Event Report: The Battle of Trafalgar

Jonathan Jones has been an extremely busy man. He has amassed a huge range of our Black Seas ships, and as a result of a great deal of hobby dedication during the eighteen months or so of lockdown last year, Jonathon Jones’ Trafalgar collection bloomed.

This event was the culmination of that project, in which, using the Black Seas ruleset, Jonathan, along with Black Seas scribe, Gabrio Tolentino, and a host of keen volunteers, descended upon Warlord HQ; their aim to recreate the most famous of all naval military battles one-to-one; That is to say, fielding every warring vessel present on the famous day of October 21st 1805 – only in 1/700 scale. This was the first occasion that Jonathan’s collection has been used in anger – or should that be friendly, banter-filled hobby camaraderie?

The Battle

Whilst not keen on the scalability of some wargames rulesets – that can make larger numbers of players and moving pieces on the table quite an unwieldy prospect – Jonathan was extremely happy with the result of the day’s antics, impressed with the Black Seas ruleset’s ability to cope with the titanic battle – and, he admitted, it was actually his first ever game of Black Seas!

Many of the actual tactics used in the real battle were demonstrated in miniature, highlighting the strength of Black Seas as a balanced game that sits comfortably between playability and flavour. British ships barrelled through the Franco-Spanish line delivering close-in devastating broadsides after weathering the intense firepower that dogged their approaches.

For his part, Black Seas author Gabrio was delighted with the results of the day. It was certainly the largest game he had ever seen in the flesh. Jonathan’s miniatures were the stars of the day, fully rigged and amazingly painted. Though the battle was not quite concluded (due to time constraints), it was an amazing and epic spectacle nonetheless. “The Grog wasn’t half-bad either,” says Gabrio, already looking forward to the next event – whether it shares the epic scale of this one or not.

More Battles to Come

Though his collection is already extensive, Jonathan is already looking to other Age of Sail battles to replicate in support of Combat Stress.

“The Warlord ship collection is planned to offer another project to help raise further monies from the age of sail gaming community wanting to play those big key battles such as Cape St Vincent, Camperdown, The Nile etc, in the grand manner using the 1:700th ships, hopefully in a prestigious venue to make them games to remember.”

That means adding even more miniatures to an already swelling collection. We’ll be sure to keep track and relate news of any future events. You can also find information on Jonathan’s blog, JJ Wargames.

The Combat Stress Charity

This event was not only for fun (although an enormous amount was had), but in support of the charity Combat Stress, for whom Jonathon has been raising funds through various wargaming projects since 2016. Combat Stress are the UK’s leading charity for veterans’ mental health. For over 100 years, they’ve been helping former servicemen and women deal with issues like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression. Today they continue to provide specialist treatment and support for veterans from every service and conflict, focusing on those with complex mental health issues related to their military service.

In order for Warlord to support the charity, we’ve once again made available our naval themed Black Powder miniature that was previously only available during the Warlord Games Open Day (September 2021), Lucky Jack. Proceeds from the sale of this miniature will go towards supporting Combat Stress. The figure will once again be removed from sale Saturday 30th October.

The vast majority of the charity’s funding is provided by the public. Find out how else you can support the charity yourself, or to get involved, please visit their website.