"Different levels of rules" Topic

On the Napoleonic land board there is often discussion of differing levels of command in the rules. Skirmish, tactical, grand tactical and so on. Would anyone care to make recommendations for the following sorts of naval combats.

Unrated Ships – a handful of ships aside where they are unrated – with a small frigate being a powerful ship.

Frigate – probably single ship actions but could stretch to two or three a side.

Small squadron Maybe 5 or 6 third rates and above with perhaps some frigates in attendance.

Fleet Action – bring out the big boys – and bring lots of them.

Looks like a good start that covers many of the historical actions in the "great age of sail."

Jim

We use the old TSR classic Don't Give Up the Ship aka Dguts though I find Wooden Ships and Iron Men good as well. I recommend 1 ship per player otherwise the game is spoiled by helicopter game play perfect co ordination between ships in an age without radio

Jim,

You ought to play "Admirals" by War Artisan with multiply players a side . Fleet action where the only communication allowed is via signals.

link

This own shows the growing frustration of the CiC

link

Rules here:

warartisan.com/rules

You ought to play "Admirals" by War Artisan with multiply players a side . Fleet action where the only communication allowed is via signals.

I wonder how far this goes to mitigate the "black hole" effect I often see in age of sail games.

Black hole effect is where there seems to be some large magnet in the middle of the battle that attracts most of the ships from both sides into a big base-to-base blob of hulls and masts from which none can escape, and then someone rolls a critical and 2/3 of the ships in the blob catch fire domino effect and most of them explode.

I wonder how far this goes to mitigate the "black hole" effect I often see in age of sail games.

That hasn't happened in games of Admirals I've played, run or observed, but then, it's not a widely played commercial set attracting lubbers who misapprehend that Nelson advocated a brainless scrum. It tends to be played by people with some education in the genre, and the rules really emphasize fleet maneuvers, punishing clumping in several ways. Given the game mechanics, it's probably nearly infeasible to create a giant domino conflagration. Hopefully Jeff will chime in here to elaborate.

I think the phenomenon you describe is common because most AoS rules are written with far too much ship-level management and far too little fleet management to make a good fleet game. Without proper mechanics emphasizing the admiral's decision cycle and minimizing the captain's decision cycle, the natural result is going to be a captain-oriented melee of individual duels. (FWIW, I think the black hole effect is perfectly appropriate until the end of the First ADW, but after that, fleets should be rewarded for having greater discipline and formation management.)

In my own fleet-level game I did observe that first time-players tended to fall into general melees quite quickly, but players who'd played 2 or 3 times were better at fleet tactics and less likely to allow a melee until they saw an advantage to doing so. There were enough C3 rules to make the melee a clear option (rather than the entire point), and players quickly started to see the problems with the "have at 'em" approach, and why it was historically avoided outside Nelson's gifted presence. I had also started creating more involuntary movement rules to help attenuate melees naturally (e.g. individual ship morale causing break-off and flight), but didn't get far before I ran out of players and gave up playing altogether.

- Ix

Returning to the OP, I'll list my favorites, with the frank admission that my opinions are worth what you paid for them:

Unrated Ships – a handful of ships aside where they are unrated – with a small frigate being a powerful ship.

Right now I would use Away Boarders for a fast and (very) fun game with 1 ship per player and a referee, or Post Captain with 1-2 ships per player and no referee.

Frigate – probably single ship actions but could stretch to two or three a side.

I would use Post Captain for this level.

Small squadron Maybe 5 or 6 third rates and above with perhaps some frigates in attendance.

The only way I would try to play a battle like this is as a multi-player game with 1-3 ships per player. The majority of the published Age of Sail rules I've seen and played will work, since most AoS games cater to exactly this scale. In my case, my list of choices would include Langton's Close Action Fast Play (or Tiller and Whipstaff for the 17th C.), the old Ship of the Line (WS&IM for miniatures), the local game 74 by Steve Marthinsen, Post Captain if only playing 1 ship per player, and there are plenty of other games I'd consider if I happened to fall in with a group that had a favorite (like Heart of Oak or Beat to Quarters, which still have followings).

Fleet Action – bring out the big boys – and bring lots of them.

As you might have guessed from my last posting in this thread, I'm likely to play either Admirals or my own rules Line Ahead. With an interested group of players I'd also be willing to play Form Line of Battle, but not if I have to do all the organizing and refereeing. Some day I would like to try Grand Fleet Actions in the Age of Sail, and Flying Colors if I can figure out how to remove the hex grid, but I have no educated opinion about either at the moment.

- Ix

If I may elaborate on the OP a bit, there is another level of rules I'm personally still seeking: 1-3 ships per player, with all the players on the same side (working together) and the referee controlling the entire other side (the "bad guys"), potentially including a lot of ships.

I think this could be done with Langton's fast play rules sets (Close Action Fast Play and Tiller and Whipstaff), but both need some work. I thought the rostering system worked poorly and needed more preparation, the rate of damage needed to slow to a more realistic pace, and the system needed to scale better across ship types to accommodate the little vessels better (it's really meant as a big-ships-in-big-squadrons game system, and seems to work best as a big-ships-in-moderate-squadrons game).

- Ix

Is your Heart of Oak the one by Walter jon Williams? Doesn't that have a rpg version which should allow all against the Games Master?

It's been many many years since I've even looked at them

Love his SF also

Ahoy gentlemen.

> Re Close Action Fast Play: The one occasion upon which I participated in a game, I watched a frigate wrecked and strike as a result of a single double-shotted raking broadside (admittedly at VERY short range). The match was over in one turn of fire.

> Re squadron/fleet maneuver: My impression of the AoS period is that parallel lines exchanging fire at 600 yards customarily result in long and indecisive engagements unless some accident of wind or mismanagement arises. Once the forces close and the fighting become earnest, the ability of an admiral to control events diminishes by orders of magnitude. Getting the right mix of C&C mechanics and victory conditions can be tricky.

B