How 'Bout a Ship Game?

Well, How about a ship game? I don't know how you all feel about a naval game, but Jacob my cousin made me these lovely ship miniatures a couple years ago, and I decided to use them. I thought that would be a great tribute to his woodworking creative powers. Anyway, here's the simple idea.

First, two players roll for "initiative." This means that the winner gets to decide the direction the wind is blowing. He usually says, "It's blowing right where I want to go..." Anyway, then players turn over playing cards that correspond to their ships. This lets them know when their ships will move. Players move and then fire, one at a time, one card at a time, until one player conceeds victory to the other, or until time has expired. (We could probably play a decent game of four ships on four ships in something like 1-2 hours....)

Here's a sample of the ship data cards...

Basically, this game requires buckets of dice. For each square you see in the ship schematic (one side for port, one for starboard) you roll one six sided dice (1d6). At long range, you need a 6 to hit. At medium, 5's and 6's hit. At short, (which is six inches) you need a 4, 5, or 6. If you fire on your opponent when your opponent does not have you in a 45 degree firing arc, you are "raking" that ship, and receve a +1 to each of your dice. At medium and short ranges, you get to choose what you want to shoot at, i.e. whether you want to shoot at the sail or at the hull of your enemy ship. Shooting at the sail will slow your enemy down, and shooting at the hull will knock his guns out.

I don't have rules made up yet for critical hits, but that wouldn't be too hard to accomplish. Here's a couple other ideas I've been thinking about with this too...

You've gotta have some special effects for these ships, so to the right of the wind direction indicator, you will see a couple counters. One reads "Gunnery Officianado." This ship is captained by a man who drills his crew mercilessly in the art of firing their canon. All of his rolls are at +1.

Expert Sailors receve a +1 to their movement.

A ship with "Ironsides" status (purely metaphorical..., as in, "Her sides are made of iron!" which was said of a wooden ship, the USS Constitution) gets to ignore 1d6 of the hits given to her when an enemy fires at her.

I didn't put the turning circles or the fire arcs in a close up, but you'll probably get the idea through some pictures. Here they are...

I really think a game like this could be a hit at our BertBatCon2008, especially because you could have each participant commanding 2-3 ships in one massive battle, or you could have a tournament where you fight frigate duals for a trophy or something. Hey, I can't wait to see you guys! Let me know what you think so far of these rules...