Playtest: Warfare at Sea in the Age of Reason

A new year and time to catch up on what has been an active week in gaming. 4(!), yes 4 games this week.

Today Chuck and I play tested the Warfare at Sea in the Age of Reason rules. This set of rules is tucked, ney, hidden away in the Age of Reason Vol II expansion book. The book is the second in expansion books for Warfare in the Age of Reason a set of rules which covers the Seven Years War.

It’s also available stand alone from War-game vault. It’s well worth it.

It is in direct competition with Wood Ships and Iron Men which our group has used for a number of years for age of sail battles.

With Warfare at Sea you command various ships of the line. Chuck and I played French (me) vs Brits (Chuck). The stats system is straightforward, based on the rate of ship you have so many sail boxes for each of 4 sails. I had 2 80 gunners and 1 110 gunner. Chuck had two 74 gunners and a 110 gunner. So 4 boxes per sail  for the 80 gunners and 6 boxes per sail for the 110. The 110 was a 1st rate and the 80s were 3rd rate ships of the line. Then you divide up your guns with 2 bow, 2 stern and then the rest between port and starboard. That would be 38 port and starboard for the 80s for instance. The guns are organized into groups of 6 boxes so that’d be 6 of 6 boxes and 1 line with 2 boxes for 7 total lines for the 80 gunner. This represents the number of 6 sided dice you throw when firing without modifiers.

One fires at either the rigging or the hull. Historically the French attempted to de-mast and thus aim high, Brits would aim low and go for the hull. Hull hits check off gun boxes and rigging hits check off sail boxes.  Complete a row of the guns, lose a dice for firing and also take a critical hit roll. Lose a sail and you loose 1/4 of your unadjusted speed.

The game plays much like Wooden Ships and Iron Men but with a few differences. Moving is similar with the orientation of the ship and the wind either slowing or increasing speed. You can set full or battle sail. Full sail increases speed but if you take a sail hit, it doubles to 2 sail hits.

When firing as mentioned you roll d6s and for each multiple of 12, you score a hit after which you drop a d6 for each hit to determine if it’s a sail or hull hit.

Crew quality ranges from green to crack. We used the historical values for French and Brits and were both Vet. There are various times to use your crew ratings such as getting out of irons. (IE sailing into the wind to tack)

Each turn each side rolls for initiative. High die decides to either go first or defer.

Gunner class is interesting in the game. The Brits are a B and the French a C. In the case of the French you can fire just once but you can do so in your own or anytime during the movement of the other side. Brits if they win the initiative have the ability to fire twice but only by letting the other side move first. The Brits are able to fire anytime during the move of the French and then again at the end of their own turn. If the Brits go first, they only get to fire once at anytime during their turn.

The cone of fire is directly to the left and right for a broadside. It’s a fire zone that is directly perpendicular to the ship so it’s not a generous cone. Again this factors into the gunner class. In the case of firing at any point during the turn you can fire anytime when a ship drift into your field of fire, but with the Brits for them to fire twice their ship has to fire at the very END of their movement, so they have to keep the enemy in cone. This takes some expert sailing!

Overall, I’m quite pleased with the rules and they seemed to play pretty well. I would only change the rule when a ship should start to roll to see if it might sink or strike her colors. As printed the rule is that it’s a total number of hull boxes will determine when to start to roll to see if you sink or strike. I would change it to the number of hull boxes on either port or starboard. Thus if both sides of your ship take a great deal of fire, you’ve two chances to roll for. Further if you lose all your sails and take a bow or stern rake, that’s another very good reason for a captain to call it a day, as they did back then.

In our game Ian took command of the French 110 gun ship. He decided to open up at long range which then caused the Brits to open up with their line but concentrate on one of the 80s. Having been hit fairly hard the one 80 turned to starboard in the hopes with the fresh guns it might be able to get a stern rake or two as the rest of the French lined tried to match the Brit line.

Chuck through the course of the action took advantage of the ability to fire twice and eventually de-masted the French 110 gunner. We ended up firing most of the action at long range and only just coming into normal range a few times. Oddly even tho Chuck completely followed the British doctrine to fire at the hull, his rolling was such that he completely de-masted the French 1st rate ship of the line.

We had one lull in the wind that lasted for 4 turns. In this game when you tie the initiative roll, you see if the wind changes both speed and direction.

With the 110 taking a huge amount of damage she struck her colors being dead in the water. I almost de-masted a Brit 74 gunner but today just wasn’t our day and the two 80s needed to both flee, victory Brits.

We didn’t get to test out a boarding action but perhaps next time. For 3 ships each, we were able to play through even new with the rules in about 3 hours with prep and rule review.