A great source for Napoleonic naval scenarios
As often as able (not often), I’ve been reading James Henderson’s Frigates, Sloops, and Brigs. You can guess the book’s subject from the title. It details any number of small ship actions from the Napoleonic era, and goes into considerable detail on events leading up to the particular conflict, details of the conflict, and the aftermath. Quite often the reports are accompanied by maps of maneuvers and landmarks.
Speaking of landmarks, I’ve been a bit surprised at their existence in sea battles, but apparently many of these actions were fought within sight of land, or at least in areas with shallows and reefs that had a profound impact on tactics.
The reason I bring up Henderson’s book on this blog is that, if you have any interest in gaming Napoleonic naval combat and are a fan of the smaller ships, you should definitely pick up a copy. The battles detailed in the book range from ship-on-ship action to small squadrons at battle, and even a few cutting out operations. The ships present, the number of guns mounted, orders the captains operated under (at least on the British side), and the crew reputations are regularly detailed for each action. A pleasant bonus, is that the book is quite well written, and the battles are very easy to wrap your head around.
I picked up a few GHQ 1/1200 ‘MicroNauts’ miniatures a while back, and between re-reading Master and Commander and now Henderson’s book, I’m dying to play something in the period/genre. Oh, and I picked up TooFatLardies set of rules, “Kiss Me Hardy,” which seem quite excellent.
If only I had time to paint (and rig)!
ArkieGamer 