Skip to main content
Wooden Ships & Iron Men box art

Wooden Ships & Iron Men

Game ID: GID0391961
Game Info
Year
1974
Collection
Your Tier
Loading…
Mechanic profile
Not enough video data yet
Vibe profile
Not enough video data yet
Description

Wooden Ships & Iron Men is a Tactical level Nautical board-wargame - Fighting ships in the Age of Sail !!!
This classic title details military engagements in the golden Age of Sail with a plethora of historical scenarios. Players take their groups of ships and form their ship lines and then go at it. The game comes with a large generic ocean map overlaid with a hex grid. The ship counters occupy two hexes and include special rules for moving and firing with this design. Players can begin with the smaller scenarios and work up to whole fleets engaged in pitched battle.

Avalon Hill Complexity Rating - 6

Description

Wooden Ships & Iron Men is a Tactical level Nautical board-wargame - Fighting ships in the Age of Sail !!!
This classic title details military engagements in the golden Age of Sail with a plethora of historical scenarios. Players take their groups of ships and form their ship lines and then go at it. The game comes with a large generic ocean map overlaid with a hex grid. The ship counters occupy two hexes and include special rules for moving and firing with this design. Players can begin with the smaller scenarios and work up to whole fleets engaged in pitched battle.

Avalon Hill Complexity Rating - 6

Ask a Rules Question
All mentions
Browse transcript mentions, sentiments, pros/cons, mechanics, topics, quotes, and references.
Total mentions: 1
This page: 1
Sentiment: pos 1 · mix 0 · neu 0 · neg 0
Mentions per page
Showing 1–1 of 1
Video QFpMCC7wPmw Zilla Blitz Top List at 1:27 sentiment: positive
video_pk 84175 · mention_pk 213682
Zilla Blitz - Wooden Ships & Iron Men video thumbnail
Click to watch at 1:27 · YouTube ↗
Overall sentiment (raw)
positive
Pros
  • Fond memories
  • Detailed game
  • Ability to create custom scenarios
  • Many games played
Cons
  • Map might have been too big for the table, leading to playing on the floor
Thematic elements
  • Naval warfare
  • Ship-to-ship combat in the age of the fighting sail
Comparison games
none
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
  • campaign game — Features an extended campaign game where losses translate over to the next encounter.
  • Damage tracking — Detailed tracking of individual ship damage through checking off boxes for different hit types.
  • ship-to-ship combat — The game simulates individual ship engagements and fleet versus fleet engagements.
Video topics + discussion points
No key topics recorded for this video.
Quotes (from this video)
  • So it felt like no matter how many times I played this game, every single time it was different.
  • I think it captured operational level combat in a way that the other options in that period of time thinking about things like Africa France 1940 that I just didn't quite gravitate towards from a play level as I did with this one.
  • So, it is easy and far away the number one game on my list of top 10 Avalon Hill war games.
  • But first up, let me introduce the game to you. Midway Naval Air Battle Game.
  • For for what it does, I think it captures that whole cat and mouse and strike first or be struck nature of naval warfare.
  • But that whole idea of that being the first war game that I got, I remember think that you could have history in a box like this.
  • I mean, paper time machines, right, is the the famous quote is what these are. That hit me so strong the moment I opened this box up and it's why I still play, right? Because it's history in a box.
References (from this video)
No references stored for this video.
Transcript Navigation
Top
Showing 1–1 of 1
View on BoardGameGeek