"Warlord Black Seas - It's not even out yet !!!" Topic

I am an avid age of sail wargamer, and have rule sets people on this thread wrote or significantly contributed to. My first AOS game was WSIM, first edition, which I played with friends until it was dog eared. I have more rule sets and games from this genre than any other. I Playtested them all at least once. I am not an expert, but I read most anything I find that is Age of Sail. I have lots of miniature FLEETS painted and rigged, not just ships. As a result, I have opinions on what is good and what is not…and nobody cares or should care what I think.

I am with Mark Barker and Old Glory on this one. Black Seas has my interest, and if the starter set shows up in my hobby store here in the US I am probably going to pull the trigger. I will then decide for myself if the system is worth my further investment; which is really all Warlord would want from me. If friends and newbie locals at the store like it, I will likely run it.

Frankly, I think this past year has been great! I am looking forward to Oak and Iron, and Black Seas has my interest. That is a lot for one year in this little niche. If Russell Crowe finally gets support for a Master and Commander sequel, then I would be in pig heaven.

My whole point, the WL have every right to produce it, be it "rubbish" or not. In the end the consumer will decide if the "rubbish" outweighs the value of the product ? I never said there is no such thing as rubbish, just -- "one man's junk is another man's treasure!"
Like I mentioned, I have purchased books that had massive flaws, but the content was enough to make me overlook the flaws.

Dan the man, I look forward to checking out the Oak and Iron at the Forelock booth this weekend. They should be demoing games of O&I as well as Blood and Plunder as well.

I have already checked out the photos of the new ships on my distributors page. I look forward to looking at them in person.

I will decide then whether I will carry O&I or Black Seas in my stock.

"So let me get this straight. Cruel Seas recruited two fifty year old men into the hobby. Well that will certainly alleviate the graying of the hobby."

It recruited 1 50 year old man, the other guy was over 65, but I wouldn't say he was recruited.

There were other players who had limited wargaming exposure, everyone who played loved it.

Well the Firelock staff is here at Hurricane in full force. I have been able to watch play test of the rules and examine their model ship range. Both would rate very positive ratings. Now for me to decide which system to stock. One guy there does plan to use the Sails of Glory ships with the Oak/front rules.

Lots of hate for a set they haven't seen.

Well I have. Not an indepth chance, but enough for me to drop £20.00 GBP on an order (rule book only – I have ships).

There are those here who are going to hate it because it doesnt account for every sheet and sail. Hell there are those here who will hate it because its Warlord.

I almost didnt buy because of the basic movement rules, they are simplistic and wrong. However the Advanced move rules are what you will want. 3 speeds (al la Cruel Seas) – Maximum determined by wind attitude. 45' turn at the end of each movement segment.

Shooting – Range determined by weight of gun. Hit on d10. Number of guns variable by size of ship. Damage fixed by gun size; 1 or 2, or 1d6 for mortar. Hit points range up to 105 (I think) for a 1st Rate, with a chance of striking when low enough. Critical damage tables – not sure what triggers these, probably similar to CS.

Generic ships, with section on National Ships, so fleets can be different, with 'Personality' ships (Victory, Bellephron etc) if you so wish. 2nd half of book devoted to modelling.

Not loads of charts and dataships- you can use wake like CS to keep track of speed, and markers to show certain situation (eg counter with broken sails in the water).

I want to be a commodore or admiral, not the quartermaster.

I'm of the same opinion as the OP. I started years ago with Empire rules for Napoleonics and my group got frustrated quickly and changed to Napoleonic Battles produced by Avalon Hills at the time and voile…I actually got to play games on the weekends.

It's all about playability, enjoyment, and attracting new and younger Gamers.

You can look for realistic results, etc…but in the end it's all an abstraction because you are sitting at a table rolling dice, playing cards, moving miniatures…you're not sweating while loading cannon in cramped smoky quarters while chunks of wood and iron fly about creating horrible human carnage as your ship takes a broadside.

Oddly enough, my review of the rules will post next week as my weekly column for wargamer.com .

I subscribe to (and write for) Wargames Illustrated Prime digital and they dropped a YouTube Flip Thru of the rules. I was able to pump it to full-screen mode then Pause and Screen Capture every page of the actual rules themselves. You might want to consider doing this prior to purchasing if you have doubts. I'll be playing thru this weekend using Wooden Ships and Iron Men counters as substitutes.

FWIW, I do believe a lot of reviews' criticism is based on personal preference vice actual design flaw. It's not that a game function doesn't work, it just doesn't work FOR THE REVIEWER. Nonetheless, I will be interested in the punctuation aspect, based on some recent activity in that area I was involved in. Grammar rules seem to have changed, especially in comma use, and even I was taught that the so-called Oxford Comma is now defunct.

Ciao, Colonel Bill

Based on the Warlord Facebook page posts, there are a lot of people interested outside the usual old man demographic, and they are already buying Wargames Illustrated and putting ships together.

I think it is great…if we don't shoot ourselves in the foot and turn them off…