Swan of the East:
Publisher’s Preview
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
February 2024

Great War at Sea: Cruiser Warfare is all about German commerce raiding on the high seas in the early months of World War One, and focused on the German East Asia Cruiser Squadron’s quixotic attempt to make its way home. Yet it includes pieces for German commerce raiders that took to the world ocean after those chaotic times, and we tell their story in the scenario/history book, Swan of the East.

Swan of the East uses pieces from Cruiser Warfare, and the operational maps from Second World War at Sea: Eastern Fleet and Horn of Africa; it doesn’t have a map or pieces of its own. Like our other scenario/history books, it uses those elements to tell an expanded story.

Cruiser Warfare is unique in the Great War at Sea universe; it’s a strategic rather than an operational game. The map covers all of the oceans of Planet Earth, with the Germans seeking to move across half the Earth’s surface while seeking out and destroying Allied merchant shipping (with a few other scattered cruisers as well as the East Asia Squadron). Cruiser Warfare is a completely different game than the rest of the Great War at Sea series: Swan of the East lets you play with those fleets on an operational map just like the other Great War at Sea games.

Swan of the East studies several German commerce-raiding efforts, which makes for a cat-and-mouse game with the Allied player. The commerce raider will almost never have the combat power to stand and fight with the Allied ships hunting her (“almost” carrying a lot of weight); the object is to avoid battle and prey on the helpless.

We published a book on a very similar theme in 2012, Bay of Bengal, and came back with a heavily revised edition in 2020, rather prosaically called Bay of Bengal Second Edition. Bay of Bengal’s second edition brought the scenarios into story-arc format (helping to tell the story, with each operational scenario having at least one battle scenario to accompany it) and in line with the Great War at Sea games then currently in print.

Emden steams away after shelling Madras, in Hans Bordt’s drawing.

Since then, we of course have brought out the Second Edition of the Great War at Sea series rules, which both requires a scenario overhaul to bring them in line with the new edition, and opens some additional real estate as most of what were optional rules before are now part of the core rules and don’t need to be in the book. Cruiser Warfare, the core game for Swan of the East/Bay of Bengal, has undergone a major revision of its own giving it more ships than it had in the first edition, and more ships means more fun for Swan of the East.

At the center of our story is the Swan of the East herself, the German light cruiser Emden. She sank two Allied warships and sank or captured 17 merchant ships during her three-month rampage, doing most of her damage in the Bay of Bengal, the area covered by Eastern Fleet’s operational map. The map works just fine for either game system, so you can move about using the regular Great War at Sea rules with no problem. The Swan gets a whole chapter to herself, both her actual operations and battles plus those that could have happened (in a hide-and-seek game, “could have happened” takes on added importance), including her raids on Penang and Madras and her final battle with the Australian cruiser Sydney. Those also can take place in Cruiser Warfare (if the Central Powers player decides to detach Emden for an individual raid) but that’s a very strategic game rather than the operational game presented here. And this chapter does tell the story, at least of the Bay of Bengal/Indian Ocean part of Emden’s cruise (which includes almost all of the exciting parts).

Emden was not the only cruiser operating on her own against Allied commerce; the light cruiser Königsberg based in German East Africa made a cruise against British trade off the Horn of Africa, but only managed to sink one ship. Boiler trouble limited her effectiveness, but she did shoot up the old British protected cruiser Pegasus, caught at anchor in Zanzibar’s harbor.

Light cruiser Königsberg surveying the Rufiji Delta, July 1914.

Since we have a very fine operational map of the Horn of Africa, found in Second World War at Sea: Horn of Africa, Königsberg gets her own chapter, too (this is new to Swan of the East). The hapless cruiser gets to try again in the Gulf of Aden, and we also look at the potential operations of a stronger East African Squadron (which is an option in Cruiser Warfare).

There are four German commerce raiders included in Cruiser Warfare that see no action there, as they entered the fray after 1914: the converted steamers Wolf, Leopard and Moewe and the sailing ship (yes, the sailing ship) Seeadler. The raider Wolf, an armed merchant cruiser that arrived in the Indian Ocean in 1917, sank multiple merchant ships during her lengthy cruise there. She also laid mines off the ports of Colombo and Bombay. Her scenarios are of the cat-and-mouse variety; though well-armed for a merchant cruiser, she’s not going to stand up for long against a purpose-built warship. They collectively share a full chapter of their own, too; this has been expanded for Swan of the East beyond the scenario revisions.

Adding the Horn of Africa map to the scenario mix also adds many additional possibilities. In 1914, Turkish railway projects had not reached Yemen or Basra, though they did have a connection to Aqaba at the head of the Red Sea. That would not have given the Germans a secure base for the cruisers of the East Asia Squadron, but they did have the option of attacking Allied commerce in the Gulf of Aden had they taken the western route toward home. That becomes a different calculation should Britain remain neutral, allowing the Germans to escape through the Suez Canal for either Constantinople or the Austrian naval base at Pola. So we also have a small scenario sequence in which the German East Asia Cruiser Squadron attempts to cross the Indian Ocean with Britain neutral but offering use of her ports to the French and Russians. Unlike the case in the other scenarios, this time the Germans have the firepower to turn on their tormentors and inflict some real damage.

Swan of the East is an opportunity to take the game play of Cruiser Warfare from its world-wide strategic map to a more familiar operational context. You get a lot more game action, a fair amount of history, and most of all multiply the fun.

You can order Bay of Bengal right here.

Sign up for our newsletter right here. Your info will never be sold or transferred; we'll just use it to update you on new games and new offers.

Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and award-winning journalist, he has published over 100 books, games and articles on historical subjects. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children and his dog, Leopold.