Please note: there is a small tear in the shrink wrap on the lower left corner of the front of the box. The back of the box is also indented (not flat).
Nine Navies War
begins at the start of 1915, after a victorious Germany has overrun
France the year before. (Perhaps the BEF didn’t land on time or at all,
or they got bottled up in Mons, or the Germans kept to their full-blown,
keep the right super-strong and pull back on the left Schlieffen Plan
scheme, thereby bagging two French armies in the Rhineland, etc.) Italy,
seeing the German victory train leaving the station, joins the Central
Powers, as do Spain and Greece. All of which makes for a dreadnought
showdown in the Mediterranean, Atlantic Ocean and North Seas, as the
avidly Mahanist Kaiser Wilhelm seeks to finally defeat the Royal Navy
and thus make Germany into a true global power.
It will be the
battleships of Britain, Russia and ‘Free France’ versus those of
Germany, Italy, Turkey, Austria-Hungary and the captured portion of the
divided French fleet. (Each French ship is rolled for at the start of
every game. Each can be scuttled, go over to the British, or be captured
by the Germans.) There will also be the possibility of later US entry
when/if the Japanese switch sides in the Pacific and launch a dastardly
surprise attack that finally draws in the Yanks.
Victory is
determined on victory points awarded for controlling the various sea
zones around Europe. The geography thereby creates a kind of “two front
war,” one in the Mediterranean and one in the Atlantic. The Central
Powers player is also able to win a “sudden death” victory by
controlling the waters immediately surrounding the British Isles for one
full year (three turns). If he does so, the British have just been
starved into submission.
All the battleships and battle cruisers
afloat during that era, along with three late-game British aircraft
carriers, are represented in the various nations’ orders of battle, as
well as ships that were scheduled to be completed during 1919 if the war
had gone on that long.
Random events account for the larger
developments taking place in the ground war still going on in Russia,
the Middle East and colonial Africa, as well as accounting for capital
ship losses due to mines, unexplained internal explosions, as well as
submarine, coastal artillery and land based aircraft attack. A top of
the line German battleship like the Baden has factors
(attack-defense-maximum speed) of 6-8-5, while the British battle
cruiser Tiger is a 4-4-7. Top-down, full-color, historic ship icons
identify every ship.
The game uses a derivation of the classic
Avalon Hill War at Sea. 9NW is simple two-player game with a short
three-turn “1915” scenario, which can easily be finished in one sitting,
as well as a 12-turn “campaign game” that will require about eight
hours to play.
Contents:
• Rules booklet
• 352 large ship die cut counters
• 140 small informational die cut markers
• 1 34” x 22” Map
• 1 Die
• Storage bags