Introduction
OK, so the first thing I need to put out there is that these rules are a streamlined and simplified version of the pre-dreadnought rules in Paul Hague's Sea Battles in Miniature. I do not make any great claims for originality on this point. The next point is that these rules are not for the stickler on historical accuracy. These rules are for those who want to go hammer and tongs with some of the most poorly designed naval vessels in history. These rules are for those who can see the humor of torpedoing themselves. These rules are for those who want to set up a game quickly, and then throw a lot of dice and giggle for the next two hours. The name for these rules comes from my affection for some of the ugliest, sorriest excuses for warships ever to part the waves.
Pre-Game Set Up
You will need to fill out a Vessel Record Sheet and Turn Record Sheet for each vessel in the game. The sheet itself gives you some pointers on how to fill in the information. The hull armor category is only for those broadside ironclads like the Warrior or the Gloire that have one basic rating for everything. For most vessels, leave this blank. (Yes I know that this means that most vessels are completely vulnerable to hull hits- that's intentional.)
You should draw the arrangement of the vessel's armament on the hull diagram in the center. These rules consider everything under a 7" gun to be a quick-firing (QF) gun and do not account for machine guns. Once you know the length of the vessel, black out the extra Hull, Fire and Flooding boxes. The Turn Record Sheet is used to keep track of the vessel's movement and firing. The columns to the right of the Move column are for the vessel's main and secondary armament. Beginning with the main battery, allot one column for each weapon or set of weapons that fire together. Once all this fiddly business of filling out the sheets is done, the game will go very quickly, I promise. You will need 8" turning circles divided into 12 segments and 4" turning circles divided into 8 segments. You will need rulers and loads of six-sided dice. I made up some 36" range sticks with 12" and 24" marked off. You will also need some torpedo markers and some fire markers to indicate which ships are burning.
Turn Phases
OK, ships on the table? Everybody ready? Here we go. You will want to consult the sheet with the Combat Tables as you read this section. Move- Determine speed and move all ships and torpedoes. Resolve ramming and torpedoes. Damage- Control & Flooding- Each ship can roll once on the Damage Control Chart. Then record any flooding Fire- Each ship may fire all loaded guns or torpedoes Record Damage- The results of all hits are determined on the Hit Location Table and the Damage Chart.
Movement
Write the movement orders for the turn in the move column. I generally use a format where 4,P2, 1,S2 translates into a vessel traveling at 9 knots going 4" straight ahead, turning 2 segments to port, moving 1" ahead and then turning 2 segments back to starboard.
Destroyers and Torpedo boats in base contact can write one set of movement orders for the group of vessels. Reveal orders and move the ships simultaneously. All damage results from torpedoes and ramming are recorded immediately. 0 1 knot= I inch of movement * Acceleration- +/- 2 knots 0 Reverse- 1/4 speed max. * Turning Radius- 8" (4"- TB and DD only) 0 Torpedoes- Torpedoes run for 2 turns at 12 knots.
(Note. My friend Angelo demonstrated that launching a 12 knot torpedo from the bow tube of a torpedo boat going 23 knots is a bad career move)
Roll 1d6 each turn - 1 turn to port (8" circle), 3-5 straight, 6 turn to starboard. If the torpedo will cross the course track of a vessel, move each in 1/4 move increments. If their paths cross in the same increment roll 1d6, on a 4-6 the torpedo has hit.
Ramming- Impact must be within 45 degrees of perpendicular. If the angle of contact is less, the vessels will scrape by each other. The speed of both vessels in a ramming situation immediately falls to zero. If a capital ship rams or is rammed by a destroyer or smaller vessel its speed only drops by half
Damage Control & Flooding
Ships can control fires and flooding and recover from critical hits by rolling on the Damage Control Chart. Fire points can be removed based on the result. Flooding is controlled by first reducing the flooding rate, and then by removing the flooding points. If a vessel successfully recovers from a critical hit, it is freed from the hit restrictions. If a vessel has multiple critical hits, it may only recover from one at a time. Once all Damage Control has been resolved mark off flooding boxes according to the Flooding Rate.
A Quick Word from the Author on Flooding: Maybe I just play with some guys that are not a smart as the average bear, but they found the flooding process confusing until I had explained it 7 or 8 times. I'm going to spell it out real simple like. Waterline hits (from guns or ramming) increase the flooding RATE, i. e. how big a hole you have in your boat. Damage Control will first reduce the RATE, i. e. try to make the hole smaller, and then worry about the water that may have gotten inside, i.e. the flooding boxes crossed off. If you look at how the turn phases break down, you will notice that Damage Control can reduce a Flooding Rate to zero before any flooding actually happens. So, in turn 5 your ship takes 2 waterline hits, and you write down a flooding rate of 2. Do you cross off any boxes yet? No! During the turn 6 damage control phase, you roll a 4 and can reduce any fire by 2 and flooding by 1. Your flooding rate drops from 2 to 1. At the end a this phase you would cross off one of the flooding boxes. Now in future turns, you ill need to reduce the flooding rate to zero before you can erase any of the boxes. OK? Still confused? I give up!
A Quick Word from the Author on Fire. In the Warpigs universe fires do not spread Why? I don't know. Don't worry, you will still find yourself on fire much of the time anyway. A ship that must be abandoned due to fire stays afloat and a general nuisance to everyone. You can check each turn to see if it explodes if it makes you happy.
Firing
Each of the guns in the primary and secondary batteries and torpedo tubes are assigned separate columns on the turn chart. Guns that are mounted in turrets or barbettes in pairs are only given I column and are fired and loaded together. When a gun fires, write fire in the box for that turn and mark the reload time and ammunition type in the boxes for subsequent turns below.
Example: A 12" gun fires on turn 1. The gun will take 2 turns to reload The player would write all of the required actions through turn 3 at this point. The gun will be ready to fire shot in turn 4.
| Turn | 12" Gun |
|---|---|
| 1 | Fire |
| 2 | Load Shot |
| 3 | Load |
| 4 |
7"-8" guns must write their reload type in the same box in which they fire because they can fire every turn. Check the range and roll to see if any guns hit. Ships may not fire over other ships unless both the firing ship and the target are capital ships and the intervening vessels are destroyers or smaller. I generally play torpedoes as a one-shot weapon. You could give them a reload time if you wanted to.
A Quick Word from the Author on Torpedoes: Torpedoes are erratic, inaccurate weapons that are a hazard to anyone in the vicinity. You will find that you cannot resist firing them.
Recording Damage
Check the location of each hit using the Hit Location Table. Check for penetration using the Armor Penetration Table. Non-penetrating hits do no damage. Roll for the damage of all penetrating hits using 2d6 on the Damage Table. Any doubles result in a Critical Hit except for Quick Firing Guns. Mark off all damage on the Vessel Record Sheet. A waterline penetration will increase the Flooding Rate by 1, but no flooding takes place until the Damage Control & Flooding Phase. All 1/2 speed results are cumulative.
Conclusion
So that's it. You will find that most of the battles resemble a room full of drunken blind men swinging bats at each other. You will learn that short range is a painful place to be. You will hate your 16" guns for the eternity you have to wait until they're loaded again, but if you get a hit- hoo boy! You will see that quick-firing guns have an effect similar to erosion. Ramming will seem like a great idea right up until you actually hit the other vessel. Play tests have shown that most players are comfortable handling one or two ships or maybe a squadron of torpedo boats. The engagements tend to follow the Hobbsean dictum of being nasty, brutish and short--which mum that you can pack more than one into an evening!
WarPigs Grog and Hardtack Rules for the Pre-Dreadnought Period 1870(ish)-1900(ish)
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© Copyright 2002 Hal Thinglum
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