for ship-to-ship duels. However, it can accomodate those fleet types. For example the American Fleet is all 5th and 6th rate ships! I.e. Frigates. The book contains fleet lists and some special command rules for fleets including: French, British, Russian, Spanish, American, Dutch and Pirates. Some claim that it misses out on the Danish, Turks, and Swedes as potential enemies. I sort of agree since how can a British fleet pull a Copenhagen without a Danish fleet? Well, I guess you wouldn't really need the stats for a Danish fleet in that scenario since they were all sunk in port, but you get the idea!

Anyway, I digress. The scale is 1/1200 and the GHQ Micronauts range is mentioned several times. However, it does cover how to use the larger 1/2400 scale as well. It does not give any indication on how to use the scale of the Sails of Glory ships though, since they are (of course) a unique scale.

The author of this work begins by sharing a bit of his pedigree in the genre. He mentions that his first foray into naval wargaming was GW's Man-o-War rules, and that led him eventually to historical naval games. After trying those for a while, the Golden Age of Sail became his favorite. You can tell he knows a bit about the period as he peppers the rules with actual nautical lingo like; In Irons when sailing into the wind, Crossing the T when raking, Waring when turning sharply into the wind, etc. These official terms are actually part of the rules, so this may lead to a bit of confusion for us land-lubbers.

The game has three parts:
1. Initiative- Determien who goes first.
2. Sailing- Player with initiative moves all of his fleet, then the other side does.
3. Cannon- Initiative fleet fires, then the other side.

It covers the basics of movement, shooting, boarding, collisions, etc using a pretty simple and straight forward method. You roll a number of d6's based on the abilities of the ship in question. Depending on your relationship to the wind or target, you might have slightly different target numbers fo a success. In movement, you convert successes into how far and how many turns your ship can make. When firing it is the number of hits. When resisting it is to eliminate hits. It is pretty straight forward and easy to grasp, however a refence sheet would be handy. Thankfully, this game has a reference sheet you can photo-copy in the back. The basics of sailing and fighting are laid out clearly and include helpful diagrams.

When moving, your relationship to the wind is important. Shocking I know! However, once you have determined the number of Sailing successes you have, you can manuever wihtout worrying about the wind, until your next turn. That means there are times where you might be able to move relatively quickly into the wind. To some, this may feel a bit odd as you don't pay the penalties for your moves until your next turn. Another thing that is interesting, is that no ship can just go straight, it is always manuevering at an angle called . I suppose this is accurate to sailing but since I am not a sailor myself I really don't know.

Some folks will also be horrified to learn that there is a mechanic similar to an "Exploding 6!" mechanic to incur extra hits. However, in most cases it is limited to a single extra potential hit, unless you are raking someone. I know this mechanic can be considered controversial. However, it seems to make shooting up close very deadly, just like the flavor of the period would suggest. I imagine battle in this game take a turn or two of manuever, followed by a couple turns of brisk shooting, and then a decision in many cases. Only a lucky few would need to re-position themselves again for another attack. However, without an actual game I am guessing based on my reading of the rules.

A final point that some people will not like is that games of this nature tend to use templates a lot for turning and determining how you are moving into the wind. Some gamers do not like this at all. In addition, you will also need damage and anchor tokens. These are all provided in the back of the book for copying.

Each fleet has set number of moral points, as ships are hit, strike their colors, captured, or sunk it reduces the fleets morale. The first fleet to 0 moral looses. Interestingly enough, you can gain Fleet Morale by capturing enemy ships as prizes. The author recommends a 300 point per side game, so 30 Morale to start. That is about 6 ships per side.

Of course, the game also covers some advanced rules in a seperate section about wind and weather changes, multi-player games, sea terrain, and special ships. It then has a small selection of scenarios that cover the basics. As a bonus, the rules also have a couple pages of rules for single ship frigate duels, that have slighlty more detail, but follow the basic rules of the game. In the Fleet Lists it also covers special characters, also know as Histoical figures; and legendary ships. A nice bit of flavor.

The book as diagrams to help illustrate its rules. It also has some shots of GHQ Micronauts line on the table and with some smoke to represent the battle. Nothing to inspiring but enough to give you the flavor of the gaming. Finally, it has very nice artwork from the Osprey library that really make you want to get a few ships and go to town.

Overall, this seems like a pretty easy to learn but hard to master set of rules. Aren't those the best kind? It has just enough spice and flavor to make it fun, but not enough to overburden the game. It definitely focuses on immersion and away from simulation and compared to other Age of Sail/Naval games I have looked at tries to simplify the book keeping and focus on the game play. However, it is also crew centric as the main difference between ships is the abilities of its crew to sail and shoot which is reflected in the stats of the different Navies ships. A British 1st Rate and a Spanish 1st rate have different strengths and abilities on the table. Again, enough for flavor but not enough to be a deal breaker. They look to strike a balance between the Strategic (list building and fleet org) versus the tactical (How you manuever and shoot with your ships) to make a fun looking game.

Let me know your thoughts about the game below and feel free to add any pictures or battles using the rules. I would love to see it!

Thanks for this. Aside from cost of minis: What are the advantages, if any, to this game over Sails of Glory? What drawbacks does it have compared to SoG?

They had a small feature about this in Miniature Wargaming with Battlegames magazine recently and I was intrigued. Might pick up a copy of this at some point.

To enlarge on what Easy E has ssaid, there are six scenarios in the book. When choosing a fleet, you spend your points allowance on ships -- larger, better ships cost more, of course. You can also add admiral and captain "characters", some of whom are historical like Nelson, some of whom are archetypes. The characters cost points and give your fleet some special abilities. For example, Nelson increases fleet morale by 20% and can throw the intiaive back to the enemy once per game.

I am not familiar with Sails of Glory so I can't comment on it. The key difference between Fighting Sail and the other Napoleonic games I have played is that there is a lot less detail in tracking damage and crew losses. Instead, you win or lose based on the overall morale of your fleet. This should speed up play considerably.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I am not familiar with Sails of Glory so I can't comment on it. The key difference between Fighting Sail and the other Napoleonic games I have played is that there is a lot less detail in tracking damage and crew losses. Instead, you win or lose based on the overall morale of your fleet. This should speed up play considerably.

Having played SoG I can tell you that it's all about tracking damage and crew loss.

If the rules say that a fleet of six ships is a standard engagement, it must be faster playing than SoG. Running more than two ships per player in SoG can cause headaches.

 infinite_array wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
I am not familiar with Sails of Glory so I can't comment on it. The key difference between Fighting Sail and the other Napoleonic games I have played is that there is a lot less detail in tracking damage and crew losses. Instead, you win or lose based on the overall morale of your fleet. This should speed up play considerably.

Having played SoG I can tell you that it's all about tracking damage and crew loss.

If the rules say that a fleet of six ships is a standard engagement, it must be faster playing than SoG. Running more than two ships per player in SoG can cause headaches.

This! Sails of Glory is more about ship-to-ship encounters which is great for Frigate battles, ship-to-ship duels, and Pirate type scenarios. However, not so good for fleet engagements like Trafalgar. These rules abstract more and speed up the game. Plus, there is no choosing manuever cards and the like.

As mentioned, the SoG ships are also not compatible scale-wise with most other ship manufacturers, and these rules are the wrong scales for SoG ships. However, I'm sure with some jiggery-pokery you can make it work.

Another thing to call out, is that this game is a tape measure game as opposed to a hex game.

Sails of Glory is 1/1000 scale. This is close enough to the standard 1/1200 scale of fighting sail games that you could easily use SoG ships with small or even no adjustments to the ranges given in the Fighting Sail book (or any other age of fighting sale rules such as Warhammer Historical Trafalgar, or Rod Langton's Signal Close Action). You could not mix the two scales together on tabletop, of course.

The main disadvantage of SoG ships over GHQ's or Rod Langton's ranges are the small number of ship types available and the expense. Against that, there is the convenience of ready made models.

Looking at osprey publishings history books section is something I should never do. But great. Now I have ANOTHER CHOICE. X-wing, Armada, Imperial assault, Flames of war and now this. I can't choose. What models should I use for this? Micronauts has a unexplained full/battle sails thing that I dont understand.

As you are in Eire I would recommend the Rod Langton models.

http://www.rodlangton.com/napoleonic/frame.htm

The GHQ models are also good.

The difference between full and battle sails is that to prepare for battle the ships would take in a lot of sails to reduce the risk of fire.

Both Langton and GHQ offer alternative sets of sails so you can set up your ship for battle of normal sailing to suit your preeferred look.

That site is weird. I cant get it to scroll down. Thanks anyway.

Note that in Osprey's rules, ther eis no mechanics different from FUll or Battle sails. In addition, there is no mechanic for firing high (at rigging) or firing low (at hulls) is instead abstracted with an anchor token that occurs in different situations.

If you are looking for some inexpensive, generic Napoleonics Ships, have a look at Portsmouth Miniatures.

The miniatures are somewhat basic, but look good when painted up.

They are also a bit larger than the Micronauts from GHQ (the Micronauts being 1/1200, Portsmouth's stuff being more around 1/600).

MB

I noticed at my local Retailer that GHQ is now selling Fleet packs for the major nations. That can make getting into this game even easier! The pricing seemed reasonable and I could have a decent fleet quick and cheap. If only they came painted and rigged.

Huh. What local retailer is that?

I was actually thinking of ordering this game (picked up Honours of War and Thaw of the Lich Lord instead), and I stumbled onto a TMP conversation. Wow, I never thought that throwing saves for ship damage could cause so much anger!

Would this work for some basic ship movement to use for a game of Saga?

I'd like to find some simple ship rules for maneuvering longships prior to grappling and then combat. Let the ships move around and shoot each other a bit before the messy nature of land combat at sea. With Saga's losers disengaging you have a ready mechanic for being forced overboard or similar.

I have these: http://oldglory25s.com/view_product.php?product=MRB-1

I use for battles with 15mm viking ships. I don't see why a change of scale would break them...

 Maniac_nmt wrote:
Would this work for some basic ship movement to use for a game of Saga?

I'd like to find some simple ship rules for maneuvering longships prior to grappling and then combat. Let the ships move around and shoot each other a bit before the messy nature of land combat at sea. With Saga's losers disengaging you have a ready mechanic for being forced overboard or similar.

Well, one major difference would be the fact that Viking Longships used rowers and/or sails while the ships in Fighting Sail did not. I am not sure the mechanics were designed for such vessels. Your better bet might be to look into Galley/Ancients naval rules for that type of combination.

Of course, I am not an expert on Viking Naval tactics, so I am unsure how much ramming vs. boarding vs. missile weapons played into their naval fighting. My foggy memory of Njal's Saga seems to recall boarding being the preferred methods with anti-personnel missiles exchanged while closing. So, maybe even Ancients style combat wouldn't be a perfect fit.

 Easy E wrote:

 Maniac_nmt wrote:
Would this work for some basic ship movement to use for a game of Saga?

I'd like to find some simple ship rules for maneuvering longships prior to grappling and then combat. Let the ships move around and shoot each other a bit before the messy nature of land combat at sea. With Saga's losers disengaging you have a ready mechanic for being forced overboard or similar.

Well, one major difference would be the fact that Viking Longships used rowers and/or sails while the ships in Fighting Sail did not. I am not sure the mechanics were designed for such vessels. Your better bet might be to look into Galley/Ancients naval rules for that type of combination.

Of course, I am not an expert on Viking Naval tactics, so I am unsure how much ramming vs. boarding vs. missile weapons played into their naval fighting. My foggy memory of Njal's Saga seems to recall boarding being the preferred methods with anti-personnel missiles exchanged while closing. So, maybe even Ancients style combat wouldn't be a perfect fit.

Viking Naval combat would be a suite of archery/hand thrown missles followed by grappling and boarding. Ramming would not have played a part of combat. However such rules are easily bypassed.

The main thing is finding a useful set of maneuvering and grappling rules. After that I'll use Saga to cover combat.

I've been tempted to pick up the rules as they're only a tenner, though I've been erring on the side of caution as some of the rules are a bit suspect (as you've pointed out).

I've been spoiled by Close Action.


As an easy to pick up game I expect this would do nicely however

Fighting Sail is intended as a simple, fast-playing large fleet game, and I think it will be fine compared to (Signal) Close Action as long as you take it for what it is.

Aye indeed, as an entry-level game from what I've seen so far, it looks like a friendly and stress-free introduction to sailing games (and as a main game for those frightened by manuals birthed from War and Peace).

Looking at the game mechanics, I'm of the opinion it's better than Sails of Glory (that system really works well for quick WW1 plane dogfights but I'm not convinced with warships)

GW Historical's now OOP Trafalgar is worth comparing with Fighting Sail as a relatively simple ruleset.

I have that book too. I should give it a look for comparison. Fighting Sail was definitely less expensive!

Well, I am falling in love with Osprey in general. I was a big backer of Sails of Glory Kickstarter. I must say, it has a pretty FANTASTIC game mechanic. I love me some Osprey... but SoG is pretty great. The reason that fleet actions are difficult is because thats the way it was in real life. Fleet battles were messy messy messy. The British disciplined maneuvers is a very succesful strategy that is echoed in the mechanic.... like raking by "crossing the T". Here's some short vids.

Here's the unboxing:
https://youtu.be/clLxysCO6nQ

Here's a battle report:
https://youtu.be/7fcRsBqPUTc

Has anyone picked up the Old Glory Trafalgar boxed sets?

http://www.oldgloryminiatures.com/products.asp?cat=602

I was curious if they were any good, because the pictures on the Old Glory website do not inspire me with confidence.

By the picture, what they have done is to model the shrouds or ratlines as past of the mast. This is much simpler for construction but makes the mast and rigging a huge chunky piece of metal.

If you want really detailed models, the Rod Langton are very well regarded, and can be ordered with various different sails settings and brass photo etched ratlines. There is also a construction and painting guide that shows how to do the rigging using cotton thread.




http://www.rodlangton.com/napoleonic/frame.htm

This is all a huge PITA of course, though if you can stay the courses (ha ha!) you do get a most superb result as shown by the photos. I have not dared to attempt a full rigging.

I bought a Royal Navy squadron set from Langton at a show, with the intent to use them for Warhammer Historical's brand-new Trafalgar rules. Seven years on, they're still in the box.