One of the features of the WSAIM game was that it was played on a hex grid, but the SPI chose a square grid. In my view the SPI choice is the better for the Age of Sail, as better to depict the four points of sailing: beating, reaching, broad reaching and running before the wind. The game uses the 'movement allowance' system of 2 'movement ponts' for orthoganal and 3 MPs for diagonal movement. There are also tacking and wear ship commands for changing course and direction by more than 90 degrees. How the ships coped with the wind depended upon their sailing qualities, an A-grade vessel being a fine sailer with a well-trained crew; a C-grade being unhandy and/or with an ill-trained crew.
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| Points of sailing. The arrows indicate wind direction relative to the vessel. |
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| The large 3-4 masted vessels look like line-of-battle ships; the 3-masted fore-and-aft rig is a schooner, apparently< the square-rigged two-masted vessel I'd call a brig, or maybe a sloop, and the single masted boat, I've been calling a cutter.. |
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| Wooden Ships and Iron Men game. The vessels in look very similar to the Pirate game ships and small craft. |
Can these vessels be used on the Fighting Sail playing grid? Possibly, with some tweaking, bearing in mind that most of the ships take up two grid areas. I'm already wondering about roping in all the small craft for a Battle of Lake Erie (1812) game...
The Game was Pirates of the Spanish Main I recall.
ReplyDeleteI tried to find out more about them, but couldn't find anything really informative
DeleteThe whole "Pirates of the ..." line has been out of print for several years. You can usually find booster packs of the ships on-line (surprisingly good prices on ebay of all places) and each booster contains a copy of the rules along with the ships (2 per pack?).
DeleteThanks for the info! I was vaguely thinking of making some balsa and card ships, but the eBay thing looks like an option!
DeleteImpressive and beautiful ships!
ReplyDeleteNot bad for punch-out and clip-together are they?
DeleteHi Archduke,
ReplyDeleteThe original rules for WSIM were in fact a table top set designed to be used on a square grid with ships taking up two squares. As I recall they were by the same chap and went under the name Ship o’ the line. They played really well and were better than the stripped down version that became WSIM.
I remember seeing Fighting Sail back in the day but was knee deep in Ship o’ the Line at the time.
All the best,
DC
I see. I always thought the WSIM was a hex system, rather than 'open board'. I was seeing a lo of adverts at the time, but never looked into it closely. 'Fighting Sail' turned up on the book shelves, I was interested (being a Hornblower and Jack Aubrey fan), that was that.
DeleteSpeaking of which - a fun scenario to try (whatever the rule set) might be something like the Battle of Ile de la Passe, in Mauritius. An attack on ships at anchor in a restricted waterway, and a bit of a disaster for the Royal Navy, but it should be simple to play. And a test of combats mechanics.
Cheers-
Ion
Hi lon,
ReplyDeleteThe Avalon Hill WSIM used hexes but SotL - its predecessor used squares and more and more I am thinking that if you are going to fight a naval game on a grid then squares are the way to go. I have a digital copy of these rules somewhere so let me know if they are of interest.
All the best,
DC
Cheers, David -
DeleteAvalon Hill. Of course. Now I remember. I think something I read recently misled me. It was quite a long time ago, and I was going by memory. I agree that for the age of sail, square grids are the way to go, but maybe for, say, the age of Steam the hex grid does have something going for it. At any rate, I'll probably stay with fighting Sail for now, but I may yet get back to you on that alternate rule set!
Thanks,
Ion
Interesting stuff! Played WSIM a few times using the hex and counters version. I like your comments about using a square grid and would be tempted to use bigger squares so each ship just fits in one. Must be a market for some new cheapish but nicely modelled Ships of the Line and smaller craft.
ReplyDeleteThe largest of those war ships, oriented orthogonality sits just comfortably within two squares 0f the FS game board. So 2-icch squares would do it.
DeleteThe FS playing area is 30 x 20 1-inch squares. a comfortable fit for a coffee table. I'd probably use the same board, but take the movement from the bow half, except when tacking or wearing, but those moves could easily be adapted (it's pretty obvious how).
Must look into this. A few little balsa ships might be the go...
I have also used these cardboard ships for gridded naval games, although my gridsize was very large, such that 3 or more ships could comfortable fit into a single cell. We also played the game outdoors.
ReplyDeleteSome images (and simple rules): http://snv-ttm.blogspot.com/p/flagstone-fleets.html
Promising looking notion! I have a small outdoors gris area (6x4 concrete pavers) that would do for small actions, I guess. But that does put me in mind of possible riverine actions in the front paved area, which is long and narrow. Something might be made of that! Thanks for the ideas!
DeleteIt will be interesting to see more on your progress with this one Ion.
ReplyDeleteCould you simply scale the distances as necessary to take account of the ships occupying two rectangles? As has been noted by others, in Wooden Ships and Iron Men the counters (or replacement models if used) occupied two ... hexes. I had the game and I'm sure it had a rectangular grid, yet the downloaded version of the rules that I got from The General Magazine Project shows a grid. Perhaps it was changed in later versions--or my memory is in error, which would not be the first time!
I have an idea the idea might work even without doubling ranges. It is something we'll have to experiment on some time!
DeleteI've got the SPI Fighting Sail, but haven't played it in a long while. I've only played WSIM once and the ships sailed right past each other (error in scenario design).
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