Close Action by Clash-of-Arms games

[Jack Nastyface]

Just picked up Close Action for 25% off a a local store.  Anyone here played it yet?  Comments?
Beat to quarters,
Jack Nastyface

[besilarius]

Very active online threads in yahoo group.

[MengJiao]

Just picked up Close Action for 25% off a a local store.  Anyone here played it yet?  Comments?
Beat to quarters,
Jack Nastyface

I don't know much about it, but most views of it seem very positive.  Even a game system that might seem
to be its competitor, the Flying Colors series, has only good things to say about it -- except that it is more
complex and seems to require plotting and simultaneous moves.  But again, I know next to nothing about it.

[Jack Nastyface]

@Bes,
Thanks...just signed up!
@Meng
I was seriously debating between Flying Colors and Close Action.  The two games are quiet different.  It is possible for a single player to manage a number of ships in Flying Colors, but Close Action is very detail oriented (as it uses crew tasking, etc).  In the end I will probably end up buying both.  I of course already have Wooden Ships Iron Men, Heart of Oak and also an older "single ship" mini-rules game (Beat to Quarters by Command Pespectives, 1982).  Despite WSIM's status as the defacto classic age-of-sail game, the general consensus seems to be that it has been surpassed by Flying Colors.

England expects...

Jack Nastyface

[MengJiao]

@Bes,
Thanks...just signed up!
@Meng
I was seriously debating between Flying Colors and Close Action.  The two games are quiet different.  It is possible for a single player to manage a number of ships in Flying Colors, but Close Action is very detail oriented (as it uses crew tasking, etc).  In the end I will probably end up buying both.  I of course already have Wooden Ships Iron Men, Heart of Oak and also an older "single ship" mini-rules game (Beat to Quarters by Command Pespectives, 1982).  Despite WSIM's status as the defacto classic age-of-sail game, the general consensus seems to be that it has been surpassed by Flying Colors.

England expects...

Jack Nastyface

I got some moderately used copies of Flying Colors back in March when I decided to work on revising Harpoon 4 and/or the rest of the Admiralty Trilogy into a simpler hex game.
I was mostly interested in using the blue hex sheets as a generic ocean BUT Flying colors turned out to be a pretty good game.  You can get more pop-style versions of it (eg. the card system in Serpents of the Seas), but the basic Flying Colors game is pretty fun and plays pretty quickly.

I've pretty much decided to skip Close Action for the time being since if I have a sudden resurgence of interest in nautical complexity, I can always work on revising Harpoon 4. 

[besilarius]

Jack, Just thought you might be interested in the precursor to WSIM, a miniature's set of rules, Ship of the LIne by Battleline.
Having grown up with that, my own feelings have been that it is superior to WSIM.  And, my own feeling, is that Close Action is WSIM on steroids.  All a matter of taste in regards to how much detail you want.
Have not tried Flying Colors, but it kind of sounds more to my taste.
All of them are enjoyable and good.  They all just do things differently, and with varying degrees ofdetail.
With your interest, you may want to look up and try Ship of the Line (SOL as it was called back in the 80s.)