Man O'War: is wind bad?

[Ironmonger]

I've recently played my first brief game of Man O'War, and must say that it is a brilliant piece of wargaming! One of the things that really struck me, however, was the lack of wind influence in the game. I don't know if this is a common occurrence, but the wind never changed direction, and there really was no impact it had on the outcome of play. If you've played MoW before, have you ever experienced the wind being a real 'player' in the game, or has it always been basically a non-entity?

[Clanrat]

lack of wind influence? you do know the wind chantges direction every time you and your opponent get a double on the roll for initiative (clockwise 1 peg on an even double, anti clockwise on an odd)..

sorry that sounded a bit harsh, tbh, the wind is only really an issue for high elf and brettonian fleets as they lack other means of propulsion (such as oars) .. its also incredib;ly easy to find yourself facing into the wind (or at leats into that 45 degree arc) and pretty much stuck.

How big a table and how much terrain did you use? i normally play 1000 pt fleets on a 4x4 table with d3 scenery pieces in each tabl;e quarter (between me and my friend we have 2 copies of the original box game so we tend to use the terrain pieces from there.

Obviously some armies can completely ignore the wind (dwarves im looking at you and your chaosy cousins) but being able to take advantage of the speed increase over using oars really helpsn the empire and orcs for example...
Out of interest, what fleets did you use?

[Ironmonger]

Yes...I know the rules

I play Dwarfs, and my opponent was playing Empire. Very small fleet apiece, 300 pts basic. Wind was blowing south from the first turn on. We never rolled doubles for initiative, hence what prompted my question in the first place. We had one single large piece of terrain (icebergs), and were playing on a 2x4. In the future we'll be playing on much larger boards

Yes, without oars or steam (or magicy winds) I would think that the direction of the wind would be a pain if it was against you, forcing you to tack the whole way.

[Easy E]

With the two fleets you were playing, it doesn't seem like wind would play a big impact on the game.

Edit: Got any pics?

[Hubman]

Well, play High Elves versus Bretonnia in larger fleets than 300 per side...you'll see what influence wind can be! There are very few matchups -if any- where wind is less a factor then playing Dwarfs versus Empire without Greatships.

Personally I've always felt the wind to be a nice game mechanic. It's very random, but easily influenced by dice rolls so there's often something happening and of course there are several spells that interact with the wind in some way.

Kind regards,

Hubman

[BigRob]

I agree that only the Brets and High Elves are really wind dependent which always seemed a little odd for a naval combat game where alot of the ships have sails.

[Hubman]

Exactly! Especially since the technology shouldn't be too advanced. If it had been up to me, more fleets would have been dependant upon wind. Some fleets really need magical or mechanical movement, but generally speaking there's just too much of it going around.

Kind regards,

Hubman

[Eternus]

Really even the Empire are kinda wind reliant, because the Great Ship has no oars and is the ship with the most punch. If you can use the wind to leave the Greatship out of the fight for a couple of turns, then you have a big advantage. If you're using a fleet that doesn't have to worry about wind but your opponent does, then you can plan your route of attack so that your opponent is restricted in where they can move without turning into the wind.