Imperial vs Royal George

Last night at the club we had a game of Sails of Glory, my new French First Rate "Imperial" took on Stephen N's "Royal George".  Both sides had a frigate accompanying the main battleship and Steve B captained the British frigate.  We used the advanced rules and any optional rules that applied.  Collisions were changed as follows: ships that collide have the wind knocked out of their sails and are set to "struck sails"; entanglement is checked for.

No running from this fight, the ships head straight towards each other.

The French frigate gets the first shot in against the British frigate.  Little damage is inflicted.  The British do not return fire...

Deafening cannonades as the two British ships, each loaded with double shot, unload into the French frigate.  The French return fire on the Royal George.

Telling musketry from the Royal George hurts the Imperial.  The French frigate is destroyed.  The Royal George sustains significant damage, receiving two hull breaches that start filling her with water.  Nothing like a rake to create devastation.  The Royal George also had a lot of crew killed...

And was ripe for boarding.  Not easy to pull off, but the Imperial's marines swarmed aboard the Royal George and finished off her crew just before it finished sinking.  The yellow dot is British frigate's attempt to launch a lifeboat in a bid to create a rule on the spot that would allow them to save their capital ship. Ha ha.

The British frigate sailed around getting in pop shots at the Imperial, but being murdered by the Imperial's heavier weight of fire.  The frigate suffered multiple mast damage and became uncontrollable as it was taken aback(*).

The Imperial puts the British frigate out of her misery.

I've now lost track of the number of games I've played of Sails of Glory, which is a good sign I've become comfortable with them.  I am still working on rebasing and detailing my models.  The next big step will be a game with more than two ships per side.  Even with just two or three players I find the game needs controlling and I tend to act between benevolent dictator and orchestral conductor as I wave my measuring stick around coordinating player actions.

(*) It wasn't clear what to do when taken aback when you have mast damage.  We settled on randomly selecting the taken aback card.