A pretty old set of rules produced by Fantasy Games Unlimited, the set can be played with either miniature galleys or a series of cutout counters for a variety of different vessels.  There is also a large map showing a couple of basic oared vessels for staging man-to-man combat during boarding actions.  The map and one of the counters can be seen in the photo above.

For what it covers, the rules offer a fair amount of information and appear to be usable for all oared naval actions from ancient to encounters during the Renaissance.  The rules were likely meant for historical gaming but appear to offer enough detail to allow their use in RPGs.

One thing to make note of is that a clear overlay is provided with the rules for determining such things as turn radius for ships so if purchasing the set used which I assume is the only way to get it these days, make sure the overlay is included.

 

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According to people who play it, a captivating experience. Rules are highly detailed. The game is played on a board with ships extending across two hexes as in Wooden Ships & Iron Men. I have yet to try this one out. Clash of Arms has focused heavily on naval rules beginning with Harpoon though this series of rules is now sold independently.

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A board game Battlewagon is suitable for miniatures as I suspect most naval games are. This covers WWI and WWII though detail for early Japanese ships seems weak. Another Task Force Games product now produced by Amarillo Designs Bureau. I have read that the rules were originally an adaptation of the Star Trek battles rules which in turn were created from the rules for the Avalon Hill game Jutland.

Rules provide involved multi-phase movement. Ship scale is 1 to 1 with each ship provided a chart showing weapons, armor, speed, etc. which is also used to record damage received from hits. Air power is an element noticeably absent from the game though supposedly this was added in an article in Nexus magazine, a publication put out by Task Force Games to promote their products. The games provides an interesting simulation with less involved rules than some but the need for an individual rather complicated chart for each ship suggests that the number of ships involved will never be very large.

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The great granddaddy of Napoleonic naval rules, Ship o’ the Line was the precursor to Avalon Hill’s popular boardgame Wooden Ships and Iron Men. These are the same rules but purely for miniatures. Similar but for ancient naval warfare is the boardgame Trireme by Battleline and later Avalon Hill.

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Exotica from Wargames Research Group allowing battles of Renaissance era oared vessels. The rules are simple. There is another treatment of the era in Strategy and Tactics #272. A oddity of the rules and a simple way to spot if they are in use is that they require a peculiar elongated hex base for ship models.

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These are pretty old rules for Napoleonic warfare at sea complete with an interesting role playing component. The combat rules are pretty detailed so smaller actions would seem preferable. There is an earlier version of these which I also have buried in the closet somewhere. The rules went beyond games existing at the time in covering ship movement, crew allocation, and combat. Some of the rules seem eccentric. The method for determining who fires first involves slowly pushing ships towards each other and seeing who shouts ‘fire’ first. Move distances sometimes drop to single digit millimeters, small enough that an accidental bump of a miniature might exceed the ship’s movement allowance for that turn.

There is also an interesting role-playing component that allows players to generate a range of naval officers and follow their successes and failures as they captain ships in battle. The rules also provide a useful overview of the life of a British naval officer while providing helpful details on the minutia of the cloistered world of a Napoleonic era ship. This includes a description of the responsibilities of the various personages that could be found aboard a ship of war. This is all very helpful information for anyone who wonders about what a carpenter or sailing master or marine might be called on to do. It also will aid in understanding films and novels based in this era such as those by C.S. Forester, Alexander Kent, and Patrick O’Brien.

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