"Black Seas gun formula?" Topic

Read through the rules and am starting to try several one on one games. Hope to post a review next weekend. Any guesses on the gun formula. I play small ships and would like to sail the USS Argus which was a 16 gun brig armed iwht carronaids. Their default brig has 2 dice of heavy guns.

Thanks

Joe

None that I could figure out quite yet. Considering a brig even within a nation's own fleet could cover multiple styles or "classes" with wildly different armament, I guess they settled for a simple gaming convention.
They have large merchantmen better armed than their brigs in the game-I did not realize merchantmen would be that well armed.

Just a quick review of the cards seems to indicate something like a 1 die equals 5 guns of a given type ratio.

Its my understanding that though merchantmen may have had several guns, they lacked the training of naval vessels, and their crew was too small to man them all.
It would be possible they could load their guns before an engagement, given the time, and could fire them with one guy setting off the loaded guns in sequence. After that I guess its unlikely they would get the guns reloaded.

If this is incorrect, I am sure some more knowledgeable will correct me!

If the historical ship was armed with Carronades, then that's what your Brig should be armed with. I don't know why the Brigs in the game have heavy cannon; most brigs had light cannon or Carronades.
So just produce cards with 2L or 2C instead of 2H, and adjust the points.
The 2H Brig is 80 points, I'd suggest a 2L one should be about 60 point, and a 2C maybe 70 points.

Thank you all for the comments.
Maggot. 5 to 1 sounds right. At least it is a starting point. Will try to figure it out from there. Thanks
Dexter. Agree long cannons was an interesting choice for brigs. They must be thinking earlier. Thanks again

"They have large merchantmen better armed than their brigs in the game-I did not realize merchantmen would be that well armed."

The only merchant ships armed to such a degree were the ships operated by the East India Company; they were the size of a 64 gun ship of the line. The typical merchant ships of the day were MUCH smaller – barely the size of a brig or ship-sloop.

B

They have large merchants (which are clearly supposed to be East Indiamen) and small merchants. The latter I think just have a couple of light cannon.

I suspect Warlord have a pretty abstract conversion of real life specs to game stats – perhaps it might be worth looking at systems with a set conversion from real life to game?
War by Sail for example has the USS Argus, armed with Carronades as part of the War of 1812 American ships. Each ship is 1:1 converted to the game system with its real guns.

Full list of American 1812 ships from the War by Sail ship rosters:

At
Thank you for the list. I have Post Captain but your list is more complete. Agree it is abstract but I am hoping there is method to the madness. I like the combat system for black seas with some of my tweaks for it simplicity hence my project

I am hoping there is method to the madness.

The method is having a simple 5 sizes of ship that the real life ships have to get shoehorned into. I understand the abstraction. And I understand that would frustrate some people.

The madness would be requiring a custom made card for every individual real life ship, indicating all their unique properties and armaments. No thanks, buy ymmv.

My interest is the Lake battles of the War of 1812 (tough to play the BrItish for once). Let's look at the Battle of Lake Erie. So my question is this: The American ships Lawrence and Niagara come in at 480 tons. The rest of the schooners and brigs range from less than 100 tons to 180 tons. Just so I can use the ships that I currently own, can I class the Lawrence and Niagara as 5th class frigates and the rest as brigs? In reality Lawrence and Niagara were large brigs, but they dwarfed the other brigs and schooners. And I'm thinking upping them to a small frigate may be more realistic in game terms. What do you all think?

Love the chart but some of the smaller but important ships are missing like the USS Ariel,Tigress, Trippe and Porcupine. But luckily they fall into the small and tiny classification of Black Seas pretty readily.

Its pretty quick to stat out new ships for War by Sail – I will add those ships in :)

AeroTom, you are a rockstar!

However, no good deed goes unpunished. Do you have a similar BrItish List that I can see for the smaller lake ships that may have been excluded……
And for you to also add in?

We need a "humble thank you" emoticon here at TMP. I hope will do.

5 to 1 for guns seems to give the right results. I think the game would also improve if there were 3 categories of cannon rather than 2. If you round the cannon size to the nearest 10 that gives you the damage. So 8,9,12 pdrs are all light cannon and cause 1 damage. 18,24 pdrs are medium and cause 2. 32 pdrs are heavy, and cause 3, as do 32pdr carronades.

@Bowman – here's the list of British ships for 1812 for War by Sail

dexter.
dividing into 3 categories is a good idea. think I will try that.
AT
nice list
anyone know where I can buy some schooners and sloops in this scale?

You can buy 1:700 schooners, sloops and cutters for very reasonable prices here:
link

dexter
great site. do the ships come with sails also?
will order some for christmas.
thanks
Joe