Fast Play Armada Rules (1994)

From the Introduction

"Last year I promised to present for discussion a set of rules covering the Armada period of naval warfare. Here are those rules, or rather a fast play version of the Channel Wargames Group's current set.

"The philosophy behind them is both to make an attempt to make a set of rules that give a good flavour of the period and the methods of fighting with ships current at that time. And to make the games played with them as enjoyable as is possible. Because of this things such as gunnery have been simplified as much as possible.

"Ships gunnery at the time of the Armada was a thing in a state of flux. It is as well to contemplate, that ships carried many different types of ordinance, all intermingled together on the same deck. The logistics of serving such a varied armament in a rapid manner was beyond the capabilities of the time, and I would hazard a guess beyond us today as well. Most authorities give a maximum rate of fire for the guns of the Spaniards as once, yes once, a day. Small pieces and hand held weapons were obviously much quicker to reload. Even the English rate of fire is said to have been at best once an hour. If this difference had been used in the rules the Spanish player's would be sitting on their for much of the game, and the English for quite long periods. The solution to this problem can be read in the rules themselves..."

User Summary

Rules set covers scale, speed of units, sailing rules, handling classes, wind effects, firing, ranges, firing charts, special effects table (effectively a sort of critical hit table), putting out fires, effects of bowing on hull factors, boarding, morale, special rules for galleys, a ship list, and a brief bibliography. Game requires models (1/600 preferred for ease of scratch building), and two types of dice (d6 & d20).

Rules set appears in Wargames Illustrated #178 (July 2002)