"Another Free Wargame" Topic

On the Rules Page of my website,

warartisan.com/rules

you can download the rules I will be using for one of my games at this year's Seven Years War Convention next weekend . . . "Admirals: A Game of Fleet Actions in the Golden Age of Fighting Sail".

A game of "Admirals" in progress at a previous SYWcon:

As the title implies, the mechanics are simple enough for a player to command dozens of ships without getting buried in bookkeeping. Ships are represented individually, but they are moved and gunnery is resolved by Groups and Squadrons, which allows true fleet-sized actions to be fought out in a reasonable time span. Ship ratings are included for the Anglo-Dutch Wars, the Napoleonic Wars, and everything in between.

Enjoy, with my compliments,

Jeff

Thanks, I'll give them a spin

Nice. Thanks!

Thanks, I've been looking for a simple yet enjoyable set of sailing rules in which I can use my many, many Pirates of the Spanish Main, et al ships.

Jim

Jeff,

Are the ships in the photo above paper or metal?

Paper, of course.

See you Friday!

Uncommon decent of you, old chap!

21eRegt – Looking forward to it, Michael.

Cerdic – Don't give me too much credit for decency . . . there are purely practical reasons for it.

First, there's the fact that there aren't a lot of options out there for rules that allow players to manage large numbers of ships (without an accounting background and a bottle of aspirin). Thus, there is really no reason for anyone to have large numbers of ships, which works against one of the biggest advantages of cardstock models: repeatability. You can buy the kit once, and build it as many times as you like . . . but why would you do that if you don't have a set of rules that lets you use all those ships?

Second, while I wouldn't mind getting some compensation for the time and effort it took to design "Admirals", I would be uneasy accepting money for work that isn't as polished as a commercial product should be. The most neglected part of wargame design is playtesting which, if done properly, can take months (or years) and involve hundreds of hours of additional reading and research beyond what went into the design in the first place. If I were to undertake proper playtesting of these rules, it would take time away from things that I would rather be doing right now (like designing more ship models). I could wait until I have more time to devote to the project, but the rules are workable in their present form and I wanted to get them into the hands of naval gamers as soon as possible.

The only reasonable decision seemed to be giving them away.

FYI, Artisan's rules Captain's Bold is also free on his site. This is a Frigate vs Frigate, single ship actions ruleset. Simple mechanics yet capture the flavor of the sailing age period. A fun set of rules for times when one has but an hour or so for a fast game.
I appreciate his efforts in designing such a set of rules.

Bravo!

I'll be giving these a try at the first opportunity. I would have already, but I'm trying really, really hard not to lose focus on my skirmishy galleon-era project, because it's been sitting incomplete in boxes for almost 20 years and I need to finish it before I die. Giving me a very attractive system to play one of my favorite gaming topics is NOT HELPING ME, dammit.

But, maybe I can convince our most recent local AoS convert to try these out….

- Ix

BTW, I think the idea of stretching or compressing the simulated time instead of changing the speed of the ships is genius.

- Ix

The artistry is only surpassed by generosity. Thank you.