Fire as She Bears
Age of Sail miniatures rules
Review by Russ Lockwood
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Fire as She BearsAge of Sail miniatures rulesReview by Russ Lockwood |
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In short, Fire As She Bears is a brilliant set of rules. If you have the least interest in Age of Sail gaming, buy it. I'm not a Napoleonic naval buff per se, and I don't play one on TV either, but FASB just grabs you, reels you in, and makes you want to know more. It allows you control of up to about a half dozen ships at a time. With three ships per player, a four-player game can take two to three hours. Larger battles run a little longer. Our largest playtest was 11 players with 32 ships (!) and that took about four to five hours. Command and control is simple--stay within range of your admiral and you can sail any way you'd like. Break out of the line of command, and you must select one of three options: sail straight, right, or left. Your movement becomes mandatory without having to plot each movement point. As a rules mechanism it handicaps players subtlely and successfully. Players alternate moving squadrons (the admiral picks which one according to a flip of cards), which slows down play in large multi-ship actions as you wait your turn. This is balanced by allowing players to fire once per turn, but at any time during the turn. And since fire is usually sequential, not simultaneous, you can dish out damage before taking any--and visa versa. So, players keep an eye on the action. There's no pre-plotting. You act and react to the situation at hand. A cleverly run squadron can chew up enemy ships and dance away. It also means players tend to keep in line more often than not and more like their historical counterparts. The genius behind the system resides in embedding firepower factors into hull boxes and speed factors (movement points) in rigging boxes. Other games, like Close Action, usually separate the two into four sets of boxes. Firing consists of adding your factors to 2d8, adding a few modifiers, and looking up the result on the chart. Damage is marked off by crossing out boxes. The more rigging hits you get, the slower you sail. The more hull boxes crossed off, the fewer firing factors you bring to bear on the enemy. Critical hits add flavor (and modifiers). It's simple and effective. One aspect to sequential move and fire is the "conga line" effect, where a squadron can gang up on a single enemy ship and pound it into splinters. Crossing the "T" is hell on lead ships. And smaller ships, like frigates, are easily pulped. FASB trades off tactical detail for playable flavor. If you want historical accuracy in Age of Sail Combat, use Close Action. But be warned that monster sized fleet actions with a dozen ships a side will take 6-8-10 or so hours (and I've played in a few like that). If you don't mind giving up that detail, especially if you want to refight Trafalgar, Aboukir Bay, or other large battle, FASB is the way to go. One other note: FASB is played on a square grid, so it is a boardgame more than a miniatures set. Cutting diagonally is tricky at first, but easily picked up. You can easily swap squares for inches for gridless purists. FASB is quick to learn and play. It's fun and will no doubt inspire you to learn more about the Age of Sail--and that's what a great set of rules can do. An Answer From Phil:Q: Each space is 200 yds +/-, what is the time scale? A: Each turn is about 15 minutes. So each firing action is actually a series of
broadsides. We reached this time scale, in part, when we looked at the amount of
time it took for a single battle to reach a decisive conclusion. Our "Battle of
Camperdown" is running about 6 to 8 turns (1 1/2 to 2 hours of scale combat).
Admittedly this is an abstraction. The time scale also seems to hold together given
the distance scale of each square. Most players don't seem to care about scale
because the game "feels" right. Another "design for effect" issue. We came up with
the basic system and then backed in the "time and distance". A little bit of a bass
ackward way of doing things, I'm afraid. For more information, contact:
E-mail: Phil Fry (philfry@juno.com)
Phil Fry
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Designed and Published by: Phil Fry ($23 (includes postage)