Fighting Sail: Fleet Actions 1775–1815 (Osprey Wargames)

FS is a relatively simple set of rules aimed at the fighting the big battles in a reasonable amount of time. While some might consider this rules set a bit simplistic, they are fun and quick and do represent the essentials of sailing in a reasonable way. If you are interested in fighting Trafalgar in an afternoon, these rules provide a way of doing so. It should be noted that it has an active Facebook group (members of which include the author) that provides lots of supplemental and material, errata, and rules variants. If you buy these rules, I strongly recommend joining this groiup as well.

I read through them but as yet have not played a game. Typical Osprey bluebook quality wargame rules.

Apart from the name that is way too long, there is nothing negative about this game. If certainly fills a niche that no other game I've seen can - large fleet sized engagements. My gaming group (Austin TX) has played a couple of fleet sized engagements already and did the Battle of the Nile in about 2.5-3 hours. I think I could run Trafalgar in an afternoon and with 4-6 players on each side. 1:2400 scale ships fit perfectly and allow massive (30-40 ships per side) battles in a relatively small game board. I definitely recommend the game.

This is a beautifully laid out book. It has plenty of pictures and the diagrams are easy to understand. The rules are great and easy to follow as well. The only thing I wish is that this book was in hard back and had more pages because it is that good. I play plenty of historical war games and this one is going to be a joy to play.

The rules were a bit laborious to follow but, I believe, do the job of duplicating battles of the period on a table top. Still, you would get your moneys worth if you only bought this as a reference book.

Although these rules are meant for 1/2400 scale ships, they can be used with the 1/1000 scale "Sails of Glory" Sails of Glory Napoleonic Wars Starter Set If you change the game scale scale...

Affordable rules system that allows every budget to recreate/play historic naval battles. I bought it for use in the classroom, and my 7th graders love it.

This book was good, it arrived slightly damaged but usable

Dificil conseguir barcos pero pasandolo a otra escala es posible y es bastante entretenido

Like many rules of its ilk FS tends to be rather bland in its representation of ship types. The use of a fairly limited range of ship stats means that at the lower end frigates, sloops and other smaller craft tend to be very "samey". Add to this the annoying way that one can sail into the wind with little effort, especially with smaller, faster ships, an initiative system that penalises smaller forces, even if that force is commanded by a tactical genius and a damage system that often reduces even the largest ships to matchwood in a single turn and you have a set of rules that is fun but which doesn't really convey much in the way of an authentic age of sail wargaming experience. Which is a shame since many of the problems could probably be addressed with a few simple tweaksProduction quality is OK, clarity of the rules is generally god although careful reading and some intuition is needed on occasions.

Another good set of rules in the Osprey war games series. Fighting Sail rules aren’t particularly detailed but give a fast, fun game. I agree with a few other reviewers about the ease of which ships can be reduced to hulks in minutes and I amended the section entitled ‘Damage Deck’ to make it a little more difficult to smash even large enemy ships to pieces in a single turn! That’s really the only glitch with these rules, otherwise they are totally enjoyable.

Needs a house rule or two. Ships are wrecked too quickly. Makes it seem arcadic.Nothing too bad. Fun and quick and easy to remember.

Great fun