I have had an interest in Age of Sail battles since playing in a few games with a friend of mine who ran Wooden Ships and Iron Men with 1:1200 ships back in the day. I tried my hand at painting up 1:1200 ships, for War of 1812, from Langton Miniatures, but did not enjoy the rigging. I bailed on this scale and more recently have had success with 1:2400 ships from Tumbling Dice.
Rules wise, I have struggled to find a good set for large battles that move along at a good pace and finish in less than four hours. Below are the rulesets I've tried out.
- Wooden Ships and Iron Men
- Flying Colors
- Far Distant Ships
- Grand Fleet Actions in the Age of Sail
- It is Warm Work
Rather than review each ruleset, I will say all the rulesets are good. As mentioned I have been looking for a ruleset that runs faster that four people can command about six ships each. I am currently going to move forward with It is Warm Work. It has simplified the rules both firing and moving more compared to the other rules I've listed. The firing has the most simplification, but still gets the same expected results.
The 1:2400 ships are easy to put together and paint. Right now my ships are painted up pretty generically, and I hope to paint up some more unique colored ships. I recently put together a YouTube video on how to paint the miniatures (see link below).
