Stuck in my cheapskate conundrum, I had been looking around for another fantasy naval game. The problem is, there really weren’t any that I could find----until Warring Fleets showed up. Warring Fleets is a fantasy naval game produced by Two Hour Wargames, a small press publisher that has released a number of fairly decent RPG/Mini games on the web. The concept of THW’s games is that they can be played in under two hours, hence the name; for those who think that a two hour game is too long, try playing a halfway decent sized minis game by other publishers and you’ll possibly rethink your position.

At any rate, I had tried a few of THW’s games for other periods including westerns (Six Gun Sound) and sci-fi (BUGS!) and had been pretty happy with my purchases. The games are typical small press stuff and typically run for around $5-$10. I saw that THW had a deal for downloading their games in PDF format for a discount (I got $2 off Warring Fleets price) and decided to give it a go.

Ed Teixeira is the editor, publisher and as far as I can tell chief bottle washer for THW : ) He does it all and is a pleasant fella with good customer relations skills. Within 24 hours of my PayPal payment (on a weekend) and an e-mail asking how I was supposed to get the PDF, I had a personal e-mail from Ed with Warring Fleets attached. Ed also included an attachment covering magic for the game, which he is still developing (more on that later). Soon after that, I printed my copy and set to reading the rules for a good old play test.

The book is 18 pages long. It is organized well with a working table of contents and includes an intro, a brief history of Ed’s fantasy setting (available in other products from THW), the game rules, a section on tactics, solo-gaming, several scenarios, an example game, some campaign ideas, a sheet of ship counters and a quick reference sheet. That’s a lot of stuff to cover in such a short book, but Ed managed to pull it off.

The intro and history are mercifully brief. You are not tied to the fantasy background and can even use the game to play out some early historical type battles such as the early Greeks fought with oar-driven craft. Note, I said oar-driven craft. Which brings me to an important point: WF is NOT about sailing ships.

I learned this after buying the game, having quasi-expected sails and similar issues to be part of a fantasy navy game. I scoured the book, looking for the sailing section but it never appeared. Nowhere does the copy say anything about it one way or the other, so the issue is one of pre-conceived expectations on my part. That said, the game works VERY WELL for the oar-driven technology that it represents. If you’re interested in WF and are still looking for wind shifts and other sail-oriented game elements, you will need to make your own house rules for sails, wind direction and such.

The other detail, that I mentioned earlier, is magic---or rather the lack of it. Ed developed WF as an extension of one of his fantasy games that already contains a magic system. He intended it more as an expansion of the other fantasy game and assumed that folks would have the base game to use for magic. When the issue was raised on-line about WF being considered more as a stand-alone product, Ed set to work on including magic in the WF rules and he is still working on that. From what I have seen, I am hoping that Ed develops a separate, somewhat pared down version for the WF game. WF moves very quickly now and any magic system it includes should keep with that simple, elegant model.

Getting back to reviewing the actual game, ships in the game are defined by just a few stats. Ships are rated 2, 4, or 6 (smallest to largest ship). Rate affects the speed of the craft and how well it keeps floating after damage. CV or combat value measures the crew’s overall combat skill and ranges from CV3 to CV6 (poorest to elite). Morale reflects a ship’s CV plus its rate. As combat affects a ship, its morale will decrease. Armor class (AC) ranges from AC2 to AC4 (unarmored to armored).

Ships may have special weapons such as artillery (gunpowder) and engines (non-gunpowder weapons like catapults). Ships may also employ a corvus, a device for securing ships close together in order to make boarding actions easier. In addition to hardware, certain ships come from nations that allow them to have elite or frenzied crews (with bonuses to using weapons to attack and in boarding).

The last bit of detail to add to a ship or fleet is leaders. The commander in chief (CINC) is costs no points to field and is stationed aboard a command vessel (if you only have one ship per side, then he/she goes there obviously). Additional leaders may be fielded by spending points (points may be used to purchase ships, leaders or even terrain and help balance the game). Leaders help establish your war rating, which helps determine who goes first in a game and how many ships you can activate during a turn.

Terrain such as coastlines, islands and so forth is also covered in the rules. Placement of terrain is part of the game set up and players have to bid points in order to place these obstacles on the game board. Ship/fleet deployment is the last pre-game issue and as with terrain there is a conventional set-up system provided. This system helps minimize the hassles involved with this phase of the pre-game.

Turn sequence is fairly simple. Movement is first by phase. There are four phases in movement and lower rate ships can move in more phases than, say, higher rate ships---the advantage to lower rated ships is their speed. Next is ramming or grappling with enemy ships that are close enough. Then comes artillery/engine shooting, followed by missile fire (to represent archers and the like). Last come resolution of boarding fights, attempts to break free from grappling and reaction checks.

THW games tend to use a reaction check system to simulate troops’ reactions in tense situations. Two dice (d6 type) are rolled and compared to a quick chart to determine if a ship continues to fight, to withdraw or even to surrender. Morale and effects of combat modify the results of these types of rolls, making it much easier for a ship that has been battered to be forced to surrender than, say, a ship beginning fresh at the start of the game. This morale checking system is also very useful for playing games solo---as the dice decide what your opponent’s fleet will do during crunch times.

The remainder of the rules covers solo play (using the reaction system), scenario set-ups, campaign rules, and an example of combat. The example battle was very helpful to me since I had a number of questions. Turn sequence, movement, weapon effects and so forth are pretty well covered during a blow-by-blow example battle between two ships. That pretty much wraps up the book with the repeated mention of a sheet of ship counters (nice inclusion since many folks might not have ship minis) and a comprehensive quick reference sheet. The reference sheet is muy, muy useful during a game, especially while you’re learning the turn sequence.

Overall, WF is a good product that does what it sets out to do. The only drawbacks I can see are consumer pre-conceived notions about a fantasy naval game having sailing and magic included in the mix. Ed is working on the magic system, as noted, and has mentioned possibly updating the rules and/or providing them to his customers via other routes---possibly downloads or some such. If you want to play fantasy naval battles and you don’t want to go broke on ebay, I recommend checking out WF.

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