Moar Sails of Glory

Started by Silent Disapproval Robot, February 07, 2016, 12:43:08 AM

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Silent Disapproval Robot

I thought I'd take a few more pics of the game components seeing as how I forgot during last night's play session.

Here's my collection as of now.  I have the base game which comes with 4 ships.  I bought a mat and six extra ships.  Each ship model represents two actual ships which may or may not have different stats.  The ship console card and the miniature base are reversible so you can display the correct ship data.




Each ship comes with a reference card.




A data sheet (divided into a 3 or 4 piece jigsaw) which fits into a command console card.  For example, this is the HMS Concorde data sheet fitted into a command console. (and sail strength is set to battle sails with the yellow chit)




A miniature.




And a deck of roughly 30 maneuvre cards.





Players decide on a scenario included in the book or design one of their own  (there are only 4 console cards with the base game so you're limited to 4 ships but they sell additional consoles or you can scan and print your own.)  Once the scenario has been decided upon, the wind strength and direction are determined and shown with the wind gauge (wind can change strength and direction during play should the players decide to use the optional rules.)  Any reefs, shoals, and land masses are placed on the map  (I didn't include any pics of these features this time.)









The player's command console contains almost all of the information needed to command a ship.  For example, this is the command console for the HMS Vanguard.  You can see a series of boxes running horizontally across the top of the console.  The topmost row shows the ship's broadside strength as a set of three numbers per box.  You start by using the leftmost box, in this case it reads 4-6-4.  Each ship has 3 possible firing arcs per side (you can see these on the pics of the miniature's base).  You attempt to draw a light of sight from your ship to your intended target from each of these three arcs.  If you're able to draw a line of sight from any of the arcs you may fire and use the damage rating for that arc.  The Vanguard's forward and rear arcs both do 4 damage while the middle arc (which represents a full broadside) does 6 damage.  You draw one chit from a bag for each point of damage and apply the results to your ship.  Chits have a numeric value printed on them and may also have critical damage such as crew casualties, leaks, fire, sail damage, rudder damage, broken mast, etc.  If the numeric value of the chits exceeds your ship's hull rating, you block off your first box and then use the stats in the next box.  There are 5 kinds of damage chits: short range shot, long range shot, chain, grape, and musketry and they tend to do different kinds of criticals.


For example, in this pic (not mine), the Genereaux has taken a beating and has four damage boxes completely covered, has partial damage in the 5th box, and a fire in the 6th box.  If it were to fire its guns, it would use the value in the 7th box (2-4-2).  It's also taken two crew casualties.  The lower row represents the crew.  Each time you take any crew damage, you cover one crew box.  If you ever run out of either type of damage box, your ship strikes its colours and surrenders.  (it's possible to be sunk before reaching the final boxes though.)




Each ship starts with a number of crew action points (almost all ships start with 4 but I believe a few of the really small American cutters start with 3) as shown by the hand silhouette between the crew and hull damage boxes.  You have a number of action chits that you may choose from as shown here.  Certain actions such as raise or lower sails must be performed if selected while others such as fire cannon are at the player's discretion.  Selecting an illegal action such as reloading while a cannon is already loaded or fighting fires when there is no fire are not penalized, it just means you've used up an action point.



(issuing the grog ration is my favourite...)


Finally, on the first turn you select two maneuvre cards from your deck. The first card is your intended movement for the current turn while the second card will be your move on the next turn.  On subsequent turns you select a maneurvre card for the following turn so that you're always planning your moves one turn ahead.  This can lead to some "interesting" situations.

Movement is based on a number of factors.  First, you must determine the angle that the wind is hitting your sails.  The game comes with two wind gauges.  You align them with the current wind direction and then point them at your ship's middle mast.  Each miniature's base has a set of green, orange, and red coloured bands around its edges.  You check to see which coloured band is crossed by the wind gauge and this gives you the speed of your ship.  (green is fastest, orange is next, and red means you tried to sail into the wind and will end up caught in irons and backing.)   in this picture, green is indicated.





Next you look at your sail setting and align the appropriate movement line on your selected maneuvre card with the front of your miniature (full sails are fastest, battle sails next, then backing sails).  You pick up your miniature and place it so that the rear of the figure aligns with the coloured arrow on the card that matched the wind angle indicator (green or orange).  In this photo (not mine), sails are set to battle sails so the middle line on the card is used and the wind speed is green so the miniature is moved to the green arrow on the card.





Each maneuvre card has a steering number from 1-10 assigned to it (1 for hard to port, 5 is straight ahead, 10 is hard to starboard).  Each ship has a steering rating (the Vanguard from earlier has a rating of 5 while the Concorde has a 7).  A ship cannot plan a move whose steerage value number is greater than the sum of the current move card plus the ship's steering rating.  For example, if the Vanguard executed a left turn with a steering number of 3, its next card could not have a steerage value higher than 8 (3 for the card + 5 for the Vanguard's steering) whereas the Concorde could select all the way up to 10 (3 for the card + 7 for the Concorde's steering rating.)  This allows the nimble frigates to sail rings around the big ships and try for raking shots (which do extra damage from the bow and tonnes of extra damage from the stern) while avoiding their massive broadsides.

If a ship sailed into the wind, it must replace its intended movement card with a red card which will push it backwards slightly and possibly off to one side if the ship was already turning and inertia helps swing the stem around.  There are also special cards that must be used when a mast or two masts are lost)


There are also rules for boarding; ramming; sails getting entangled, inadvertent fires starting from close range cannon fire, running aground, different crew skill levels both for gunnery and sailing, and a bunch of other stuff.  I'm loving this game!












Silent Disapproval Robot

Ship porn!

The French














The Brits








Kinda blurry on this one (too much grog!)


Silent Disapproval Robot

#3
My shipment arrived today.  I got another mat, some more ship command consoles, some terrain tiles, some coastal battery tiles and consoles, and a few new ships.

Here's a top down view of some of the new terrain tiles.  Two forts and their firing arcs can be seen at the top of the mat.



Here's the command card for a fort.  It's similar to a ship's card but the fort has only two firing arcs and three command actions rather than four (which makes sense as they don't have to worry about sails and whatnot).




I got a new French sloop, Alligator; a British 5th rate, Orpheus; a Spanish frigate, Sirena; a Spanish 3rd rate, Argonauta; and an American privateer, Thorn.


The Thorn.








The Argonauta.








The Sirena.












Silent Disapproval Robot

The two newest additions to my Sails of Glory game arrived yesterday, the HMS Victory and the USS Constitution.  In addition to the stuff found in the other ship miniature packs, these two add in special abilities for famous captains and ship's crews.  (and they come in an extra fancy box!)


The USS Constitution















Captain Charles Stewart and his ability cards.





Commodore William Bainbridge and his ability cards.  The cards with the yellow borders are special elite crew cards for the Constitution.







The HMS Victory














Admiral of the Fleet Richard Howe and his ability cards.




Vice Admiral Horation Nelson and his ability cards.



Silent Disapproval Robot

I ran a learning session at the FLGS today and it was a lot of fun.  We had six players try the game out for the first time, all new to the game and most new to gaming with miniatures.  It took about 20 minutes to set up and another 20 to explain the basics of the rules.  A few of them were a little confused by the movement system but they caught on pretty quickly as it's quite intuitive.

As they were new, I just set up one mat depicting open ocean and set the wind direction and strength to a constant westerly.  We did a 3 on 3 France vs. England matchup with each side's forces consisting of two frigates and a 3rd rate ship of the line.

Not a lot of coordination as some guys went straight in while others tried to skirt around the edges for position.  it quickly devolved into hilarious chaos with lots of ships ramming into one another and some really deadly close range broadsides.   The game itself took about an hour with the end result being one French frigate burning, one taken as a prize, and the ship of the line sunk from leaks.  The English lost one frigate which struck its colours early in the battle (that particular player seemed to have the most trouble understanding the concepts and ended up charging straight into the broadsides of all three French ships).  The other frigate lost most of its crew taking the French ship as a prize but the ship of the line was almost undamaged.

Everyone seemed to really enjoy it and all want to try again next week so hopefully a few more people will pick up a copy of the game and we can build a bit of a local community.


TacticalWargames

#6
Good looking fleet of ships there:)

Really like Ares games. I think it's awful how Fantasy Flight dropped them then released the X Wing Star Wars game, that lets face it, is heavily influenced by Wings of Glory..yet he never even got an acknowledgement for inspiration let alone anything more, which I think he was entitled to.


I just got in the post the WW1 rules and accessories, a set of gaming mats, Aces promo card deck, Two propellor rulers and tow fire and smoke counters.

I already have the 2nd Edition Deluxe set and a few extra planes. However I wanted the up to date rules in one booklet.

Very happy with the purchase. Do need some more planes and then start a solo campaign.

Silent Disapproval Robot

Cool!  Post some shots.  I haven't gotten into the WWI stuff although I'd like to.  Sails of Glory is proving to be popular with the local gamers but Wings of Glory WW2 hasn't really caught on nearly as well. 


TacticalWargames

I would post some pics but I have no camera!!

The recent purchase was through the Kickstarter a fair few months ago. Only niggle is I thought the game mats where going to be made from some sort of lino, instead they are just paper. What is the game mat made of for SoG?

Silent Disapproval Robot

The mats I have for both Wings of Glory and Sails of Glory are basically the same as a rubber mousepad.  I'd say they're 3mm thick or so.

TacticalWargames

Thought as much..the ones for sale as a add on in the recent KS are card.