Yes I Am (almost) A Pirate, Part I

Clearly, the title for that British 74 post came from Pink Floyd's song Another Brick in the Wall.    Since there are three parts to that song on the album, I guess you can choose for yourself which one it's from.  Personally, I'm more inclined towards part I than the more famous part II but that's just me.  This post title is a song from one of my favorite artists for many years (no, not Warren Zevon) and also describes the events of the day I'm writing about quite well.

Since it's October, that means it's time for another Broadsides! convention.  This year though, because of changes in the management of the Battleship Texas, we had to find another place for the convention at the last minute.  Fortunately, the convention organizer found another venue that is almost as good as the battleship:  The Houston Maritime Museum.

It is a small, but very nice facility and their website is: https://houstonmaritime.org/ .  Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of their exhibits as I was busy running and playing games.  If, however, you are in Houston I recommend taking the time to visit.  They have a 1/48 scale model of HMS Victory that is so nice that I wondered if I could sneak it out under my shirt!  No, I didn't try. 🙄  What I will try is to go back and get some pictures, even if they are only of her.

Since the convention was starting over in a new location, I decided to revisit the scenario I ran from the very first Broadsides; a scenario I call "Jamaica Mistake."  It is a what-if scenario based on the idea that, instead of missing the Jamaica Convoy in the fog during the War of 1812, John Rodgers and his US Navy squadron find a section of the convoy.  All players are on the US side, and the object is to be the player with the largest amount of prize money when the scenario is over.  There are British escorts but they don't show up until after someone starts shooting.  Even then, the actual ship and its entry point are randomized so that I (playing the British) don't know exactly what I will get.

Since the scenario starts with a visibility range of 200 yards (6 inches), there are no ships on the table.  Instead, there are blinds that may or may not be a merchantman and the US entry is randomized for each ship entering on the table edge.  

Not as pretty as I'd originally hoped.

The idea was that each of those black rectangles would be wooden blocks, painted gray, with a discreet number on the back so I could match them to ships.  Well, since I waited till the last night to make them, my mini table-saw blade gave out.  I then discovered that I couldn't cut a straight line with a Dremel tool attachment.  Consequently, I got some craft foam out of the closet and used that.  

Not every one of those squares is a ship; in fact, only about half of them are.  The rest are shadows in the fog, false sightings and the like.  The only way for players to tell was to get within visibility range and actually see what is there.  To make things more fun, the visibility can change every turn.  In the Post Captain rules, you roll a D12 every turn and that is the visibility in yards.

There were only two players, so they drew their ships at random.  One player drew USS President and came in from the top short edge of the table.  The other drew USS Argus and came in from the opposite short edge.  

President from one short edge

Argus from the other

The first couple of phases (remember: for Post Captain there are three one-minute phases in a turn) were not good for either US player.  They discovered that some of the blinds were just empty ocean.  By the end of the blue phase though, they had started finding some targets.

Merchantman: "Oh.  Uh, hello."

I'm blaming any blurry photos on the "fog".  Yeah, that's it. . . .

Luckily for the Americans, the visibility went from 200 yards (6 inches) to 800 yards (24 inches) at the end of the turn.  This made everything but the center of the table visible, and let the commander of President realize that the entire convoy was coming right at him.

The fog begins to lift.

As the game sped up, my picture taking began to be a bit more erratic.  Everything that came within range of President decided that surrender was the wisest option, but the ship that Hornet sighted decided to try and run.  A single broadside from Argus was enough to make that merchant change her mind, but it also let the escorts know that something was wrong.  I rolled, and it would take one of the escorts three turns to reach the table.  Argus' merchantman had decided to surrender, but once the US captain saw the other ships ahead of him he simply sailed right past heading for the other prizes.

We wound up calling this a "naval drive-by."

At the end of this turn, another player came by a put down a Broadside Token. 

If a player puts one down, it lets him redo a die roll, or force another player to re-roll their dice.  If an onlooker puts one down, the game master has to modify something on the next turn.  As I was going crazy trying to keep my makeshift blinds associated with the right ships, I decided that next turn the fog would lift and everything on the table could be seen.

Over the next three turns, Argus kept chasing ships while President had so many surrendered ships around here that there was a bit of a traffic jam. 

In fact, President was in danger of running out of ship's boats.

"You bring that BACK when you're done, Midshipman,"

It was at this point that the Royal Navy finally put in an appearance.  The convoy was escorted by a 64, a 38 frigate and a brig.  My random die roll brought on the frigate, HMS Thalia.  Unfortunately for the Americans, she showed up behind President.  A third player joined in at this point, and wanted to run the British frigate, so I let him do it.

The watchdog arrives.

In our eagerness to start the real fighting, I didn't take any more photos.  Thalia got off a broadside before President could bring her guns to bear, and caused a rudder critical hit.  President  did manage to get turned though, and the two frigates had just settled down to pounding each other when we ran out of time.  All the players enjoyed themselves and said they would play the rules again, so I consider that a successful game.

I had planned on covering the entire convention in one post, but looking at the length of this one battle report makes it clear that I can't pull it off.  So, I'll talk about the rest of the games I played as part II.

Best. Day. EVER! (In gaming terms, anyway. . . .) Part II

So after the Constitution versus Java fight, Mark decided he wanted to play this game again.  We took a break long enough for me to print some ship sheets, and then went back at each other again.

This time it was just a generic frigate fight.  I picked out two ships at random: A British 36 gun frigate (HMS Santa Margarita) with 12 pound main guns, and a French 38 gun frigate (Proserpine) with 18 pound main guns.  This is where things started getting interesting.  The random dice roll for crew/captain quality gave the French a regular crew, and the British a green crew.  So we have a more experienced French crew with heavier guns, but the British can reload and fire faster (2 phases to reload, opposed to 3 for the French).  So, can quicker firing but lighter guns make up for the differences in weight of metal and crew experience?

The random setup proved to be interesting as well.  By die roll, the British started in the middle of the table.  When setup was done, the French wound up behind them, with both ships starting at Easy Sail.  The weather was moderate, with the wind from the SE at force 4.  With everything ready, the starting situation looked like this:

An English frigate chased by a French one?  Hmmm.

With both ships at Easy Sail, we were both tearing along at 10 movement points each, which is anywhere from 4.5 to 8.8 knots, depending on how the ship is facing into the wind.  I quickly decided that being the chasee was not something I wanted to do.

"No Royal Navy captain is going to let himself be chased by a Frog!"

I started taking in sail, as I didn't want to fly by my opponent and have to claw my way back.  Mark, on the other hand, decided to stay at Easy Sail.  This helped me to decide on my tactics; I would shoot high in hopes of forcing more rigging damage onto him.  That should lead to a mast falling, and then the advantage would be mine.

As we continued to approach each other, I kept taking in sail while he kept pushing ahead.  He decided to turn away from the wind so as to give himself more maneuvering room, and to stay with me.

I got my first broadside off in the red phase of turn 2:

He, however, was able to use his extra speed and get in front of me for a broadside in the white phase:

 Fortunately, it wasn't quite a bow rake (ignore my gun smoke; we just forgot to take it off).  The end of the turn found us like this:

At this point, the maneuvers became quite confusing, with each of us trying to circle around the other.  Part of me wishes I had kept a track chart of the fight along with taking pictures.  I got off another broadside at the beginning of next turn, and caught the Frenchman on fire!

I think this is only the second time I've ever seen a ship catch fire.

I won initiative for the next phases, and made the Frenchman move first, as I wanted to see where this potential hazard would wind up.  It also allowed me to slip in behind him, and deliver an almost stern rake on the target.  Unfortunately, the angle just wasn't quite right for a rake.

Beginning of the phase.

"Pour it into them, boys!"

End of the phase.

I ended the turn by pulling away from the fireship again.  To Mark's great relief, he got the fire put out at the end of this phase. 

The next turn was more jockeying for position, as the Frenchman got in front of me and tried to pull away.

The chase went on for another turn while he tried to make repairs and get some maneuvering room.

After this, he decided to circle back and come towards me.

The maneuvering continued, and we managed to end the turn by getting the two ships fouled together.  I was unable to free us, so both sides prepared boarding parties, just in case.

Apparently I didn't take a picture of the red phase this turn, but nothing happened.

We spent an entire turn fouled together and drifting.  Then the French boarding party in the bow found an opportunity, and stormed aboard.

Apologies for the blurry picture; I was really nervous.

It was three factors of regular French marines versus 3 factors of green British sailors.  I had lost all my marines in the earlier broadsides, but much to my surprise the sailors took out one factor of marines.  He moved some sailors from the waist to his forecastle to reinforce for the next round.  We drifted for another three impulses.  The boarding action was inconclusive this time, but I managed to cut the two ships loose, and his boarding party retreated in the command phase.

I didn't take a picture of the ships in this phase, but it was just
more drifting.  Nothing particularly exciting.

At this point we were up to turn 10, and we rolled for weather changes.  While the weather didn't change, the wind did.  It veered from SE to due E.  This was not a good thing for either of us as you will see from the picture below:

Since we were both in irons, all we could do was drift backwards and turn until we were not facing into the wind.  Proserpine's marines were peppering Santa Margarita with fire this whole time.  Having no marines left, Santa Margarita couldn't respond in any way which was quite galling.  I think it was during this time that my 2nd Lieutenant and one of the Midshipmen were killed.

FINALLY, we can move again!

Once we could move again, it was time to start pounding each other. After the broadsides, Proserpine again turned into Santa Margarita as a prelude to another boarding attempt.

Although I avoided his collision attempt, it meant we were so close to each other that any movement would run the risk of fouling again.  Mark adjusted course slightly, and brought Proserpine alongside, and sure enough, we fouled again.

We exchanged broadsides, and each side readied boarding parties again.

Mark flung every Frenchman he could into his boarding parties, and now numbers began to tell. Santa Margarita had started the game with 8 crew boxes and 3 marine boxes.  Proserpine started the game with 12 crew boxes and 4 marine boxes.  By this point, I had only 5 crew boxes and no marines.  With the ships fouled side by side, he could try and board from fore, mid, and aft.  All I could hope for was that none of his groups had the opportunity to board; if they did, I wouldn't have the manpower to fend them off.  Clearly, this was going to be it!

Needless to say, he tried to board from all three sections.  The boarding attempt from the forward section was repulsed, and he lost a crew factor.  The boarding attempt from the waist was successful, and the fight was on.  Although he didn't cause any casualties to my crew, one factor was forced back (in this case, that means out of the waist section).  With that, my forces were outnumbered 3:1, which meant that they had to retreat.  The center of Santa Margarita was now in French hands.  The aft boarding party from Prosperine didn't find an opportunity to board.  The situation was now dire, as you can see:

I wasn't able to cut the two ships free from each other, so we would be bound together for another turn.  At this point, I struck my colors.  I might have passed a command check, but the lack of crew meant that I would not be able to hold off the French if there were any more boarding opportunities for them.  Even if I were to succeed in regaining control of the waist, it might mean there were not enough men left to man the guns and sail her.

In looking at the damage after the battle, it became clear that, between my fire and the damage from our foulings, Proserpine was so cut up aloft that she could not have chased me had I tried to disengage.  Take a look:

In contrast, Santa Margarita was nowhere near as damaged:

So, there you have it.  Two more British defeats; one completely expected and one that (maybe) could have been avoided.  One thing I learned from this:  It's easy to see why everyone went to 18 pound or heavier guns for their frigates.  The 12's I had were easy to handle, but just didn't hit hard enough in the final analysis.

If you read the earlier post, I said there were three games.  After these two, Mark brought out his Blood & Plunder pirate game and we played an engagement in that.  I managed to win that one.  Maybe I should give up my navy captain's license and become a Hollywood pirate instead!