"Rules for War of 1812 Lake Battles" Topic

I'm interested in playing the War of 1812 Lake battles using 28mm ships and was wondering what would be a good set of rules to use. I want to be able to do ship-to-ship as well as ship-to-shore battles and be able to combine land combat as I'm wanting to do some amphibious landings as well. What are your thoughts?? Thanks in advance.

War of 1812 Lake battles using 28mm ships

28mm ships? They'll be huge! Hope you've got a LARGE playing area.

Rocket's Red Glare, by Canadian Wargames Group. This is a fantastic resource book for the War of 1812 with both land and sea rules and scenarios.

You talking about just boarding actions? Or full naval battles on the lakes?

Full naval actions (which would also include boarding actions). I'd say a maximum of 6 ships per side.

+1 to the recommendation of "Rocket's Red Glare". The naval rules are not for 28mm, but would be invaluable for the ship information and senarios.

For rules, there must be any number of pirate rules available, or find "Limeys and Slimeys" somewhere.

The HMS Shannon was roughly 150' long – taking 28mm as roughly 1/50, that means a model is 3' long.

Hope you have a lot of space.

I'll be using mostly OG's Gunboats and Galleys which are roughly 1' – 1 1/2' long. I plan on using several tables that have room to walk between but will be played as if the table edges touch. And yes I realize it will be a "big" game but I'm planning it mainly for conventions. That being said I'd like a set of rules that isn't too complicated but still has the flavor of sail era naval combat. I eventually plan on doing a series of games (1 per convention) that will cover the Great Lakes during the War of 1812. Some will be purely naval, some purely land, some a mixture of both.

Ahhh, okay – you mean the ships are roughly 28mm long… not typically how that is expressed…

I just got back from the Maritime Museum in Halifax (Canada) that has a nice exhibit on the War Of 1812 – got me thinking as well about naval actions.

You might want to look into Sails Of Glory.

No I screwed up and put inches instead of feet in my previous response – fixed it. It will be 25/28mm scale but most of the lake ships were sloops or schooners with a few larger ships later in the war.

Here is a specific set for battles on Lake Erie: warartisan.com/.

Right now I am building Thoroughbred's ships to give them a try.

Thoroughbred Models is updating the rules Prevailing Winds. It was to be available first quarter 2014, but website says it's still unavailable. I have a copy and like them. I use the 15 mm ships from Thoroubred and with more than a couple of ships you do need lots of space to maneuver.

I came up with some modifications to the Sail and Steam Navies rules for the War of 1812 lake battles (formerly from Bay Area Yard, but now available from Wargame Vault).

You can see more about the War of 1812 Lake Ontario campaign I ran, along with links to my rule modifications and ship forms at this link:
link

Dave

I had to slip the publishing back into this coming fall or winter. They have been fully reworked and better IMO by Randy Hardin and crew in Illinois and some of the Jacksonville FL gamers. We have integrated a better turn sequencing, more small boat and land ops. So much that we will be renaming it after our 15mm model and figure range – Sea Eagles.
Toby Barrett
Thoroughbred Figures

Out of curiosity, what figures are you planning on using for the crews Razor? I have solved my 1812 ship, gunboat and cannon problem but am constantantly looking for good naval figures for the era.

Matt Green
laserdreamworks.com

War Artisan has a set of rules specifically designed for the Great Lakes (or small ships actions generally). Like all of Jeff's rules they are playable and give the correct period feel.

warartisan.com/rules

Matt,

For crews I have some Old Glory figures but just did a test order from Captain Miniatures as I saw some of their stuff recently here on TMP and I want to compare with OG. Also I bought a few of your carronades a few months back to see how they looked and I was quite impressed. I'll be placing another order to outfit the fleet once I get exact numbers of what I need. Any plans to do the british gunboat in 28mm?

Those who may be interested in gaming the naval battle may consider joining the Battle of Lake Erie discussion group:

link