Rory's Trafalgar Weekend

This weekend was Rory McCreadie's memorial battle of Trafalgar wargame. Rory's birthday was on October 21st but alas he died before seeing the game he'd so keenly wished to see become a reality.

The game itself was played on the 20th at the Entoyment shop in Poole (it was my first visit, what a lovely place!). We fought out the battle using a modified version of Osprey's "Fighting Sail" which plays a lot better than the original - still quite bloody as more than one 74 went from pristine to shattered in a single broadside, but less so than the original. I commanded the rear third of the Alied line, playing the role of Gravina and Alava, facing off against Cuthbert Collingwood's Lee Column. Africa attempted to engage the head of  or line but that was sheer folly and she was reduced to matchwood very quickly. Our fleet admiral decided that offence was the best form of defence and so we headed upwind slightly to close the range and attempted to commence a "hook" around the rear of where we expected the British lines to be.  The was never really going to work but it did mean that Collingwood and his leading ships sailed into something of a cul de sac and were quickly overwhelmed - for the second Traf refight in a row plying the allies Royal Sovereign was the first ship I captured. As the rest of the Lee Column came up the battle descended into a fierce close quarter battle. As in the real action I wasn't really sure what was going on elsewhere, other than to see that our middle squadron and the head of the British Weather Column shot each other to pieces (Victory pierced the line, the following ships were not so fortunate) and the head of our line doubled back in an attempt to get into the action which was starting to be successful as the game ended.

Fighting Sail uses a fleet morale system, with each side having a morale point level based on their starting forces which is eroded through damage and ship loss - when a sides morale points fall to zero the fleet disengages and the battle is lost. The scores for both sides tumbled and things could have gone either way but in the end our gunfire began to tell (and I made some wicked saving throws to stave off some heavy damage at the end), and it fell to one of my Spanish 74s, Montanes, to fire the broadside that finally reduced the British score to zero and to secure victory for the allies.

The game itself was great fun, played out in very good spirits. Rory would have been very pleased with the result!

I stayed over on Saturday night and on Sunday we played out a game between the Royal Navy and two pirate factions. The governor and his daughter were heading home to England with the fortune he had amassed whilst in the East Indies across a dangerous stretch of the Indian Ocean whereupon they were set upon by Chinese and Arab pirates. A fast, furious and fun game ensued, in which the Governor's transport was captured by the Chinese, then by the Arabs, follwoing whicjh a see-saw battle of boarding and counterboarding saw the prize change hands 6 times. In the end the Chinese were victorious, the Arab ships being heavily damaged and the Royal Navy sloop and schooners crippled, but able to escape to tell the tale. Another jolly good game, and literally laugh-out-loud fun!

Battle of Lissa, 1811

As well as the 1866 battle of Lissa I also refought the 1811 action whilst on the island of Vis last week. The plan had been to run this as a regular game with my NWS chums, but alas various stomach bugs and ailments befell the valiant travellers which wiped out the last 2 days of the trip. I awoke with a fever early (3am) on the Saturday morning before we were due to fly home and decided that I wasn't going to have carted all those models to the island and back without using them, so I ran the game solo on the bedroom floor.

The game was a hard fought, spirited action. The British line tacked early, heading downwind and avoiding the head of thewindward allied line which turned late and found itself out of position for a good while (apart from the Venetian Bellona which turned and joined the leeward column). However, this was not before some superlative long range shooting crippled Active, a blow from which she never recovered. Their early tack allowed the British to concentrate on the leeward ships and allowed Active to attempt to escape, at least for a while.

The opening stages. A brown towel represents the northern coast of Lissa

The British line has tacked and is heading to the East

Battle is joined against the leeward column

The three British ships still in fighting order eventually forced the leeward ships to strike, but whilst doing so Favorite and Flore had caught Active and forced her surrender in a boarding action. But this left Favorite vulnerable to a counterattack and she was boarded quickly by Hoste's flagship, Active. The battle of the commodores ended in a swift British victory; Hoste would be joined by his foe for dinner in the harbour at Lissa that evening. Seeing the game was most definitely up, Flore broke off the action and headed to Hvar and safety.

Towards the end of the acion. The field of battle is strewn with struck allied ships.

The rules in use were "Form Line of Battle" and I fought the game out using Ares 1/1000 models (they come in rather nice boxes which make them ideal for carriage by air - I suspect my 1/1200 white metal models would have suffered in transit, even if well packed).

Ship Stats for the Battle

Franco-Venetian
Windward Column
Favourite (40) – French, 5th(Sup), Gunnery Class A, Experienced, +1 Crew Unit
Flore (40) – French, 5th(Sup), Gunnery Class A, Experienced, +1 Crew Unit
Bellona (32) – Venetian, 5th, Gunnery Class B, Poor, +1 Crew Unit

Leeward Column Danae (40) – French, 5th(Sup), Gunnery Class A, Experienced,
Corona (40) – Venetian, 5th(Sup), Gunnery Class B, Poor, +1 Crew Unit
Carolina (32) – Venetian, 5th, Gunnery Class B, Poor, +1 Crew Unit


British
Amphion (32) – British, 5th, Gunnery Class A, Elite
Active (38) – British, 5th(Sup), Gunnery Class A, Elite
Volage (22) – British, 6th, Gunnery Class D, Elite (Carronade armed)
Cerberus (32) - British, 5th, Gunnery Class A, Elite

Bombs

I've been quite busy recently with work stuff and helping Laura with her new pony, but today I managed to get some time to do a bit of modelling. I'm looking at running some connected FLoB games at Berkeley Vale using my PP small ships and thought that a bomb ketch or two might be useful. one particular variety of these craft had the mortar located forward, the mainmast and mizzen mast set back to make space. Obviously a conversion was on the cards

Something a bit like this, but fitting in with the PP range, that's whats needed

The source model for the conversion was the "Small Ship - Schooner" from Peter Pig's "Pieces of Eight" range. I drilled a large hole in the foredeck, expanding the original hole there. the bottom of the hole was blanked and a scratch built mortar on a turntable added.

The foremast was located in the hole intended for the mizzen mast, and the mizzen relocated to a new hole drilled in the poop deck. To be accurate I should have sanded away the channels and made some new ones, but to be honest I felt it was a lot of effort that could have damaged the hull sides for little effort, so i decided to leave them alone. All in all a fairly simple conversion, not entirely accurate but in keeping with the style of the original PP models.

All in all I was quite pleased with how these turned out. All being well they'll be in action tomorrow night.

Mediterranean Skirmish

The chaps at the Berkeley Vale club seem rather taken with Form Line of Battle. And quite rightly so, IMHO :) Anyway, for their second outing I thought it would be good to try an action with smaller ships rather than ships of the line. Smaller in one sense, but bigger in others as I decided to try the rules out sing my collection of 1/450 Peter Pig "Pieces of Eight" ships. These are lovely models and I really wish Martin would add just a few new models to the range. They are full of character and have a natural advantage over 1/1200 Langtons in that they are extremely rugged and hence perfectly suited to club evening play. 

The French "line" approaching

Anyway, the scenario was a 3 way battle set in the Mediterranean in the late 1700s. A British landing force and civilians are being evacuated in a couple of transports from an anchorage in the face of an oncoming French force comprising a small frigate and five schooners and sloops. The British force comprises two small frigates and two brigs. Unbeknownst to either a squadron of wiley Algerine pirates is also in the offing, touting a couple of xebecs and two dhows, packed with warriors of Allah. The aim of the game is simple - whoever gets the transports off the table wins.

The French commanders, Rodger and Andy, plot their next moves

Brevity and the passage of time precludes a detailed account of the action, but the key points were this. The French attempted to work around into the bay to attack the British from the rear, whilst the Algerines (bravely, but rather uncharacteristically) mounted a full-on charge. This was met with thundering broadsides, but some clever manoeuvring did get one of the xebecs into a position where it could slow the progress of one of the transports. However, by this time the French were assailing the British rear and were in a perfect position to scoop up the delayed transport, the British warships having been drawn ahead of this ship and thus not in a position to support. As the evening drew to a close I surveyed the state of the table and called a narrow French victory. Well don Rodger and Andy!

The Algerine squadron braces itself for a broadside from the leading British frigate

The game worked just fine with the Peter Pig models and so its likely that the majority of our FLoB games will be those featuring smaller ship actions. Next on the order of play - gunboats and cutting out missions

Towards the climax of the battle - the French squadron (left) closes on the British rear

An earlier phase of the battle, as Steve drives the British squadron towards the oncoming Algerines

Forming the Line at Slimbridge

A few weeks back I introduced the Berkeley Vale club to the full version of Sails of Glory. In the post game discussion a few of the chaps mentioned Form Line of Battle and suggested we give them a spin as well. Not wishing to dissuade my erstwhile colleagues from the joys of naval wargaming I agreed. Last night at the club we fought an introductory action, a British squadron with a 100 and five 74s (two with veteran crews) against a Spanish100, two French 80s and three Spanish 74s. We rolled for commands, Mike and I driving the Brits, Rodger the Spanish led squadron and Shaun the French. It was a sizeable action for a "first try" of the rules (and I must admit I was a bit rusty, confusing a few rules between editions, but nothing too serious).

I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the guys picked up the rules. So much so that they were running their own commands without me having to provide much guidance on the rules after about the third turn.

The action began in linear style with both fleets trading long range shots, but after a while Mike's training British squadron (which included the 100 gun "Death Star") took advantage of a developing gap between the leading Spanish and the French squadron. Meanwhile my vanguard British squadron and Rodger's Spaniards closed to point blank range, exchanging broadsides in a gunnery duel where the Spanards came off second best (my die rolling was uncharacteristically good, Rodger's annoyingly bad).

By the time last orders sounded a British victory was called. One of the French 80s had struck in a boarding action, the Spanish 100 had escaped through a squall and the remainder of the allied fleet was looking decidedly second hand. in contrast the British ships, whilst suffering a bit in the gunnery department, were still stout hulled and shaping up to bock the escape of at least two of the remaining allied ships.

The players' verdict? "Good stuff and can we have more please". so it looks as though Berkeley Vale will be following the FLoB route for age of sail gaming, at least for a while.

Still, all being well its Sails of Glory at the Mall tomorrow night :)  

The Plan – 2014

Having reviewed progress in 2013 yesterday, today I set out my plan for 2014. As a cursory look at the last 2 years will show I achieve between 50% and 75% of my objectives so I am confident I will be reporting a similar ration of success and “deferred success” in 364 days time J

1 – 15mm Colonial. Sort out those blasted Bashi Basouks and some river boats. Then look to see what we need extra (if anything) for the hinted-at Berkeley Vale campaign.

2 – Form Line of Battle. A surprise entry, but here because (a) I’ve remembered how much I love the rules and (b) Rodger at the club wants to give them a try. The plan here is to renovate the fleets and complete at least six ships from the “lead pile”

3 – Project X. Mysteriously referred to over the last 2 years, PX has three elements to it. I will complete at least 2 of them this year. You’ll know when I do J

4 – 1/600 Coastal. Resurrecting last year’s objective, I will renovate the existing fleets, finish any odd models that have yet to be completed, sort out soft copies of ship data cards and get some games in! A stretch target will be to do the same for my 1/1200 models.

5 – Armada Invencible. Another surprise entry, but 2014 should see the rules for this hit the streets. I have a couple of the ships already and it looks like my stock of old Airfix galleons might work with them at a pinch. The objective here is to get a copy, knock up small English and Spanish squadrons and try them out. And if they don’t work then an Armada variant of FLoB may be on the cards J

6 – Games. I’m well set up to run a number of games, including Wings of Glory, X Wing, Sails of Glory (of which more in the coming days I hope), War Rocket and a few others so the plan here is to get a number of games of each in. I’ll also try to run a one day campaign, maybe two. These may or may not be connected with Project X.

Inevitably there will be some mission creep. I can guess where the mission may creep to over the coming months (those 15mm Vikings would like a day out, as would my 7^th cavalry and Plains Wars Indians, and then there’s the “not the Spanish Civil War” stuff…..). So expect some variation.

However, one very firm target – NO NEW PERIODS!

And now to end, the first completed models of 2014 (which don’t fit in to objectives 1-6) – a pair of Zvezda 1/100 T-35s. They really are quite imposing! 

Disaster at Trafalgar!

This weekend I was invited by Tim Moore to take part in a refight of the battle of Trafalgar at the Staines club. The draw for me was that Tim and his cohorts are fans of "Form Line of Battle", a set of rules which I love (for obvious reasons) but which the demands of time have meant I've not had a chance to play for way too long. So I was more than happy to spend 4 hours on the M4 and A419 for a day's gaming. Being the shy, retiring chap that I am and not wishing to impose on my hosts' hospitality by grabbing a glory-bound command I settled for the rar of the Allied line and Admiral Gravina's squadron. A full report will appear in the NWS newsletter, "All Guns Blazing" in the not-too-distant future, but suffice to say that, for the British, a disaster of near biblical proportions occurred as both the Royal Sovereign and Victory managed to get themselves well detached from their squadrons (Collingwood and Nelson both being extremely keen to close with the enemy) - both flagships were lost, Royal Sovereign admittedly to a series of VERY unlucky die rolls during a  frantic boarding action against one of my Spanish 74s. And so, as Collingwood and Nelson enjoy a dinner in Cadiz as "guests" of Admiral Gravina the inquiry into the disaster begins in the Admiralty.....

The game was a whole load of fun. Excellent models, good company and fought out in extremely good spirits (and with a fine pub just down the road for lunch). I'm so glad I went.

 Tim's "Oil Rig" play aid - must try making a few of these myself....

Two of my 74s in a spot of bother.....

The captured Royal Sovereign is spirited away....