Man O’ War

The classic game of naval warfare in the Warhammer world.

One of the best, perhaps even the best, games that Games Workshop ever made, Man O’War is a game of spectacularly entertaining and visually stunning ship to ship battles on the high seas. Out of print now and pretty pricey, but well worth the investment.

Update Log

Date Version Changelog
Jul 2021 2 Added critical damage table and captain’s chart
Sep 2007 1 Original release

24 Comments

  • phill_nz says:

    cool writeups and surprising we never met i was in sydney from late 80s till 2000 and the regular gaming circuit is pretty small spartans etc
    i took my models to a mate not long ago . thought i had 60 odd but counted over 200 mow figures .. still missing elves emp greatship and the bretts .. plus a few odd others ( yeh im still pretty proud of my collection of mow ).. your articles have made up my mind to get back into it .. thanks !!

  • julien says:

    Thanks for sharing this beautiful work, I have worked 2 years in a GW store in Nice (France) and I agree that Man O’ War is my all time best game they have done, have all the fleet and still enjoy it after 15 years !

  • Tom says:

    How does Dreadfleet compare to this game?

    ThanksM

    • Universal Head says:

      They’re very different. Man O’ War was the first and designe as a complete naval miniatures wargame with fleets from all the races of the Warhammer world. Dreadfleet is a game with very specific individual ships, each representing different Warhammer races, and a more restrictive set of scenarios. The former is a much more flexible, wide-ranging and interesting naval miniatures system. The later is much more luck-based, scenario-based, and restrictive.

  • Nick says:

    Thank you very much that you are still updating MoW files. Pure classic.

  • Where do I find the good ol’ Upgrade decks? I can’t find them ANYWHERE ;-;

    • Upgrade decks? What are those again?

      • You get one card from the deck free with your admiral’s ship, and can pay for extras at like 25-50 a pop. It’s mentioned in the rulebook, but not in the card stock (tokens and ship reference) printout sheet I found.

        • Sorry, I haven’t got my copy with me. Anyway, this is a rules summary, and despite my reworking of the ship card designs, my goal isn’t to reproduce all the game components here.

        • andrewgivens1975 says:

          If you’re still searching for an answer, three years later, they are called ‘Man o’War Cards’ and were 25 pts each, divided into four ‘suits’ (Crew, Guns, Hull and Special); each Mo’W could have up to one of each suit, but you paid for your cards and then drew them at random from the deck, so you could end up with too many of one type (and thus a redundant card with no ship to be used on) if you spent too many points on them.
          I still have the original deck. Can help you with details if you wish.

  • Scott Di Bartolo says:

    I’m so happy to still see these here! I forgot you had added all the additional House Rules to the summary as well. We should have done all the custom player designed ships at the time so people could easily have printed them up to use too. GREAT WORK PETER!

  • Aengus O'Sullivan says:

    Great work thanks, dug out my game and models today with my 4yr old son, a little premature but really looking forward to playing this again!

  • Ralf says:

    The rules reference would just need a couple things to be the only thing you need during the game: The critical damage chart and the “Captain’s Chart” (sub-table for criticals). Just noticed it during the last game, when I couldn’t find the critical chart reference. It was the only time I needed to go for the rulebook. 😀

  • Cam says:

    Hi, just wanted to say I name-dropped in you in my first YouTube video “How to Start Collecting Warhammer Man o’ War” at the 4:30 mark. Thanks for these cards and rules summary – every convention I’ve been to I’ve seen them in use by other MoW players.
    https://youtu.be/l2ESjnZKqzE?si=pJbf9fc3mAbziLYW

  • Valeria says:

    Hola, estoy comenzado a pintar mi primera flota de este juego, pero no logro encontrar un manual con todas las flotas, al estilo el libro que hay del Sr de los anillos. Alguien sabe donde puedo bajarlo?

    • Try Boardgamegeek , or find some Man O’ War Facebook or Reddit group, you’ll get far more people responding to your question than you will here. There’s no community of players monitoring this page.

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