Showing posts with label Naval Wargaming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Naval Wargaming. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Battle of Valcour Island, 1776

    Joel and Allen, the British naval commanders on Lake Champlain in the Battle of Valcour Island
My friend Keith had an itch to do some Age of Sail miniatures with his big 15mm scale models the other day. His first thought was to go way back and play using the Limeys & Slimeys rules from about three decades ago. After moving some of his ships around on the table and testing out the mechanics, he was turned off by its fiddly nature. Too much counting up figures and guns, he said. Instead, he decided to go with a much more streamlined system, Galleys & Galleons, from Ganesha Games. These use the Song of Blades and Heroes "activation" system and abstract many of those things that older rules may force you to do with counting and laborious, multiple, math steps and die rolls.

    My brigantine and gunboat bravely sail and row towards the two largest ships in the British fleet

This is actually an ongoing rules debate in our Sunday evening gaming group. I am much more in favor of  modern streamlined systems. Others, like my friend Andy, prefer the "chewy" (his word) nature of counting things up, rolling for numerous hits on charts, and checking off boxes. Our respective viewpoints clashed most recently when we played one of the Star Fleet Battles clones (Federation Commander, perhaps?) recently. To me, the process was borderline painful. When one devastating hit was done to a player's ship (actually, one of their THREE ships), we had to sit there twiddling our thumbs while they rolled for and checked off 30-40 internal hits. This includes marking off such useful things like "science labs" and other systems that had nothing to do with a standard fleet game. Really? This is fun??

    Each player received a gunboat carrying one cannon in its bow, along with their larger ship
Anyway, I think miniature rules writing has evolved away from a codex full of charts which you flip between and ship profiles with dozens or hundreds of boxes to check off. Other players have fun doing this (apparently), as the clear divide between the younger and older gamers in our Star Fleet game showed the other night. Guess who likes to check off boxes? The younger guys! Those of us who lived through 1970s & 1980s rules -- to be fair, Limeys and Slimeys was the '90s -- apparently prefer not to go through that again. Nostalgia might be behind some wanting to resurrect old gaming systems. Like when one of our founding club members, Allen (who I have been gaming with for 40+ years), wanted to play the boardgame "Talisman." He would not be deterred with a simple question: "Why would you want to do that?!" He needed to experience once again the painful process of endlessly waiting your turn while the other players took theirs, then waiting twice that time again when you got a Lose a turn" result. The sheer randomness of, "Oh look! I found a suit of magic armor on my turn!" Meanwhile, you flip over a Demon Lord and lose another life. Sheer awfulness, in my opinion. Not fun to play, and no strategy. Just roll dice and flip cards!

    My brigantine suffering damage (see pink dice) from the heavier broadside of Allen's frigate
Yes, that was quite the digression, I realize. Apparently, I still had some more internal hits to roll off from the experience! Keith chose Galleys & Galleons, which we had played a few years back because he remembered it seemed to flow well and do a better job simulating naval warfare than you might expect from rules that grew out of a fantasy skirmish engine. The key component is that hits suffered replace one of your three potential dice you can roll to activate with a colored "damaged" die. You can choose to roll fewer dice, thus not risking rolling that colored die, until all three of your dice have been replaced. If you ever roll an activation and score a "1" on a colored die, bad things can happen, including striking your colors if you are nearer an enemy than any friends. Similarly, once you exceed three colored dice (three is the max dice you can roll to activate in the "Song of..." engine), bad things can happen then, too. 

    Keith's sloop at top right sails to add its broadside to the weight of our cannon fire on Allen's frigate
The game abstracts much of the damage and critical hits on specific components of your sailing ship. It worked fairly well in our game, we felt. Allen had a 22-gun frigate (I believe), the largest on Lake Champlain. He was able to shrug off much of cannon fire that we peppered him with throughout the game. His brother Joel could not do the same with his 18-gun sloop, though, and ended up striking his colors to Jenny's American sloop and being captured. Keith warned us that he'd made the British better at gunnery and that we would need to close the range to hope to do significant damage. That proved true. All in all, the system worked well. Each player controlled one larger ship and one oared gun boat with a single, bow chaser. The gun boats did little damage to the bigger ships, as you might expect with only one cannon. The marine sharpshooters did even less. 

Took more than half the battle, but Keith's gunboat finally sinks Allen's - mainly due to catching on fire
We did have one boarding action, but it was inconclusive. On the next turn, Keith's larger sloop disabled the grapples which Joel's gunboat had snagged it with. He didn't want to leave to a die roll the ignominy of being boarded and taken by a smaller gunboat! I can't say I blame him. My own gunboat was on the way to rescue him, but we never closed before the two ships parted ways. My own brigantine bravely sailed between Joel's sloop and Allen's frigate, blazing away with furious ineffectiveness nearly the entire game. We score one hit on Joel's sloop, but after that, suffered a series of bad die rolls (as is often my nature in games...see Joel -- I said it!). 

    Pounded by two ships, Joel's sloop strikes its colors as it approaches Jenny's 'Royal Savage'
In Galleys & Galleons, if you beat an enemy with an even roll on your die you replace one of their three activation dice with a colored "damage" die. If you beat them with an odd score, you do nothing (unless you doubled them). Weirdly, the first six-plus shooting rolls that hit in the game were all even. We weren't irked by the rule then. Once, the rolls evened out, it felt a little "wrong" to hit someone and do nothing, over and over. 

    American cannon balls seem to bounce off Allen's frigate, whether from gunboat or brigantine
Still, with Joel's sloop captured and Allen's gunboat sunk (fire on board, then explosion), we called it a victory for the Americans. Historically, the British battered Benedict Arnold's American fleet, which later withdrew under cover of darkness. They were eventually run aground by the American commanders to prevent them from falling into the hands of the British. The naval battle delayed the British advance enough to give solace to the American defeat in the first naval battle of the American Revolution. 

It was fun getting the large 15mm ships out and sailing them around on the tabletop. We picked up the mechanics quickly, and the colored dice mechanic gave some risk vs. reward decision making for the players. Keith, as has been his wont of late, tossed in the Wiley Games card activation system on top of the Galleys & Galleons system. The effect was that there was no danger in "crapping out," or turning over your activation. So, we typically always rolled 3 dice for activation until we had one or more colored, damage dice. The fleets closed relatively quickly, and we were soon blasting away at each other and having a good time on Lake Champlain. I can see us playing with Keith's ships again, and using G&G again for more naval fun.

    It was fun to get the big ships (and little ones) out on the tabletop - first time in years!
Otherwise, you may have noticed the LONG pause between updates. I caught a nasty cold just over two weeks ago. It was the worst I'd felt since having Covid, and I didn't not have the energy to paint or game. I think the two weekends of missing Sunday evening gaming are the most that I have in a long time. I didn't want to get the other guys sick, and besides I was feeling awful. Today is actually the first day that I have woken up and not felt congested or tired and drained. So, hopefully, I'm back in the groove and you will see more updates on here, again!

Miniature Painting & Purchasing Tally for 2024

  • Miniatures purchased in 2024: 15
  • Miniatures painted in 2024: 26

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Inglorious action for British in Sails of Glory

 
My sloop leads the British line into action -- or would have, if my co-commanders had their way (I was much to clever and deferred that role to the larger frigates!)



We had a guest GM for this evening's gaming, Ferkin, who wanted to introduce us to Sails of Glory. This is age of sail version of the popular Wings of War card game, with plastic ships and large wooden ship templates, but much of the basic mechanics being very similar. It was a small ship battle for 7 players. The French had 3 frigates, while our British side had two frigates and two sloops. I trust that Ferkin balanced the engagement, but I know my sloop was vastly inferior in its ability to take damage compared to the larger frigates. For example, it took only 1 hit counter to eliminate one of my ship's hull/gunnery boxes, yet the Frenchie that I was tangling with took 4 hits per box.


 
Age of Sail action on a Sunday evening using Sails of Glory


No surprise that Allen and I, controlling the sloops, hung on the edges of the battle plinking away at the enemy. Well, I hung on the edge and Allen -- after taking a couple splintering attacks from French frigates -- just hung out on the edges and did little else. The result was the French did a good job of ganging up on the two British frigates, particularly the one belonging to Mike S. He stayed in the center and mixed it up with Steve and Keith's ships, while our other British frigate, captained by Joel, helped me against Mike W's Frenchie frigate.


 
My British sloop gets a bow rake ("What? Rakes are an advanced rule...?") on Mike W's French frigate


In the end, we lost both our frigates, but both sloops would have gotten away. We did force Mike W's frigate to strike its colors due to crew loss. However, there would be no way for us to take its ship as a prize, as we had to flee the scene to save our smaller ships.


 
The brave British frigates try to pierce the French line, while my sloop at bottom turns away to stay on the edges of the fray and avoid slugging it out with the larger enemy


We played just the basic game, and it was a good time. Ferkin says he'll add in some of the advanced rules next time. It was a nice change of pace, and the "Wings of War" systems translates well to age of sail combat, I felt.

Ferkin (in purple cap) shows us how it's done in Sails of Glory


Another view of the brave, but ill-fated attack by the two British frigates on the French line

Friday, December 4, 2015

Ramming our way through Galleys & Galleons

Our opponents, Tom, Joel, and Allen, bickered and laughed their way through the game that ended with a hard-fought victory for them
 It is always seemed to me that there were two types of ancient naval rules sets. One is overly simplistic and provides unrealistic results. The other is too detailed, and takes too much time to learn the nuances for a game we don't play all that often. So, when Galleys & Galleons came out earlier this year, I immediately lumped it in my mind in the former category. We had played many of the "Song of Blades" engine games, and I didn't see how its activation system would adapt.
Our side's fleet rows towards the enemy
Our group of six were pleasantly surprised by the feel that G&G gave us. We were playing an Ancient naval game (Greeks vs. Persians? There were no historical specifics in our scenario. Suffice to say, there would be three four types of weapons in our game: Ramming, catapults, "chaser guns" -- lighter catapults, and archery. Nothing really rang wrong, except maybe how archery could cause so much damage when ships got really close. G&G does not differentiate between physical damage to a ship and casualties to a ship's crew.
Two of my quadiremes use Colossus Island to lie in wait for a larger enemy quinquireme and trireme
Those familiar with the activation mechanic of "Song of" games will be interested to see how it is handled in this game. The smaller, faster and more nimble ships have the better quality, while the larger, slower galleys will find it a little harder to activate. Flagships give a +1 like leaders do in other iterations of Ganesha rules. All in all, we weren't overly bothered by the rolling to activate ships, and the possibility of "crapping out" and losing your turn -- which I managed to do several times over a crucial span.
The battle becomes a mess of rammed and entangled ships
One of the more clever mechanics is how damage is handled. Each ship can take damage to a certain level, then become crippled. Once crippled, there is a chance that they will sink or surrender if fighting a boarding action. There is even more elegance and depth to the damage a ship takes -- particular when it attempts to activate on subsequent turns. We all thought it was a clever effect.
We kept track of damage with dark red dice and pretzels (oars that have been sheared away)...the black dice indicate grappled ships...pink dice a crew that has been boarded and has surrendered
We will definitely give G&G another try. Some of the players expressed the opinion that we may have found a simple system that provides realistic results. Either way, it was a fun way to spend several hours, ramming our way through a new rules set.

Friday, January 3, 2014

Battle of Yalu River, 1894

Joel measures the range as Allen and Keith open fire on each other in late 19th century naval action
Last Sunday, Joel ran a naval battle from a fairly obscure period -- the Sino-Japanese War at the end of the 19th century. Joel does this from time to time, he'll root around Keith's basement, find miniatures that fit for "something completely different," and then research and set up a game. We may never play the period or scenario, again. Or it may be part of an occasional and recurring gaming period -- like his Vietnam War using Crossfire rules (though those are his own miniatures). Joel discovered and decided upon the Battle of Yalu River, 1894, completely under the group's radar -- other than Keith, of course. That's part of Joel's charm -- he definitely marches to the beat of his own drum, game-wise and life-wise. And seeing how we all just spent New Year's Eve at his place, it is also timely to reflect that I've known him now for about 36 years!

Anyway, either he or Keith had found a free set of rules online covering the period called "Quickfire Rules." We began with Joel explaining how we they work, in particular the firing section. Once we'd wrapped our head around the concepts, Quickfire was easy to pick up. We were all calculating what we needed to roll and easily adjudicating our ships' firing by the second turn of shooting. In that respect, the rules were a success. Simple and easy-to-learn!
The Chinese squadron sails onto the board in line abreast formation (or was it line a-quarter?)
The scenario had Keith and Mike S sailing two squadrons of Japanese ships onto the board in column, while across the table, Allen and I sailed our Chinese fleet in line abreast to meet them. I am not certain what scale Keith's miniatures were, but the ships are fairly tiny. Joel added a blob of putty with toothpick and flag to label each ship properly for this scenario. I'm assuming Keith's labels he'd created when he based them up must not have fit 100% for the Battle of Yalu River.

The scenario consisted of lobbing long-range gunnery shots at each other. In general, we concentrated our fire on the closest enemy ship. Only one ship was sunk -- Allen's battleship -- but a number of others were damaged. If my ships are any indication, each ship takes a half dozen or more primary and secondary gunnery, and also hull hits. With each hit marked off, either the offensive capability or speed is reduced. My part of the fleet suffered only a total of two boxes marked off the entire game. Allen was closer to the Japanese and was absorbing the brunt of the punishment.
My own squadron in the Battle of Yalu River. Joel added toothpicks holding the ship names and attached it with a blob of putty to Keith's bases.
Afterwards, the consensus was the rules reflected the period of warfare fairly well (for those who knew anything about it -- me not included). However, we felt to produce a more satisfying game with a more decisive result, the ships would either have to begin closer together or move faster (so they can close to that more-decisive range). Joel wasn't too sure, but most of us felt the game -- although fun -- would be improved even more by amping up the death and destruction. I mean, what gamer doesn't like more death and destruction? Seriously, this was one of the times where I was reminded of a maxim I've learned through decades of gaming. The most historically accurate game does not always produce the most enjoyable one. Sometimes things need to be changed or abstracted to provide a fun game. The best example I can think of is this is the reason you don't see too many World War I miniatures games out there. Normal battles of the period were not all that decisive or even tactically interesting. Joel's Sino-Japanese wargame shows potential to produce in both the tactically interesting and decisive categories, it just needs some minor adjustments. At least that was my take on it...!
A close up of one of my ships taking fire (note the Litko splash marker...Keith LOVES Litko markers!)
I am late in getting this report written and posted, this week, as well. I did this intentionally, though, to not steal the limelight at the top of my blog from the "Indiana Jones" Rope Bridge. This coming weekend we will be doing board games at Allen's house. So, hopefully, I will be more timely in posting an account of that!