Game: Wooden Ships & Iron Men

Thread: Re: Senarios and Extra rules

LimboLance — 2008-12-01T04:38:43+00:00

B_J_S wrote:
Are there any possibility to get the General articles?

As the magazine is no longer in print, I think that there should not be any problems to copy them.
I may be wrong here tho.

Several Volumes of The General are being sold as PDFs by this outfit:

http://www.ahgeneral.org/

They also print some replacement parts, variants and counters. They (the site) also has a lengthy discussion on why the material is no longer considered "copyright"ed.

Thread: Re: Rule Book

ZarathosNY — 2008-11-30T04:49:27+00:00

Felkor wrote:
Here ya go:
http://www.hasbro.com/default.cfm?page=cs_instructions&lette...

Page 7 is missing from the Hasbro site. You can also find the rules here with the missing page 7

http://helios.acomp.usf.edu/~bmwillia/wsim_pub/home.html

Thread: Re: After Action Report: Battle for the Great Lakes

Lufbery — 2008-11-30T03:20:37+00:00

cmontgo2 wrote:

I figured I'd post some AARs because it seems like the game's page has languished for a while with no real interest--understandably so, since the game has been OOP for over 30 years!

Chris, the AAR is appreciated. I last played this game a few months ago and I'm hoping to do so again soon. I've played two or three times now with the basic rules and now I'm ready to try the advanced rules.

Now I wonder, why not reprint this game with a little bit of an update to the rules?

I've been thinking about that same idea for a while now. Other than nicer-looking counters like the ones in Close Action or Great War at Sea: Jutland, I'm not sure what other changes the game really needs. The 2nd edition melee rules tweak helps clear up some odd results with melee.

What suggestions do you have for updated rules?

Thread: Re: Rule Book

aliabba — 2008-11-17T04:36:48+00:00

Guys, you can play online here:

http://www.youplay.it/default.asp

Enjoy!

Thread: Re: The Game That Makes Iron Men Cry & Whales Blubber.

Windopaene — 2008-11-10T22:46:39+00:00

Just played the first two small scenarios with my son last night. He kicked my butt. It was a nice trip down memory lane. Hope to play more soon. Hadn't played in probably 30 years. Ready to move to the advanced game...

Thread: Re: The Game That Makes Iron Men Cry & Whales Blubber.

cmontgo2 — 2008-11-10T22:13:50+00:00

SpaceButler wrote:
Yup, still the best when it comes to AoS games. I'd love to see a nicely done reprint of this game to make it available to a wider audience again.

Agreed, and make a deluxe edition which would include some pre-painted miniatures (or at least some red and blue plastic ships).

Cheers.

Chris

Thread: Re: Miniatures

sagitar — 2008-11-06T13:08:25+00:00

I'd love to see some photos of that.

Thread: Re: Senarios and Extra rules

JasonRMax — 2008-11-04T17:32:37+00:00

BGG prohibits upload of copyrighted material like General articles. (I asked when I got the General with the Blackbeard articles and was told no)

Thread: Re: The Game That Makes Iron Men Cry & Whales Blubber.

SpaceButler — 2008-11-03T22:49:15+00:00

Yup, still the best when it comes to AoS games. I'd love to see a nicely done reprint of this game to make it available to a wider audience again.

Thread: Re: Senarios and Extra rules

B_J_S — 2008-11-01T17:12:31+00:00

Are there any possibility to get the General articles?

As the magazine is no longer in print, I think that there should not be any problems to copy them.
I may be wrong here tho.

Thread: Re: The Game That Makes Iron Men Cry & Whales Blubber.

TomRybak — 2008-10-30T13:56:15+00:00

Another great review of a classic. I would give two thumbs up but the system only allows one.

This classic has really stood the test of time.

T

Thread: Re: The Game That Makes Iron Men Cry & Whales Blubber.

badinfo — 2008-10-30T02:53:23+00:00

Nice review.

After Battleline Craig Taylor went on to start Yaquinto with Steve Peek. After Yaquinto went belly up he went to Avalon Hill.
He's still out there making games, which is a good thing as Craig has designed many of my favorite games.

Thread: The Game That Makes Iron Men Cry & Whales Blubber.

da pyrate — 2008-10-30T00:56:49+00:00

Wooden Ships & Iron Men

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Ship-to-ship Combat in the Age of Fighting Sail
Designed by S. Craig Taylor
Published by The Avalon Hill Game Company (1975)

It might be interesting to look at the Age of Sail from a distance and simulate naval battles from the period in the comfort and safety of our ‘games room’ but I don’t think I would have enjoyed being there. It was a world full of disgusting rotten food, often full of weevils. There are countless recorded instances of incredibly harsh discipline – the Royal Navy actually had an offense called “Silent Insolence” – if one of the officers had a grudge and wanted to get you, simply remaining silent was enough to get you a flogging if you were accused on being silently insolent. Despite this, it is a period which generates a considerable amount of interest amongst gamers and historians alike.

Craig Taylor turned his incredibly practical mind to designing a game that would capture the flavour of ship-to-ship combat in this period and the result was Wooden Ships & Iron Men (I can’t believe that they didn’t call it Ships of Wood & Iron Men just so that they could use the acronym S.W.I.M.).

To the best of my knowledge Craig Taylor was Battleline – a small wargame company with a substantial range of games, mostly designed by Craig Taylor. Battleline sold out to Avalon Hill in the late 1970’s and Craig Taylor went to work for TAHGC. Craig’s designs tend to be fairly straight-forward and have a common-sense perspective. Craig also seems to have an interest in tactical games and miniatures-style games, having designed Ship o’ the Line, Napoleon’s Battles and Air Force amongst many other games.

In regards to the common-sense approach to the design of WS&IM, I have a friend who used to play the game against his mother – when she was in her late 70’s. It used to infuriate him that she would continually deliberately ram his ships and then send boarding parties across to capture his ships. His main complaint was that it was ahistorical and that not in the spirit of the game. Her reply was that it was easier to ram ships and entangle them rather than writing movement orders for all of her ships.

Basically WS&IM is a tactical game of ship-to-ship combat during the Age of Sail where each turn represents approximately three minutes of real time. Scenarios range from single ship scenarios where each player has control of only one vessel to the Battle of Trafalgar where 27 British ships take on 33 Spanish and French ships. Players simultaneously write down movement orders for all of their ships – orders are revealed simultaneously, ships are moved, collisions are resolved and then combat takes place (both gunfire and melee in the cases where enemy ships are in contact with each other). WS&IM is substantially different from the GMT game, Flying Colors, which is on the same topic. The big difference between the two games is that WS&IM involves the plotting of movement for each ship individually. In Flying Colors there is no writing of orders and ships are considered to be part of a squadron or fleet. In Flying Colors movement is handled sequentially, one squadron/fleet at a time. The two games give quite different gaming experiences.

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What You Get For Your Money

The map measures 28” by 22” and has different shadings of blue to represent different depths of water. There is a single sheet of die-cut counters – the majority are regular and represent warships (although some gamers use model ships for a better aesthetic experience). The basic game tables are printed on the back of the rule book and there is a separate card that has the advanced game tables. The rule book has five pages of basic rules, three pages of advanced rules, two pages of optional rules, fifteen pages of scenarios, four pages of design your own scenario instructions, two pages of examples and two pages of design notes. Importantly, there is a pad of log sheets – when playing the game each ship will have its own individual log sheet which will record details such as its movement orders, the strength of its crew, the number of its guns, the condition of its rigging, the condition of its hull and the type of ammunition currently loaded in its guns.

Playing the Game

The advanced sequence of play follows – it reinforces what a simple and practical design WS&IM is:

1 – Wind Phase – every three turns a die is rolled to see if the wind changes direction;
2 – Unfouling Phase – roll die to see if ships fouled can free themselves – it is possible that some ships may sink or explode at this time;
3 – Movement Notation Phase – players write orders for ships – a recommended optional rule is “Timed Moves” which gives each player 30 seconds to write movement orders for each ship in their fleet (using this rule players at Trafalgar would take a maximum of 15 minutes to write orders for the fleet – when I have played Trafalgar it has taken nowhere near that amount of time to write orders);
4 – Movement Execution – it is possible that ships may collide during this phase;
5 – Grappling/Ungrappling Phase – ships roll die to grapple adjacent ships, avoid being grappled and to ungrapple from ships grappled previously;
6 – Boarding Preparation Phase – more about this later;
7 – Combat Phase – ships fire guns at each other;
8 – Melee Phase – boarding parties resolve combat;
9 – Load Phase – ships load fired guns, selecting the type of ammunition (round shot, double shot, chain or grape);
10 – Full Sail Phase – players place/remove full sail markers on their ships.

The game focuses on the intelligent manoeuvring of ships and positioning ships in such a way as to bring your firepower to bear upon your opponent in the most effective manner. During movement ships normally have a movement rate of 3 points when in battle sail and 5 points when in full sail. The disadvantage of full sails is that damage to them will be doubled during combat.

During combat, players choose to shoot at enemy ships hull or rigging. By destroying the hull you increase the chance of them sinking. By destroying rigging you reduce their speed and, should they become immobile and isolated, increase the chance of having them surrender. Naturally round shot will be more effective against hull targets and chain will be more effective against rigging targets (chain has a very limited range compared to round shot).

One aspect of the game that I don’t like is the allocation of boarding parties. If ships are grappled and/or fouled players secretly allocate crew during the Boarding Preparation Phase to be Offensive Boarding Party (go over to the other ship and try to capture it), Defensive Boarding Party (stay on board to repel boarders), Transfer Boarding Party (move to an adjacent friendly ship) or No Boarding Party. The more crew you have as boarding parties the fewer crew members you have available to fire the guns and the less effective the gun fire will be. In game terms if an OBP boards a ship and there is NBP to defend then the ship will automatically be captured, even in the crew on the captured ship is substantially larger than the OBP. With the rules as written it just makes it too chancy with too much room for bluff. I think that the game is better if during the Boarding Preparation Phase either player announces if an OBP is being formed and the other player then has the option to either form their own OBP or DBP in response. Realistically, the ship's captain would have some idea of the enemy ship's intentions just by looking at what the enemy crew was doing on their own deck.

The advanced rules do not add much in the area of complexity but do add quite a bit of interest in that they give players more options and are highly recommended.

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The Scenarios

The game comes with 23 ready-made scenarios. Several of the scenarios have only one or two ships on each side, some have around six ships each side, others have around fifteen ships aside and then there is the masterpiece, Trafalgar. Naturally the more ships on each side the longer each game should take. I have played Trafalgar successfully over three evenings but it would have worked just as well with teams of players. Scenarios cover both the Revolutionary War period as well as the Napoleonic era.

In WS&IM Craig Taylor has done what he does best, take a very workmanlike and common-sense approach to a game design and come up with a relatively simple system that works and is to a large extent quite intuitive. It brings tears to my eyes.

“Dead Men Tell No Tales!”

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Thread: Re: Wooden Ships & Iron Men - Solitaire Rules

Phytoman — 2008-10-29T12:27:44+00:00

A 6 player game with lots of beer sounds does sound like a potential for a lot of chaos (good chaos, but chaos nonetheless). That must have been a good time and gave a good sense of realism as well. I imagine in those days a lot of captains were trying to seek their own glory maybe often ahead of the entire fleet.

Thread: Re: Wooden Ships & Iron Men - Solitaire Rules

Rastak — 2008-10-29T01:01:41+00:00

Tim, once in the late 70's we actually got a 6 player game going. Was that cool. We all drank waaay too much beer though so the end of the battle was a little anti-climactic.

It was pretty frustrating to have someone sail in front of my SOL preventing me from firing...someone on my own side!

I played a few times solitaire too. It was/is a great game.

Thread: Wooden Ships & Iron Men - Solitaire Rules

Phytoman — 2008-10-28T20:38:08+00:00

This is one of my favorite classic Avalon Hill games. Maybe it is because it was one of the first wargames that I played or maybe that I loved the mechanics. Anyway, I had not been able to play for some time since I never could find a partner (I know that PBEM may be available but I prefer face-to-face gaming). Anyway, I was ecstatic that someone had posted the solitaire rules written by Mark Hunter and published in The General (Vol. 27, No. 6). I decided to give it a try and see if I still enjoyed the game as much as I remember that I did.

Basic Game

For those of you who are not too familiar with the game, each player is in command of battleships (the number depends upon the scenario chosen) that fought in the revolutionary war or the war of 1812 (there are other scenarios as well and ones that you can design your own). The type of ship along with its characteristics such as speed, the number and type of guns, the efficiency of the crew, and other characteristics are outlined in the specific scenarios. The players secretly write down in their log sheet the movement of each of their ships as limited by the direction and force of the wind and the ship’s turning ability. This actually takes a few turns to get use to the notation and initially many mistakes are made but I always take this to account for a “rookie” captain. It also can increase the time of the game. However, this aspect usually speeds up once the players become more comfortable with the mechanics. Depending upon the ship’s relations to each other, they may fire at each other or grapple onto each other and the crews can melee. A ship can either be disabled by having their hull or rigging destroyed or taken over in a melee. There are advanced rules as well that consider other factors such as wind velocity and the use of anchors.

Solitaire Game

The solitaire rules are very similar except for a few modifications. The biggest obstacle that I always imagined was how to “control” the enemy ships in a random but fair way. Mark did an excellent job of solving this problem. He made a very complex table (but is easy to use) that gives the movement of an enemy ship depending upon its relation to the closest friendly ship and the direction of the wind. This is done for each ship. You make the notation for each ship in the log for that ship and a notation for each of your friendly ships. Then you move the ships accordingly. I am still amazed at the thought that must have gone into each position and how well it actually works out. It must have taken a lot of time to figure this out and big kudos to Mark. The rest of the solitaire game is very similar to the original rules except once a ship has grappled or fouled a melee occurs. Enemy fire at either the rigging or the hull and what type of ammo is fired is determined by a new table in the solitaire rules. The Hit Determination Table, Hit Tables, and Melee Tables are all from the original rules. Those are pretty much the differences between the original rules and the solitaire rules.

Personal Thoughts

As I mentioned the Enemy Ship Movement Table in the solitaire rules is great. It took me a while to calculate which position the enemy was at in relation to the nearest friendly ship and I made a few mistakes in the beginning of the game that caused the ships to go apart when in reality I thought they should have come together. But, I realized it was mistakes that I made and not the table. When the ships were in close proximity to each other (a range of 3 to 4 hexes), the table was much easier to figure out and it worked very well. Since the rest of the game was similar to the original rules, this really scratched the itch that I was feeling for this game again. I tried a scenario twice (Battle of Lake Erie) where once I played the American ships and the other time I played the British ships. The first time I was a little confused with the table, as I mentioned above, and the game took longer than it should have with the Brits pounding the Americans. The second time it was a much more even game with both American ships striking their colors while two of the Brits struck their colors but one ship was still intact.

I am definitely eager to try more scenarios and now that I have an understanding of the table, the game should go smoother and faster. If you like WS&IM, but have difficulty in getting opponents, I would highly recommend these rules to play the game. It has the same feel of the original game with a logical movement of the enemy ships.

Thread: Re: After Action Report: Battle for the Great Lakes

jwquinn — 2008-10-26T03:10:11+00:00

Very cool after action report.

It brings out the atmosphere. Chris mentioned the movie "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" as we were setting up. That is a great movie to help you picture the action taking place on the board.

I sold my copy of WS&IM way back about 1990. I sold several (like about 50) games at that auction, and was OK with it for a couple years, but now really, really regret it. I deserve lashes for that.

So, while I had played the game before, I had not recently... at least not this ~~decade~~ ~~century~~ millenium. Looking forward to more games with Chris.

Thread: Re: After Action Report: Battle for the Great Lakes

cmontgo2 — 2008-10-22T11:50:09+00:00

tyvek wrote:
How nice it was to read an AAR on this timeless classic! WS & IM is a game I have enjoyed on and off since my middle school years. I never played the scenario you described, and it was good to hear of your whole process!

Keep the AAR's coming along!!

I figured I'd post some AARs because it seems like the game's page has languished for a while with no real interest--understandably so, since the game has been OOP for over 30 years! Now I wonder, why not reprint this game with a little bit of an update to the rules?

In any event, I will definitely keep the AARs coming.

Chris

Thread: Re: After Action Report: Battle for the Great Lakes

cmontgo2 — 2008-10-22T11:47:22+00:00

chargetheguns wrote:
> I concentrated all my fire on the rigging instead of the hull

With British ships! Nelson rolls over in his grave. He'd say you fought like a Froggie.

Heh. Yes, and I knew all about that. Poor Nelson, I hope he doesn't haunt my dreams for adopting French tactics. I am sure he would say it serves me right--I lost.

Cheers.

Thread: Re: After Action Report: Battle for the Great Lakes

tyvek — 2008-10-22T04:31:04+00:00

How nice it was to read an AAR on this timeless classic! WS & IM is a game I have enjoyed on and off since my middle school years. I never played the scenario you described, and it was good to hear of your whole process!

Keep the AAR's coming along!!

Thread: Re: After Action Report: Battle for the Great Lakes

chargetheguns — 2008-10-22T00:37:34+00:00

> I concentrated all my fire on the rigging instead of the hull

With British ships! Nelson rolls over in his grave. He'd say you fought like a Froggie.

Thread: After Action Report: Battle for the Great Lakes

cmontgo2 — 2008-10-21T23:19:15+00:00

INTRODUCTION

I recently purchased an old copy of WS&IM off of E-Bay, and I'm really glad I did. This past Saturday, I and another BGGer, Jon Quinn (jwquinn) got together for what is becoming a regular monthly game day. We ended up playing Scenario 21: Battle of Lake Erie, using the Basic Game rule set. It had been quite some time since Jon had played, and I was a newbie to the game, so we dove in with only one foot--the basic rules.

Jon had been the victor of an earlier (different) game, so he chose the next game and the side he wanted to play. He selected WS&IM, and we settled on Scenario 21 because it only had 2-3 ships per side. After struggling with the log sheets, getting them filled out, and scratching our heads for a several minutes, we picked sides.

SIDES

Jon chose the Americans, acting in the capacity of his historical counterpart Oliver Hazard Perry, commanding the US Brig Lawrence and the US Brig Niagra, two 20 gun vessels with thick American-made hulls of heavy timbered oak and short-range carronades capable of bloodying the nose of any ship that tried to close with them. They also benefited from maneuverability and speed, with high maneuverability (3 Turns), and fast battlesails (4).

I received three English warships, also brigs, and took the part of Commander Robert Heriot Barclay, commanding the HMS Lady Prevost, the HMS Detroit, and the HMS Queen Charlotte. These ships were not as stolid as the two American ships, having thinner, sleeker hulls, fewer guns, and fewer sails. The only significant advantage of the British squadron was that the Detroit had been fitted with long guns, giving her the ability to lay down fire at range, while all the other ships were limited to carronades, requiring relatively close range combat.

ACTION REPORT

The battle joined on September 10, 1813 when, at 7:00 AM, the British squadron was sighted off the coast of Put-in-Bay. The American squadron raised anchorage from the safe harbor of Put-in-Bay to draw off the British squadron and join battle. Perry knew that since his ships only had carronades, he needed to close quickly and decisively.

The scenario begins with both squadrons sailing line astern in aspect A, toward each other on the open waters of Lake Erie. This battle would decide who ruled the lakes for the foreseeable future, and, therefore, which side would be able to supply and reinforce their armies across the vast wilderness of the Great North--a huge advantage, and one which historically helped to decide the war.

The ships closed quickly, with the USS Lawrence firing an early broadside at the HMS Lady Prevost. The Lady Prevost maneuvered to fire both broadsides in the first few minutes of battle, but her 13 guns were no match for the 20 carronades of the Lawrence. Within fifteen minutes, the Lady Prevost had her hull shot to pieces, was taking on water, and struck her colors. After striking, the Lady Prevost assumed a drift, taking no further part in the battle. The US Brig Niagra, which began the scenario sailing too far behind the Lawrence, had difficulty reaching combat range because the Lady Prevost kept drifting in the way.

Meanwhile, the Detroit, which had been sailing astern of the Lady Prevost, attempted to stay outside of the range of the Lawrence's carronades and instead use the reach of her long guns to fire broadsides at the Lawrence. The Detroit enjoyed some success and fired to effect, knocking down two masts and slowing the Lawrence's sailing to a crawl. Unfortunately, the Detroit sailed too close and came under the same withering fire from the Lawrence as the Lady Prevost. After about 30 minutes of combat, the Detroit struck its colors.

After thirty minutes of fighting, the only British ship remaining was the HMS Queen Charlotte who fired and maneuvered into a rake against the Lawrence, grappled Lawrence's stern, and cleared out the last of her rigging. By this time, the USS Niagra joined close action and in a matter of minutes loosed two devastating broadsides that brought the Queen Charlotte to near-sinking. Having no choice, the Queen Charlotte struck her colors.

The Battle of Lake Erie ended after forty minutes of sustained combat, with three British ships' hulls blasted away and about 40 British casualties. The Americans had suffered approximately 20 casualties and the Lawrence had been dismasted. The entire British squadron (as historically happened) was taken as a prize.

The British troops and their Native American allies would soon find themselves strapped for supplies as the United States Navy wrested control of the Lakes from the British Navy, effectively halting any British campaigns into the south ends of the lakes.

THOUGHTS & SUMMARY

I think the Brits would fare better in a rematch, now that I know the focus of broadsides should have been on the hulls of the U.S. ships (as the British historically did), not the rigging. To my consternation during the game, I realized that even if I took out all the rigging of the U.S. ships, they still don't surrender unless there are no other friendly ships within ten hexes! I think the scenario might actually be balanced if I had played my tactics correctly.

Regardless, Jon is always a gracious victor, and I had a great time playing! I think half the fun of tactical wargames is imagining the battle playing out, the smoke, the cannon fire, the shouting, etc.

Overall, a great fun game. I think I would need to play the basic rules 2 or 3 more times to fully grasp them, then I'd be ready for Advanced play.

Cheers! And Happy Hunting in the Age of Sail with Wooden Ships and Iron Men.

Chris Montgomery

NOTES:

(1) The result of this battle was historically accurate in the sense that the British lost and the Americans roundly defeated them. All three British vessels struck their colors after about 40 minutes of engagement, their hulls being shot away under withering US fire.

(2) I discovered after the battle was over that my opponent had given himself 4 boxes of hull on each line, instead of 4 boxes total. It didn't matter because (see note 3) I focused mainly on the rigging.

(3) Being new to the game, I concentrated all my fire on the rigging instead of the hull. My opponent concentrated all fire against the hull, and even with modest rolls on hits, quickly gained enough hits to force my ships to strike. These ships are relatively small in the scope of WS&IM, and only have very small hull boxes--all three British ships had 8 boxes combined (in the basic game rules). Had I replayed the scenario, I would have concentrated the British fire against the Lawrence's hull more decisively, which may have made the scenario even more realistic, since the Lawrence surrendered in the midst of the battle.

(4) One thing not terribly accurate is that the Americans had 5 brigs, 3 schooners, and a sloop involved in the battle, while the British had 2 ships, 2 brigs, 1 schooner, and 1 sloop. I can understand why the fleets were reduced (for playability), but the limited hull values in the basic game really make this a game of "first to score 3 or 4 hull hits wins." Not a bad thing, but it can reduce the strategy and tactics of the game.

Thread: Re: Rule Book

Volfield — 2008-10-07T18:14:26+00:00

presence wrote:
I have it, but never had someone to play with

It's only a short jaunt between Pueblo and the Springs. Maybe we could arrange to meet up for a game sometime. (Then I could cross another "game I own but have never played" off my rather substantial list.)

Thread: Re: Rule Book

SgtTodd — 2008-10-04T16:08:37+00:00

That's cause you're in Pueblo - there's nothing there but a government printing office.

(I'm between Annapolis and Baltimore and I can't find any players either.)

Thread: Re: Rule Book

nguthrie — 2008-10-04T15:41:05+00:00

Thanks Guys.
Nolan

Thread: Re: Rule Book

presence — 2008-10-04T00:19:09+00:00

Rastak wrote:
Enjoy, in my wargaming days it was at the absolute top of my list.

Outstanding game.

But is has the (al)most boring map EVER!

I have it, but never had someone to play with

Thread: Re: Rule Book

Rastak — 2008-10-04T00:13:04+00:00

nguthrie wrote:
Does any one know were a guy could get a scan or printable rule book. I just got this and it
doesn't have a rule book.
Thanks
Nolan

Enjoy, in my wargaming days it was at the absolute top of my list.

Outstanding game.

Thread: Re: Rule Book

Felkor — 2008-10-04T00:09:33+00:00

Here ya go:
http://www.hasbro.com/default.cfm?page=cs_instructions&lette...

Thread: Rule Book

nguthrie — 2008-10-03T23:58:11+00:00

Does any one know were a guy could get a scan or printable rule book. I just got this and it
doesn't have a rule book.
Thanks
Nolan

Thread: Re: Counters PDF

feldmafx — 2008-09-30T18:23:10+00:00

What made me think the pdf was wrong was the fact that I have original chits with ships that aren't on the .pdf. Furthermore, reading the rules I understand that each chit is supposed to have a unique number, and there are three counters marked 1301.

Thread: Re: Counters PDF

francisca — 2008-09-29T20:10:56+00:00

Well, the pdf I just downloaded has the ships Franck said were missing.

Thread: Re: Counters PDF

arnauld — 2008-09-28T15:14:36+00:00

Is this file 100% reliable ?

Franck said that there are some errors.

Thread: Re: Counters PDF

Mrmago — 2008-09-24T08:57:03+00:00

Why don't you use the counters files (present here in the file list) to recreate the missing ships?

Thread: Re: Counters PDF

arnauld — 2008-09-09T13:40:35+00:00

I have the game and I have used your scan

My copy lacks : 4201, 4202, 1602 and 1703.

Are they crucial ships ?

Thread: Re: The last action of the War of 1812...

mattriceten — 2008-07-29T12:59:03+00:00

Actually, not all that bad...

I think it's pretty much the basic rules...

You can speed off a few games with a friend on-line if you happen to live a few thousand miles away!... which is why I appreciate it!

Thread: Re: The last action of the War of 1812...

Lufbery — 2008-07-27T23:07:04+00:00

mattriceten wrote:
Nice Report!

You can also play 'WS+IM' on

www.youplay.it

I see that WS&IM is just about out of play testing at youplay.it. How does that version compare to the real thing?

Thread: Counters PDF

feldmafx — 2008-07-26T12:15:58+00:00

The counters.pdf file available here and online elsewhere does not match the counters I have in the used game I just bought ($6 - what a deal!). My copy is missing two counters and I tried to get figure out which ones. There are definite errors in the pdf, and I have one American ship that isn't in the pdf.

It's not a huge deal, since I can just make up a counter on the fly if a scenario calls for it - it looks like all of the information is in the manual.

Does anyone have have a more accurate counter reference?

Thread: Re: The last action of the War of 1812...

mattriceten — 2008-07-25T11:12:19+00:00

Nice Report!

You can also play 'WS+IM' on

www.youplay.it

Thread: The last action of the War of 1812...

Lufbery — 2008-07-25T04:14:36+00:00

A few nights ago, my youngest brother (who's 21 -- who says no young people are getting into wargaming ) and I played the scenario pitting the USS Constitution versus His Majesty's ships Cyanne and Levant.

Historically, Cyanne was a 6th rate frigate with 22 guns and Levant a 20-gun, single-decked corvette. Levant was ship-rigged, but small. In the game, both ships only had carronades -- cannon that fire very heavy shot at short range. In WS&IM, carronades have a range of two hexes while regular guns have a range of ten hexes.

Constitution should need little introduction to people interested in this game. In game terms, Constitution's greatest assets -- her speed, maneuverability, armament, and very strong hull -- are reflected by the fact that she is as maneuverable as the two smaller ships, but has more of everything else. For example, she has 12 hull squares for marking off damage while the two British ships each have four. She has eight gun sections representing 30 24-pound cannon and eight carronade sections representing 20 carronades. By contrast, Cyane has ten carronade sections (representing her 22 guns) and Levant has eight carronades (for her 20 guns).

We rolled to see who would play the British. I "won" that honor. My brother actually thought that I had the advantage with two smaller ships versus his super frigate. Oh, the starting positions gave him the wind gage (he was between the wind and me) -- generally a very advantageous position. Basically, the two British ships were pretty well outnumbered!

I won't give a blow-by-blow account of the action. Instead, I'll write generally about how the ships' characteristics dictated the tactics. My brother's job was relatively easy: maneuver to within five hexes so he could shoot at the hulls of the British ships. My quandary was that I had to somehow close to within two hexes of the Constitution and bring both ships' carronades to bear to cause the maximum damage possible. The thing I had to fear most was defeat in detail where the American ship gets to deal with each of my ships one at a time.

As it happened, I managed to keep my line astern formation for three turns before messing up my orders and ending up with the two ships parallel to one another. The Constitution was starboard of the Cyane with the Levant to Cyane's larboard (port).

One exchange of broadsides and Cyane was forced to strike her colors (colours?) due to extensive hull damage.

With the Cyane temporarily shielding her, Levant turned to larboard and attempted to get into a better firing position on the Constitution. Two turns to larboard resulted in Levant having the wind gauge and a potential for a rake. Then I made my second fatal error: I moved the ship to a good position, but anticipated that my brother would head straight to me rather than turning. As a result, I did not turn at the end of my movement to present my broadside. My brother did, and raked Levant, causing extensive damage and forcing the British ship to strike.

After our game ended, I looked up the details of the real battle. Our game turned out remarkably like the real thing.

We played with the basic rules again, but we're feeling like we're ready to try the advanced rules. We'll see how that goes, but we both would like more hull and gun squares on our ships' logs so the ships could take more damage. Additionally, the advanced wind rules and the availability of full sails will open up maneuver possibilities.

Regards,

-Derw

Thread: Re: Senarios and Extra rules

GROGnads — 2008-07-15T16:26:19+00:00

Also, keep on the lookout for "Battleplan" Issue #2, since this has an excellent 'article' that greatly expands upon plenty for just about everything, along with creating additional 'concepts', while this were called as: "Re-rigging WS&IM".

Thread: Re: Senarios and Extra rules

asurinach — 2008-07-15T07:01:47+00:00

Some scenarios you can download from my blog.

http://amandowargame.blogspot.com/

Thread: Re: Raking Fire Clarification - help needed!

rules_heretic — 2008-07-09T13:44:15+00:00

SgtTodd wrote:
The power of the rake is that your shot travels down the length of the target. The stern, usually covered in windows in ships of this period, is easier to penetrate than the enclosed bow.

Our house rules said the firing ship had to be in the hex-row of the target, ie directly ahead or astern of the target, regardless of the target's ability to return fire, and within 3 hexes range. The reasoning was that the greater the range, the smaller the end-on target became meaning more misses thus offsetting the rake effect.

If the firing ship is not actually shooting down the hex row occupied by the target, then they aren't actually raking the target, but are simply out of the target's field of fire - unanswered fire is bonus enough by itself.

The Advanced rules change the definition of a rake to basically the above minus the range requirement.

Thread: A square-rigger's POV

SgtTodd — 2008-07-09T13:28:38+00:00

The power of the rake is that your shot travels down the length of the target. The stern, usually covered in windows in ships of this period, is easier to penetrate than the enclosed bow.

Our house rules said the firing ship had to be in the hex-row of the target, ie directly ahead or astern of the target, regardless of the target's ability to return fire, and within 3 hexes range. The reasoning was that the greater the range, the smaller the end-on target became meaning more misses thus offsetting the rake effect.

If the firing ship is not actually shooting down the hex row occupied by the target, then they aren't actually raking the target, but are simply out of the target's field of fire - unanswered fire is bonus enough by itself.

Thread:

misteralan — 2008-07-08T16:57:14+00:00

dicemanjnr wrote:
I right in assuming this means that if you are able to fire on the opponents ship, but your own ship lies outside his firing zone, you get the raking fire bonus?
Yes. My assumption on the rear rake lethality bonus is that the rear of the ship is wide and 'flat' so presents both an easier target and less resistance to the shot, analagous to the inferiority of a flat metal plate to that of sloped armour in anti tank ballistics. Oh and the rear is also where the windows were!

Thread: Re: Raking Fire Clarification - help needed!

DnaDan56 — 2008-07-08T16:14:02+00:00

The military consequence goes beyond firing and not being fired upon (though that factor certainly helps gun crew accuracy and efficiency).

Two factors are critical: hitting the target and doing damage once you get a hit.

For human aimed guns, the biggest factor is range, and thus longitudinal accuracy. Aiming left and right is easy, aiming up and down is much harder, and the deck captain has to time the swells just right. Shooting at a ship end-on makes it much more likely to achieve a hit because the target is maximized in its longitudinal axis (while minimized in the less important horizontal axis).

SO, you hit more. The iron balls or weighted chains that hit the ship do damage by hitting important items in or on the ship (such as crew, hull, guns, or masts/rigging). If you imagine shooting an iron ball, or weighted chains in the case of the French, down the length of the ship, you can see that there is much more chance of doing damage than if you hit crosswise. Also, there is more important stuff in the stern, so the damage of a stern rake is given a bonus.

The mechanism in the game, for simplicity sake, is to define a rake as a defenseless shot, but it goes much deeper.

Thread: Re: Raking Fire Clarification - help needed!

amacleod — 2008-07-08T16:01:26+00:00

That's always been my understanding of the rules (and it reflects actual historical rakes). Fire as your guns bear......

Thread: Raking Fire Clarification - help needed!

dicemanjnr — 2008-07-08T15:53:38+00:00

Preparing for a bit of high sea destruction tonight, but I'm having a bit of trouble getting my head around the raking fire rule:

"A ship is in a raking position anytime an opposing ship lies within the play of its broadside, but it lies outside the play of the opposing broadside."

Am I right in assuming this means that if you are able to fire on the opponents ship, but your own ship lies outside his firing zone, you get the raking fire bonus?

cheers in advance,
Fraser

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seriousz — 2008-06-07T15:17:01+00:00

Counter sheet

Thread: Re: Miniatures

LimboLance — 2008-05-29T21:52:52+00:00

Why get stuck on scale? I am made some minis of my own and the only criteria I used is hex size. 1st Rates fill the hex from side to corresponding side and each rating gets slightly smaller and with a different sail configuration;

Rate Sails Hull Size
1st Rate BAAB Largest (2")
2nd Rate BAB Largest
3rd Rate BBB Medium (1 3/4")
4th Rate CBC Medium
5th Rate CCC Smallest (1 1/2")
6th Rate DCD Smallest

Merchants
Large BBBB Largest
Medium CCCC Medium
Small DDDD Smallest

A Sails have 4 sections; B and C Sails have 3 sections (smalled on the Cs); D Sails have 2 sections. Thus the unique combination of hull sizes (3) and sail configurations (4) identify the ships and make mass production easier.

For the mapboard, I went to Home Depot and they sell 2" ceramic floor tiles in 5x6 "sheets" - I bought 15 of them (daltile 2HEXCC1P2). The biggest problem is they are "thatch" (desert brown) in color - I could paint them but I use them for other games as well. Then, I simply throw a cloth on a table and place them on the table and then I can "float" them with the action.

Let the rule set you use define the distance each tile/hex represents. No matter what scale you use - the minis are almost always over sized for the hex so that the players can see the minis and move them.

Thread: Re: Miniatures

zonk67 — 2008-05-29T21:26:44+00:00

If you browse through some of the images, it looks like quite a few are using minis. The only scale that's been mentioned is 1/3000. Maybe you can ask those people directly.

Thread: Re: Miniatures

Tradewinds Ted — 2008-05-29T21:26:30+00:00

By coincidence there was just a forum thread about Naval miniatures started on Tuesday. Most of the discussion at the beginning is about WW1 and WW2, but the some recent posts have links to suppliers of miniatures that include Napoleonic era and other Age of Sail. The GHQ website has some that look really nice, but they aren't cheap! I only just saw that thread today.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/316000

If you want some inexpensive miniatures you could try some of the ships from the Pirates of the Spanish Main line. The game itself is NOT AT ALL historically accurate, but the styrene pop-together mini's look pretty nice for the price, and can be used in quite a variety of Naval games. They aren't really accurate, and are too big for the hexes on the maps for Wooden Ships and Iron Men, but they are inexpensive. Some of the more recent sets have been rather outlandish, with crazy ship designs and sea monsters and such. The Pirates of the Crimson Coast set, which was the 2nd set issued, probably has the most accurate ships, and introduces the French fleet, which is critical for Wooden Ships and Iron Men. You can get some of the more common ships individually on ebay, and the shipping cost can work out OK if you are buying a number of the cheaper common ships at one time. This way you know what you are getting, instead for buying packs with 2 mystery ships.

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chaosbreaker — 2007-11-29T06:28:14+00:00

Status report on Wooden Ships & Iron Men compuer demo from www.download.com

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chaosbreaker — 2007-11-29T06:27:24+00:00

ship-to-shop combat on Wooden Ships & Iron Men compuer demo from www.download.com

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SpaceButler — 2007-09-23T10:34:23+00:00

1981 Avalon Hill 2nd Edition complete contents with a nice mounted board

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SpaceButler — 2007-09-23T10:32:20+00:00

1981 Avalon Hill 2nd Edition Rulebook

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mazikainen — 2007-09-10T14:12:53+00:00

I made my own set mounting the counters on wooden blocks

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Xookliba — 2007-08-31T20:01:19+00:00

Walter O'Hara's excellent gamebox

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bbhanson — 2007-01-12T20:03:38+00:00

Avalonh Hill version countersheet

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cmhladik — 2006-10-30T03:25:51+00:00

Avalon Hill catalog listing from 1975

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tyvek — 2006-07-28T00:51:02+00:00

The Aft Seen Hand that Guides Us