Clash of Arm's new sail naval game can best be thought of as Advanced Wooden Ships and Iron Men, as it is, in reality, a published version of a WS&IM expansion kit from the early '80's. Unfortunately, in this case "Advanced" means "more cumbersome ". E.g., the rules on filling out a ship chart cover 3 1/2 pages and, among otha things, require the player to consult two different charts to calculate each ship's fire factor at each of 15 ranges. The rest of the rules are the same; the basic outlines of WS&IM but with more detail and more work to play the game. And forget about fleet actions. The designer touts them, but then mentions that each player should control no more than three ships (and preferably one) each. So, yeah, you could play Trafalgar (provided it was one of the scenarios in the game - it's being saved for a future expansion kit) as long as you have 20-60 friends you can gather. Of course, figuring out how to get 60 people around a single map is a whole other matter, For all its additional detail, Close Action still has some of the same problems as WS&IM. For instance, since both are simultaneous movement games in which fire takes place after movement, it is possible for two ships to sail nght past each other without firing. If anything, that problem is worse in Close Action, since movement rates tend to be somewhat higher. (In all fairness, there is an optional rule that attempts to solve that particular problem. However, the rule is only a partial solution and is limited to one-on-one scenarios.) Even the components are reminiscent of Avalon Hill's game. Generic, rather drab ship counters, a map that uses shades of blue to stand in for land in those scenarios that require it, and fill-in-the-blanks ship charts. Graphically, the best part of the game is the box cover, a reproduction of one of those marvelous 18th century naval battle paintings. Ultimately, if you enjoy WS&IM, and its ilk, and are looking for even more detail, and are willing to pay the price in terms of added work and obfuscation, Close Action may fill that need. Other than that, in my house all it fills is a space deep inside a dark closet. Back to Berg's Review of Games Vol. 2 #28 Table of Contents Back to Berg's Review of Games List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by Richard Berg This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com