From: Roberto Chiavini Subject: Three reviews La Grande Armada (Alea 13) This is a naval combat game from the Spanish magazine Alea. It's very simple and comes with 4 different scenarios (a fifth is added by the English translator, Randy Moorehead). Graphics are neat, but dated, with colour silhouttes of the various types of ships of the late Sixteenth century, but the overall quality is good enough. Rules are really a few (at least in the English translation, that condenses a few of the redundant paragraphs from the Spanish version). So, you need to be already a wargamer to fully understand the rules themselves. Each ship has four rating: defense (i.e., the number of hits it may sustain before sinking), crew (i.e., the value of its crew: when the hits taken by the crew are greater than this value the ship must retreat or surrender if adjacent to an enemy ship), cannons (i.e., the ranged weapon of the ship) and speed (dependent on the direction of the wind). Sequence of play privileges the English, that may move and fire with a unit before the start of the initiative selection. With this one, both players roll a die and the greater roll (with the English adding 1 and winning ties) may move and fire with one ship. When all the ships have taken their turn, there is a simultaneous cannons and crew fire for adjacent ships, then there is the boarding phase (only for adjacent units), ships with negative crew value must retreat or are otherwise captured. Play proceeds this way till the end of the scenario. Every six turn wind direction may change. It's all very simple, but the movement of the ships seems a little strange and convoluted (as the direction of the wind seems to be important only at the start of each turn, while a ship with great movement capability may move most of its turn even in a different direction from the starting one - yes, paying movement points for variation of facing, but it doesn't seem enough). To hit with cannons you roll a die adding the cannon value of the ship and subtracting the distant from the target: if the result is 7 or greater you have scored a hit against the enemy ship's defense. All ships other than Spanish galleons (that may fire with a 360° arc) may fire cannons only through their broadsides. Crew combat is the same, only you use your crew value instead of the cannons and you score hits against the crew value of the enemy target. Boarding combat is different: both players roll a die for each ship involved, adding the crew value and +2 if there is a capital ship involved, scoring a crew hit for each "3" or multipliers in the total result (dropping fraction down - i.e. a result of 8 scores 2 hits). Victory points are awarded for enemy units sunk or captured. All in all, a not particularly fascinating game, but a solid one, at least for the fans of the period, the argument or a very simple naval combat. I rate the game 6 in a 1-10 scale.