A Spot of Naval Gazing

 The last 2 club nights saw us indulging in a spot of naval gaming; always fun and something we should do more often.

First off was a fleet action using ancient galleys. During last year's lockdown I painted up a couple of fleets using Outpost Miniatures 1/3600th ships. I've never been happy with most naval rules that have a dozen or so models per side masquerading as a fleet of hundreds of ships; this way I get to deploy them in numbers that give a better impression of a fleet. I have 200 ships in my collection; still not quite a 1 to 1 representation but a respectable number nonetheless. Of course, using this many ships would require a different approach to normal and the rules need to be designed specifically for fleet actions.

When I started this project, the only suitable rules I was aware of were David Manley's 'Greek Fire and Roman Fury' which appeared in Wargames Illustrated in 2003. This uses stands of multiple based ships and a game engine based on Fire and Fury. I ran a test game and, although not totally convinced, reckoned it was a good starting point to work with. Fortuitously, an expanded version was released, last year, under the horrible title of 'He Hemetera Thalassa, Mare Nostrum'. The mixing of Greek and Latin notwithstanding, they're just a horrible mouthful; we've decided to just refer to them as Mare Nostrum.

I was initially quite excited by Mare Nostrum but unfortunately they don't really add much to the original Greek Fire and Roman Fury rules - the base rules have exactly the same wording. Granted the new version has fleet lists (including a truly horrendous points system) and scenarios but I'm beginning to doubt whether these were even tested. Some of the mechanisms are also unnecessarily clunky. That said we did have fun and the base idea is sound. I've already thought of ways to streamline them and we will definitely be giving them another go.

I didn't take many photos, as I reckoned tiny, tiny ships on blue bases, deployed on a blue mat, were never going to be photogenic. 

The fleets deploy. Romans in the foreground, Carthaginians in the distance.

Roman left attempts a flanking move whilst Carthaginians advance in echelon.

Roman centre in double line

Romans in trouble

The second game was much more successful and great fun. This was a 17th century game, using Firelock Games' 'Oak and Iron'. Yet another lockdown project and, at the moment, my favourite age of sail rules.

We pitted an English squadron, under Colonel Whitemoore, against a Spanish squadron commanded by Don Felipe. The English fielded a 5th rate frigate, a petite fregate and a sloop. The Spanish a light Galleon, a fluyt and a corvette.

We drew the escort scenario, with the objective token situated on the English sloop. The Spanish had 10 turns to capture the objective.

This size game is designed for a 3ft square table but I find that the table can be too cluttered, if terrain is used, and we always run out of sea room. Hence, I decided to try a 6 by 4 play area - the club tables and sea mats are this size, so it seemed easier. In retrospect, the standard scenarios begin with both sides almost in action and the game length takes this into account. In our game the sides deployed too far apart and the Spanish were never going to attain their objective in 10 turns. On the other hand, the extra sea room did feel good. Perhaps I will just increase the game length in future - we finished 10 turns easily in the usual time allotted for a club night.

The English attempt to hide behind the island

The Spanish deploy on the edge of the world

English skirt the island

English advance to shield the sloop

The Spanish Corvette attempts the passage between the island and the shoals but is covered by the English Petite Fregate

A late burst of speed from the Corvette doesn't quite reach the sloop in the final turn. In the distance the 5th rate and the galleon slog it out in a boarding action.

Spain v.s Dutch Pirates, Oak and Iron.

 The Righteous and Virtuous Empire of His Most catholic Majesty of Spain vs. the Trumping Dutch in the Seventeenth century Caribbean. 

I mean its typical of the Spanish court.  I was appointed Admiral with no experience of this game.  It shows.  You may refer to me as "His Excellency Count Finguin."  Vice Admiral His Excellency Count Manuel McGurk was well placed to support me.

On the other side of the Zoom call those bold buccaneers Admiral van Q, and Captains van Alan and van Mike.  

Young Davy Jones Quilp acted as our umpire, rolling the dice and moving the miniatures. [After several successful games using WhatsApp, this was only our second attempt at using Zoom. The Fat Marshal showed what could be done, in Purgatory, so I was keen to push the boundaries some more. One player couldn't connect on the night, so had to rely on WhatsApp photos and this blog. Admiral Finguin did a fine job of using screen captures to blog 'live'.]

The Oak and Iron table, and table E in almost full zoom mode.

The claw of Quilpius talks us through the setup.

Deploying.  Turns out the Spanish had the Galleon, a King Tiger of the Main.

Turn one sees no real surprises.  Straight sailing by all parties.

The end of turn 1. 

The overhead as turn two begins

Add caption

End of Turn 2

Basically more straight sailing.  All Captains were settling in and selecting their targets

The Mighty Galleon edges around the island.  What could possibly go wrong.

Captain Mike boldly slots between two Spaniards.

The battle between the Spanish Vice Admiral and the Dutch Admiral van Q heats up.  The frigate bullies our poor little Corvette. 

Captain Fast Mike gets battered

But it's the bold and valiant Spanish Vice Admiral who shoots most effectively at Captain Mike.  It's a battering.

End of Turn 3.  The Sloop on fire

Turn four, it's already apparent that the Spanish Admiral is just getting in the way!

Captain Alan goes for the prize, gets it aboard, and damages Spanish morale, giving them a strike point.

The Corvette and frigate slug it out to the north of the island.

Dirty tricks alert.   A shoal magically appears in front of the galleon.  Spanish Admiral fans (well just me then) fear the worst.

But the Galleon hits back in revenge.  Ineffective. 

Turn four.  My Glorious galleon gets off that damn shoal

And the Spanish start to run into each other's way

A tight turn for the Spanish Vice Ad...

The frigate of Admiral Q clips the shoal, but is undamaged.  

Spanish Vice swings his Corvette around

The damaged Brigantine limps off

End of turn five. The Dutch have the objective aboard, and the Spanish have a strike point. 

Admiral Q gets the frigate up to speed 5, Zooming around the Island.  He misses the shoal, barely...

Admiral  Q meets Dutch Mike swerving around the island.

The Spanish Vice, in his damaged Corvette creeps nearer the objective.

Do you have a broadside on that damaged Corvette... NO!  

The galleon shoots at the Flyboat again, poor gunnery again.

Huzzah.  Damage on that Flyboat...  End of turn 6.

So at this point a huge electrical storm descended on Pathos.  The Spanish Admiral prudently retired to unplug the TV, laptop and more critically the magic Internet box.   

In game terms I firmly believe that one of his crew pushed him overboard.  It meant that his Excellency missed the end of the sea fight.

That storm went on for hours!

[Electrical storms aside, Admiral Finguin actually retired very near the end of the action.]

The Spanish struggle to close, against the wind, while the Fluyt attempts to haul herself through the eye of the wind to get underway. The remaining Dutch appear to be on the wrong side of the island.

Van Mike and Admiral Q narrowly avoid colliding.

As the game approached the ten turn limit (I think we reached turn 8), the Spanish could not close enough to cause significant damage on the Fluyt. The last remaining Spanish hope was the Corvette which was still windward of the Fluyt. Unfortunately, it had been badly damaged in its fight with Admiral Q and could not take much more damage. In a huge gamble, that sadly did not pay off, the Spanish Vice Admiral brought the corvette into musket range of the Dutch Fluyt. A good broadside followed by partial fire in the next move was enough to see the corvette put out of action. With 3 Strike points and only 2 remaining ships it was game over for the Spanish.

End Game

So that was our first proper game of Oak and Iron, and the Zoom format worked surprisingly well. Hopefully this won't be our last.

The Navio de Adviso - game three

 Although the buccaneers were successful at Portobello, the plunder was small - about 100 pieces-of-eight per man. Nevertheless, casualties were light, amounting to five or six wounded. (This accords well with my 5 casualties in the last game!).

After the sack, the buccaneers retired to a small cay, 3 leagues distant, and awaited their ships to take them off. Before their vessels arrived, a force of Spanish from Panama and Portobello arrived and fired on them from the shore; necessitating a shift to a different cay until rescued by their ships.

It strikes me that their is a potential amphibious game in there but unfortunately my ships are not yet painted, so I moved onto the next game in the 'Organised Play'. I  can always revisit this when I have some ships.

Coxon next instigated a short blockade of Portobello, during which they encountered the Santa Rosa, a small packet or advice ship (navio de adviso) bearing dispatches. Captain Alleston, in a sloop, arrived first and engaged the Rosa with small arms fire until Coxon arrived and boarded her without the loss of any men.

The published scenario calls for a fluyt (Santa Rosa), frigate (Coxon) and sloop (Alleston). Unfortunately, there is no way I can muster the necessary ships at the Blood and Plunder level (although I may be able to do something at a later date once I've painted my ships). Hence, I decided to try the action using Oak and Iron. Although, I've played a couple of games on Tabletop Simulator, this would be my first go with the physical game. The ships are, as yet, unpainted but, as I was keen to press on with the campaign, I thought 'what the hell' and used them straight from the box.

The game notes suggest that Alleston's sloop did not carry any guns, which is not a problem as musketry plays such a large part. With Oak and Iron, I'm not so sure; I restricted the sloop to partial fire but gave them an Inspiring Commander (Lucky Jack Quilp!), a carpenter and the buccaneer trait to compensate.

For the table set up, I just used the standard game set up. The only other scenario rule I used was that Coxon's frigate would not arrive until the end of Turn Two (O&I games typically being 10 turns).

Set Up Choices

After the set up phase, the buccaneers had chosen Coastline, Weather Gauge and Event, whilst the Spanish had Open Sea, Corners and Superior Position.

The hardest choice was the signals deck but in the end I just loaded both sides up with as many national cards as possible.

Buccaneer Cards

Spanish Cards

Starting Positions

This was going to be difficult for Quilp, in his Sloop, as he was restricted to a fire factor of one. Unfortunately, it would take two hits to do any damage on the Fluyt (Fortitude 2 and High Freeboard). Hmmm, I didn't think this through - the best he could hope for was a lucky hit using the buccaneer trait. Hence I planned to keep the sloop outside of the Fluyt's broadside arc and just exchange musketry until Coxon could come up. How hard could that be? Almost impossible as it turns out - especially when you draw an event on turn two! The confused captain event saw Quilp turn his sloop directly into the broadside arc of the Fluyt.

Confused

As expected this was going to hurt. Especially as the Spanish shooting was hot and they hardly missed a single die roll all game!

Not Quilp's Finest Moment

Luckily Quilp had brought a Carpenter along which  took away a point of damage but unfortunately this is a single use card!

Chippy McGraw to the Rescue

This was to set the pattern for the rest of the game, with Quilp using all his available crew actions to repair damage, whilst attempting to manoeuvre out of the Fluyt's broadside arc. But, as I say, the Spanish shooting was hot and the sloop was soon crippled. Luckily Quilp could use the Inspiring Commander trait to keep fatigue down, so technically was still in the game!

Crippled

All this time, Coxon had been sailing towards the action under Full Sail. Even though he used every possible seamanship action to trim the sails to get a bit more speed, he only came up with the Santa Rosa on Turn Nine.

Coxon Pursues Under Full Sail

On Turn Ten Coxon was at last in range to put in a Partial Shot against the Fluyt, causing the Spaniard's only damage.

So a convincing win for the Spanish.

Endgame

I might have to revisit this one with painted ships and a more balanced scenario! A great game nevertheless.

In the real action, Coxon was accused of trying to keep captured gold, hidden in a wine jar. As there was no plunder in this game, instead I decided to accuse Quilp of being drunk. Confused Captain indeed!