What is Man O War?

Man O War is the early 1990’s naval combat game by Games Workshop set in their Warhammer Fantasy universe.

My first exposure to it was flipping through White Dwarf or old Citadel catalogues and the most distinctive feature to me were the Nurgle Plaguecrushers – massive grotuesque faced ships with cannons instead of tongues.

Thanks to the wonderful episode of Bedroom Battlefields and the reminder of a YouTube video by SirCamofWarwick (see below) and the resources he links, I have been tempted to give MoW a go:

In the past I have played a couple of realistic naval games in the age of sail and age of battleships – but generally found it quite hard to maintain an interest in those games over time, mostly because they end up being quite dry simulations.

Man O War in contrast to Fighting Sail or Grand Fleets is unabashedly fantastical, which is exactly how I want my fantasy games to be. I have said a number of times before that a game which is essentially a WW2 skirmish but with laser guns, or an ancients battle with blue-skinned persians is pointless – and from what I understand Man O War passes that test handily.

My first fleet is a Nurgle Plaguefleet, consisting of two Plagueships, a squadron of Plaguecrushers and a squadron of Nurgle-marked Deathgalleys:

I decided to avail myself of a seascape battle mat from DeepCutStudios and even with the undercoated ships on there, it already looks really nice to my eye – so I thought I’d put on a quick test Battle Report:

Battle Report

The battle was fought on my usual 3×3 table – MoW suggests a 4×4 space with 9″ x 2’6″ deployment zones – so fairly simple to instead have 3″ deployment zones and the same effective space on the board.

Army Lists

• Nurgle:
  • 2x Plagueships
  • 3x Death Galleys
  • 3x Plaguecrushers
  • 2x Chaos Rewards
• Dark Elfs
  • 3x Doomreavers
  • 1x Deathfortress
  • 1x Black Ark of Naggoroth

Tokens, Counters and Templates

One thing that’s quite different in MoW in comparison to other Games Workshop games is the sheer amount of cardboard required – there are tokens for everything! Though I have some tokens available, I decided to print off the range and turn templates and give them a little paintjob – illustrated by this Plagueship about to knock the crew off the Deathfortress and have it swim away:

90’s Game Design

The game is certainly humorous and cinematic – the Doomreavers (top-right squadron) are drakes lashed up with floating castles atop and can be frenzied in combat instead of a normal process – the first drake rips the sails and paddles off a nurgle ship, the second is goaded into a frenzy, crippling the centre nurgle plaguecrusher and then plunging into the depths.

The third Doomreaver goes mad and attacks the Black Ark in a typical ‘exception to the exception’ example of the early 90’s board design – the drake-hauled ships of the Dark Elves can either board as normal or make a Frenzy attack, it does so and rips the sails and paddle wheels off the nearest Plaguecrusher.

A second round of frenzied attacks was less helpful, with the drakes refusing to attack. Though the Black Ark was able to push through the Plaguecrushers, it was too little damage caused – and with the early loss of the Deathfortress, the Dark Elves were focused down upon and beaten to a pulp:

Closing Thoughts

The game was fun – there were items to track off-table and indeed this took up four separate sheets of A4 paper – but it was quick and easy to manage. I think the Esoteric Order of Gamers Playing-Card Sized Ship Templates would make this a lot easier and I’m planning to get them printed and sleeved up soon.

I have recently found a few different sets of rules for Space Combat which I’m looking to try again too, so I’m not sure when I’ll get MoW back to the table but I’m really glad that I did – it was an itch that needed scratching.