The War At Sea has been published in 1975 by Jedko Games, in 1980 by Avalon Hill and in 2007 by the L2 Design Group. Even though it is the same basic game, each edition is different from the others. This review is relevant to the original Jedko edition.



A Description of Play
The game plays for 8 turns. At the end of each turn each player scores points for controlling some of the 6 sea and ocean areas on the map. These points accumulate from turn to turn. The player with the most points at the end of turn 8 is the winner.

Initially there are 27 British ships against 10 Italian ships and 7 German ships, as well as 3 U-boats. Despite this imbalance the Germans have a good chance due to two facts. The first is that they will usually get more points for each area than the British (e.g. control of the North Sea will score the Germans 3 points while the British will score zero). The second factor is that the German ships are technologically superior to the British ships and will get positive dice-roll modifiers during combat, as long as they remain undamaged.

During the game the British will get at least 8 ships as reinforcements as well as the chance of the Russian and United States navies joining them. In addition, there will be three allied convoys that may gain extra points for the allies (1 point if the convoy makes it to Britain and 3 points if the convoy can arrive safely in Russia. The German player will receive 6 ships as reinforcements as well as 11 U-boats.

During each of the 8 turns the British player will start by placing or moving his ships. Each ship will be based at a specific port and can automatically move into an adjacent sea area. They can attempt to move into a second non-adjacent sea area by rolling a die and comparing the result to their rating for speed. Ships that make no attempt to move can remain in port and remove damage that was caused through combat. The German player will then do the same. The German player cannot move through an area which was controlled by the British on the previous turn. This means that the British want to achieve a cordon of sea area control so as to restrict the German movement options each turn. The German player will also place U-boats. The presence of a U-boat in an area will stop the British from exercising control in that area; regardless of how many ships they have there. The German play has to decide where and when to use the U-boats – the German player may decide to just keep the U-boats in reserve. The German player receives 1 or more U-boats each turn as reinforcements. The British will then allocate Land Based Air (LBA) to attack enemy ships in a sea area and the Germans will do the same. British LBA is restricted to Germany, Italy, France and the Mediterranean Sea. The German LBA is restricted to the Barents Sea, Baltic Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Malta or Leningrad.

Battle is resolved as follows:
U-Boats – ships in the same area as U-boats work out their Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) level (1 die for most ships but 3 dice for each aircraft carrier and convoy) and roll an appropriate amount of dice. Each ‘6’ will sink a U-boat while a ‘5’ will send it back to port. U-boats then roll dice against the British ships, scoring a hit for each ‘6’ rolled and sending ships back to port with a ‘5’. U-boats that have not been sunk or disabled will stop the British having control of an area. In a perfect British world, the Germans will be restricted regarding which areas they can move to. In this situation the British player will allocated Aircraft Carriers and Light Cruisers to the rear areas where only U-boats can penetrate and put the Battleships and Heavy Cruisers in the sea areas accessibly to the German fleet.
Airstrikes – LBA and Aircraft Carriers launch attacks against enemy ships in the same area.
Ship-to-ship Combat – Ships in the same area will fight. Fighting will continue until one force is destroyed or retreats. Each ship will roll a number of dice equal to its gunnery factor. For each ‘6’ rolled it will score a hit and be entitled to roll another dice to see how much damage was caused by the hit (it will be between 1 and 6). For each ‘5’ rolled the target ship will be disabled and return to port. Combat is simultaneous. Each ship has a damage factor representing its armour. When the number of hits received is greater than its damage factor the ship will sink. At the end of each round of simultaneous combat either side has the option to retreat in one or more groups, in an attempt not to be sunk as part of a losing battle.

Areas are scored – each player adds up the number of points scored. The difference is recorded on the Points of Control track. Neither player can have accumulated more than 8 POC at the end of each turn.

As time goes on the Russian and U.S. navies roll dice to see if their ships will sail.

Strategies
I find this a fascinating game where both players have many options available to them throughout the game.

The British player must carefully allocate forces so as to restrict German movement and at the same time minimise losses. If the British forces are spread too thin the German player can concentrate in a particular location for local superiority. At the same time, if the British tries to protect too few areas and has a lot of ships in each area, the German player can pick up points easily without much conflict. Ideally the British player would like to entice the German to come out to fight so that the Kriegsmarine can suffer regular attrition. The Mediterranean is three areas away from the North Sea. The Barents Sea is two areas away from Britain. It is difficult to quickly redeploy ships around the map. Do you give up points and areas in the first couple of turns to create a cordon around Germany so as to bottle up the German fleet for the rest of the game?

The German player also has several options. Do you keep your fleet in port most of the time, waiting for your U-boat fleet to build up and stop the British controlling the North Sea? If you do this your fleet can breakout the following turn. Do you try to combine your German ships with Italian destroyers in the South Atlantic? Do you try to gain a lot of points early or do you just keep 1 or 2 points in front throughout the game so as to maintain a fleet in being which will be a constant threat to the British.

All of the above are reasonable approaches to adopt.

The Bad News
War At Sea shows its age. On the map the land areas are ‘baby-puke’ yellow while the sea areas are a muted blue – it looks as though the map was drawn by John Edwards’ 5 year-old nephew (and that may actually be insulting to the 5 year-old nephew). The is smaller than ideal for resolving combat – I know it is not a big issue as we are all consenting adults and have the ability to resolve combats on the table itself if we so choose. The rules are only three pages long and so it doesn’t take long to read them. The counters are a touch on the thin side. Ship counters are large and come in shades of green for the Axis and blue for the Allies. There are several player aid counters but they are quite fiddly due to their small size.

The Good News
Games take about 90 minutes and are highly interactive and a lot of fun. War At Sea was one of my first wargames and I spent many a lunchtime at work playing it with workmates. Luck is a factor – get over it or go and play chess.

There are a couple of significant differences between the Jedko edition and the Avalon Hill edition. The Avalon Hill edition gives the Allied player ‘1’ POC in the North Sea. To balance this it also allows players to accumulate up to a ‘10’ POC advantage over their opponent and this, I feel, helps the German player.

If you get a chance to play The War at Sea I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

“Dead Men Tell No Tales!”