Every naval battle is, at its core, a problem of positioning. Two commanders, each trying to place their ships where the guns bear and the enemy's do not. The tools change, oar, sail, steam, but the geometry of sea warfare remains brutally consistent: whoever controls the angle controls the fight.
What makes naval wargaming so compelling is that these positioning problems are perfectly preserved in miniature. A tabletop fleet engagement forces you to think the way an admiral thinks, weighing wind, formation, and firepower in real time. Unlike land battles, there is no terrain to hide behind. Every ship is exposed, every decision visible, every mistake irreversible.
WoFun Games has built four naval collections that span 334 years of sea warfare, from the last clash of Mediterranean galley fleets at Lepanto in 1571 to the decisive engagement of the modern battleship age at Tsushima in 1905. Each collection captures a distinct era of naval combat, with its own rules, its own tactical logic, and its own cast of ships. Together, they trace the full arc of how humanity fought on water.
Whether you are new to historical naval wargaming or looking to expand an existing fleet, the Starter Packs offer the ideal entry point into each era. This article takes you through all four battles, the history, the tactics, and the WoFun collections that bring them to the table.
The Last Battle of the Galleys: Lepanto, 1571
On the morning of 7 October 1571, two of the largest fleets ever assembled in the Mediterranean came within sight of each other off the Gulf of Patras, near the Greek coastline. On one side, the Ottoman fleet under Ali Pasha, roughly 250 galleys and a mass of supporting vessels, the naval arm of an empire at the height of its power. On the other, the Holy League fleet under Don John of Austria, a coalition of Venice, Spain, Genoa, and the Papacy, fielding approximately 200 galleys and, crucially, six enormous Venetian warships that the Ottomans had never encountered before.
The galley battle was a brutal, intimate form of warfare. Oar-driven and low in the water, galleys closed at speed and grappled. Victory came through boarding, not gunnery. Formation was everything: a line held together could resist; a line that broke became a series of individual fights against swarming opponents.
What changed the equation at Lepanto was the galleass. These six Venetian vessels, massive, oar-assisted sailing ships carrying heavy artillery on all sides, were positioned ahead of the Holy League line before battle was joined. They opened fire on the advancing Ottoman fleet at a range that oared galleys could not answer. The Ottoman formation fractured before it ever reached the Holy League line. Ali Pasha was killed, his flagship taken. By nightfall, over 200 Ottoman galleys had been sunk or captured, and the myth of Ottoman naval invincibility had been broken.
For wargamers, Lepanto is a study in the decisive use of new technology within an established tactical framework. The galleass did not replace the galley, it created a gap through which the galley line could win. Managing that gap, and deploying your heavy ships at the right moment, is the central challenge the battle offers at the table.
The Battle of Lepanto (SS) collection, illustrated by Bistulfi and SoldierShop, brings both fleets to life across 68 ships on 17 sprues, with Holy League and Ottoman forces rendered in full colour at 7–8cm per vessel, based on blue MDF 15mm bases. The Lepanto Full Pack gives you everything you need for a complete engagement.
Galleass Squadron: Eight ships representing the Venetian galleasses that opened the battle and shattered the Ottoman advance. This is the single most tactically decisive unit at Lepanto, the formation that made the outcome possible. Deploying it correctly is the key decision the battle asks of the Holy League player.
The Crescent Breaks: The Spanish Armada, 1588
Seventeen years after Lepanto, the Atlantic replaced the Mediterranean as the world's most contested stretch of water. Philip II of Spain dispatched the most famous fleet of the sixteenth century, 130 ships, tens of thousands of soldiers, and the expectation of a swift, overwhelming invasion of England. What followed instead was a ten-day running fight up the English Channel, a night of fire at Calais, and then the storms that finished what English gunnery had begun.
The Armada campaign of 1588 introduced the tactical logic that would govern naval warfare for the next two centuries. Spanish galleons were built for boarding, high-sided fortresses designed to close with enemies and overwhelm them with soldiers. The English fleet, under Lord Howard of Effingham with Francis Drake as vice admiral, refused to close. Instead, English ships stood off and fired, exploiting their lower silhouette and greater manoeuvrability to rake the Armada from angles it could not answer.
For nine days the Armada held its crescent formation, absorbing punishment while shepherding its damaged ships northward. Then came the night of 28 July. Howard ordered eight fireships sent into the anchored Spanish fleet at Calais. The captains, fearing the ships were explosive hellburners, cut their cables in panic. The unbreakable crescent broke. The following day, at the Battle of Gravelines, the English closed in and delivered the concentrated fire they had been unable to give while the formation held.
The Armada never regrouped. The planned rendezvous with Parma's army never happened. The fleet fled north around Scotland and Ireland; fewer than two-thirds of the ships that left Lisbon returned to Spain.
The Spanish Armada (PD) collection, illustrated by Peter Dennis, recreates this campaign at exceptional scale. The Spanish Armada Full Pack contains 169 ships on 18 sprues, every squadron of the Armada alongside the English fleet, plus a dedicated sprue of 20 fireships and crippled ships, a PDF wargaming rules set by Andy Callan, and an optional MDF game board (40×30cm) with shore and peninsula terrain for the advanced scenarios. For players who want to begin with the core engagement, the Spanish Armada Starter Pack provides 26 ships plus 12 crippled markers, a wind compass, counters, and the Callan rules on five sprues.
Fireships and Crippled Ships: The moment the entire campaign turned. Eight fireships sent into the anchorage at Calais dissolved a formation that ten days of English gunnery had failed to break. This sprue also includes crippled ship markers essential for tracking damage through a full engagement, it is at once the most dramatic single event of the campaign and the most mechanically useful addon in the collection.
The Nelson Touch: Trafalgar, 1805
Two hundred and seventeen years separate the fireship night at Calais from the morning of 21 October 1805 off Cape Trafalgar. In those two centuries, the sailing warship had reached the pinnacle of its development: a three-deck ship of the line, carrying a hundred guns on three decks, capable of delivering a broadside that could dismast a frigate in a single volley. The tactical doctrine that governed these ships, the line of battle, ships sailing parallel and trading broadsides, had been orthodoxy for 150 years.
Nelson broke it deliberately.
His plan, set down in the Trafalgar Memorandum ten days before the battle, was to attack the Franco-Spanish combined fleet not in a line but in two columns, sailing perpendicular into the enemy formation. It was a calculated gamble of the highest order. The leading ships of each British column would absorb enemy broadsides for up to forty minutes before their own guns could bear. One unlucky shot could cripple HMS Victory before she reached the line. Nelson accepted this risk because he understood what the perpendicular attack would achieve: the rear third of the enemy fleet would be overwhelmed before the van could turn and help, and the resulting mêlée would favour British gunnery and seamanship every time.
Collingwood's lee column struck first, Royal Sovereign crashing through the line ahead of Santa Ana at 12:20 pm. Nelson's weather column, Victory leading, cut through just astern of the French flagship Bucentaure minutes later, raking her with a devastating stern broadside. The enemy formation disintegrated into individual engagements, exactly what Nelson had planned. By late afternoon, 22 Franco-Spanish ships had been captured or destroyed. Not a single British ship was lost.
Nelson was shot by a marksman from Redoutable at 1:25 pm and died below decks as the battle reached its height. His last words, confirmed by those around him: "Thank God I have done my duty."
The Trafalgar (FR) collection, designed by Hamburg artist and wargamer Florian Richter, recreates every ship on both sides of the battle. Flagship models measure 65mm hull length (86mm including bowsprit) with a 59mm mainmast, frigates 55mm hull and 47mm height. The Trafalgar Full Pack contains 95 ships on 17 sprues plus a dedicated crippled ships sprue, 105 models in total, covering British, French, and Spanish fleets alongside Whalers, Chasse-Marée, and Indiamen for extended scenarios. The Trafalgar Starter Pack provides a focused core fleet with smoke markers and the Callan rules to get you playing immediately.
British Royal Navy 1: The ships of Nelson's weather column, the spearhead of the decisive attack. These are the vessels that absorbed the full Franco-Spanish broadside for forty minutes, then drove through the enemy line and shattered the combined fleet. Commanding this sprue at the table means accepting the same calculated exposure Nelson accepted on the morning of Trafalgar.
The Last Fleet Action: Tsushima, 1905
Three hundred and thirty-four years after Lepanto, on 27 May 1905 in the Korea Strait, the age of the sailing warship was long gone. What Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō commanded was a modern steel battle fleet: pre-dreadnought battleships displacing 15,000 tons, armoured cruisers, torpedo boat destroyers, and wireless telegraphy for fleet communication. The era of oar and sail had been replaced entirely by steam and armour plate.
The Russian Second Pacific Squadron had sailed 18,000 nautical miles from the Baltic, seven months at sea, resupplied by colliers because no friendly port would service them, arriving in the Korea Strait exhausted, under-trained, and with hulls fouled from the long passage. Tōgō had spent those same months exercising his fleet and waiting.
When the Russian column was sighted on the morning of 27 May, Tōgō executed one of the most audacious manoeuvres in naval history: he turned his entire battle fleet in sequence across the head of the Russian line, presenting his ships broadside-on to the enemy while each vessel completed its turn, the manoeuvre his opponents called the Tōgō Turn. It was a repeat of Nelson's calculated risk, this time in steel. The Russian van concentrated fire on the turning point and inflicted damage. Tōgō accepted it because he knew what the manoeuvre would achieve: his battle line, in full concentration, crossing the Russian T.
The result was the most complete naval victory of the modern era. Of 38 Russian vessels that entered the strait, 21 were sunk, 7 captured, and 6 interned. Only 3 escaped to Vladivostok. Russian battle casualties exceeded 10,000 men. Tōgō lost 3 torpedo boats.
Tsushima was the last decisive engagement between major steel battle fleets in history. After the First World War proved that naval power had moved to submarines and aircraft, battles of this kind would never be fought again. Tsushima was the closing act of a form of warfare that had begun at Lepanto with oared galleys in the Mediterranean sun.
The Battle of Tsushima (SS) collection, illustrated by Bistulfi and SoldierShop, renders the fleets at approximately 1:1400 scale, with battleships and cruisers from 8.5 to 10.5cm and torpedo boats at 5.5cm, based on blue MDF 15mm bases. The Tsushima Full Pack delivers complete Japanese and Russian fleets for a full engagement.
Japanese Ships 1: The main Japanese battle line, the ships that executed the Tōgō Turn and crossed the Russian T. This is the formation that decided Tsushima in the first hours of the engagement, the steel-age equivalent of Nelson's weather column or the Venetian galleasses at Lepanto.
Four Principles of Naval Wargaming
Across 334 years and four collections, certain tactical principles recur at the table regardless of the era being played.
Wind as a resource. In the sail-era collections, Armada and Trafalgar, the wind gauge is a decisive advantage, not a background condition. The fleet that holds the weather gauge controls the range of engagement and the timing of the attack. Managing the wind is as important as managing your ships.
Ship type as absolute role. Every vessel in every collection has a function it performs better than anything else and a function it cannot perform at all. Galleasses do not board; galleys cannot stand off and pound. Fireships cannot fight; they exist to break formations. The player who misuses ship types pays for it immediately.
Line integrity as core discipline. From Lepanto's crescent to Trafalgar's paired columns, the coherence of your formation is the foundation of everything else. A line that holds concentrates fire; a line that breaks becomes a series of isolated engagements. Knowing when to hold the line and when, like Nelson, to break it on purpose is the central skill each collection teaches.
Damage accumulation and tempo. Each collection includes crippled ship markers, and their presence on the table changes the game. A crippled ship still occupies space and draws attention; it slows your tempo and creates decision points for the opponent. Tracking damage and managing degraded units is as much a part of naval wargaming as the initial broadside.
Choosing Your Era
Each of these four collections offers a distinct experience at the table, and the right starting point depends on what kind of naval challenge you are looking for.
Lepanto is the battle for players who want to engage directly with formation geometry. With hundreds of vessels on both sides, the game is about manoeuvring large formations and deploying specialized units at the right moment. The galleass deployment is a puzzle within the larger puzzle.
The Spanish Armada is the most scenario-rich collection. The campaign provides multiple distinct engagements, the running fight up the Channel, the fireship night, Gravelines, each with different objectives and constraints. Wind and weather are active factors, not merely flavour.
Trafalgar is the most accessible entry point for new naval wargamers, and the collection most players reach for first. The two-column attack is straightforward to set up, the rules are clean, and the historical outcome gives the game a strong dramatic arc. It is also the largest single-battle collection, with every ship from both sides available.
Tsushima is the choice for players drawn to modern naval warfare, gunnery ranges, armour values, torpedo attacks, and the asymmetric matchup between a well-drilled fleet and an exhausted one. It plays differently from the sail-era collections and rewards a different kind of tactical thinking.
All four collections are available individually or as part of their respective packs on the Starter Packs page, alongside the wargaming rules needed to play each era.
334 Years at a Glance
From the sun-hammered waters of the Gulf of Patras to the fogbound Korea Strait, the four battles covered here trace every major transition in how humanity fought at sea: the end of the oar age, the rise and fall of the great sailing warship, the birth of the modern steel fleet. The tactical problems shifted with each era, the role of wind, the range of guns, the scale of formations, but the fundamental challenge never changed: find the angle, hold the line, and strike before the enemy can answer.
WoFun's four naval collections, Lepanto, the Spanish Armada, Trafalgar, and Tsushima, make all of it playable, each battle delivered in full colour and ready for the table. The 334-year arc is waiting. The only question is where you want to begin.