"what rule set is everyone using?" Topic

Oops should have read " what rule set…"

Hi all been out of the Napoleonic ship game scene for a while.
Previously ,before all our other games, I was heavily into wooden ships and Iron Men. But now I would like to get back into the miniature side of things
It seems sales of glory is pretty big specially around here in our game store scene
So the title of this post says it all what rules are people playing l? And which should I be looking into ?
and give me your feedback thank you all very much

For big fleet battles we use Trafalgar, although we modify the crit table.

For skirmish we either use Legends of the Old West or Infinity.

I still use Wooden Ships and Iron Men.

I like Kiss Me Hardy

Form Line of Battle

Clear for Action

I enjoy Galleys and Galleons, but I know it's set prior to the Napoleonic Wars.

We have in the last year used both Wooden SHips and Iron Men, a home brewed variant of WSIM, and Heart of Oak

Don't Give Up The Ship.

"Wooden Ships & Iron Men" is what we use on a blue hexagon matt.

Sails of Glory for me

Wooden Ships and Iron Men

Kiss me Hardy!

Yeah, yeah; but what are the cool kids playing? H

Variant Sky Galleons of Mars.

Sip O the Line precursor to Wooden Ships and Iron Men or Fire As She Bears if it is a larger game.

Form line of Battle

I prefer Kiss Me Hardy for fleet actions, and Post Captain for smaller affairs.
BWW

Heart of Oak by Fantasy Games Unlimited

BTW, "Clear for Action" is pretty much WSIM on steroids. All those things that you wondered about like why you have different crew sections come into play, you have so many sections sailing the ship, so many fighting the ship, so many repairing the ship. It is more intricate though, therefore it's really only recommended that one player handles two to three ships, otherwise the game can become more record keeping than playing.

I've also played "Signal Close Action", Langton's rules. Man they are a handful, you pretty much have to learn how to sail a square rigger, it's cool like that but also a very steep learning curve.

"Ship O' The Line", my copy is from "Battleline" was a precursor to WSIM and as such is a very easy for a WSIM player to pick up. You have squares instead of hexes but it is designed for minis.

"Hearts of Oak" is probably the best sailing game that I have seen however, IMO, the combat system is flawed. There are some very good ideas, flintlock firing systems vs. slow match, lead cartridges, choosing at what point in a turn you want to want to fire and continuous broadsides. All great ideas but where the system falls down IMO is in the defensive capabilities of the ships, i.e. "hull factors". The ships can take as many hull hits as their nominal gun rating, therefore a ship like the big American 44s, notoriously stoutly built, only have hull ratings of 44, just like the 44s of any other nation. The same thing applies up and down the line, a large British 74 and a Small British 74 both have a hull rating of "74". Now you can I guess adjust those figure on your own, but I will say that I have found that "Hearts of Oak" again works best with small numbers of ships. That being said we once had a great game based on Old Ironsides running from the British North Atlantic Squadron early in 1812. Scarcely a gun was fired but it was a knuckle biter.

Those are the rule sets that I have experience with (oh, and of course WSIM but you already know about that). I would like to try "Post Captain" but again it sounds more like a small squadron type action, of course since I don't have enough minis to do Trafalgar that's really not that big a hindrance. I can always pull out WSIM for that.

Langton's 'Signal Close Action' – Fastplay version. Gives a great game.

"Admirals" by War Artisan.

Let's me play fleet actions in real time and gives an historically reasonable result.

warartisan.com/rules

'Form on the Admiral's Wake'

Thanks guys all real good comments and suggestions
Jowady, I appreciate your in-depth analysis on all those rule sets.
I'll do a little bit more research and all of them and let you know what I find out thanks guys

Post Captain. It is the first rule set I have ever played on land sea or air that I did not modify .

Joe