Age of Sail

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, my first venture into Age of Sail was to bring the battle of Cape Ortegal to my tabletop. More about the action later, but it was a small action, fought between two squadrons, twelve ships in total, rather than a significant fleet action. However, my ambition is to refight the great clashes of the era, Glorious 1 July, Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, so the rules I choose ideally should accommodate these significant engagements. This focus eliminated many rule sets that focused on ship-to-ship duels.

Rules and Constraints

The first step in my quest involved reading several rules sets to establish which ones appealed. Rules that a wargamer chooses are a personal choice to fit their requirements. Three constraints impacted my selection. First, I have limited space, so any option had to be played on a 6’ x 4’ table. Second, I mainly play solo, so any dedicated rules to aid solo play would be attractive. Last, I wanted to test the period with a limited financial budget. This led me down 1:2400 scale ships. Although War Artisan card ships tempted me, I thought they were too large because of my restricted space.

The Rules

I had previously tried tabletop board games, like the Sails of Glory and Oak and Iron, but they did not allow me to recreate large engagements. Therefore, I concentrated on five sets of rules.

Grand Fleet Actions (GFA) by Andrew Finch and Alan Butler, A & A Game Engineering,

Far and Distant Ships (FDS) by David Manley, Long Face Games,

Fighting Sail (FS) by Ryan Miller, Osprey Publishing,

Fire as She Bears (FASB) by Phil C Fry, Starboard Tack Press,

Kiss Me Hardy (KMH) by Nic Skinner, Two Fat Lardies.

Please look at my earlier post for site links for these rules.

Period Covered

Before looking at the individual rules, a few general comments. First, only some of these rules covered the same period. Kiss Me Hardy is focused on the ‘Age of Nelson, whilst GFA and FASB can be used to refight engagements from the 16th Century. Fighting Sail is the most restrictive covering the 18th century and the first two decades of the next century. Therefore, most of these rules can cover a period from the Anglo-Dutch wars to the end of the Napoleonic conflicts.

General Comments

First, most rules are pdf downloads that you must print if you want a hard copy. The notable exception is Fighting Sail from Osprey, produced to that company’s high standard. Few of these rules are indexed, and only FDS and FS have a QRS sheet. However, QRSs can be found online and in various Facebook groups for most of the rules. Fighting Sail and KMH have the best online support with dedicated forums and Facebook groups. All the rules have online tutorials to help land lubbers like me learn the rules. The naval arena is poorly served compared to the plethora of excellently produced rules for Napoleonic land battles. This is best illustrated by the lack of templates (movement and gunnery) needed to play the games. Only KMH has commercial templates, so in most cases, homemade solutions are required.

None of the rules has dedicated solo extensions, although the activation system, card or token driven, in Kiss Me Hardy makes solo adaptation easier. Although I have not tried it at this stage in my research, some of the ideas on command in a KMH supplement can be transferred.

Initial Thoughts.

Whilst the rule might be lacking in swish presentation, they make up for it in playability. Most rules are quick to learn that concentrate on the command aspects rather than the details of seamanship. This design approach produces some friendly mechanisms and improves playability. Boardgames Geek scored most rules below 2.50 out of 5.00 on complexity.

Play Testing

My initial thoughts on my read-through and some limited play testing are,

Far Distant Ships (FDS)

Designed for significant naval actions, they are low complexity, quick to learn and have the advantage of no off-table bookkeeping. The rules played like a DBA game, so opposing dice with a handful of modifiers. This led to a fast, easy-to-learn game that captured the problems faced by the age of sail fleet commodore. The advanced rules that include a signal system would undoubtedly add to this impression and the fog of war.
My main criticisms are that the rules would have benefited from detailed examples of some key concepts. Secondly, the carronade fire at close range is lethal, but there is no information on which ships carried them. However, these comments on ship details apply to all the rules I reviewed. The excellent site is the best starting point for most enquiries.

Two free scenarios, Glorious 1st June (1794) and Camperdown (1797) are available. Beyond these two scenarios, the rules currently need more online support.

Fire as She Bears (FASB) 

A Medium-complexity game designed to fight fleet actions. However, it involves off-table bookkeeping, limiting the number of ships that can be handled in solo play. One annoying feature is the rules is that examples are found in a separate download file making referencing awkward. A significant downside is the special basing requirement (octagonal bases) that will limit future options if you are still experimenting.
There is a limited number of scenarios. The Trafalgar extension contains four scenarios, including Cape Ortegal, but I am still looking for other official scenarios. Overall, an excellent rule set for a club where players command a squadron of six to ten ships.

Kiss Me Hardy (KMH) 

Designed for fleet and single-ship engagement, with low complexity but requires off-table bookkeeping. I found KMH more enjoyable with some excellent mechanisms that, when played, would quickly become intuitive. The British and the Americans have the highest quality, the ‘Jolly Jack Tars’, whilst the French forces, ‘Sans Culottes’, are average. Poor Spanish crews get the lowest category, ‘Land Lubbers’. Further customisation can be made using Brian Weatherby's ‘Messing around with Boats’ article in the Lardies’ 2011 Magazine. Generally, the British have better crews, but the French have bigger and better-gunned ships.

However, this customisation comes at a cost, off-the-table record-keeping. Although this is not onerous, it does impact the number of ships a single player handle. Another potential downside is that the initiative is driven by cards, which are unavailable commercially. So, a home production job is required. However, movement templates are available from Warbases or the game’s supporters on Facebook. These templates make movement more straightforward than the other games I examined.

Fighting Sail (FS) 

An Osprey Wargames book, so the best-presented and most straightforward rule I examined. However, they need more feel for the era but are actively supported, and enthusiasts have filled in several of the weakness. Therefore, with some research, you have an easy-to-learn game that covers fleet actions and frigate duels with no bookkeeping. Overall, the rules are streamlined, but for me, they leave some historical flavours behind.

Grand Fleet Actions (GFA)

Aimed at squadron and fleet actions and have a similar feel to FDS. But the detail incorporated in these rules is impressive. However, I found these rules more challenging to learn than FDS. For this reason, I nearly abandoned them, but on the second reading, I decided to keep them on the playtest list. The authors state that you need a squadron of ships to benefit from their rule design, so there are better engagements than Cape Ortegal to do them justice.

Playtesting and Interim Conclusions

The game I set up was a simplified Cape Ortegal, with three 3rd Rates, one 80 guns and two 74 guns per side. The wind, as in the battle, was from the northeast. The simple objective for the French side was to leave the northern edge of a 4’ by 4’ table, which the British had to prevent.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to provide a detailed battle report that will be saved for the refight of the actual engagement. However, the test battles played out similarly, with the French failing to break through the British blockade. In both games, the French lead ship, Duguay, suffered substantial damage, and in Kiss Me Hardy, the French flag, the Formidable, struck her colours. The British ships did not go unscathed and received significant damage to their rigging, which nearly allowed the French squadron to escape.

Which Rules?

In brief, I liked both sets of rules, FDS and KMH. I think KMH are the more evocative of the period, but the recording limits the number of ships a player can handle. Between 8-10 ships, so whilst refighting Cape Ortegal is possible, they would not stretch to more significant engagements, although for clubs with several players aside, this is possible.

I will use KMH for the more minor engagements because of the extra flavour they bring to the gaming experience. FDS has a DBA feel and lends itself to the more significant battles. Then there is the slow burner among the rules I explored, GDA. These rules, like FDS, will come into their own in more significant clashes, so I plan to further playtest FDS and GDA, probably by replaying ‘Calder’s Action’.

Overall, whilst the genre might lack visually appealing rules, it makes up for it with some clever design mechanism that allows replaying the naval battles of the era as a commander rather than getting swamped by sail settings, etc.