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The Great War at Sea
Learn to play the game in just five minutes
with this demo
download.
Since the release of Great
War at Sea: Mediterranean in
1996, naval wargames have been the signature
product lines at Avalanche Press. Twice, games
from the series have won the prestigious Origins
Award for the year’s Best Historical
Wargame.
Each game is based on a theater or campaign
from the era 1898-1922 (though the now-retired
U.S. Navy Plan Orange was set in 1930).
And each has a variety of scenarios, each
a separate game situation in itself, up to
72 in Mediterranean. Almost all are
for two players. Each scenario lists the ships
available, the goals each player needs to
achieve in order to win, and the amount of
time available. All games are playable separately.
Scenarios are based on historical missions,
some of which resulted in battle, all of which
could have. Missions include amphibious invasions,
convoy escort, commerce raiding, shore bombardment
and more. Players find enemy fleets and stop
them from accomplishing their missions, while
achieving their own ends.
Play usually begins on the operational map.
This map covers the theater of operations
and is divided into square zones, offset in
a “brick” pattern. Each zone represents
an area 32 miles across. Players form their
ships into fleets, and move them on this map.
Their moves are pre-plotted on log sheets,
so that a player does not know what the enemy
has done.
Even though the player can see the enemy
fleet counter on the map, he or she still
must determine whether its ships are spotted
by friendly ships or, sometimes, aircraft.
If this occurs, play moves to the tactical
map, where battle takes place.
Ships are rated for primary, secondary and
tertiary gunnery (big, medium and small) and
torpedoes. They maneuver on the tactical map
and fire on each other with these weapons.
Ships are also rated for size and armor. Heavy
armor can only be penetrated by torpedoes
and primary guns, light armor by those plus
secondary guns, and areas with no armor can
be damaged by all weapons. When a ship loses
all of its hull boxes, it sinks.
Other aspects of the game include submarines,
minefields, motor torpedo boats, airships,
seaplanes and still more. It’s not a
complicated game (most game functions involve
rolling a 6) but it does simulate a rich tapestry
of naval history.
The original game, Mediterranean,
returned in an all-new edition in 2001. Scenarios
range from the Italo-Turkish War of 1911 through
the Russian Civil War of 1922, but most of
them come from the First World War in this
hotly-contested theater of action. With six
dozen scenarios, the replay potential is close
to unlimited.
Several games in the series have sold out
over the years and gone on to a well-deserved
rest in our Hall of
Fallen Heroes. Plan Black, Plan Orange,
1904: The Russo-Japanese Naval War and
1898: The Spanish-American War may
return someday in some revised format, but
for the near future they are just the stuff
of memory.
Austrian Naval Power.
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Cruiser
Warfare is different than the others,
with a map of the entire world divided into
sea areas. There’s also only one main
scenario, though there are many variations on
it for repeated play. It’s probably the
best of the series for face-to-face play.
U.S. Navy
Plan Gold, is based on American plans
to fight the French in the Caribbean in the
early 1920s, and French visions of commerce
raiding. Both sides have massive battleships
and fast cruisers planned but never built.
The Weimar German and Mexican navies also
make appearances.
Jutland
is a complete overhaul of the old Northern
Waters game with more scenarios and a
completely new map and set of playing pieces.
Along with the famous battle of the title,
it also covers the many other clashes that
took place in the North Sea and the Baltic
in 1914-1918.
The largest game in the Great War at Sea
series, Cone
of Fire, features the navies of South
America plus a handful of foreign ships. The
Battle of the Falklands in 1914 is also included,
and the game is the only one to include both
Great War at Sea and Second
World War at Sea components —
three maps at each scale!
Zeppelins adds huge oversized pieces portraying the
big airships, along with new rules and scenarios
for use with most of the boxed games in the
series. This volume is a book in the same
format as Dreadnoughts.
Sea of
Troubles is a book supplement looking
at a potential British-American conflict in
the Caribbean and elsewhere in the years just
after the Great War. It includes the pieces
from the old Plan Red game, with three
dozen completely new scenarios.
And we have Airships,
an inexpensive new supplement adding 10 scenarios
to Zeppelins.
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