The British cut across the French as they head out to see.
Stephen N, as first to arrive was given command of the French who were on a mission to the Americas to retrieve an errant family member of one of the political class. Utmost discretion was required.
Mark B commanded the blockading Royal Navy. Interception was a given, but could they put a stop to this French adventure?
The French got in first, blasting up the lead British ship.
As this was a very simple game to get back into the rules, the Frigates were Q3 C3, the 3rd Rates Q3 C4 and the French Flagship, a 1st Rate at Q5 C5. They all had chaser guns rated at C1 and either Master Gunner or Trained Gun Crew ability.
Damage has been marked with cotton wool, as I'd left black dice at home and couldn't find my other markers that I would have used for this purpose.
As sailing ships keep moving there is little room for maneuver, although the French did try a bit.
The perpetual movement produces lots of opportunities for collisions, but I ruled ships would veer away before crashing into another ship as they are not built for ramming and also really don't take up all the space represented by their model.
I need to give this a bit more thought and I'm tending to have damaged ships to be at risk of collision and/or fouling.
The French are through.
The British fire had been abysmal. I had forgotten to bring my dice and we were using Mark B's sea-sickness green dice and they served him abominably.
The French will escape.
Will there be a chase?
Will they encounter other Royal Navy patrols on the High Seas?
What about the return journey?
I did make use of the Sails of Glory counters. I now think I best actually do an inventory of the counters and their meanings. This requires more work, but an initial allocation matches well with the Critical Damage table.
Captain hit
Grappled
Magazine explodes
Fire
Fouled
Rigging damaged
Sinking
Rudder damage
Taking on water
Nice simple stats and the game looks great!
ReplyDeleteIt does take a couple of games to get back into it if you haven't played for a bit, though.
I'd promised the game would be over in an hour which also drove me to keep things simple. As it was we took an hour and a half, what with chatting, drinking, vaping and visual distractions from the nearby pool table plus me looking up the rules.
ReplyDeleteBut it means I'm now putting in the effort for next week's big game.
I’m unfamiliar with the rules but I do like nap naval games! Fun scenario! But those poor frigates surrounded by SOL were in for a hard time! 😀
ReplyDeleteShips from SoG? I too need to devise some counters/ markers for my AoS games for when sails / masts fall and such.
Galleys and Galleons is a fun, simple set of rules, but are incredibly flexible. I've had some excellent ancient galley games with over 20 ships a side as well as some small scale games like this one. I've also gamed with models ranging from 15mm to 6mm (my slowly expanding fleet of Roman Seas paper galleys), these Sails of Glory ships (around 1/900th scale from memory) and the aforementioned ancient galleys which were about 2mm scale if I remember correctly.
DeleteWith the 15mm and 6mm vessels counters are not to intrusive and can actually be done by adjusting the model perhaps (still working on this). I had hoped for more versatility with the SoG models, but sadly they are rather fixed. The French 1st rate, Imperial, does have a removable mast, but that is only how I repaired after it broke (which reminds me one of the frigates has a bendy mast that is about to snap off. With some care I can replace the base with a bit of brass tubing and shape the remaining mast to slot back into it.)
Counters are a necessary evil unless you want to keep records. I find you can get a lot of use out of cotton wool, especially useful if you want to use the optional reloading rule to show that a ship has fired its guns.
With the ANF we've been working through various Napoleonic naval rules. I've had Osprey's Fighting Sail recommended and have also had a go with It's Warm Work. Not familiar with AoS which I'm guessing is Age of Sail and seems to be a PC game based on quick Google search.
Sorry! Yes, I meant AoS as Age of Sail but like a genre, like when we say WW2 or ECW. I’m still newish to the whole sailing period and have some posts on my blog. So far my game of choice is Post Captain.
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