I just printed out the new Far Flung Seas (FFS) book. And, once more, I am just bowled over by the lack of proofreading for the Victory at Sea series. Others have complained about the lists, and omissions for this supplement. I can handle that - that is a design or research decision.

But why can't anyone just READ the final copy?

The Italian "Libia" class is a Raid P/L just like the pre-dreadnaughts? The Faa' di Bruno monitor is helpfully rated as ??? I could name others...but then I see the P/L of many ships differ depending on which section you are reading.

The Austrian "Admiral Spaun" light cruiser, for example, is described Raid in its individual stats on page 9, but as Skirmish on page 3 (which is almost certainly correct). (The aforementioned Libia is Raid on both page 50 and 55.)

As for the French...the only P/L listing is the summary on page 12. Nothing is indicated in the individual ship class descriptions. Interestingly enough, French destroyers are so good as to be classed as Battle level. Le Fantasque indeed!

Interestingly enough, FFS still has the turning rating? Why? Every single vessel is rated as 3. I'm not questioning the ability of anything from a destroyer to a tramp steamer to turn that sharply, because in the time and ground scale of AOD they easily can. I'm just asking why bother with a rating at all?

I just dislike spending money on books with blatantly obvious proofreading errors that I managed to catch within ten minutes. At least there is no "See Page XXX" as in AOD.

On the bright side...

1. Austrians and Italians! Even since reading Carter's "Naval Wargames" as a teen, the WWI Adriatic theatre has fascinated me!

2. Optional signalling rules for multi-player games. I once played an age of sail game where the admiral could only communicate using the coloured naval signal flags. It was a lot of fun, and I am sure these will do the same.

3. Interesting ideas for more detailed campaigns, including a sample Goeben chase.

4. Rules for smaller torpedo craft. As in...MAS boats! Let the Austrians beware!

Overall I think the purchase is worth it, but letting simple errors creep in left a certain bad taste in my mouth.

(Oh - I also got some unformed document errors using Adobe Acrobat. The program locked up on the final two pages. It works fine in Okular and Evince, but when I got it printed out at my local Staples store, I found those last two pages didn't print out. So I'm guessing their print drivers had trouble too).

A helpful review- on both the good and bad points of the book.
This goes a long way to actually helping me decide whether I want to purchase this now or wait till the newer, corrected version comes out. I'm on the path towards the latter now. The editing mistakes, in the wake of Age of Dreadnoughts, sound heartbreaking.
On the upside, the MAS boats and very detailed campaign rules make this a 'must eventually get' book. The signal flag rules sound interesting, but only in the abstract. I mean, if we accurately simulated the difficulties of ship-to-ship communication during the pre-radio days it would be hard enough to keep a good formation, much less conduct successful combat actions.

Sorry WWI is not my strength but since I have been spearheading the new WWII book I feel obligated to help here. I talked to Matt and I will hopefully be supporting a correction and update page in the forum. I myself am going to work very hard to make sure the new WWII book has little or no mistakes or corrections needed. As far as proof reading I cant say I looked over the far flung seas but not in detail since I mostly helped stat out french ships only. I assumed it would be done at the offices.

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"Official Naval Boffin"