Great
War at Sea: Cruiser Warfare
Designer’s Notes
 The
ancestry of Great
War at Sea started well before there
was an 119694_avalanche Press, as we’ve noted
elsewhere. The world-wide cruiser operations
of Maximilian Graf von Spee always held center
stage in the series’ planning, but came
very late to the gaming table.
Like all the boxed games in the Great
War at Sea series (and all the others
we put out, too) Cruiser
Warfare is completely playable out
of the box. No parts from other games are
needed for full enjoyment of the game.
The idea to do a world-wide game like this
came about as soon as I did the very first
game of this type. And from the start, I intended
to divide the globe into large sea areas of
uneven size, unlike the precise “brick”
pattern of the other games in the series.
Germany’s cruiser admiral
The game is based on the German East Asiatic
Squadron’s attempt to return home from
China to Germany during the early days of
the First World War, along with the related
anti-commerce missions undertaken by German
cruisers. Spee led his squadron to one victory
at Coronel, off the coast of Chile, and then
rounded South America. For some reason —
perhaps driven by knowledge he could not actually
make it back home — he decided to attack
the British colony of the Falkland Islands.
There he found much more powerful British
forces, and all of his ships went down.
Meanwhile, other German warships sank Allied
merchant ships in all parts of the globe,
the most spectacular successes belonging to
the cruiser Emden. But one by one,
these ships succumbed to the Royal Navy.
As in the actual event, the German player
is unlikely to actually survive the game (get
the cruisers back to Germany), but he or she
can inflict enough damage on the Allied economies
to win. The German goal is to make as much
mischief as possible, the Allied goal to put
an end to the German warships.
In the initial playtest versions, Allied
bases dotted the map. But in the actual campaign,
the location of Allied ports was essentially
meaningless: Just about anywhere the Allied
fleets chose to operate, they could find safe
harbor within reasonable distance. It turned
out to be easier in terms of play, and much
more aesthetically pleasing, to note the areas
that didn’t have Allied bases rather
than the ones that did.
The storm mechanism is a modification of
one fairly common in German-style boardgames,
though by using two dice there are some areas
that will get picked more than others. So
the stormiest are rated 7 (the most common
result on a roll of two six-sided dice) while
the calmest are 2 and 12.
Cruiser
Emden, “White Swan of the East,”
after meeting the Australian cruiser Sydney
Weather is one of those “negative
factors” in game design: It did not
have a major impact on the events in question,
but that’s because the historical actors
avoided areas where it might have. German
commanders were aware that they could head
for stormier seas to make it harder for the
Allies to find them, but at the same time,
they would have a harder time finding merchant
ships on which to prey.
Each area is also rated for the likelihood
of finding merchant ships there. The very
earliest games in the series had “merchant
routes,” and this mechanism is a descendant
though it works somewhat differently (there’s
no table for it, something I’ve come
to value in recent years). Areas of high commercial
traffic are those more likely to provide success,
but of course those are also exactly the places
the Allied player will guard. Even though
many merchant ships of this era did not carry
radios, a success does reveal the location
of a Central Powers raider (as the ship is
overdue at its destination).
The Central Powers player can try to send
the prize back home and gets rich rewards
for doing so. The odds of succeeding are mighty
slim. He or she can also take coal from a
prize, but not much.
Spee’s
flagship, Scharnhorst, on speed trials
While Cruiser Warfare has its own
rulebook rather than the usual Great War
at Sea series rulebook used in the other
games in the series, tactical combat works
exactly the same as in those games. Karl Laskas
wrote some excellent advanced tactical rules
that we published in our Dreadnoughts
book, and these are highly recommended for
use in this game. Battles tend to be smaller
than in most of the series, with only a handful
of cruisers on a side at most, and this is
the area where Karl’s take really works
well.
We included a number of extra ships in Cruiser
Warfare. The Japanese get a handful,
mostly older ships not manned in 1914 due
to lack of crews. But we knew gamers would
want them. We also put in the Dutch battleships
planned for the Far East but never constructed;
“mythical” ships like this are
always some of the most popular game pieces
in Great War at Sea games.
Cruiser Warfare Clarifications
While I always want every game I’ve
worked on to come out flawlessly, somehow
this almost never takes place. Some of the
following were outright errors in the game,
some are clarifications for which gamers have
asked:
Under 5.2 Missions, Raid. There
is no requirement for raiding fleets to have
a leader in this game, and no limit on their
size (though in practice, they won’t
be very large).
Under 5.3 Fleet Movement, fleets
move one space per turn on the strategic map
(even if all ships have speed 2).
Under 5.41 (Search) Modifiers,
add one if the Japanese seaplane carrier is
present and the area does not contain a storm
marker.
Under 5.5 Commerce Raiding, a
negative result is treated as zero.
Under 5.54 Prizes, prizes
are worth one VP each.
Under 10.4 Colliers, colliers
are fast transports.
Under 11.8 Imperial Convoys,
if the Allied player has no Fleet counters
available (all 18 are in play), a newly-deployed
Imperial Convoy must be placed “On Station”
with all the attendant risks of Central Powers
attack.
Under 11.7, Station Ships,
a ship placed on station (detached from a
fleet) must spend one full turn on station
before joining a new fleet (it may not join
a fleet on the turn after being placed on
station).
Under 13.0, Initial Set-Up,
add the following:
Allied Forces
Arabian Sea:
Norwegian Sea:
- AC38 Edgar
- AC39 Crescent
- AC40 Endymion
- AC42 Grafton
- AC43 Theseus
Western Atlantic:
- AC22 Leviathan
- AC24 King Alfred
Western Approaches:
- AC44 Sutlej
- PC06 Isis
- PC07 Juno
- PC10 Venus
Cape of Good Hope:
- PC01 Astraea
- PC12 Hyacinth
- GB01 Pegasus
Central Powers Forces
Yellow Sea:
- GB03 Cormoran
- GB04 Geier
- GB05 Iltis
- GB06 Jaguar
- GB07 Tiger
- GB08 Luchs
- TB31 S90
Gulf of Mexico:
- Leader Ludecke
- CL45 Dresden
- Gulf of Guinea:
- GB09 Eber
Gulf of California:
Bay of Biscay:
Yellow Sea, Phillipine Sea, Caroline
Islands, Marshall Islands or Solomons:
Mike Bennighof
January 2005
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