Thursday, January 26, 2017

Mix n Match

Using pimped SoG models, the aim last night at the club was to try out Hearts of Oak, 
but first have a quick game of Galleys and Galleons

The French are the attackers, attempting to breakout from the British blockade.

The dashing British commander (Mark B) gets an extreme range shot in against the French flagship. testing the metal of the French political appointee assigned to lead the breakout (Stephen N).  
I like it that Flagships come with a random admiral characteristic.

The French return fire, as they venture out into deep water.
The British flagship is "all at sea" but makes a good recovery to bring its starboard side guns to bear,

The French are getting through the British ships, but suffering from the wind that is now trying to blow them back to shore (the wind direction was changing all the time which was a little unusual, but didn't cause too much trouble.  When a ship finds itself caught between two possible settings, e.g. "Close Haul" or "In Irons", I like the captain to choose rather than messing about trying to determine the exact setting which I find fiddly and unproductive).

The French are through.  Damaged, but well on their way to completing the mission.

There is a flaw in this photo, but I kept it as the composition came out rather well.

Same end shot, flaw corrected.

The Order of Battle can be found in this previous post and a previous AAR is also available here. This game looked similar to the other two, but played differently.  We again used an eight point compass, but made the mistake of having the models jump the movement stick rather than just go the distance of the stick - the wind must have been strong and blustery which also accounts for the variability.

Unfortunately our game was interrupted by club business and this meant we ran out of time to try Hearts of Oak.

2 comments:

  1. I still use the 16 point compass, but require all ships to be exactly on one of the 16 headings. It's what I do for Form Line of Battle too, and seems to be a practical compromise between detail and playability.

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  2. That's a good idea to have the captain specify their heading. I find with our models they bounce around too much to be able to be definitive about their heading, but if specified would work okay for a few ships and with larger fleets using a roster would work as well (I'm thinking Heart of Oak and its Ship Cards).

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