6 replies to this topic

[Kenny Noe]

All,

 

Question was asked at Historicon so I thought I'd repost here.

 

The differences between Post Captain and Osprey's Fighting Sail game

 

Fighting Sail appears to be more tuned to fleet actions.  Post Captain is better suited to smaller squadron or ship vs ship actions.  One area of divergence is that Post Captain has Shore Raids for additional off ship action.

 

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Thanks

[RazorMind]

Awaiting my copy of Post Captain in the mail as I type so cannot speak on it.  I have played several games of the Osprey fighting sail game.  I would agree that it handles the larger fleet battles quick and with a fast and simple ruleset.  It is fun to play, easy to pick up, and gave me an excuse to get my Old Glory minis painted.  Now, it certainly is more Beer and Pretzels/game than simulation and maybe why it is fun to play with a group and with lots of ships on the table.  Command and control, not so much, small ship battles, forget about it, and certainly not meaty in the sense of a feel for the age of sail but if you want an excuse to break out a ton of ships and roll some dice and see lots, and I do mean lots of sinking ships then sure, give it a whirl.  Heck for 15 bucks, was worth price of admission.  

 

Now, I am a huge fan of GQIII and am looking forward to the crunch of Post Captain and the ability to play out more of the smaller actions in more detail with a real feel for the Age of Sail.

 

my two cents

[David Nichols]

Pending my hardcopy of Post Captain, but reading the softcopy, it is clear that the focus of PC is on the captain and the ship. I like this, any good design needs to focus.

 

Reading so far has given me a favouable imression (even if the pseudo scotch commentry is annoying). I think they compare well with systems like Heart of Oak and Hoist the Signal for Close Action, I espepcially like the detail of the sail damage rules.

 

From resding up on the Osprey site, review and comments on TMP it looks to me ike the Author of Fighting Sail has come up with a good morale/quality based analysis of Nelsonic naval warfare. I like the idea of a heavily morale driven system and a good fleet action game would suit my 1/4800 fleets.

 

However from some of the examples described in the TMP discussion the actual mechanics suffer from the classic multiple dice edge effects. So my current feeling is that they are flawed as an attempt to convert the authors morale model into a game. I'd be interested in any observations that might suggest the system is better than some of the anecdotes suggest.

 

Cheers

David

[gregoryk]

I'm curious—what are multiple dice edge effects, and how did you derive them from the TMP discussion?

[David Nichols]

Multiple dice edge effects...

When a 64 rolls the maximum number of hits and the 100 rolls no saves and sinks in one turn.

It is the problem with the fistful of dice mechanic.

The above example is in one of the postings on the TMP discussion (plus a bit reading between the lines)

 

Cheers

David

[pyruse]

Fighting Sail is definitely on the 'beer and pretzels' end of the spectrum.

It's a cracking good game and you can play with lots of ships and get a conclusion in a few hours.

[Christopher Cafiero]

I'd say PC is geared more towards smaller actions; squadronsetc....you could play full battles, but it would likely be a club project.

 

The good news is, many actions that have been ignored over the years, including many of the kind of actions the Royal Navy actual performed in the period; such as shore raids, cutting out expeditions, boat actions, etc are presented in a detail heretofore ignored...