I think getting these rules have been on my "To-Do" Goal list for the last 3, maybe 4 years or so. I like Naval wargames but I am more Jutland than Midway. Therefore, I was hesitant to pull the trigger. Plus, I was not a huge fan of the Starter Set focusing on the Pacific Theatre, i.e. US vs Japan. However, I heard good things about the rules and it seemed to have a pretty comprehensive list of ships from all the major nations in it.
With the tariffs impacting Warlord imports into the US, I decided I better get a copy of the rules before "Tariff-Pricing" went into effect. I pulled the trigger and picked up a copy from The Miniature Market out of St. Louis. I opted to just stick with the rules for now for a couple of reasons:
1. I wanted to see if anyone else at the True Crit Gaming Guild was interested before I dove in with two fleets.
2. I like GHQ as they were a "local" manufacturer of Naval miniatures and I might want to build my fleets with their range instead. Also, no "Tariff-pricing" on them either.
3. You don't need miniatures for Naval wargaming. You can start off with top-side looking paper templates easily enough. That is what I used to play-test Castles in the Sky and it worked great!
4. I was not 100% sold on the scale or the basing of the Warlord range.
With all that being said I figured that a copy of the rules would be a good place to start on my journey before I dropped too much money, time, and effort into the game. I had done a Black Seas demo back in the day and ultimately decided not to follow up on it. I was unsure if that would be the same with this game.
Now, let's get the Diesel's powered up, site in the guns, and raise the battle flag! Off we go, diving into Victory at Sea.....
Things I Liked
The core rules of the game take up a brisk 18 or so pages! That includes all segments of the Turn, Orders, Aircraft, etc. There is plenty of white space and pictures too. There are another 11 or so pages about setting up a game and some advanced rules for Coastal actions and Submarines too. Therefore, it is an easy read. The bulk of the book is very detailed ship profiles for the game and by Nation.
The game uses an alternate activation by phase. Therefore, the player who lost initiative chooses to move a ship, then the opponent, back and forth until all ships move. Then, you go the shooting phase with the player who won initiative shooting first and alternate shooting with all damage being resolved right away. The game uses the following phases, Initiative, Movement, Gunnery, and End Phase.
Light guns and AA guns are able to split their fire between targets based on the number of attack dice they have. An interesting idea to represent their quick-fire abilities. You do not have to fire all Torpedoes in an attack, but I am unsure of the advantage of not doing so. There is a disadvantage in re-loading if you don't.
Attacking is pretty straight forward. All weapons have an attack dice. You roll a d6 for each and look for a 4+ to hit. However, there are modifiers for shooting such as target size, speed, and other factors that modify the dice roll result up and down. For each hit, you roll a Damage Dice of d6 to try and equal or exceed the armor rating. Every hit that does causes damage right away. A Damage Dice of Nat 1 always is deflected and a Nat 6 you cause a Critical Hit. Re-roll the dice and score a 4+. A bit clunky with a lot of dice rolling since the sample Northhampton Class- Heavy Cruiser has a broadside with 15 dice, and a closing attack dice of 12. Then, it has an armor of 2+ so a lot of hits when it takes fire too. However, it gets the job done and is easy to recall.
There is a special rule for Plunging Fire that means shots at Long or Extreme range get a +1 damage for armor penetration on their dice. The Damage Dice incentivizes staying at range, but the to hit dice incentivize getting up close and personal. Not sure which trumps which without really getting a lot of games in!
In the End Phase, you can try to repair Critical Damage with a Damage Control check. Interesting, as ships take Crits in vital areas, the effects multiply upwards. Therefore, a Crit hit in the Engine reduces speed to -1", a second hit means that a ship needs to go 3" before turning, and a third Crit in engines is another -1" speed and a +1 to Crew Crit rating. This is a nice attritional effect to Crits. Damage Control can reduce the number of hits in these areas by 1.
Each ship can also issue a single Order to augment their abilities in a turn. Each ship can do this once per turn. I like the ability to give orders but I do not like that they are infinite. Most of the orders have an advantage and a disadvantage for performing them. They are declared before moving a ship. Therefore, some counters/tracking is helpful to recall which ship has which order
There are some interesting rules for scouting that can then lean into advantages in the early game. You secretly set aside ships and flights for scouting. Before deploying you reveal which ships/flights are scouting. They can not deploy with your fleet, but may rejoin in a later phase. Each ship/flight you dedicate gives you a Scouting Point, the more Scouting Points the more potential benefits for deployment type and Initiative dice. Clever and something I will have to think about using at some point.
Things I Did Not Like
This game uses a turning gauge for movement. Sadly, I have never been a fan of such things, but I see the necessity in Naval wargaming. I just do not like them at all. In truth, the gauge is not really needed as the ship moves forward 2 inches and can then turn up to 45 degrees. A ship can only turn after every 2 inches movement forward. There are no turn limits other than the Flank Speed of the ship. There are no collisions in this game.
During the Gunnery Phase, when a ship shoots, all damage is resolved immediately. Therefore the impacts of shooting take effect via alternating activations instead of simultaneously. This can lead to some gamesmanship with your shooting choices.
Other ships do not block line of sight, so positioning of your ships does not matter all that much compared to other ships. The maximum attack distance is 30 inches, everything beyond is considered over the horizon. This is an interesting idea, and I wish they would have done more with it in the deployment or other parts of the game. They do have some special rules for using observer aircraft to try to make attacks beyond the horizon, which is cool!
I like the critical hit table except that it uses a d10 instead of a d6. That means you need a different dice type to deal with the Crits. Honestly, looking at the crit list, it could have been done with a d6 as well.
There are a decent amount of special traits to try and capture the uniqueness of various ships and navy doctrines. You will want to note this on the ship cards.
Meh and Other Uncertainties
One of the big challenges of Naval Wargaming to me is that.... well.... not much of it actually happened. Warships are big, expensive, and take a long time to build and man. They are a huge investment in National resources. Therefore, you just don't get nearly as much Naval activity as you would expect, because everyone is reluctant to be the Admiral that loses 50 year worth of work in an afternoon! Therefore, the opening of Victory at Sea spends times talking about Naval activity in WWII and helps set the scene for your games. I found the couple pages on French efforts to be of particular interest, as I had not heard or read much on the topic. Of course, the bit of history they give is just a taste as whole sets of books have been written on this topic.
There are rules for aircraft in this game, and they can play a big part of it. They can turn as much as they wish but can never perform an order. In addition, all aircraft are moved at the same time in the fleet. AA guns automatically fire at any aircraft that come into range of their AA. They come with about 4 extra pages of rules and add a lot of depth but are almost a different game from the rest of Victory at Sea. However, that was true in the real-life application of aircraft in Naval battles too!
Submarines are also practically a different game but are included for completeness' sake. They have about 4 pages of added rules with three special and unique entire game scenarios for using them as well. MTBs also have about 3 pages of rules for how to use them. However, these are much closer to normal rules with some tweaks. Finally, there are 4 pages of rules on shore batteries and how they work in games too.
Unsurprisingly, in a Naval wargame they allow Pre-measuring. That is as it should be as most ships had sophisticated ways to judge distance.
In the pre-game, both fleets role for their Objectives. They might not align with each other. High Priority objectives give a bonus to total mission points, while low priority ones give a deduction to total points played. These Objectives have different victory conditions. In addition to these "generic" missions there are 26 historical scenarios in the book too.
The remaining 145 pages are dedicated to fleet lists that are very detailed. This includes the Royal Navy, The US Navy, The Marine Nationale, Kriegsmarine, The Imperial Japanese Navy, and the Regia Marina. These lists includes ships, aircraft, Motor Boat flotillas, auxiliary ships, submarines, and national traits. These are very well researched, detailed and complete. I am sure there is some completionist out there that would quibble about this score or that but..... wow..... very detailed. This is the highlight of these rules.
Final Thoughts
The basics rules are simple enough and allow for a relatively fast-paced and thorough game. Of course, the more points the longer to play. Once you add in all the advanced rules and special rules then you have a very complete look at WWII Naval wargaming. You should be able to recreate almost any action you can conceive of and use the Fleet lists, rules, and scenarios as a good guide to play it.
There are a few minor quibbles about some of the design choices here and there, but those are edge cases more than anything else. Overall, I can see why this is a popular set of rules for Naval wargaming the period. It covers everything you need rules-wise and stays fairly close to is Universal Mechanics throughout the game.
Until next time!
