"AoS Campaign games" Topic

I found an old addition of the courier magazine which has an age of sale campaign game. I also have some avalanche press great war it see games.

This makes me wonder – are there any age of sale campaign games that focus on the naval strategic picture? I think Britain's campaigns during the Napoleonic Wars and many others would make for a great campaign game.

I've bought a number of the GWAS games with the intention of using them for AoS campaigns, but never have. I also had the AH game Blackbeard because the hex map of the 17th-18th C. Caribbean seemed useful, but I finally got rid of the game without using it. I decided the AP map for Plan Gold (and/or Plan Black) was enough and I didn't need both.

I have always thought the various annual Caribbean campaigns of the AWI would be some of the best naval campaigns, because they tended to be very even, the numbers of ships would be manageable (ca. 10-30 per side) and most had multiple strategic options. Even something like a relief attempt during the long siege of Gibraltar could be a pretty interesting short campaign.

The only way I've ever gamed AoS campaigns was as a series of linked games, 2-3 in a row. The best one had a court martial at the end, when the English rear admiral brought up the admiral on charges of dereliction of duty. Each acted as his own lawyer, the other players all formed the jury (and the other English admiral was called to testify as a witness), then the GM (me!) acted as judge. We had a good time with that.

I've considered running an Antilles campaign or North American Station campaign as a sort of one-track back-and-forth arrangement – each country has a main port at one end and a bunch of locations in a line between them to fight over, Reinforcements, troops, and occasional side missions would come into the home base and have to filter forward. Never put that together all the way though.

If anyone else has ever run an AoS campaign I'd love to hear about it.

- Ix

This has been something on my "slop chit" for many years. I have been working on an area based campaign system since about 1995 (it was intended to support my "Form Line of Battle" games). I really ought to pull my finger out and resurrect it. However, my wargaming "butterfly" tendencies have repeatedly seen the project drop down the priority list

An example of "butterfly" – as a result of renovating my WW2 coastal collection last week I have unexpectedly started the same on my 1/700 ships, and spent the last 2 days working on a couple of scratch built Vydra class landing craft for the 1973 Arab Israeli war!

Not Napoleonic, but…
Have a look at Red Sash games' Sea Lords series

"Mistral" (the Western Med) and "Yellow Jack" (Caribbean) naval campaigns of the War of Jenkins Ear/War of Austrian Succession.

Cheers
David

There is "1805 Sea of Glory" a board game published by GMT. It covers the strategic campaign that culminated in Trafalgar. On sale now at GMT's webstore I believe.

I forgot about Victory by any Means, a campaign system customized for Fire as she Bears but (supposedly) adaptable to any AoS game. I own it but have never gotten around to trying it.

There is also a 1793 Caribbean Campaign Compendium module for VBAM.

- Ix

I also forgot about Narrow Seas, a generic scenario generator for any AoS sub-era and any rules system written by the author of Captaincy for more skirmishy naval campaigns (just a ship or three per player).

- Ix