Sailpower: OPTIONAL and ADVANCED rules - revision date 11/19/07
Copyright 2007 Brian Carnes

These rules may or may not be balanced or fully play-tested but are offered as an option to more advanced players. None of the following are considered ‘official’ rules, and should only be used if all players agree to them before play starts. Sailpower is a gentlemen’s (and ladies) game, thus some agreed upon optional rules can always be fun.

CANNON FIRE OBSCURES SMALL ARMS(tested in fleet action Oct 2007)

On any turn where a large majority (70% ?) of a ship's guns within arc have fired roll a D20. This can be done on a fleet level, or ship to ship as preferred by the players.

Small arms fire to and from obscured ships is affected:

on 1-5 take a -3 to small arms for smoke obscured shots
on 6-15 take a -5 to small arms for smoke obscured shots
on 16-20 no small arms shots may be taken ship to ship, boarding party small arms are at -5

GRENADES(tested in a few scenarios, may be overpowered, despite historic use. Requires GM discretion)

Small explosive devices such as grenades are pre calculated in to small arms, but lets say you boarded an opposing ship and wish to lob a few down the hatch to try and set off her powder hold. Or alternatively you just wish to try your luck and just have a marine lob a grenade This is represent able as follows. Availability: Grenades are limited resources and do not reload. One could debate how many grenades are available, but baring some historical knowledge, a max of 3 grenades shall be allowed for a qualified crewmember per game. Reality check on use: The powder hold is in the bottom of the ship. The hold has to be open during combat using cannons to rearm the ship, which makes an inviting target. If the player is not using cannons on deck they may declare the hatches shut in which case aloft grenades may not be used. In addition if used from aloft the ships need to be side-by-side and no more then 8 inches centerline to centerline apart. A marine, seasoned pirate, or naval crewman may toss up to up to 3 grenades in a turn. If boarding the max are two, and if boarding and using small arms or using small arms from aloft, the max is 1. Roll a d20 for each grenade thrown. ONLY rolls of 20 are successful. Once the number of grenades hits is known, immediately halve the number of hits to a minimum of 1 (assuming there is at least 1 hit) for aloft-to-hatch tosses. The target ship’s player may try to save each grenade hit as normal procedure for saving a critical. If there are any hits left, this represents the luck of having landed a grenade in or near the powder magazine or other powder source. Use the exploding barrel rules to represent each hit. For small ships each hit is a keg, for medium ships, a barrel, and for a frigate or larger a hogshead. If more then 3 hits succeed, the target ship’s player rolls another critical save roll. If this final save roll fails the ship’s main power store has been hit and the ship immediately blows up.

FIGHTING TOP RAIL GUNS(tested in fleet action Oct 2007)

For frigate or larger ships, swivel rail-guns were often taken aloft to be used in the fighting tops. To represent this add 2 rail guns to each fighting top (one on each side) Calculate these weapons ranges from the foot of the mast along the play surface as the shot down gets the benefit of gravity because the shots are fired downward

ADVANCED SAIL CREW LOSSES(tested in fleet action Oct 2007)

For an interesting flavor, when a mast is lost, also lose the fractional amount of the aloft crew represented by the loss of the mast. The basic rules ignore this as it is figured that many might scramble from the mast or leap into the sea, and it seemed overly complicated for a basic game. Also optional would be allowing users to "save" the crew from the downed mast. Roll a D20, determine percentage EG. 1and11=10% 2and12=20% and so on.

RANDOM STARTING FACEING(tested in fleet action Oct 2007)

For an interesting battle, have each ship role a D20 using the starting wind direction table to determine the starting facing for each vessel.

ADVANCED NATIONALITY PARADIGMS (tested ongoing at convention games)

In the basic game there are two obvious groups that have special rules that apply to them. They would be the British with their broadside advantage and the pirates with their large crew sizes and small arms pluses. In reality there are a lot of these distinctive advantages and disadvantages that could be applied to various navies. Based on that assumption, here is a more detailed set of rules for various groups:

AMERICAN (US) NAVY: Marksman bonus for US navy ships is +2 instead of +1. Schooners are 10 fleet points cheaper for those under 100 points and 25 cheaper for those over 100 points.

BRITISH ROYAL NAVY: in addition to basic, may use the French speed advantage for captured French frigates.

COLONIAL AMERICAN NAVY: Additional guns or crew cost double in fleet points. All crew are automatically marksmen with a bonus of +2 instead of +1. May not use vessels larger then frigates unless captured.

FRENCH NAVY: The French built some of the best hull designs. All ships of French build gain +1 to their speed. Frigates gain +2. If you are using a direct French ship template for which this has been already factored, ignore this bonus.

SPANISH NAVY: The Spanish had a large spread out empire to defend and never quite caught up with the English in terms of building ships, suffering setback after setback. The ships they did build were often of very high quality and made of premium materials. In game all Spanish built ships cost 10% more in fleet points. If you are using a direct Spanish ship template for which this has been already factored, ignore this bonus. Spanish navy players may save on the roll of 10 or higher instead of the normal value to reflect the build quality of their ships.

DUTCH NAVY: (suggested by a player) world class navigators. Automatically know all shoal locations. Add 3 to spotting rolls.

RELATIVE HEIGHTS

The game as written simplifies or ignores vertical line of sight in that it does not mention that a sloop parked right next to a 1rst rate probably can’t target the deck of the neighboring ship of the line. A more literal reading of the rules on page 29 would reveal that obviously the line of sight would be blocked, as the crewman can’t see the deck. Strictly enforcing this can be fun. If line of site is disputed, A GM can make the call or have the two players roll off to determine whether or not line is clear. If line of sight passes through the rail or the bulkhead it is not necessarily blocked as a cannonball normally easily pierces the bulkhead and hits cannon and crew on the deck behind it.

EXACT POSITION GUN LOSSES

The basic game assumes that gun losses are taken from a broadside total, thus the exact position of the lost gun is not necessarily known and if I’m missing a gun or so and I have half a broadside in line I use all of them. It can be fun to enforce notation of exactly where the lost guns of the broadside are. The easiest way to do this is to note losses with tick marks biased to the side or center on the gun section of the sheet. Thus if I have lost two guns, I might choose to take them from the back-side of the broadside. Later I might not be able to take an angle shot because the only two ports in arc are the two the lost cannons were using. Of course the gun move rules can also be used to rearrange the broadside as needed as well.

SPOTTING ROLLS AND FOG OF WAR

I often leave the islands empty until a ship sails very close to it, or spots something on it. I often let player’s ships fly false colors or have other secrets from their opponents that must be revealed by good spotting work. In GM’d games we often use spotting rolls to symbolize various officers aboard ship sizing up the islands and ships around them with a spyglass. We usually let them do this before movement as a free action. The player may have everyone aboard who’d reasonably have a spyglass (usually lookouts or officers) make a D20 roll. Have the player announce who’s looking, and from where, EG, My midshipmen, from the masts.

For better crew or vantage point, give them a little better info then you would normally for the roll. Use basic levels. If they roll:

Following this system when a GM is involved greatly adds to the historical and roll play flavor of the game and is highly recommended.

Also fun is consequences for poor lookout work. I had a player playing HMS Leopard who told me that he felt the captain was a strict disciplinarian. Thus after his lookout rolled a one on two consecutive turns, he ordered the lookout flogged and sent to the brig. He then replaced the lookout. I charged him 1 action for the flogging, and –1 crew for the guy in the brig and gave him a plus 4 to his next spotting roll to reflect the increased alertness of discipline.

SCALE CONVERSIONS

The basic Sailpower game is in 1/8th = 1 foot AKA 15MM or 1:96 (1:100) scale. This means that ships and crew follow this scale. The nice thing about this is that you can use ground units from traditional 15MM games with the game.

The ground scale is different. As with many miniatures games the ground scale is exaggerated to fit the restrictions of commonly available space. A typical 12x6 foot play area in 1/8th to a foot scale is only 1152 feet. Naval cannon in the Age of Sail could fire up to 3000 feet! However most engagements happened at far closer distances as gunfire was only accurate at close to median range.

Thus the game is designed around the historical scope or scale of battles often seen in period paintings and is based on two major factors. What fits commonly available play areas, and makes an average battle look “right.” The basic assumption is that average cannons have a range of up to around three feet. This is based on available play area more then anything else.

Considering the above, when converting the game to another scale, converting the ground scale is probably not an exact science. However if one wishes to convert the rules to another scale some easy conversions might be:

1/2500: Use 1MM = 1 INCH

1/1000 / Wizkid’s pirates scale: divide all ranges by 10 OR 1MM = 2INCHS

1/1200 (GHQ LANGTON): divide all ranges by 12, round up to nearest inch OR 1MM = 2INCHS

1/300: divide all ranges by 3, round up to nearest inch OR use 1 CM = 1 INCH

10MM/ 144th thru 1/220th miniatures: (Airfix and box scale): Halve all ranges, round up to nearest inch

15MM - 20MM: Native Scale - No conversion

25MM 28MM/ 164th, 1/48th: All ranges X2, round down to nearest inch