COURSE TO BATTLE

Course to Battle: 3D Printable Naval Wargaming in the Age of Sail

Naval wargaming has a reputation for being fiddly, expensive and hard to get into. Course to Battle is our attempt at the opposite: a tabletop system where you print your own fleet, the rules reward positioning over bookkeeping, and getting started costs the price of a download and some resin.

The Galleons Edition covers the 15th to 17th centuries, an era of exploration, empire and maritime power, when a captain fought the wind as much as the enemy. It’s built to be quick to set up and easy to learn, which makes it work for a club night as well as a full campaign.

How it plays

The interesting thing about sailing warfare is that you don’t simply point your ship where you want to go. Wind direction dictates what’s possible, and a captain who ignores it ends up presenting his stern to an enemy broadside. Course to Battle builds that constraint into the core of the game, so manoeuvre becomes the decision that matters rather than a formality before the shooting starts.

Fleets are small enough to deploy in minutes and large enough that formation matters. Brigantines scout ahead of the line while the galleons come up behind them. Sloops dart between enemy ships looking for a gap. And coastal terrain gives you shallows, headlands and fortifications that turn open water into ground worth fighting over.

What’s in the collection

Ships of the line. Galleons as the heavy hitters, brigantines for scouting and screening, and sloops for the fast work. Each class handles differently, so fleet composition is a real decision rather than a shopping list.

Coastal terrain and scenery. Fortifications, lighthouses, islands and coastal features. In the age of sail a shore battery or a badly placed reef could decide an engagement before the fleets closed, and the terrain range exists to put that on the table.

Movement tools and game components. The rulers, templates and markers the system needs, printed alongside the fleet so everything comes from the same download.

The Galleons Edition is a foundation rather than a finished product. Further scenarios, content and expansions covering different historical periods are planned, so the system grows rather than sitting still.

Printing your fleet

Ships are unusually well suited to home printing. Hulls are large enough to print reliably, and most of a sailing vessel is clean geometry that resin handles without complaint. Around 0.03mm layer height is plenty for gaming, and a small squadron fits comfortably on a single plate.

Masts, spars and rigging points are the parts that need attention. They’re thin projections with very little mass, which makes them the usual failure point, so give them proper support and check orientation before you commit a plate.

FDM works better here than it does on figures, because a hull is exactly the kind of solid geometry filament likes. Plenty of people print the ships and terrain in PLA and reserve resin for the finer components.

Frequently asked questions

What file format do I receive?
STL, the standard format for 3D printable models, compatible with every slicer including ChiTuBox, Lychee, Cura and PrusaSlicer. Check the individual product page for what each pack includes.

My ship prints keep failing. What’s going wrong?
Usually one of four things: bed adhesion, wrong exposure time for your resin, insufficient or badly placed supports, or suction where a hollow model traps resin. On ships the masts and rigging points are the most common culprit because they’re thin projections with little mass anchoring them. Run a validation print to establish your baseline, then change one variable at a time.

Do I need to print terrain at the same scale as the ships?
For anything with a fixed reference, yes. Fortifications, lighthouses and harbour structures give the scale away if they’re wrong. Natural features like reefs and rocky outcrops have more latitude, since there’s no built-in size cue.

Can I sell ships I print from these files?
Not under a standard purchase, which covers personal use. Selling physical printed copies requires a separate commercial licence, available as its own product.

Subscribe and you may receive coupons and discounts