Man O'War

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This article is about the war game. For other uses, see Manowar (disambiguation).

Man O'War (also known as Manowar) is a now out-of-print table top war game by Games Workshop. The game was set in the same realm of Warhammer Fantasy as used for the Warhammer Fantasy Battle and included most of the factions from that setting.

The game name coming from "Man of war", it dealt with the sea battles of the Warhammer world; each player controlling a fleet of model ships. The game typically used a small number of models with from half a dozen to a dozen models per player. with each model having a corresponding template to record damage, crew levels, and outbreaks of fire, among other bookkeeping activitiesIn this regard, the game mechanics proved some limiting factors, .

Ships were split into three categories. Ships of the Line (squadrons of 3), Men O'War (large, single vessels) and Independents (smaller, but still singular, vessels). By the time the supplements had been published Man O'War supported the following fleets:

The Empire
Bretonnians
Orcs
Dark Elves
Dwarfs
High Elves
Chaos Plaguefleets (Slaanesh, Khorne, Nurgle, and Tzeentch)
Norsca
Chaos Dwarfs
Skaven
Pirate fleets of Sartosa

The boxed game included a number of plastic models (rowed galleys), sufficent to learn the basics of play in scenarios between "pirates" and "the Empire" but the other ships in the Empires fleet and those for the other races were white metal models. These came in small boxes rather than blister packs. Each box had the metal parts for the model ship (or ships - smaller ships came three to a box) and printed sails and flags with plastic masts (as applicable). These miniatures are now considered "out of print". The boxed game contained land features in the form of printed card shapes as well as the printed templates.

Two boxed expansions were released for the game: Plague Fleet and Sea of Blood. These expanded the setting with the rules for the other races and magical effects including the sea monsters which could be summoned. Following the release of these supplements a series of articles which provided additional rules for Man O'War were published in issues the Citadel Journal. Most notable was the article published in Citadel Journal Number 6 (of the 2nd series) which provided rules for the Undead fleet.