Written by Jason Gorringe & Simon Thomas
Published by Canis Publishing
Available from Langton Miniatures

I've been a fan of Civil War naval from my childhood. Ever since I read my first book describing the battle between the U.S.S. Monitor and the C.S.S. Virginia (Merrimac to us Union folk), I have had a fascination with the weird and ungainly vessels produced by both sides. My club, BattleGroup Boston, likes naval, and we had fought out may a battle using converted versions of Yaquinto's Ironclads. When Thoroughbred came out with their outstanding 1/600th scale Ironclads, BGB club member Pete English was bitten by the bug and started buying the entire line.

With all these cool new miniatures we had to get some games in. We fell back on our old standby Ironclads, but we have always found the maze of charts very tedious and slow. I heard about a new set of rules designed specifically for 1/600ths called Smoke on the Water. I checked out their web page and ordered a set of the rules for Pete.

I received an E-mail from Rod Langton offering me a free copy if I would write a review. I jumped at the offer. So without further delay, let's look at the rules.

First off Smoke on the Water (SotW) is a clean, easy to read ruleset, 60 pages of rules with tables, examples, and graphics, all nicely laid out, in a metal spiral bound A4 format. The last pages consist of copies of the turn circles, ship templates, and ship data. All the major combatants can be found, and there is a detailed section on how to convert any ship not listed to SotW ship list. This is a great feature that I wish all games would include. Also included were three heavy A4 cardstock cards with all of the charts required for play, and a sheet explaining how to convert the rules from 1/600th to 1/1200th scale miniatures. I found a few minor typos in the rules and a small errata sheet was included correcting a few errors. Now a minor quibble - as a Union man of good standing, I object to examples in the rule book. All of the examples in SotW have bad things happening to the Union and good things to the Rebs. I feel the authors are most likely Copperheads (though they protest their innocence).

One comment: you will need a photocopier with some scaling function to get the A4 size charts and templates onto a proper American piece of paper. You must also make a copy of the turn circles and cut them out before you can begin play. The game requires d10s and d6s. Its best to have a handful of d10s and a pair of d6s.

Prior to play, you are required to fill out the Ship Record Sheet (SRS) for each vessel. This lists all of the vital statistics of the vessel, its armor, speed, maneuverability, flotation, size, aspect targeting size and guns. All of this data can be found in the ships lists, thought some of the gun codes are rather cryptic and require you to look in the ship building section to figure out where the guns are actually located. Some of the maneuver values are mislabeled but it's easy to figure out. In the back of the book are two filled out SRSs that will aid you in filling out yours. There are also sample icons to represent each type of gun mount. Each Ship Record Sheet will also function as an order sheet. Once each vessel has an SRS, you are ready to begin play.

At this point I would like to make some general comments about the Smoke on the Water. First, the SotW bears a surface resemblance to Ironclads, but there are some key differences. The primary difference is that armor does not ablate as it does in Ironclads. A vessel that starts with Super-heavy armor ends the game with Super-heavy armor. The armor rating are broken into groups ranging from Unarmored to Super-heavy. Special types like Tin and Cottonclads are covered. Ships are divided into sections, each given its own armor rating. Guns, like armor, are grouped into classes from Very Light to Super-heavy, and are further subdivided into Rifled and Smoothbore. In the basic game, there is no rate of fire for guns, so all guns can fire each turn. There are optional rules for including ROF but it slows the game down drastically as Ironclads have a great deal of difficulty hurting each other.

In Smoke on the Water, ships have two vital values: Hull Damage Points (HDP) and Floatation Points (FP). As the ship is hit it starts to slowly rattle apart, losing HDP. Most vessels start with 30 or more HDP and 8 FP. Penetrating rounds do greater damage, but even bouncing rounds of the Heavy and Super-heavy guns do damage even when they bounce off the armor.

Smoke on the Water Ironclads die hard. Monitors have an additional set of damage points called Turret Damage Points (TDP); hits to the turret cause these to be removed. Other systems on the ship are represented by separate damage sections. These are the machinery (representing boilers and engines), stack, rudder, pilothouse and (where required) sidewheels or stern wheel. There is an additional set of points to track called flooding points. These are used to measure the amount of in-rushing water. Each turn a vessel must remove the number of FDPs equal to the flooding points. When a ship runs out of HDP, it starts to sink; if it runs out of TDP, the turret is disabled and unable to fire; if it runs out of FP, it sinks.

Sequence of Play

The sequence of play in Smoke on the Water is as follows:

1. Orders Phase (In this phase, you set your speed and plot your course. Special instructions are also done at this time, like anchoring or boarding.)
2. Movement Phase (Execute movement and resolve collisions)
3. Gunnery Phase (Determine firing arcs, hits, locations and effects)
4. Boarding Phase (Attempt boarding actions)
5. Morale Phase (Test the morale of your crew and their willingness to fight)
6. Fire Test Phase (Test to see if a fire takes, or to put out an existing fire)
7. Repair Phase (Attempt to repair damage and reduce flooding)

In the Orders Phase, you choose your speed and plot your course. Ships in Smoke on the Water have four speeds ranging from slow to very fast. Ships are also rated for maneuverability ranging from poor to very good. All movement and range measurements in SotW are in centimeters, so make sure you have a metric tape measure. One strange feature of SotW is that all speed grades have a fixed value. You must use the entire value of the speed bracket. The speeds are plotted using the speed grades, ships may accelerate or decelerate by one grade. In addition, the speed grade you are required to plot turns, and how many centimeters around the circle you plan on moving. The turn circles have the cross index of the vessel's speed and maneuverability to determine which circle to use. Additional actions may be plotted, such as anchoring, or planning a boarding action.

Once all orders have been plotted, all ships are moved simultaneously and any collisions are resolved. One comment on movement: this game is BIG. We were playing on a 12 x 8 foot table and we had problems with the ships moving off the board. Also, the gun ranges are long. Some guns can reach out to 200 cm (@79 inches or 6.5 feet!), so be warned the ships will cover a lot of table or floor. If two or more ships plot courses that will lead to a collision, you are required to follow the ramming rules.

The ramming rules are the only part of Smoke on the Water that I found unclear. The resolution of ramming is a four step process. The first two steps involve determining the angle of the ramming vessel. This is used to determine collision speed, and the aspect of the target vessel used to determine the target's damage modifier. The rule book gives a illustration of arc on the target vessel. However, the rules never state how you determine the collision aspect, nor does it give a good example. The advantage of the 1/600th miniatures is that the angle and point of impact are easy to figure out. However, the rules fail to exploit this. In one of our play test games, we had a Confederate Ironclad ram a Monitor in the forward quarter at 90 degrees. I ended up deciding the collision angle is determined by the ramming vessel for collision speed, and the target aspect is determined by the point of impact on the target vessel. (I e-mailed this question to Jason, he responed that this was the correct solution and that text will be corrected in the next addition of the rules.)

Once the modifiers for speed and collision angle have been determined, each ship rolls d6 and adds the modifiers. If the result is positive, that is the number of Hull Damage Points the vessel receives. If the vessel sustained damage, you must roll 2d6. If the number rolled is less than or equal to the HDP received, that is the number of flooding points sustained. Flooding in Smoke on the Water is a serious threat to Ironclads: monitors have very little excess Floatation points. But the likelihood of actually getting any flooding hits is fairly small.

Overall, we felt that ramming wasn't much of a threat. Spar torpedoes can be a threat but it requires a fairly high roll on 2d6 to get any kind of dangerous results. The Canis Publishing home page has some optional ramming rules that add the possibility of collisions causing damage to additional systems like machinery and guns.

After collision damage has been resolved, the ships involved must test to see if they lock. The base chance is 5 or less on d10. This chance is increased by the amount of flooding damage done. If vessels lock, then on each following turn, they may attempt to unfoul. If a vessel is fouled with another that sinks, it sinks too.

After all movement and collisions have been resolved, the next phase is Gunnery. First the arcs of fire for each gun must be determined. This is an easy process as the game includes numerous examples and a sample arc (located on the turning circle sheet) to help you check. The arcs if anything are generous. Once a target is determined to be in the firing arc, the range is measured and checked against a table to find its range bracket. The base chance to hit is 5 or less on a d10. There are modifiers for range and for the size of the target. Each ship has two target modifiers, one for bow stern aspect and the other for broadside aspect. A nice touch, this really gives you a feel for the advantage of Monitors vs. the Casement Ironclads. If a 10 is rolled, you roll on the misfire table. Most results have no effect: however, you can disable a gun or worse, yet have it burst on you, potentially setting a fire.

When a hit is scored, you roll a d10 on a hit location chart to determine its location. The charts are broken up into different ship types and aspects. If you roll a 10, there is a chance of critical hit. If you rolled a 10, you then roll a d6 and check the critical hit table. If you a six on the critical hit table, then you roll an addtional d6 and test on the special hit table. However, all these rolls may be a moot, as all hits including criticals and special hits must still roll on the armor deflection table. The armor deflection table requires, you cross index the size of the gun against the type of armor in the location hit. You must roll the number indicated or above on a d10 to penetrate. There are modifies to this number based on range. This may seem like a complex process, but after a few turns everyone picks it up and play moves smoothly. Overall, the members of my club felt that critical hits were a little too easy to get: If your vessel didn't have armor or inferior armor, your ship tended to be racked with terrible damage. Some of the guys felt the large caliber smoothbores were underrated. It was felt that this gave the rifle armed Confederates an advantage.

Shells in Smoke on the Water have their historical deadliness against unarmored targets. Each shell that hits must roll an additional die for detonation. Union shells are more likely to detonate than Confederate shells. Shells that penetrate do a lot of damage and cause a fire test. Shells that fail to penetrate armor do no damage at all.

After all gunfire is complete, all ships still locked may attempt boarding (if they plotted boarding in the orders phase). This is done with 2d6: a low result favors the defender, a high results favor the attacker. Since crew is not tracked, it is abstracted as HDP. Modifiers are based on the relative remaining HDPs, and damage from boarding actions are taken as Hull Damage. The rules don't say what to do if both sides decide to launch a boarding action; I assume the larger vessel in remaining HDP is the attacker.

After all boarding actions have been completed, some vessels may have to test for morale.

Morale

There are six reasons a vessel must test for morale in Smoke on the Water.

1. A vessel is flooding.
2. A vessel has lost at 1/2 of its FDP or HDP this turn.
3. Captain Killed this turn.
4. Under fire and unable to return fire. (Unless vessel is unarmed.)
5. Vessel on fire.
6. Friendly vessel seen sunk or surrendered this turn.

The test is taken with 2d6. A roll of two or less causes a morale failure, the results of which are fatal. The best you can hope for is retire from battle; more likely you will strike. There are a series of modifiers to the morale die roll. The negative ones tend to add up and the cascade effect causes a side to retire. I don't think this is ahistorical, but a lot of the guys in my club didn't think it was much fun. In two of our playtest games, the Confederates lost a relatively undamaged Ironclad to unlucky rolls.

With all Morale tests taken, then comes the Fire Test Phase: as Bevis would say "Heh, heh, fire's cool!" But not in an Ironclad with lots of powder on board. Fires are always best observed on someone else's vessel, preferably on an enemy vessel. When a vessel suffers certain critical hits or has a gun burst, it gains a fire test marker. A vessel may have more than one fire test marker. A vessel must roll eight or less on 2d6. If it succeeds, the fire test marker is removed. If the roll fails, the test marker is turned into a fire. Fires cause d3 HDP, and each turn it burns it gets harder to put out.

Additionally, it cause the ship to take a morale test; a failed result is an abandoned ship. Ships may have more than one fire at a time. If a fire burns for too long, it goes out of control. The crew is required to abandon ship and the ship will blow up within 10 turns (unless it sinks first!) At this point, the Smoke on the Water becomes Fire in the Sky, causing fire tests on adjacent ships.

The final phase is the Repair Phase. At this point, vessels may repair jammed guns, some of the other reparable critical hits, or flooding damage. As long as you're not on fire (fires tend to keep your crew distracted from their other duties), you have basically have a 1/3rd chance of successfully repairing repairable damage. However, if you roll a 1 on d6, a jammed gun is removed from play. You also have a 1/3rd chance of successfully countering flooding, thought you must be moving at slow or less. If successful, the vessel removes d3 flooding points. The remaining flooding points are taken as FDP. If a vessel removes all flooding points, it is able to restore one FDP per turn till all are repaired.

Overall

Overall, our group liked the game. We thought it was a dicey game, where good dice is a good strategy. In one of our early playtests, the Union wooden gunboat U.S.S John Paul Jones fought and defeated two Confederate Ironclads Richmond and Chicora. The Reb players' dice luck was so bad (he blew up one of his good rifles, set himself on fire and abandoned his vessel) and the Union's so good (I jammed his largest gun's gunport closed and got a waterline hit, causing flooding that forced him to retire). My wounded sidewheeler held the field with only 1 damaged sidewheel left and 5 HDPs. Hooray for the Union!

Smoke on the Water is a fast-playing easy-to-learn game. We fought a battle with nine vessels and seven players to completion within 3 hours! Most of these people had never played the game before. If you want a fast and fun Civil War Naval game, I recommend Smoke on the Water!