THURSDAY: SAILS OF GLORY, ISLAND HO!

This game was related to the previous two games we have played and follows on from http://www.sailsofglory.org/showthread.php?2189-After-Action-Report-with-Pics .

 

The French frigates Unite' and Hermione' have been shadowing the Vanguard and Spartiate, the damaged british ships of the line. They lose contact with Vanguard and move closer to try and regain contact. Spartiate turns in an attempt to drive them off.

Two views of the inital set up. The islands are made from Hexon 2.

Spartiate tries to draw the French away from Vanguard which is in the lee of one of the islands deperately trying to make repairs to make her seaworthy and is, as yet undetected. A sudden change of wind scatters the French.

 These pictures show Hermoine' chasing down Spartiate and managing to get a super effective raking shot. Vanguard can now be seen. She managed to make repairs and is now under way. We had to make slight changes to the island at this point. A change of wind meant that my two planned manouvers meant that I was sailing Spartiate directly aground. It did not occur to me to adjust my sails. If I had, the situation would not have arisen.

 Unite' adds to the misery of Spartiate by adding a partial broadside to the accumulated damage. Unite' now tries to outrun the pursuing Spartiate. Hermoine' can be seen managing to avoid a grounding. In the far distance. Vanguard can be seen making her escape.

The pictures above show the closing stages of the engagement. The two French frigates slowly, but surely, close in on Spartiate. Unite' exchanges a broadside with her before Spartiate barges Hermoine' out of the way. Despite taking fire from the heavily damaged Spartiate, the two frigates batter the ship of the line into submission, and she strikes her colours.

 

We played this game using the full rules, as close as possible, as there were only four ships. Rick was the rules guru and handled Vanguard. I took Spartiate. Neil was back from UAE and handled the French.

Using two cards to plan moves was difficult enough without wind changes intervening. That was mostly responsible for the grounding, although I have now learnt the importance of using minimum sail when sailing in the vicinity of islands!

 

More photos and commentray can be found here:

 

http://www.sailsofglory.org/showthread.php?2235-After-Action-Report-Part2-with-pics

SAILS OF GLORY: DESPERATE ENCOUNTER.

For this weeks Thursday game, Rick decided on a Sails Of Glory game.

The scenario was based on our last battle. HMS Defence had struck her colours and was sinking. Before she sank, the French found a chest containing gold and despatches to the Dutch government. The British had to stop the French from getting back to port and making use of the information..

 

The Terpischore, in the van, having rendezvoued with Vanguard, Spartiate and Concorde, tries to intercept Le Genereux (Le G), which has rendezvoued with Commerce de Bourdeax (CdB), Hermoine and Unite.

This shot is from early in the game, the British approaching in line ahead, loaded with double shot, looking to keep the new French arrivals away from Le G. This appears to have unnerved Unite. The frigate almost colliding with CdB. Hermione is advancing on her own.

Hermoine's lone attack continues. The two British frigates are drawn off. Terpishcore takes a broadside, but cannot reply as the range is too great for double shot.

CdB and Unite close on Terpischore.

In this picture, Le G arrives to port of Terpischore. CdB is on the unfortunate frigate's starboard. Will it survive the fire of two ships of the line? The British ships at the bottom are Vanguard, Spartiate with Concorde bringing up the rear. Unite is the French frigate at the top of the picture.

Terpischore and Le G exchange partial broadsides. Terpischore takes proportionately more damage, despite firing double shot at Le G. With a mast destroyed, Terpischore limps away out of the fight..

CdB sails between Vanguard and Concorde, whilst Le G rakes Vanguard with a damaging full broadside. Vanguard also takes a broadside from CdB, the combined effect causing heavy damage. The effect of A full broadside of double ball from Vanguard and a partial broadsde from Concorde was devastating enough for CdB to strike it's colours.

However, with all the British ships now damaged, three seriously, they used a favourable wind to put distance between them and the French. With only Le G damaged, the two frigates would be able to fire from a safe distance and make their objective almost impossible to achieve.

More photos and more info can be foubd here http://www.sailsofglory.org/showthread.php?2189-After-Action-Report-with-Pics

Rick had streamlined the rules to allow four ships a side. We only used one manouvre card, we had to change the way the counters were used on the ships templates as there are only enough for four ships in the starter set. We were not able to finish the game in an evening. We got far enough to decide an outcome: a marginal French victory, in the context of the scenario.

I have used the same tactics in the first two games playing the British: loading with double shot to get full effect with my broadsides. This leads to close actions and heavily damaged ships. I may experiment with different tactics in the next game.

I enjoyed both games that I have played. I don't feel that the changes to the rules had much effect on the game. The next game will, no doubt, continue the ongoing narrative.

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?!?