Warlord Victory at Sea Rules Review

History

About a decade ago, Mongoose Publishing released a set of new fast play WWII rules named Victory at Sea. Mongoose followed that release with supplemental fleet list and WWI rules in paperback form. They also started to release their own line of ship miniatures. Over the years, there was a lot of chatter on their forums regarding an upcoming release of a new version of the rules. Time went on and a pre-print version was even posted on their message boards to support play testing and feedback. Time went on and things went silent… Then word broke that the rules were indeed coming out, but by a new publishing, the well known gaming company Warlord. Warlord released a skinny version of the rules late last year with their first figures and included the set in Wargames Illustrated. I picked those up of coarse to see if I liked the update (and I did). Now, Warlord has released the full rule book in hard back and mine arrived earlier this week!

I have been an avid fan of Victory at Sea since they were released (you may have even seen a few battle reports on this blog). I was attracted to the rules because of their ease of play and ability to resolve naval scenarios in a few hours. I have played naval games for many years and I am at the point that I want to keep things simple. Frankly, I am getting too old to climb on tables just to figure out the angle and range for individual torpedoes! The old rules solved that problem and many more. They were not perfect and needed a bit more errata, but fit the bill for my gaming. I could set up a game and get new gamers to play the rules without much instruction.

I followed the development of the V2 play tests with much excitement. Printing out the updates and trying them out as I could. Now, we finally have the real rules from Warlord and I am ecstatic! The initial releases from Warlord and are in box sets with Warlord ship models. I already have over a hundred GHQ ships, so do not have any need in the new Warlord model offerings. As such, I was looking for a copy of the full rules. Fortunately, Warlord gave a free copy with the core rules the August War-games Illustrated to get my feet wet. Now, they have the 275 page hardback rulebook with full fleet lists, so I am ready to go!

Background

I have read through the new rules and found them to be very similar to the old Mongoose version. However, there are a number of changes that I feel make the rules both more detailed and easier to play. They have done this by removing extraneous rules and mechanics, while adding detail to the ship damage mechanics. The later includes adding D10 rolls.

Ships

The game includes full fleet list ship stats for all ships in the British, US, Japanese, Italian, French and German Navies (there are also a couple of Dutch ships shown in the Java scenarios). Each ship is broken down into basic stats. These include such items as speed, armor, damage (values to sink and cripple) and special traits (things like having radar, spotter planes, torpedo belting, etc). In addition, they have breakdowns of all their weapon systems. Each weapon listing includes ranges, number of attack dice, number of defense dice, armor penetration modifiers, etc. Weapons include main guns, light guns, AA, torpedoes and the occasional special rules (like single shot for torpedoes). They even show each ship upgrade by ship name, so you can reflect the vessels correctly in any battle.

Movement

The movement rules are straight forward. Each side rolls for initiative at the beginning of each turn. They then trade back and forth and move each of their ships. Once the last ship has moved, the movement phase ends. No pre-plotting is necessary, as the risk of the next move provides enough counters to allow for fog of war. Ships move up to their speed and can turn 45 degrees for every two inches moved (this allows more maneuver than in v1). You turn your ships by alining your conning tower and pivoting up to 45 degrees at this point (no more pivoting along the back of the model from v1).

Combat

Combat mechanics are the same for most of the weapons system. First you allocate all the weapons fire on your ship against your desired targets. Maximum visibility is limited to 30″ (with some exceptions), even if you weapons can shoot farther (darn that horizon). All weapons have fire arcs the are broken up in the ninety degree increments (shown on the ship stats). If the target is within range and firing arc, it can be targeted. You simply roll a number of D6 that is equal to your ships attack die for each weapon. Hits are scored on a 4 plus, which is modified by various modifiers (range, ship type, speed, etc). Once you have determined the number of hits, you then roll for damage by rolling a D6 for every damage die for the weapon that hit. Compare these rolls (applying and penetration modifiers) to the ships armor to see if you caused any damage. If you roll a six, you check for critical damage on the tables provided. Once a ship reaches its critical damage score, it is crippled. Once a ship is reduced to zero damage, it sinks.

End Phase

The end phase is used to perform damage control and check to see if existing damage has gotten worse. Each ship can roll one D6 to see if it has repaired any damage it has sustained during the game. On a four up, you can reduce a damage effect by one level (you cannot repair hull damage). On a six up, you can reduce an effect by two steps. Some critical hits can get worse. For these, you also roll a D6 and on a four plus they get one step worse. Any effects that result are then applied immediately. Once all these rolls are made, the turn ends.

Orders

The game still includes the option of special orders for your ships. These are similar to what one might remember if you ever played battlefield Gothic. Basically, before you move a ship, you announce if you want to give a special order. Some are automatic and others require a crew check (4+ on a D6 most of the time). The orders include things that let you improve damage repair rolls, turn faster, create smoke, evade hits, emergency fooding, etc. They are very similar to v1 orders, but their are enough differences to pay attention!

Traits

In addition to the straight up attack and defense stats, most ships have some kind of special traits that apply to them or their weapons. Ship traits include things like armored deck, agility, radar, belting, aircraft carrier, etc. The weapon traits include things like one shot weapons, heavy/devastating/weak guns, etc. Finally, there are aircraft traits like large and toughness (yes, you can use carriers and land based planes with the rules).

Scenarios

Next you have a section that describes setting up scenarios, victory conditions, objectives, deployment and scouting for your scenarios. This provides a nice method for creating pick up games, if you do not have a historical scenario in mind. The gold here are all the historical scenarios in the rules. You get set ups for all theaters during the war, 28 scenarios in all.

Other stuff

There is also a chapter on aircraft operations to allow you to use spotter planes, aircraft carrier operations and land attack. This even includes things like Kamikazes, wind direction, dogfighting, AA, etc. You also have a section on MBTs and another on Submarine combat. With this, everything is covered to allow you to run any type of WWII scenario you would like. Finally, there are some fluff right ups regarding the major naval fleets that took part in WWII. In some cases, this includes national special rules. Finally, you get a quick reference guide on the back page. That, as they say, is that!

Conclusion

If your looking for easy to play naval rules that allow you to finish your games in a few hours, these are for you. It does not matter if you want big gun shoot outs, destroyer skirmishes, carrier fights and just some wolf pack action, these rules have it covered!

• Manteuffel