What does one receive? WS&IM arrives in an attractive though not overly strong box. The unmounted board is neatly numbered and clear. The playing pieces are easily punched our and represent the individual vessels of each battle or ship to ship action portrayed. The major battles are Lissa, Trafalger, and The Nile.

There are thirteen other single-ship or small-action battles portrayed. Aside from a sick Spanish pink color, the pieces are excellent. One also receives a Hit Record and Log Sheet, well written rules (very few problems with these rules), a designer notes sheet, examples of play, and a CRT chart. The CRT chart is somewhat like the ones used by the Wargame Research people in which there are several +1's or -2's, etc. Though at first the rules may appear difficult, design of the rules and the play of the game are actually fairly easy to grasp.

Touching on the mechanics of play, WS&IM has some interesting and yet simple sailing and wind rules. Basically one can sail in three directions and various speeds. American frigates have a slightly higher rate of speed with studded sails.

Damage in this game is progressive. Unlike FRIGATE, one pounds each other's vessels and the progressive damage affects the individual ships over a period of time. This also averages out the luck factor better than in FRIGATE, as you most likely will be damaging an enemy vessel even if your die rolls are bad. This factor also makes a single ship action more interesting than in FRIGATE.

Damage categories are: rigging, hull, men or guns. All these factors can affect the conduct of the battle. Further, one has two types of guns: long and carronades. One may also choose, depending upon the range, four different types of shells: ball, chain, grape or double shot.

Boarding is well done. In spite of Errol Flynn, it is quite hard to capture a vessel by boarding and requires a great amount of time and fighting. This is well reflected in the mechanics. One rolls on a special capture table if all the hull factors are destroyed. The only weakness of this table is that there is too high a percentage of vessels that burn and explode.

Historically, one can say the WS&IM does indeed give a good feel for the period. Certain shortcuts were taken for the sake of playability. But the overwelming advantage to this game is its smoothness of play and sheer enjoyment.

WS&IN is more reminiscent of TRAFALGAR than of FRIGATE, TRAFALGER was produced back in the late sixties with a rumored run of 125 copies. It is probably one of the best small-time games ever produced, and went for $11.25 a copy. As the name implies, it delt with just that action and included all vessels present, including the brigs. Mechanically, TRAFALGAR used a "gunnery factors firing" CRT and damage was progressive, as in WS&IM. The sail factors were better researched and highly individualized in TRAFALGAR: e.g., the Santa Ana was a 3 "square" one turn, 2 square second turn, this cycle alternating every other turn, while the Victory would be a 4/4. Further, one could not sail towards the wind with studded sails.

WSIM is much cleaner than TRAFALGAR in mechanics, as a game of TRAFALGAR oftentimes took two days to complete. There were many bookkeeping activities in TRAFALGAR as well. It is interesting to note that the TRAFALGAR pieces are virtually identical in appearance to the WSIM pieces.

In some ways, comparing FRIGATE to WSIM is a mistake as the two games look at naval combat under sail from different points of view, FRIGATE is a game of combat between sailing fleets, whereas WS&IM is a game between ships that may or may not be in fleets or squadrons. While both games require the coordination of different vessels in a fleet action, in FRIGATE this is a much more important factor.

One strong point in FRIGATE'S favor are the different scenarios. One has a large choice open. One also has more ships and nationalities to choose from. Attempting to fight the battle of Trafalgar in either game requires a tremendous amount of energy, but in WS&IM it requires more, for it is such an individualized game. Both of these scenarios are great for a multi-player game.

All in all, aside from a few historical concessions, WSIM is an excellent buy. It will not collect dust.

I would like to give special thanks for Beverly Shapiro's help in preparing this article.

More Slice of Battleline Publications

Introduction
Interview with Steven Peek and Craig Taylor
Comments on Wargaming and Battleline
Review: Wooden Ships and Iron Men