Trafalgar 2016 - The View from Villenueve

[fredmiracle]

Was it hard to manage everything with all those ships and players?

The game organizer, Walram, has developed a pretty incredible support system for these battles. He had custom-made ship-mats which were smaller, to help space management. All the ship-mats, ship-cards, etc. were custom printed with the proper ships names. Each ship had a unique (and historically accurate) set of pennants on the masts, which also appeared on the ship mat, so you could more easily identify from a distance. There were various custom-made tokens to help with tracking. He has special cards added to each deck to allow easy sail management even with just basic rules. Also he has a special flip-chart to track what stage we are at on each turn. While playing, each ship's deck went back in its (specifically labeled) bag each time, so the cards didn't get scrambled. The planned move for each ship was just placed next to it on the game mat, so it was easy to track and see which ships had already moved. Also the setup had been well playtested ahead of time.

In short, it was incredibly well organized, and Anchorage user AprilBrooks (wearing the red shirt in a couple of the pictures) acted as "drill sergeant" to keep everyone in sync. There were a few challenges--mostly because the majority of the players were unfamiliar with the game system and needed a bit of support for a few turns. The division leaders were all familiar with the game and each other, so we tried to help keep things running well. But the big credit for the success goes to Dave's good planning.

Were the British ships allowed any form of gunnery advantage or did the French ships simply draw bad chits?

Great question. The French took two turns to reload, so we were firing 2 broadsides for every 3 from the British. Unbelievably painful to wait two turns to reload But it made for a better and more historically authentic game.

If you look at the pictures closely you can see some ships have two-sided smoke counters (British) and some have triangular tokens with black/grey/white smoke (French)

[Nightmoss]

The game organizer, Walram, has developed a pretty incredible support system for these battles. He had custom-made ship-mats which were smaller, to help space management. All the ship-mats, ship-cards, etc. were custom printed with the proper ships names. Each ship had a unique (and historically accurate) set of pennants on the masts, which also appeared on the ship mat, so you could more easily identify from a distance. There were various custom-made tokens to help with tracking. He has special cards added to each deck to allow easy sail management even with just basic rules. Also he has a special flip-chart to track what stage we are at on each turn. While playing, each ship's deck went back in its (specifically labeled) bag each time, so the cards didn't get scrambled. The planned move for each ship was just placed next to it on the game mat, so it was easy to track and see which ships had already moved. Also the setup had been well playtested ahead of time.

In short, it was incredibly well organized, and Anchorage user AprilBrooks (wearing the red shirt in a couple of the pictures) acted as "drill sergeant" to keep everyone in sync. There were a few challenges--mostly because the majority of the players were unfamiliar with the game system and needed a bit of support for a few turns. The division leaders were all familiar with the game and each other, so we tried to help keep things running well. But the big credit for the success goes to Dave's good planning.



Great question. The French took two turns to reload, so we were firing 2 broadsides for every 3 from the British. Unbelievably painful to wait two turns to reload But it made for a better and more historically authentic game.

If you look at the pictures closely you can see some ships have two-sided smoke counters (British) and some have triangular tokens with black/grey/white smoke (French)

I wish someone could bring a Sails of Glory game of this level to either Gen Con or Origins. I would certainly stand a better chance of participating if it was closer to home? An amazing amount of work, which isn't likely to make its way east anytime soon. Thanks for the additional information.