Warlord Victory at Sea Rules Review.

History

About a decade ago, Mongoose Publishing released a set of new fast play WWII rules named victory at sea. Mongoose followed that release with supplemental fleet list and WWI rules in paperback form. They also started to release their own line of ship miniatures. Over the years, there was a lot of chatter on their forums regarding an upcoming release of a new version of the rules. Time went on and a pre-print version was even posted on their message boards to support play testing and feedback. Time went on and things went silent… Then word broke that the rules were indeed coming out, but by a new publishing, the well known gaming company Warlord. Now the new rules have indeed been released by Warlord!

I have been an avid fan of Victory at Sea since they were released (you may have even seen a few battle reports on this blog). I was attracted to the rules because of their ease of play and ability to resolve naval scenarios in a few hours. I have played naval games for many years. Frankly, I am getting too old to climb on tables just to figure out the angle and range for individual torpedoes! These rules solved that problem and many more. They were not perfect and needed a bit more errata, but fit the bill for my gaming. I could set up a game and get new gamers to play the rules without much instruction. I like easy and these rules were easy!

I followed the development of the V2 play tests with much excitement. Printing out the updates and trying them out as I could. Now, we finally have the real rules from Warlord and I am ecstatic! The initial releases from Warlord and are in box sets with Warlord ship models. I already have over a hundred GHQ ships, so do not have any need in the new Warlord model offerings. As such, I was looking for a copy of the rules without having to pay for a whole bunch of ships I don’t need. Fortunately, Warlord gave a free copy with the core rules the August War-games Illustrated. I did not realize this was released until it was too late and did not get a copy of the magazine before it ran out of stock. Fortunately, my buddy TJ had a copy and offered them to me. I said, yes please!

Background

I have read through the new rules and found them to be very similar to the old Mongoose version. However, there are a number of changes that I feel make the rules both more detailed and easier to play. They have done this by removing extraneous rules and mechanics, while adding detail to the ship damage mechanics. The later includes adding D10 rolls.

Reading through the rules, I compared the limited ship stats that where included. I compared these to the playtest v2 rules on the Mongoose forums and found they matched 100%. So, now I have new rules and full ship lists for my gaming. Now, it might be time to get back to painting ships!

Each ship is broken down into basic stats. These include such items as speed, armor, damage (values to sink and cripple) and special traits (things like having radar, spotter planes, torpedo belting, etc). In addition, they have breakdowns of all their weapon systems. Each weapon listing includes ranges, number of attack dice, number of defense dice, armor penetration modifiers, etc. Weapons include main guns, light guns, AA, torpedoes and the occasional special rules (like single shot for torpedoes).

Movement

The movement rules are straight forward. each side rolls for initiative at the beginning of each turn. They then trade back and forth and move each of their ships. Once the last ship has moved, the movement phase ends. No pre-plotting is necessary, as the risk of the next move provides enough counters to allow for fog of war. Ships move up to their speed and can turn 45 degrees for every two inches moved (this allows more maneuver than in v1). You turn your ships by alining your conning tower and pivoting up to 45 degrees at this point (no more pivoting along the back of the model from v1).

Combat

Combat mechanics are the same for most of the weapons system. First you allocate all the weapons fire on your ship against your desired targets. Maximum visibility is limited to 30″ (with some exceptions), even if you weapons can shoot farther (darn that horizon). All weapons have fire arcs the are broken up in the ninety degree increments (shown on the ship stats). If the target is within range and firing arc, it can be targeted. You simply roll a number of D6 that is equal to your ships attack die for each weapon. Hits are scored on a 4 plus, which is modified by various modifiers (range, ship type, speed, etc). Once you have determined the number of hits, you then roll for damage by rolling a D6 for every damage die for the weapon that hit. Compare these rolls (applying and penetration modifiers) to the ships armor to see if you caused any damage. If you roll a six, you check for critical damage on the tables provided. Once a ship reaches its critical damage score, it is crippled. Once a ship is reduced to zero damage, it sinks.

End Phase

The end phase is used to perform damage control and check to see if existing damage has gotten worse. Each ship can roll one D6 to see if it has repaired any damage it has sustained during the game. On a four up, you can reduce a damage effect by one level (you cannot repair hull damage). On a six up, you can reduce an effect by two steps. Some critical hits can get worse. For these, you also roll a D6 and on a four plus they get one step worse. Any effects that result are then applied immediately. Once all these rolls are made, the turn ends.

Orders

The game still includes the option of special orders for your ships. These are similar to what one might remember if you ever played battlefield Gothic. Basically, before you move a ship, you announce if you want to give a special order. Some are automatic and others require a crew check (4+ on a D6 most of the time). The orders include things that let you improve damage repair rolls, turn faster, create smoke, evade hits, emergency fooding, etc. They are very similar to v1 orders, but their are enough differences to pay attention!

Traits

In addition to the straight up attack and defense stats, most ships have some kind of special traits that apply to them or their weapons. Ship traits include things like armored deck, agility, radar, belting, aircraft carrier, etc. The weapon traits include things like one shot weapons, heavy/devastating/weak guns, etc. Finally, there are aircraft traits like large and toughness (yes, you can use carriers and land based planes with the rules).

Other stuff

There is also a chapter on aircraft operations to allow you to use spotter planes, aircraft carrier operations and land attack. This even includes thins like Kamikazes, wind direction, dogfighting, AA, etc. Next you have a section that describes setting up scenarios, victory conditions, objectives, deployment and scouting for your scenarios. This provides a nice method for creating pick up games, if you do not have a historical scenario in mind. Finally, there are some fluff right ups regarding the major naval fleets that took part in WWII. In some cases, this includes national special rules. Finally, you get a quick reference guide on the back page. That, as they say, is that!

Summary

Overall, I am very excited to play these rules and cannot wait until the lock downs are finally over. There is a rumor (on their forums) that Warlord will be releasing stand alone full rules version, ship guide and scenario books in the future. While you are waiting for that, you can go to the Mongoose forums and print out their versions to get you started until that happens. I know I will be updating my own excel ship cards and start painting more boats in the meantime! However, if you do not already own all the ships in the world like me, Warlord will be offering a lot of ship models in the future (they already have starter fleets for the four primary navies) and each of these come with their own ship cards. If your looking for an easy to play WWII naval game that provides just enough tactical control to give historical results, these rules are definitely worth checking out!

• Mantuffel