1/2000 Scale Napoleonic Sailing

Sunday, February 13, 2011

We played another round of Napoleonic ships this past weekend.    Alex ran the scenario, and the players were Ashley, Chris, and myself.  Chris and Ashley played the British, while Alex and I played the French.  This was an historical situation where the French were trying to escape a British blockading force, while also escorting supply ships taking small arms to Ireland. 

Things didn’t go too well for the French.  Our crews were mostly green, while the British were mostly Crack and Elite.  I tried to break the British line, but my flag ship ended up colliding with one of the British ships.  In a comedy of errors, and piss poor dice rolling, there ended up being 3 French and 2 British ships involved in the collision…

The Brits decided to grapple and board the French flag ship, a smart move as their crews were worth 3 times as much as the French in the boarding action.  I added the crew from my second ship into the scrum, but to no avail, two ships lost to the Brits at a cost of very few factors of British Marines.  Another of my ships was de-masted just at the end of the game, washing up on the rocks, and being lost before the British could board and claim her as their own.

On the other end of the fight, Alex managed to sink one of Chris’ ships, but Chris was left in a position with favorable winds, allowing him to overtake the supply ships, and seal the scenario as a British victory.

The game was fun, even though we had to sail quite a few ships per player.  Alex had made some changes to the rules, and they seemed to work well.  We discussed several other changes that we thought would improve the game play.  We will try it again soon with the changes made, and see how it plays.  One day, it will be ready for convention play!