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!