The Marshal Petain Gentleman's Club: Death of a Scotsman

Once again Lucky Jack Quilp has demonstrated a knack for locating wrecks; last month it was The Dutchman, this month The Chancellor. With the aid of a couple of longboats it should be easy to liberate the stricken vessel of its cargo of contraband whisky. However, unknown to our hero, the leader of the Scottish militia, Ebeneezer Balfour, has had his spies and informants abroad and has wind of Quilp's intentions. Raising the miltia, he intends to get to the whisky first.

The first game of turn two in my Blood and Plunder solo campaign was to be the 'Plunder' scenario from the 'No Peace Beyond the Line' supplement. It was also to be the first outing for The Chancellor - kindly donated by Uriah the boat-builder.

The Chancellor - stuck on the shoals

The Scottish force consisted of Ebeneezer Balfour with 4 European Soldiers and 4 European Sailors in one longboat. A second boat carried 5 European Soldiers and 8 European Militia. This was a 100 point force, as calculated by the nifty online Force Builder on the Firelock Games website.

The Scots

This time I experimented with the number of figures: for 15mm games, on land, I prefer to substitute bases of two figures and just count the number of bases. I usually revert to counting actual figures for games involving boats due to space restraints. This time I went for bases; it almost works for my newer figures on square bases but unfortunately the older figures on rounds don't quite work.

The English

The English force consisted of Lucky Jack Quilp with 5 Freebooters and 4 Sea Dogs in one longboat. The second boat contained another 5 Freebooters and 4 Sea Dogs. I had 2 points in hand so I added a musician to Lucky Jack's group; I actually had a buccaneer drummer that I used to represent the musician. The musician would give the command unit the Inspiring trait - although I'd actually forgot that Lucky Jack is inspiring anyway. However, all was not lost as the musician also inflicts Terror on the first turn - i.e. all the enemy units have to roll a resolve test. Mind you they all passed anyway - still serious drumming!
Also pregame, Lucky Jack had two tactics to play and Balfour one. Most of the tactics are more appropriate for land battles but I chose Undisciplined Louts and High Tolerance. I diced for the Scots choice and came up with High Tolerance - which effectively countered my Undisciplined Louts tactic (this would have seen the Scots have to test for drunkeness). Obviously the Scots are hardened drinkers -who said typecasting?

The English deployed with both boats using the sweeps with the Sea Dogs assigned to the task. The Scots had one boat with the sailors on the sweeps but the second boat, wishing to maximize its firepower, deployed with the sails set.

Turn one saw the Scots draw a Joker, thereby initiating a random event. A wind change - bad news for the Scottish boat under sail.
In the initial moves both sides converged upon each other and exchanged some long range musketry. The Scots sailing boat also began to turn away from the wind.

End of Turn One - Scots boats in trouble

Turn two also began bad for the Scots as their boats collided.

Make way - no you make way!

With one boat struggling under sail, Balfour's men made an extra effort at the sweeps and surged ahead.

Balfour makes for the Chancellor

With one boat downwind and out of the fight, Balfour was surrounded by the English boats and his Soldiers gunned down, leaving him with a small group of sailors.

Balfour under fire

The English then seized the initiative, boarding the Chancellor with the Freebooters and locating the loot. They then passed this overboard to the Sea Dogs in the longboat.

English about to board

However, the Scots militia had eventually struggled up to a position downwind of the Chancellor from where they could bring their massed firepower to bear. A bit of nifty shooting and the Sea Dogs were wiped out - leaving the loot unprotected in the bottom of the longboat!

Fire as she bears!

Not only that but Balfour had grappled the Chancellor from the bow and was about to lead his sailors in a last ditch boarding action. That is until Quilp, backing water, brought his longboat into a position where his Freebooters were firing at point blank range with ball and shot. With one final volley, the Sailors were no more and ex-captain Balfour was lying dead in the bottom of his boat.