Have you ever been sitting around the house, wondering how to practice a game that you're playing, or wanting to teach a friend or family member how to play WSIM? It certainly would help to have the original board game, right? Well, good luck on finding a good set anymore online.

However, not lacking in enterprise, I found some interesting sites that will allow you to sit down and actually push paper or cardboard counters around the map, using the game rules for WSIM as found on this site. So now you can engage in side games without even needing a computer (although how you're going to print this material without one beggars the thought).

Witness these interesting pages:

http://helios.acomp.usf.edu/~bmwillia/wsim_pub/pdf/counters.pdf

These are color copies of the original punch-out counters. There are two sheets, in .pdf format, that can be printed on stiff cardboard, or mounted individually, as you see fit. The first sheet contains the actual ships, color coded for Brititsh (red), French (white), Spanish (yellow), and American (lt.blue). The second sheet contains other ships types (the original rules would be necessary for explanation), but sink, explode, burn, strike, and full-sail counters.

As a word of explanation on the ship counters, the number at the bow is the turn number, relating to the ship type. The two numbers on the stern are the ships movements---bottom number being battle sails (Simplified and Basic Rules), and the top number the full-sail speed. This is reversed from the original ship counters in the game where the battle sail speed is at the top.

Trying to keep it simple, full sails are applied at the very end of a player's turn, prior to logging the next move. The indicated speed is in attitude A only; subtract one in B, all ships move 2 in C under full sail, and all stop in D. A ship receiving a rigging hit while using full sails loses 2 sail squares for each indicated hit---loss of a rigging section precludes a ship being able to use full sails in subsequent moves. You can see how the frigates, with great speed using full sails, can increase their value.

http://helios.acomp.usf.edu/~bmwillia/wsim_pub/pdf/logfile.pdf

These are copies of the log sheets, used to record your damage, orders, movement, etc. No, the computer doesn't do it for you when playing this way! You simply start play by eliminating the excess hull, sail, gun, and crew squares, and then marking out hits as they occur---like an old game of Battleship.

It should be self-explanatory. But remember---what you log you MUST follow, even if it turns out badly. If the move is logged incorrectly, the affected vessel may move only to that point where an impossible part is written, and stops.

http://helios.acomp.usf.edu/~bmwillia/wsim_pub/pdf/wsim_tables.pdf

This will mean nothing to most players of this online site, as it is for using Advanced Rules. In such, guns, carronades, and crew squares are doubled. Hull squares are halved again, ie. 1.5X regular numbers. Sail squares remain the same as for Simple and Advanced rules. The number in parenthesis under the rake modifier is the bonus for stern rakes, as opposed to raking an opponent from the bow.

And of course, one always needs a hex map to use. http://www.incompetech.com/graphpaper/hexagonal/ offers a fine .pdf file that allows you to print out hex sheets with as many hex sizes as you wish. Most will find a print shop handy for running out large maps using this file. It's always best to use a thicker gauge of paper for all components, and the ships are best mounted on cardboard stock of suitable thickness.

So, now you can teach your kids, little brothers, wives or husbands, friends, whomever, how to play. Later, you can invite them to enjoy having the computer do all this work for them in the YouPlayIt site.

In the future, I hope to be able to offer a list of all ship types, with their associated point values for design-your-own scenarios. Most are from the original rules---many are from subsequent scenarios and articles published in the General, the AH magazine, back in the 70s. Some are deduced from my own research, particularly the smaller schooners, cutters, xebecs, galleys, etc. Of course, I've been keeping this as a project to finish for a long time, so no promises will be made, as I'm already months behind.

I hope these sites prove interesting for some of you, and useful for others. It's fun to remember the unpunched counter sheets for those of us who bought the game new when it was available.

Have fun!

Johnny B. / pbass111 / "Bloody John"