Black Seas

[David Manley]

"Imagine when Warlord would get around to making the British 80-gunners!"

A few decades before Ares? :)

Detail on the WL ships is a little soft but certainly finer than on Ares 1100 models - figurehead and stern galleries are rather nice. The rules are, like Trafalgar, probably better suited to big ship actions (like SOG the stat range is quite narrow so 5th rates and below tend to be a bit vanilla(. Of course the model scale suits small ship actions.....

[DeRuyter]

"Imagine when Warlord would get around to making the British 80-gunners!"

A few decades before Ares? :)

Detail on the WL ships is a little soft but certainly finer than on Ares 1100 models - figurehead and stern galleries are rather nice. The rules are, like Trafalgar, probably better suited to big ship actions (like SOG the stat range is quite narrow so 5th rates and below tend to be a bit vanilla(. Of course the model scale suits small ship actions.....

I was afraid of this. Some of the photos included gunboat models which made me hopeful that they started the stat range small and worked up. I imagine the gunboat rules are abstracted and represent a small number of boats or flotilla. Does not bode well for representing lake schooners with a single pivot mount.

I just saw a photo of Gabrio when he was with GW in the Trafalgar book! It is clear from his interview video they wanted fast play first and sailing details second, although they claim to have more detailed advanced rules. I think they add more points of sail for example. I will bet that ships can sail far to close to the wind - which is a consistent theme in age of sail games whether table top or on PC, sigh. Playability you see.

I certainly hope they used your input!

[hedgehobbit]

Some of the photos included gunboat models which made me hopeful that they started the stat range small and worked up.

I saw the data card for a Black Seas 5th rate Frigate on an unboxing video. It has two heavy cannon, one light cannon, and one carronade on each broadside. Plus a single light cannon as a bow chaser. That's four dice out each side which is similar to SoG's 4 chit broadsides. So, it doesn't seem to be that much more granular as far as stats go.

I was a bit concerned during the initial announcement that ships losing cannon after taking damage was considered an Advanced rule. Basically, when you lose half your hit points, you lose half your cannon. Or something like that. The market seems well served already with quick playing, simplified, naval games and I don't see much need of another.

[Bligh]

Welcome to the Anchorage Aaron.

Sorry it took me so long to get around to you, but i have been snowed under with mail after three days up at the Doncaster event.
Your observations on Black Sails are very interesting. I can only see that as far as yourself and Dave's opinion go it serves us up a small ship fast play game, which will suit some of our members fine, but I will continue to use Langton for my small ships with the Ares rules. That way I don't need to bother about terrain in yet another scale nor enlarging my table to accommodate bigger ships. I have only just reduced its size.
Thank you both for your enlightening comments.
Rob.