After a relatively short search, I found three games that I was looking for. The decision is not easy, because there are more and less pleasing elements in all three.
In general, in case of naval wargames, the target audience gets a separate rulebook for free (or at an affordable price), and the plastic or metal (or even paper) models can be purchased usually from someone other than the company created the rules. So it is more typical that there is no linking of the rules and game pieces, i.e. I would either get one half of the experience or the other: I can search for rules for my existing fleet from somewhere or vice versa. I didn’t quite expect that. But I have no reason to worry, there is also something for land-lubbers like me.
As I wrote in the introduction, there are immediately three games that meet the criteria.
They differ in price and items, but they are complete sets, so they contain the rule and enough ships for two (or even more) players.
Here are the games:
The first is Oak & Iron by Firelock Games. The set contains six different ship models, you don’t need to glue them and I don’t think they look bad without painting either.
Since the theme (golden age of piracy) is basically related to the Caribbean Sea, it comes with a particularly eye-catching coral reef playmat. In addition to the dice, the box contains several decks (cards for ships, factions, initiative, events, etc.), a stack of cardboard markers, islands and reefs. We can move the ships along rulers of different sizes, very similar to the bar used during the attack – both made of the same paper as the base material of the tokens.
There are expansions too (additional ships and decks). The price of the core box starts from around EUR 60, excluding the shipping fee.
The second game is Black Seas from Warlord Games, which focuses more on the Napoleonic era. There are 9 ships in the box – and here I’m a little sad because they require gluing and painting, but they look really good after the finish.
With this set, you also get dices and a battlemat, but I don’t like the cards for the land. Even more so the “rigging” – a must have for the sailboat – and the smoke/fire markers. Many kinds of ships, entire fleets came out as expansions. Also, a new rulebook, 3d landmarks (islands, Martello tower, shipwreck), and sea monsters – the rest of the latter (apart from the cetacean) hardly fit a historical game, and the shark and the narwhal are strange because of their size. Depending on the online store, I saw the starter set from approx. EUR 50.
My series is closed by Ares Games’ Sails of Glory. Like the previous one, we can “experience” the Napoleonic naval wars with it. The starter set contains 4 painted ships (even 1-4 players can already play with it), but serious gamers can buy dozens of additional models, which are all scaled-down copies of actually built, historical ships.
Each ship has an attribute card, we get a large stack of tokens, wind direction markers and a deck of movement cards per ship. Battlemat is unfortunately not included in the basic box, it can be bought separately – in my opinion, a paper-based mat like the one that came with the previous ones would have really fit in a EUR 100+ starter set.
For now, it’s hard for me to decide which of the three is right for me. I will make a more detailed comparison.
In my first post, I mentioned that I would like to write my own rules (this will be/would be the Salt & Tar). The problem with this is that, even though I’ve come up with many solutions in theory over the past two years, I’m not sure that they’ll work. Also, due to my inexperience, there may be details that I don’t even think. Besides, even if I have a rule, there are still no ships and landmarks.
(The images in this post are taken from the publisher’s websites: https://www.firelockgames.com/, https://store.warlordgames.com/, https://www.aresgames.eu/)