Lord of the Sea: rules review

 

I`ve been looking for a set of Medieval naval rules for a while.  To be honest "The Lord of the Sea" is five years old, and I had totally missed them.  Still a half price offer (£2.50) on Wargames vault and Dave Manley's name on them meant I was tempted into buying the pdf.  Looking at the preview I realised that this is actually three sets of rules in one pdf. 

• A set of fleet action Rules
• A set of Tactical rules, 
• and a Campaign set.

The rules I wanted were for single ships, and the tactical rules tick that box nicely.  

My scratch built Cogs and 6mm figures

My QRS notes

Each player gets three action cards combined into the deck.  These control play. A card is dealt for each phase and the activated played completes that phase before the next card is drawn.  The order of draw is clearly critical.

• Conduct Movement
• Engage in artillery or missile fire
• Conduct boarding actions

Once all actions in the 6th (last) phase have been completed remove artillery markers and roll for sinking ships.  I do like the random nature of this.

An event or fate card draw can be inserted into this for solo play.

Vessels move up to full movement.  Ships under sail must move at least half.  Sail or Oar not both.  

2 turns allowed, start and mid point.  

Random.  d6.  6 = 1" more, 12 = 1-2" less

Drift 1" downwind

Shallows D6   3+ grounded.

(This is Form Line of Battle I think)

Missile fire 2" range.  Arrows 1/turn.  Guns 1/game

Roll d6 add Missile factor

target rolls d6 adds Stoutness

Greater = target damages.

Twice (Cannon) Target sunk.

(This is DBA by another name)

Boarding d6

1  Vessels miss

2-4 Vessels collide.  Damage

5-6 Boarding actions.

Boarding part 1 Missile fire

Boarding part 2 Both sides d6.  Add boarding factor.

Vessel is chained in raft      +1

Vessel is larger                      +1

Vessel has castles                  +1

Defensive or Offensive aids -1 to opponent

Vessel out of Command Radius-1

Exceptional Squadron Commander +1

Compare the results

Exceeds = Vessel Damaged

Doubled = Vessel Captured

Damage:

One Damage = damaged

Two damage = crippled

Damaged Vessels.  Missile and boarding factors halved.

Crippled Vessels Missile and Boarding factors halved again, castles are lost, Stoutness reduced by One, Speed halved.

Passenger or Command Casualties = Don't roll a One.

Fate cards:

Red are good fortune

Black are an ill fate

A Straightforward campaign move.  The English cross to Calais and I roll d6 to discover the French and their Genoese allies right before me.  Six ships per side

The Game

The Genoese Carrak leads the French advance 

The King's Great Ship Thomas leads the English

The Genoese crossbows damage the Thomas

The action moves closer

The Longbows open up.

A devastating double.  Wasn`t joking about that DBA thing. 

The crunch

And Red - the English - get to choose targets in the boarding.

The Thomas goes for the Genoese

The King's ship captures the Italian one.  But the French capture one of the English ships in turn.

The damaged Carrak is escorted away

The captured English ship is target of a boarding attempt by one of the English Merchantmen.  The attempt goes wrong.  Both are damaged and both sink...

Result:

The English capture two ships, the French one (but it later sinks)

The English lose two vessels, the French lose two, but one of these is the flagship.

I enjoyed the game, which took less than an hour but included some novel twists and turns.  I used my crew parties, Irregular miniatures medieval bases chopped up, as crew factors for these rules, and that worked really well.  It`s a mix of Form Line of battle with DBA style dice rolls pitted against each other.  It worked fine, and was easy to use.  Maybe I`m not totally sold, but quite fun.