DAY OF GAMES: SAILS OF GLORY AND COMBAT COMMANDER.

In the afternoon, after some lunch, we arrived at Rick's for a try out of Sails of Glory. This game uses the same basic game engine as Wings of War/Glory, Attack Wing and X-Wing, but for sailing ships.

Here is a view of the British vessels: The 3rd Rate Defence and Frigate Terpischore. The French Ships, frigate Courageuse  and ship of the line Genereux.

The wind gauage with a wind direction device, which indicates which direction the wind is hitting a ships sails and what movement rates to use.

This picture shows the ship record cards, which take up space, but are neccessary. We used a 6 x 4 ft table for a 4ft x 4ft playing area. 

 The French are running with the wind from left to right. The British are taken aback whilst manoeuvering into the wind. 

In true British style, I had loaded the ships with double shot. This has a short range compared to normal ball, so I tried to cross the T of the French to rake them and reduce my exposure to long range broadsides. This was partially successful as Terpischore managed to get a broadside off at Le Generaux.

 Defence and Courageuse accidentally become entangled. Defence takes fire from both French ships without being able to respond effectively. Terpischore is too far away to assist.

Defence breaks free and pours a broadside of double shot into Courageuse. This casuses so many casualties that the frigate strikes its colours. The second line down, with the blue, yellow and red counters, shows that all available crew are casualties.

 Le Genereaux and Terpischore exchanged broadsides at long range.

Le Genereaux and Defence become entangled. Despite taking a broadside from Terpischore, the crew of the French ship manage to make the Defence strike her colours with a combination of musketry and a sharp boarding action. Terpischore made her way from the scene, her captain not fancying the odds against a ship of the line.

We decided it was a French marginal victory. The game is quite involved but, I think, after a few games it will become second nature. Movement can be quite complex. The system uses manoevere decks, like the original Wings of War, with cards showing different rates of movement depending on attitude to the wind and damage taken. Getting your manoeuvre right, to do what you wanted to do, was bad enough, let alone trying to guess what your opponent was up to!

It was quite a tense game with the result in the balance till near the end.

 After a takeaway haddock supper, from the Ashvale, to finish the evening, we had a game of Combat Commander. The scenario was set during the Battle of the Bulge, and focussed on a clash between the 101st at Bastogne and a German mixed force over some supply gliders that had been dropped.

Five objective chits, representing the gliders, replaced the numbered objectives on the map. With a bit of random placement, three of the gliders were closer to the Germans albeit in the open and two easily accessible and near cover, closer to the US forces.

The game took longer than we expected and lasted past the scheduled 7 turns before the Germans won. It looked close at the end, but the fact that the Germans held three of the objectives, with much higher VP value than the two held by the 101st.

A whole 14 hours of wargaming. That is the equivalent of 4 weekday games nights! Good job they are so infrequent?!?