"Heart of Oak, Form Line of Battle, Kiss Me Hardy" Topic

I haven't played naval games in this period since the board game "Wooden Ships & Iron Men". Now I'm painting up a couple squadrons of 3rd raters in 1/2400 scale.

Of these three rule sets (I've owned for years), which is the fastest/simplest? I'm figuring on putting on a game in a few weeks. The Corlears Hook Fencibles are a finicky crew (that includes me) so I want 4 or 5 3rd raters per side to be resolved in a couple hours or less without math hangover. Your suggestion?

Form Line of Battle is pretty fast.

Heart of Oak is still my favorite for squadron level actions. It's an excellent sailing game, that is, it emphasizes and does a great job of simulating how you maneuver and sail your ships. The combat and gunnery system is decent and pretty detailed, good boarding action rules as well. But given it's granularity, its one of the older "detail" games, until you become familiar with it it's not a fast play system.

Well I'm a kiss me Hardy man so that's a vote for each!!

For sailing manoeuvers and good (if bloody) boarding actions then I'd say Heart of Oak. And there's a pretty good role playing game that goes with them.

I only own KMH but researched rules a lot before deciding on a different set [ Beat to Quarter- a free set]. I would say Either FLOB or KMH. Heart of Oak appears pretty detailed.

Good luck

Joe

Out of those you listed I only have experience with Kiss Me Hardy. I like the ruleset a lot, but I think with 8 to 10 ships in the game, and teaching it to new players, you're probably looking at more like 3 to 4 hours.

Though one thing I've done to decrease playing time slightly when I can't spend too long is to slightly increase gunnery factors, by say two dice or so per ship. It makes the special damage a little more likely to occur, which grinds down the ships a little faster. – James

You can play WSIM with models.

You can make a simple hex board by making a blue cloth with rows of off set dots:

link

Or for fleet actions, you can game Trafalgar in 3-4 hours using "Line of Battle" from HR Games (full disclosure, I wrote it ):

link

I've tried a modified card deck (so no order writing) from Kiss Me Hardy with everything else from WS&IM and I reckon it was pretty good. For ship v's ship or really small games with up to four a side I still think WS&Im is pretty good if you want to get games played in a reasonable time frame.

Well, Wooden Ships & Iron Men is out since I no longer own a copy. I'm currently finishing a set of Napoleonic land rules and have no energy left for tweaking naval rules. I just want to play something straight out of the rule book. So far it looks like Form Line of Battle.

I'm painting up 5 French 3rd raters, 4 British 3rd raters and a frigate – which looks really tiny in 1/2400 scale. I can hardly see the broken masts and flotsam that I ordered and am holding off on painting them. I'm afraid if I sneeze they'll be in the next county.

Well, Wooden Ships & Iron Men is out since I no longer own a copy

Follow the link here for the WSIM rules:
link

Ooh, nice. Is anything on the missing page 7 critical?

Of course I need half inch hexes or 3/4 inch hexes to play this. I could just use an existing land game and ignore the terrain…
Nah, that's beyond my weird tolerance.

Or I could wander by the Strategist and see if they have nay blank hex sheets. Maybe take a tiny 3rd rater with me to see if it fits…

Or maybe just play Form Line of Battle.

Heart of Oak is my go-to rule set. Available as a pdf for all at Drivethrurpg (like about US$10) link

I love Heart of Oak, but I'm not sure it will run battles of that scale in that time frame. On the other hand, it is, far and away, one of all time favorite rulesets.

Of the three you mention Form Line of Battle is definitely the fastest/simplest. However, Heart of Oak is a great game and well worth the investment in time to learn and play.

Heart of Oak…..a great rule set (my favorite too)….but only with smaller numbers of ships. Most beginners can only handle one ship, though with practice you can handle up to about 4 or so.

I think it works great for Frigate actions, pirate raids, and small squadron actions (in the Caribbean), but really stretches the seams for large fleet battles. If you had enough players, it would work, but that's rare unless you have a really organized group or are at a convention.

Skipper

Edit: There used to be a pretty simple version called "Ship of the Line" (I think) which we cut our teeth on back in the mid 80's. I've got fond memories of it as we used Popsicle stick ships and it had damage cards for each ship. We ran quite a few large battles with it, but I've lost my copy through the years and my memory is beginning to fade.

WSIM missing page 7 here:
PDF link
It's actually from 1st Edition, but there are no changes between this and 2nd Edition.

Thank you Major.

I thank you for it all
Be safe
Rory

I haven't played Kiss Me Hardy, but if it's a choice between HoO or FLoB for a quick game, then go for FLoB. It actually has layers of detail you can add in or leave out too, depending on what you think your players can stand.

The Armada rules at runtus.org can be easily played and modified for Naps.