From: "Daniel M. Cicero" Subject: The Great War At Sea Dave Powell stopped over today and we played THE GREAT WAR AT SEA from Avalanche -- this being one of the games we both picked up at Origins. I just thought I'd give some impressions based on a full play through. First, this will not be the last playing of this game! It's really a lot of fun. We played Western Scenario 1: The French Enter the Adriatic. We started about 10:15 and ended about 2:45, making the playing time 4.5 hours for a 48 move scenario. At the end of the game we were only about 12 points apart, so it was pretty well balanced, even in light of this being first playings for both of us. The Allies were tasked with lifting the seige of Montenegro, bombarding Austrian ports and showing the flag in the northern Adriatic which would prove to the Italians that the French could move freely through this area. I was the Allies, Dave the Central Powers. The bombardment missions have to be plotted before play begins, so you're locked into a set pattern and cannot alter it. I'm not sure I like this, but it sure speeds up play. We were confused by some of the tactical rules in this regard. From our understanding of the rules, if combat enters a second round, all fleets move one less sea zone during the next movement phase which, of course, screws up your pre-plotted bombardment missions. We worked around this during our game, but Dave's going to get an answer to that one from the guys at Avalanche. Another question: if a ship is knocked dead in the water, other ships in that sea zone must stay with it. There may be some historical reason for this, but we had one tactical combat where one lucky hit rendered one of Dave's ships dead in the water and I was able to escape because all of the undamaged ships had to stay with their wounded comrade. This seems a little ahistorical to me. Of course, Dave had the option of scuttling the ship, but who wants to do that? Other than those two things, play was fast and a lot of fun. I think our next play-through will be better because we'll be more familiar with the rules and what it takes to get missions completed. Also, I can see a lot of applicability for using this search system and some much more sophisticated miniatures rules for tactical combat. Graphically, this game is terrific, although I did have some problems with a couple of counters splitting when I cut them off the counter sheets. There weren't many of these and they were readily fixed with a glue stick, but thought I would mention it. A plus and a minus of the game is the eight page rule book. This makes learning the game very fast, but some of the rules could have used a little more detail -- which is why we have to two questions that did come up. Overall: a really good game on a very cool topic. The scenario book alone is worth the price of the game. Anyone with an interest in naval warfare will want this one. Dan From: Sean Barnett Subject: Re: The Great War at Sea Reply to: RE>The Great War at Sea Since Dan was relating his experiences with GWAS, I though I'd describe the tactical combat system to those who might want to get the game. I also played it at Origins. GWAS plays a little like a more sophisticated version of Victory in the Pacific. Ships have primary, secondary, and tertiary gun factors and roll dice equal to the number of factors to determine hits on a target. Most ships hit on a '6,' but some (Germans, e.g.) get a bonus and hit on a '5.' Primary guns have a range of three squares (arranged like hexes) on the tactical map, secondaries two, and tertiaries one. All guns hit on a 5 or 6 at ranges of one or zero squares. Hits, if they penetrate, are resolved on a gunfire damage chart--the player rolls two dice and looks up the result in terms of numbers of boxes eliminated by system (guns, movement factors, torpedo factors, and flotation (hull) are represented by numbers of boxes on a ship damage sheet). There is a critical hit result (and table) that can cause catastrophic damage to a ship. Gun penetration is as follows: primaries penetrate heavy armor; secondaries penetrate medium; and tertiaries penetrate none. Most BBs have heavy armor over primaries and hull, medium over secondaries, and none over tertiaries. The turn sequence in GWAS consists of movement impulses and simultaneous combat phases. The turn sequence chart indicates when the players with the initiative (determined at the beginning of the game and maintained throughout) and without should move, by the speed of their ships (e.g., ships of speed 3 move in all impulses for the player, ships of speed 1 only in the last impulse). Combat phases are interspersed between the movement impulses. The tactical map in GWAS consists of large squares arranged like hexes, and the stacking limit is four ships per square. At the beginning of a tactical battle, the player with the initiative starts four squares away from the player without it, who must start somewhere in the three squares in the center of the map. When I played the game (in a BB on BB scenario), I found that the keys to winning were concentration of forces and concentration of fire. The important things were to keep all my ships engaged, and to concentrate on one target at a time and sink it, to avoid receiving fire from a bunch of damaged ships. As Dan said, the game components are gorgeous. I didn't get a chance to play the strategic game, but I think the GWAS tactical game is a good introduction to naval gaming. Those who want something more detailed can use miniatures or a board game like "Royal Navy" to resolve tactical battles. Sean Barnett P.S. to Rich Erwin: Rich, I tried to e-mail you my thoughts on GWAS last week. I didn't know whether you received the e-mail or not.