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Instructions for play

Argh!?!?

Welcome to Wooden Warships, in this game you play a warship captain in the 18th century vying for naval supremacy on the high seas. That’s enough yammering for now… let’s set sail!

Loot Included in Chest

So you want to know what loot should have come in your game chest? Here’s the list.

Wind Direction Token
Tape measure for determining distance and extending arcs of fire.
Ship stat tracking sheets
Paper
Pencils
Obstacle cards

3 island cards

20 loot cards total
20 upgrade cards total
5 ship charts (1 per ship type)
Ammunition Markers (Red, Green, Black)

Red - Round Shot
Green - Grape Shot
Black - Chain Shot

Ship Miniatures for each type (2 player game)

2 Man O’ Wars
4 Frigates
4 Briggs
4 Corvettes
6 Battle Schooners

Ammo Markers

10 of each color red, green, black

Dice

One set of percentiles
3x d4
3x d6
3x d8
1x d12

Getting Started

So you want to be the winner? Well, you’ll need to start somewhere and setting up the game seems like a good place to start.

In order to set up the game you need to start with an ocean. (A table or large flat surface will suffice if you don’t happen to have an ocean).
Place your 3 island cards out wherever you would like in the play area.
Choose 1 of the 6 captain cards. Each of them have both positive and negative attributes, so choose carefully or you may end up in Davy Jones’ Locker.
Each player will start with £7,000. You need to purchase ships and crew with those funds; but you can also hang onto some of that loot to upgrade your ships later. These funds will be tracked with your pencil and paper.
Choose your ships and, if you dare, pay extra for better crew; this will come in handy later.
Each ship has its own ship card for you to keep track of how much damage those scurvy knaves in the other ships have done to your right fine and beauteous vessel. You also have three ammo cards to help you keep track of what shot you have loaded in your guns.
Once you have your ships you need to place them into the play area and lay out the ship cards in front of you.
Each player will get one ship stat tracking sheet for each ship they control.

Write your crew skill under the crew section for each ship.
Grab 3 of each ammo marker color per ship.

Now you will need to draw one loot card and as many upgrade cards as your ship’s hold rating (i.e. the larger ships will have larger holds, see your ship table for this information). Then place them under your ship cards.
Grab the wind direction token and move it to edge of the play area. Make sure you keep a sharp eye to the wind, else you may find your situation untenable on the high seas (or table/play area, ye lowly peasant landlubber).

What now?

Well mate, I’m glad you asked. Now it’s time to get to sailing… and blowing stuff up!

Each turn is divided into multiple steps and we’ll go over them right now.

The first turn will consist of only the maintenance steps so you can set your speed and load your cannons.

Step 1: Movement

In order to move your ship you need to find the right movement card that corresponds to your ship. Line up the prow of your ship with the beginning of the movement lines on the card and move it along the line at the speed you are currently set at.
Remember, you can’t move through ships or obstacles like islands… you aren’t a ghost ship yet.
If you run into an island you will damage your ship, so try not to run aground, this can lead to complications when explaining to the fleet admiral why your cargo is spilling all over the South Pacific. For island damage, roll the ram damage on your ship damage chart and apply it to your own ship.
The last thing to know is that you can’t move directly into the wind, you can however “Tack” the wind, which is moving diagonally against it, your speed is limited to battle sail speed while tacking.

On the wind direction token the red arrows indicate the furthest angle of tacking.
If you turn beyond those arrows you are automatically dropped to trim sail speed.
If you are turned beyond the red arrows for more than one turn you will lose all momentum and stop.

Step 2: Maintenance Part 1

Are you moving? Nay? Do ye have an upgrade card?

Nay? What’s the matter, are ye scared to get wet?
Aye? Do ye have the amount of money listed on the upgrade card? If so, you may upgrade your ship. End of your turn. (special note you may not upgrade your ship past speed 5)

Aye? This is where you plan your movement for the next turn. You need to set your speed

Full Sail: This is the fastest your ship will travel you don’t turn very well at this speed.
Battle Sail: This is medium speed, you don’t travel as far, but you’re able to turn better.
Trim Sail: Slowest speed with the tightest turn radius.
Drop Anchor: This is a full stop.

Be Careful about dropping anchor me trumps it will take you a turn to get your boys to the capstan and raise that anchor back aboard before you can move again.

Step 3: Attack!!!

Here’s where you get to shooting stuff. We knew you wanted to get right to this, but without moving your ship you wouldn’t have much to shoot at!

You can’t fire over Islands or ships. You also can’t fire through them, you must fire directly at them and have a clear line of sight.

Now, your ship has a range of fire and it depends on where your target is how you attack.

Using the range of fire indicators and a tape measure you will be able to determine which guns you fire and what your chances of landing a shot are.

First are your guns loaded? Nay?! how are ye supposed to consign those Dogs to the depths with no shot in the long irons? Skip to Step 5
Aye?!! determine the angle that the target is at and compare to the field of fire card.

If the ship is in the forward or rear chase areas you can only fire chase guns.
If the target is in the forward or aft broadside zones (1,2,3 & 4) you may fire from each zone they are in

For example, if a ship is in both zone 1 & 2 then you may fire a full broadside or half broadside from that side. If they are only in zone 1 then you may only fire a half broadside attack.

Next you need to determine the distance to target. Break out that spyglass (or measuring tape if you don’t have a spyglass handy) and measure the distance.

Each ship has a distance table associated with it and you will find your probability percentage on that chart by matching the target ship type and the distance.

Next you need to pick a target, each ship has 3 different areas to target that are affected by different ammo types.

The hull: This is the body of the ship, a ship can't float if you turn the hull into swiss cheese. Round shot is most effective on this target. but its not as useful against crew and rigging. mind you if an 18 pound ball hits you, you're gonna be spread from here to India.
The crew: Who's gonna sail the ship or fire the cannons if everyone's dead? Grapeshot is most effective against this target. smaller balls are loaded into the guns and they are great for peppering enemy crew but not as useful against the
The Rigging: The ship's sails for all ye landlubbers. The vessel is a sitting duck without these. Chain shot is most effective against this target, as twin iron balls of death rotate about each other shredding rigging and canvas and sailor alike.

Now you get to fire the cannons, and yelling piratey sayings while shooting is fun too.

Roll your dice to see if you hit the target

Reference the Ship Damage Chart for the percentile roll needed

For Broadside fire you roll once for each deck a ship has in that quadrant.

So if you have a ship with 2 decks and you are firing a full broadside you roll 4 times, once for each deck in each firing zone.
The Schooner will roll one dice even though they have a half deck.

Roll UNDER the number listed to hit.

If there are Percentage Modifiers you will apply them here by raising or lowering the number you need to roll.

Did you hit them? Yea? Great Shot Capt’n! Now lets figure out your damage!

When you are figuring damage you multiply your ships damage by the number of decks that hit. For example if I am performing a full broadside with my Man O War and I hit with 5 out of 6 of my gun decks, I multiply the number of dice by the number of decks before rolling damage 3d6x5= 15d6
With the schooner you would multiply 3d6x0.5= 1.5d6. (on a half die 1 and 1 = 1, 3 and 4 = 2, and 5 and 6 = 3 always roll your full die first then the half die)

For those of you who do not have excessive amounts of dice laying around you can use this online die roller. (in the die roller for the half die you can type 1d3 into the custom die)

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htm

Step 4: Boarding

You want to board an enemy’s ship you scallywag? Well landlubber, it is legal. In order to succeed in boarding each enemy ship must be side by side in order to make contact.

You aren’t able to attack and board in the same turn, so choose wisely or it’s into the drink with you.
During Boarding you are 30% more likely to be hit if attacked from your exposed side due to your crew being occupied.
If another captain attacks the ship being boarded you will lose the crew you have on board at the time.

In order to board an enemy's ship, that ship that is being boarded needs to be crippled and within one inch of your ship in the play area. Whether by hulling the vessel, stripping her yard arms bare or sending her crew to meet their maker.

A Ship’s hull must be reduced to 10% or less of its original HP
Or a ship’s rigging must be reduced to 10% or less of its original HP
Or crew reduced to 10% or less of original HP

Each ship has a minimum crew number that they must keep aboard their vessel. Those numbers are listed below. The attacking captain decides how many crewman he will send to attack the enemy ship keeping in mind that he must keep his minimum crew aboard his own vessel. In the case of boarding the number of crew is equal to the number of crew points.

Battle Schooner - 10 crew minimum
Corvette - 20 crew minimum
Brig - 35 crew minimum
Frigate - 65 crew minimum
Man O’ War - 115 crew minimum

Each crew skill level rolls a different die.

Novice crew rolls a d6
Skilled crew rolls a d6 + 1
Veteran crew rolls a d8 + 1
Crack crew rolls a d8 + 2

While defending your ship, you will roll two defense dice until you only have a single defender at which point you can only roll one die.

Defenders have the option to surrender.

When attacking the enemy ship, you will roll three attack dice until you no longer have three or more attackers. At this point you can only roll a number of dice equal to the number of attacking sailors.

Attackers have the option to withdraw from the fight.

Both players roll at the same time. You take the highest number from the attacker’s dice and compare it to the highest number of the defender’s dice. The highest score wins, and the loser removes a crewman. You then take the next highest die total from each set of dice and compare them as before. The highest score wins, and the loser removes a crewman. Defender always wins ties.
Looting an enemy’s ship will provide you with either the upgrade cards in the ship’s hold or the amount listed on the loot card multiplied by the ship’s hold rating (your choice, but make it wisely!).
Sinking an enemy’s ship will provide nothing and hope in return it provides a valuable lesson.

Step 5: Maintenance Part 2

This is the part where you reload your cannons after unleashing untold devastation on your opponents.

Did ye fire the guns this turn already? Aye?! You can't load em now; you’ll set off the powder magazine! You need to douse the embers and let those guns cool.
Nay?! Those guns are plenty cooled me lads. Load the Prime! Announce the shot you are loading into your cannons. Choose your ammo carefully as each ammo type is effective in different ways.

Round shot is most effective against the hull. d4 vs crew and rigging
Grapeshot is most effective against the crew. d4 vs hull and rigging
Chain shot is most effective against the sails. d4 vs crew and hull

How do I win?

So you’ve sunk a ship or two, but haven't figured out how to win yet? Well, the answer is simple… You need to sink the rest of them that aren’t yours. That’s it. It’s simple, elegant and possibly more difficult than you think. Good luck!

From all of us here at Asparagus Swords we hope you enjoy this game and we hope to make more in the future… ARGH!!!!! (Had to, it was fun)

You may enjoy listening to these shanties whilst you play. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx5uegVP-78