The Action of La Florida, December 13, 1562

Today, in a bit of a change for the annual club Regatta, we played Mark Ritchie's Fighting Instructions instead of the usual Limeys and Slimeys. To be fair, this is because it's part of Mark's 1562 campaign set in our home state of Florida and using his rules - and Limeys and Slimeys can be swingy, especially in boarding combat wherein either you win big or lose big.

That said, we had some of our own amazing incidents...

7.5x12 foot table - a bit smaller and more cramped than
at Das Krieg Haus 1, but there is stuff still to unpack, and 
either move or sell, that will free it up.

Closeup of a brig, though all ships were assumed to have three masts.

The scenario.

The French are Huguenot while the pirates are Dutch, so it seemed fair for me (the pirates) to ally with their fellow Protestants and share any treasure won.

A typical ship card. Note that
"hits" are fewer than in L&S,
so this ship has only six crew,
five hull points and seven sail points.

At bottom left are the sailing points - with wind on a given quarter, you get that many moves in a turn, each of three inches. so a small ship with six move points and the wind on its aft quarter could move 18". One of these moves can be spent to "back," or not move, while 60-degree turns can be taken with increasing point expenditure. Minimal turns are free. So, for example, the above craft could move 15" and make a 60-degree turn, or 9" and a 120-degree turn, but could not turn 180 degrees because it does not have seven points to spend.

The game is semi-simultaneous, with each move "segment" taken at the same time and then firing altogether. Wind is highly variable, and can put you in irons unexpectedly, in which case you can make a single 60 degree move that turn in order to continue moving next turn. Otherwise, you drift 3". Ships without steerage way also drift, though with the gulf stream rather than the wind.

One of my pirate brigs, with a carronade two centuries ahead of its time!
Figures in our sea games are always cosmetic.

My ships did not come onto the board until about turn four, which set the stage for my participation - mostly on the edges and out of the way. While I could come on in any corner of the board I liked, one was too far away, one would have gotten in the way of the French, and one occupied by the Spanish.

A couple turns in. The Spanish (upper right) must shepherd
their treasure ship to the other short edge of the board. The
French (left) set out to block them. My pirates are not yet
on the board, just out of the way of the moves. (incidentally,
gun range is 60".)

Two of my ships, with the Pirate Queen (perhaps a
young Grainne O'Malley?) in the larger.

Huguenot flagship. 

Spanish about to take the long way round.

Opening fire - my bowchasers
vs. John's broadside.

The squadrons close.

I get a couple reinforcements.

I had one bit of luck - rolled a 12 for damage on a hull hit to the enemy's next-largest ship. This is a critical, and I ended up doing 2d6 hull point damage. You'll have noticed that few ships have more than a dozen HP, and after a few turns of fire have lost some. I rolled boxcars.

The ship didn't sink outright or explode, but its crew were now too busy pumping to fight. They struck, giving us half their victory points (full if we ever got around to boarding, which didn't seem likely).

I attempt to grapple and board.

It should be noted that at this point, the pirate ship to center left has one hull point remaining. My intent was to abandon it, board and seize the white ship it is hitting here.

One - I fail the grapple roll.

Two, a shot into my hull sinks my command ship outright.

"But the quarter that we gave them,
We sank them in the sea..."

The oncoming Don flagship. Behind it can be seen a
merchantman proxying for the ship I knocked out earlier.

Crossing of the ways. We didn't have period French flags...
Anyone know what the Huguenots' looked like?

So by this point I'd lost two ships, but they were back on the board
as reinforcements - behind the Spanish at this point.

The Spanish and French were heavily engaged in a messy
melee in the center of the board while two of my small ships
(upper right) were basically running away while the ones at
the bottom right are trying to catch up with the battle.

While both sides had equal honours in terms of damage, the Spaniards were cut off from their objective and increasingly too badly damaged to escape. So we halted early and agreed the French had won. I had not actually seen much action other than losing two ships by fairly bad luck, but my lucky shot early in the game had stopped up the Spanish strategy by a) getting in the way and b) losing a shield for their treasure galleon, which we hadn't actually taken yet but sure as hell wasn't getting away.

I spent much of the game in irons and just firing pot shots, but the Regatta is more about socializing than winning. We had a couple new members, Mike and Milton. Milton has just retired from California and edited a couple old colonial-wargaming journals, so that is an extra vote in addition to mine and Jeff's. The catch is that he plays The Men Who Would Be Kings rather than The Sword and the Flame, but I have long wanted to try the former and, as I mentioned in the previous post, am thinking about its relative The Pikeman's Lament. So I look forward to the opportunity.

Will not be gaming next week as I'm at work, but might get in some Battlefleet Gothic after Christmas. I also dropped by the game store to supply some hill-painting. Picked up green and brown speedpaint, and a nice broad scenery brush. May try that tomorrow.

Last but not least, part one of Oriskany Jim's Christmas Carnage:

Slow Blogging

Sometimes I do get some gaming in, but I'm unmotivated to write it up. Work has been tiring and depressing lately, and often when I get home or have a day off, I waste it (well, unless excessive reading doesn't count). A couple weeks ago I spent a Sunday at Das Krieg Haus - possibly for the last time, as the club is moving to a smaller space which will at least be closer to home for me. I got in a game and a half and have let the photos age long enough; let's see if I can muster up enough memory to do them justice.

The first is a Crimean War scenario taken from Wargames Illustrated issue 18, in which a British brigade held off a Russian division for some time among broken terrain. I was asked if Charge! would work for it, but given the figures available (we would need 32 to a battalion) and the genericness of the units, I doubted it. So we went with The Sword and the Flame instead, which has the great advantage of familiarity.

On the right, the British position, as the Russians are
set up on the far side of the river.

Regiments of twenty-four plus a gun each.

Stolid Russian columns

A handful of Russian cavalry

I got a Rifle regiment to command.

The Russian players started by sending their minimal cavalry up our left, keeping my partner busy whilst the infantry crossed the river. With 20" musketry (24" for my rifles) we could only respond with cannon for some time.

Laborious crossing.

Here's where things really went wrong for us:

The two British regiments, on separate hills, were too far apart to support each other. When the Russians went for my partner in overwhelming force, there wasn't much I could do to help. I moved a bit down the hill as they got closer, but one of the columns moved aside to hold me off and my vaunted rifle fire didn't do enough damage even with close range cannon fire to assist. If I'd vacated the hill, I'd have been caught between by a Russian column.

The Russian objective was to take only one hill; for a fairer game it might have been both. Our opponents concentrated entirely on my partner while I took potshots at the rearguard.

Here a column comes at me in "the old style", but my
dice failed me and I didn't do enough damage to make
them take a morale check.

The British take the charge, despite high Russian casualties.

Closeup CC.

Russians hold the hill...

... Thanks largely to my immobility on the next one.

"Oriskany Jim" has been demoing his own space game, Darkstar, at the club for awhile, and this is the first time I got to try it with me and another Jennifer, versus Jim and Mark. It appears to be effectively WWII in the 26th century, as the sides are generally the same:

A typical ship plan, in plastic
for wet-erase marking.

Damage is straightforward; the blank squares are pure armor, but once two of them are destroyed, further hits on that row or column start taking out critical systems.

The game is played on a hex-grid, and marked up like
a WWII battle-map to track movement.

Actual physics are adhered to, in movement at any rate - movement points are dedicated to slowing, speeding up, or making turns, so momentum is important and can, for example, carry you into an opponent's line of fire if you aren't careful.

Velocity is thus tracked; individual
ships move according to an initiative roll.

I command the American destroyer, which has two
banks of torpedoes (the right triangles at its bow).

This ship has taken a lot of
damage from head-on, and
deep enough to hit the bridge!

I left early owing to another event I wanted to make, but the game was enjoyable enough and fairly easy to play with its designers right at hand.

So that's one day's gaming ... two weeks ago. Besides that, I've read as usual - currently some Charles Darwin, and Christopher Duffy's classic study of Frederick's army. I would like to get back to Charge!, but still have Kill Team stuff on my table. See you next time.

The action of ... somewhere, somewhen

Had an excellent annual naval bash with the good old beer'n'pretzels game, Limeys and Slimeys. Unfortunately ... I forgot to take my notes with me when I left. And by the time I remembered, I couldn't even turn around, because whilst we were playing, an accident and attendant police and police tape had blocked the entrance I normally take into and out of the complex where the club is.

So this report will be as incoherent as usual. At least I got plenty of pictures.

The field of battle. One player wears an appropriate shirt for the occasion.

The smallish British flagship Ajax, leading the van towards...

Two Spanish relative heavies (22 guns each).

Our British line jogs to port, intending to get to the side
of the Spanish squadron and fight just half of them
with all of our own. The center ship is a 26-gun frigate.

The Spaniards forge ahead at 12" a turn...

And start angling to take the flagship under fire.

Ajax starts taking hits.

It is at this point that our Commodore reveals the rest of his cunning plan: Cut the Spanish line. 

But the Spanish go next (turn order is random each turn)
and grapple at the bows. Despite a gallant fight, Ajax
is swept and taken by boarding.

Despite this, the following ships - partner Francisco with the big frigate and me with another sloop and a bomb vessel (present for no apparent reason, as there is nothing for it to bom) follow their commander's instructions and continue the "break-in."

Frigate nearly out of view to the left, with my sloop about to turn.
The frigate is about to blast its broadside down the length of the
Spaniard for her temerity.

A bit of a mess as our frigate cuts the Spanish line,
which includes our own flagship which we're trying
to sink by hull hits to prevent them carrying it off.

But what's this on the horizon?

A very short horizon, as I never saw them coming after
my bomb vessel.

I am beleaguered and bracketed!

But, much to their chagrin as they really wanted to board and take me as a prize, instead they rolled eight hull hits for damage and sank me outright! (You get double damage for crossing the T, and at 3" range, you hit on 2+.) So ... no bomb vessel, but surprisingly a little cathartic.

Above, a typical ship card. My HMS Cleopatra has 12 broadside guns, two chasers, ten hull points, eight rigging points, and 36 crew, including four officers and eight Marines. The latter two have double value in boarding actions, while Marines may fire muskets at enemy crew when in close range. While I only had six guns to the broadside, most of my (long-range, 5+ to hit) broadsides got three or four hits - until the very last one which returned the balance by getting zero.

The rest of the Arab squadron enters the board.
Fortuitously, the loss of the bomb ship has
opened up a target for my aft chasers.

Closeup on a Dhow/Xebec/Whatever.

Still exchanging broadsides. There were no alliances
of convenience - the enemy of our enemy is still our enemy.

Because the British have cut the Spanish in two,
the forward Spanish inadvertently slam into the
oncoming Arabs, whose smaller but much nimbler
vessels are cutting up the already hurt starboard vessel.

At the other end of the table, the British 26 and smaller
Spaniard are slugging away at each other.

Another good shot of the Arabs. The full rigged ships
have resin hulls, these are wood with sheet metal under
the decks to magnetize the crew to them. Everything has
removable flags to change allegiance according to scenario.

Spaniards entangled.

The smallest Spaniard about to ram a dhow.
Ships must move, and must spend the first half
of their movement going straight ahead,
so even at half move (3") she'll be entangled.

Meanwhile the sluggers hammer away.

While on the far broadside, the frigate indiscriminately
batters both opposing sides.

A closeup of my Cleopatra as she tries to get into
position to support the frigate, unfortunately turning
slightly into the wind in the process and being badly slowed.

Despite the crew figures left aboard, this Spaniard
is basically crewless and gunless.

Several of the Arabs were towing extra fighters who
sadly never got into action.

Unsuccessfully trying to get some of the spoils.

Last turn: I finally cross the Spanish T while the other remaining Spaniard is bracketed. The "dagoes" have had the worst of the battle. 

The Brits have also lost two ships, while the Arabs, concentrating on the Spaniards, failed to get much loot. But as usual, all players (including two newbie guests) had a glorious time. Limeys and Slimeys is one of those games we can all play without thinking, moving ships around and tossing dice while at the same time just having conversation, eating pizza, drinking beer and all around just enjoying ourselves. We made a couple converts into the bargain. This is what gaming should be about.

Pete Panzeri's Bulge game has been postponed, so my next visit to Das Krig Haus will probably be in the New Year. See you then.