Monthly Archives: November 2025

Sails of Glory vs. Rough Waters & Deep Seas Game Review:

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Which Age of Sail Game Will Hoist Your Colors?

Ahoy, fellow captains and gaming enthusiasts! At Command Post Games, we’re passionate about bringing history to life through immersive, quick-to-learn simulations. Our own Rough Waters & Deep Seas  has been sailing the high seas of tabletop gaming since its launch, offering tense cat-and-mouse chases in the Golden Age of Sail. But how does it stack up against a heavyweight like Sails of Glory from Ares Games? Both are mapless miniatures games that capture the thrill of naval combat without the need for hex grids or complex boards—just a flat table and your wits.

In this review, we’ll compare and contrast these two titles based on components, gameplay, theme, and more. Whether you’re a seasoned admiral or a landlubber dipping your toes into Age of Sail gaming, this breakdown will help you decide which one deserves a spot in your fleet. Let’s set sail!

Components and Setup: Pre-Painted Polish vs. Customizable Charm

Sails of Glory shines with its production values right out of the box. The Starter Set includes four fully assembled and pre-painted ships, complete with maneuver decks, ship logs, and damage counters—everything you need for immediate play. The minis are detailed at 1/1000 scale, evoking the grandeur of Napoleonic-era vessels like frigates and ships-of-the-line.  Setup is straightforward:  Lay out your play area (any table works, though an optional mat is available), assign ships, and you’re ready in minutes. It’s accessible for beginners, with no painting required, making it feel like a premium product.

In contrast, Rough Waters & Deep Seas emphasizes portability and customization. Our base game comes with two schooners and two sloops—3D-printed, high res minis that look striking in their monochrome black finish, even unpainted. You can paint them for that personal touch, but they’re designed to play great as-is, with built-in navigation bars for easy point-of-sail reference. Components include hidden ship cards for outfits (guns, crew, cargo), damage decks, and a simple movement template—no bulky logs or multiple decks per ship. Setup is even quicker: No assembly needed, just deal the cards and position your ships on the table. It’s lighter on components, making it ideal for travel or pub-style sessions.

Key Difference: Sails of Glory offers more “wow” factor with pre-painted variety, while Rough Waters & Deep Seas prioritizes compact, hobby-friendly minis that encourage creativity without mandating it.

Gameplay and Mechanics: Structured Maneuvers vs. Bluffing and Chaos

Both games excel at simulating naval tactics without a map, using simultaneous movement to keep things dynamic and fair. In Sails of Glory, players secretly plot moves with maneuver cards, then reveal and execute them using a ruler—accounting for wind direction and sail settings. Combat involves drawing damage chits for broadsides, with advanced rules adding crew actions, boarding, and repairs. It’s dice-free in basic mode, focusing on positioning and planning, but can scale up for deeper simulations. Reviews praise its balance of simplicity and depth, though managing multiple ships per player can get fiddly.

Rough Waters and Deep Seas takes a similar approach to movement—simultaneous but streamlined.  One universal template and 3 rotating course blocks replace multiple decks of maneuver cards to sort through.   Rough Waters and Deep Seas amps up the uncertainty with hidden elements. You outfit your ship secretly (e.g., heavy guns for combat or extra cargo for merchant runs), and opponents must guess your capabilities through observation and bluffing. Damage is narrative-driven: Draw hidden cards for hits like hull breaches or fires, then agonize over what to fix first while deciding whether to fire back or flee. Rather than resource management, Rough Waters and Deep Seas becomes more like poker as players try to outguess, bluff and negotiate to avoid boarding, adding a social layer that’s perfect for groups. With just three pages of core rules, it’s quick and easy to learn, but the hidden info creates emergent stories and tough decisions.

Key Difference: Sails of Glory feels more like a traditional wargame with historical accuracy, while Rough Waters and Deep Seas leans into psychological warfare and role-playing, making every encounter feel unpredictable and personal. Playtesters loved the tension in Rough Waters and Deep Seas, noting it as “brutal and fun” with less bookkeeping.

Theme and Immersion: Grand Fleet Battles vs. Pirate Skirmishes

Sails of Glory immerses you in the epic scope of the Age of Sail (1650-1815), from Napoleonic blockades to colonial skirmishes. The pre-painted ships and detailed logs evoke commanding a fleet in historical battles like Trafalgar, with lots of rules that accurately model wind, raking fire, and crew management. It’s great for history buffs, generating that “tall ship” feel reviewers rave about, but all this detail adds up to a lot more time needed to play.

Rough Waters and Deep Seas dives into the gritty, opportunistic world of Caribbean piracy, where you’re not just fighting—you’re scheming as a Merchant dodging raiders, a Pirate hunting prizes, or a Bounty Hunter enforcing justice. The hidden mechanics mirror the era’s fog of war: Is that sloop a weak merchant or a heavily armed trap? Negotiations add flavorful role-play, like bribing a pirate with rum-soaked cargo. Playtests highlight how it creates narratives, turning games into stories of betrayal and narrow escapes.

Key Difference: Sails of Glory captures large-scale naval glory, while Rough Waters and Deep Seas embodies the “between the devil and the deep” desperation of sea captains at war, with more emphasis on individual cunning over fleet strategy. Sails of Glory moves slower, taking longer to play. Rough Waters and Deep Seas is fast and furious by comparison but skips some details like picking chain shot.

Expansions and Replayability: Building Fleets vs. Adding Legends

Sails of Glory boasts extensive expansions, including Ship Packs for new vessels and Special Packs with unique abilities (e.g., famous ships like HMS Victory). This collectible aspect keeps it fresh, supporting scenarios from duels to full battles. As of 2025, the line remains active with reprints and community support.

Rough Waters and Deep Seas is expandable too: Add Extra Decks for more ships and players, or the upcoming Pirate Legends expansion for mythical twists like the Kraken or Flying Dutchman. Replayability comes from variable roles and hidden setups—every game feels different based on player choices.

Key Difference: Sails of Glory excels in historical variety, while Rough Waters and Deep Seas focuses on modular social depth for endless intrigue.

Final Verdict: Which Game Wins the Broadside?

Both Sails of Glory and Rough Waters and Deep Seas are fantastic mapless entries in the naval genre, offering thrilling Age of Sail action without overwhelming complexity. If you crave polished, historical fleet combat with collectible minis, Sails of Glory is your port of call—it’s a proven hit with broad appeal.

But if you’re after a more intimate, bluff-heavy experience that captures the raw tension of real fog of war—with quick setup, social negotiations, and narrative flair— Rough Waters and Deep Seas edges it out for us here at Command Post Games. It’s portable, affordable at $53, and perfect for groups who love mind games over meticulous planning.  Try it yourself and see why playtesters call it a game-changer!

What do you think? Have you played both? Share your thoughts in the comments below, and check out Rough Waters and Deep Seas in our store today. Fair winds and following seas!

Posted by Command Post Games Team | November 9, 2025

Rebels of the Wargaming Industry

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GC interview with:

Marshall Barrington
Designer, Command Post Games

Q: Marshall, for those who might not be familiar, can you give us a quick overview of Pub Battles and what makes Command Post Games stand out in the wargaming scene?

A: Absolutely. Pub Battles is our flagship series—think fast-paced, command-focused wargames set in the musket era, like Brandywine or Waterloo. We’re not about micromanaging every squad or rolling dice for every musket ball. Instead, we zoom out to the big picture: corps and division-level decisions, where you’re the commander making tough calls in the fog of war. At Command Post Games, we’re like the scrappy rebels of wargaming—challenging the old guard with simple, elegant designs that pack a punch of realism without the hassle.

Picture this: Back in the day, Apple Computers burst onto the scene against giants like IBM, who dominated with clunky, corporate machines that felt more like accounting tools than creative powerhouses. Steve Jobs didn’t just sell computers; he sold a revolution— “Think Different.” We’re doing the same here. Traditional wargames are loaded with hexes, stacks of counters, and rulebooks thicker than a phone directory. Us? We ditch all that for wooden blocks that stand upright (hiding unit info for true fog of war) and free-form movement like miniatures on a historical map. No grids, no fuss—just pure strategy. It’s like swapping a bulky PC for a sleek Mac: suddenly, everything feels intuitive and fun.

Q: You mention realism and fog of war a lot on your site. How does Pub Battles capture that without getting bogged down in complexity?

A: Great question—it’s all about putting you in the commander’s boots, not the grunt’s. Realism for us means recreating the uncertainty and pressure of real battles, where you don’t have perfect intel. In Pub Battles, blocks face away from opponents. So you know there is something there but what is it?  Infantry or Cavalry?  A full strength, elite unit that is fresh and ready to go or a small detachment of militia that is spent?  Just like real generals, you often don’t know.  Fresh units flip to “spent” after combat or retreats, mimicking exhaustion without endless charts.

Let me tell you a story from a playtest session. We were refighting Germantown, and my buddy was playing Howe. He’s goes charging straight up the middle.  That’s his aggressive style  That’s what Howe did.  But guess what?  There was nothing there!  Thanks to the fog, he misjudged my deployment.  Just because Washington brought his main army down the center, doesn’t mean I had to.  All he slammed into was a militia unit of Pennsylvanian farmers with a few light detachments.  Then he started to worry.  One of my rebel columns appeared on his right, near his baggage train and his main supply line.  He scrambled to counter.  Nope, nothing there either.  “Where are you?!”, he said.  Right before Washington struck his left flank with a fury.  It’s those “oh crap” moments that teach command decisions in unknown environments.  He laughed it off later, saying, “Man, now I know exactly how the British felt—betting big on bad intel!”  What is the point of fighting the same old battles, exactly as they were fought with perfect God like knowledge?  The real generals that fought those battles didn’t know where everybody was.  They had to fight blind.  So should we.

Compare that to the old-school games—endless modifiers and phases that make you feel like you’re auditing taxes instead of leading troops. We’re rebels, remember? Like early Apple poking fun at IBM’s “Big Brother” vibe in their 1984 ad. We’d say, “Why crunch numbers when you can command like Napoleon—bold moves, big risks, and that sweet rush of victory (or hilarious defeat)?”

Q: There’s resistance from traditional wargamers to your no-hexes, wooden-block approach. How do you address that, and what’s your vision for the future of wargaming?

A: Oh, the resistance is real—I’ve gotten emails calling us “too simplistic” or “not enough crunch” because we skip the hex grids and cardboard counters. It’s like when Apple launched the Macintosh: tech purists scoffed at the mouse and icons, saying, “Real computing needs DOS command line prompts and code to memorize or look up!” But Jobs knew better—he made tech accessible, fun, and powerful, turning skeptics into fans with humor and vision.

Our vision? Wargaming should connect people, build leadership skills, and deliver historical insights without gatekeeping. We draw from Kriegsspiel—the original command post game used by Prussian officers—but make it umpire-free for two players. Wooden blocks aren’t just pretty; they create fog of war naturally, and free movement lets terrain matter like in real battles. No more trying to remember an endless list of rules and modifiers!

Here’s a fun story: I was at a con demoing Pub Battles: Antietam.  This grizzled grognard scanned over the 4 pages of core rules and scoffed about the simplicity and lack of “crunch”.  I handed him the Union blocks without a word.  Fifteen minutes in, he was overwhelmed by the complexity of this “simple” game.  Sumner’s assault on the Sunken Road last turn drove several of Jackson’s brigades out.  Should he try to get Sumner to move first now to occupy that position?  Or should he wait and try to force Jackson to move first?  That way you can see what the enemy does first and can attack at the weakest point.  Don’t forget about the artillery I said.  Ideally you want them to fire, right before Sumner moves.  That way Jackson won’t be able to rally his troops before you strike them.  What does Jackson even have left?  Are those just spent detachments?  His head was spinning with the complexity of the strategic options.  By game’s end, he’s grinning: “Damn, that’s tricky—and addictive!” That’s our Apple moment—humor in the humility. We’d quip, “Hexes are for bees, not battles. Napoleon didn’t worry about the grain of hexes or ZoCs.  Try thinking different; you might just win Gettysburg without a migraine.”

Our future? More accessible games that teach teamwork and decision-making, like how wargames trained generals but now can level up hobbyists too. We’re expanding Pub Battles to new eras, always keeping it simple yet deep—because the best lessons come from play, not paperwork.

Q: Any final thoughts for wargamers curious about trying Pub Battles?

A: Dive in! Start with something like Brandywine—it’s quick to learn, plays in an hour, and captures that command thrill. If you’re a traditionalist, think of it as your “1984” moment: break free from the hex tyranny and discover wargaming that’s as elegant as it is exciting. Head to commandpostgames.com for demos or to grab a set. Who knows? You might just become the next rebel commander!