So, I figured it was just about time to get back into the groove of telling you all about some interesting tabletop games that you can get into on the cheap side, and that look and sound interesting and fun. I have either purchased and read through all of these rule sets or have downloaded the rules because they were completely free.
Today we are going to look at three games in particular:
1) Sail and Steam Navies ( >$20)
2) Hordes of the Things (Free rules)
3) Fullthrust (Free Rules)
Lets take a look see.....
SAIL AND STEAM NAVIES
Sail and Steam Navies is an American Civil War game by Dave Brandon that is available from the Wargamesvault.com. It is designed to be played in the 1/600 scale, or - with some tweaking - in the 1/1200 scale. You can purchase the rules, which come with over 1000 ship stats in the back of the book, and then purchase from the same page ship print outs for the 1/1200 scale, which is what I did. I managed to read through the rulebook and get through a very basic game using two ships (USS Sagamore and the CSS Harriet Lane) The rules are complicated, but they are excellent rules if you can get through a few turns to actually understand what is going on. There are literally rules for everything you could possibly want to do.
For instance, during my game I was playing as the Confederates, and pulled the Harriet Lane within "normal" range (mid range). I opened fire with both medium smoothbore cannons and scored a hit on the Sagamore's lower port hull armor, and then used shot (special cannonade) on my two light rifled cannons, and managed to cause a suppression point on the wounded Gunboat. The Sagamore returned the favor by knocking a point of movement off of my ship and then causing a point of suppression with her sharpshooters.
The game is divided into several phases of play, and makes use of many different types of cannon and shot that was common during the Civil War. It is nice that you can simply print and play, but it is much better with excellent scenery and full models. I like the 1/1200 scale option to save on space, but I would much prefer to actually have 1/600 models that were painted up and ready to go. On of the other things that you might take note of if you are interested in getting into the game is that you will need a good amount of D10 to be able to play. We played using 6 D10, and that was not nearly enough, considering you can do some real damage when you get up close and personal with some of these ships.
Overall, I thought the game was excellent, and well worth the time spent playing and digesting the rules. Plus, with everything print and play, why not give it a shot? For the same price as a single GW finecast model, you can have all of the rules and over 1000 ship models to print and play with! (although I wouldn't go much over 3-5 ships to play with if it is a two player game, it is fun, but the rules are not forgiving for lots of ships under a single admirals command.)
Here are some pictures:
And here is an excellent mini-campaign run using Sail and Steam Navy rules for the missions.
HORDE OF THE THINGS
Now for something a little more fantastical and whimsical. Enter the Hordes of the Things. This game is great for those of us who don't want to spend heaps of cash, have a lot of space, or really deal with all that much painting. It is an extremely open ended game, having about 20 different types of units, but no models, set time, set scale, set anything really. It is a rule set for those of us who just want to unwind or let our creative genius loose on the world. Here are some example armies:
A "double" Dwarf army (double because is it 48 points,
when the normal value is 24 points)
A Gnome behemoth. Yes, it is a giant snail.
A mighty Undead Phalanx
And just to show how games can get....
A penguin army
The game is absolutely flabbergasting in the amount of armies that one can create. It would be awesome just to see this game played out in a tournament sense just to see people's different takes on the armies.
Unfortunately I have not played this game, so I cannot attest to how the rules actually play, but I can say that the rules are interesting and straight forward. I would recommend a read through even if you weren't interested in actually playing or forming an army. However, one of the reasons you might want to use these rules is to run a mixed game system campaign. For instance, you want to run an Uncharted Seas campaign involving Naval combat (Uncharted Seas), skirmishes/boarding actions/raids (skirmish rules of some sort - Song of Blades and Heroes? We'll talk about it), and then massed army actions (Hordes of the Things). That would allow you to have nice variety in your campaign and actually get into some of the different scales that make gaming experiences that will stay with you forever.
FULLTHRUST
So here we finally have what many would consider to be one of the finest starship combat games ever created. I have not had a chance to do battle using this excellent set of rules, but I will definitely make a point to play a game at some point using my Firestorm armada ships to play. If I like it, I might just invest in some of the ships from Ground Zero Games, just to support the excellent game that they have developed since the early 90s.
I haven't been able to get through all of the rules, but here are some pictures to make up for my lack of complete understanding on the rules front:
And here's how they do Full Thrust in Germany.....
I hope that you have enjoyed reading this review, and will consider trying one of these games that has been listed. I'll be back with more reviews and battle reports, but for now, this is all I got. Take care!
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