Rory's game

[Rory McCreadie]

Hi All,

Sometime ago I played a game with my friend Pete. We played with 6 S.O.L. each. I hope he is alright about me saying but Pete has very poor eye-sight.

I have started doing 1-2400 scale ships. We tried them out, but I think Pete found them a little hard to see. So with Pete we use 1-1200 scale ships.

This was a small game to try-out new up-dates on the rules we have used a number of times.

He who says he makes no mistakes, is making the biggest mistake of all. Or does bugger all. Rory

[Rory McCreadie]

As you know I’m not good at I.T. stuff so I do not know how to made photo’s smaller. So i must post a number of times, Sorry!

We started with two lines with the wind up our tails. Pete played the Brits and I the French.

He who says he makes no mistakes, is making the biggest mistake of all. Or does bugger all. Rory

[Rory McCreadie]

I had the idea of for once to keep to the line this time and move slowly into the British line. Pete had the same idea.

He who says he makes no mistakes, is making the biggest mistake of all. Or does bugger all. Rory

[Rory McCreadie]

As you can see above! Pete’s line moved faster than mine. So I turn my first ship into the middle to cut off Pete’s front two ships from the rest of his fleet. I was going to turn each ship at this point to cross into Pete’s fleet and have all of my ships fight the last 4 of his fleet. The rules make it hard the do sharp turns. So I turned all my ships at once! Why? I cannot say! I had a mad moment, thinking I may not be able to turn my ships at the right time? So it ended with my ships going in one at a time, AGAIN!

 

He who says he makes no mistakes, is making the biggest mistake of all. Or does bugger all. Rory

[Rory McCreadie]

I get burnt badly. I lose my 1st rate. and two of my 3rd rates get banged-up badly. It’s a mess! But I will not give up and sail/battle on.

I hit and badly damage a number of Pete’s ships. As both fleets sail past each other, both are badly hit and limping apart. To turn them around and enter round two would take too long and if one ship got one more bad hit it wold lose the game. So we called it a draw.

He who says he makes no mistakes, is making the biggest mistake of all. Or does bugger all. Rory

[Rory McCreadie]

It was a fun game. We used Osprey’s “Fighting Sail”. Before you start throwing things at Pete and me. Please read on first.

Like some of us I got the rules to see what they where like. Lots did not work right, moving forward into the wind??????  As for the gunnery, it was so bad! A frigate sinking a S.O.L.? One broadside sinking ships! More Sci-Fi than Historical. But we saw some some good things too. We liked the template and the paperless bit. For a large game with 15 plus ships a side, that is a lot of “Ships logs”.  Thinking of downing the scale I could see them being used by me for  my 1-2400 scale big battles (once I’ve painted all my ships).  The less paper bits for Pete the better the game is for him. Pete opened a Facebook page for the rules. It rightly got a lot of bad press. Ryan Miller who wrote the rules also posted. Pete and I thought we could make them into at worse a playable set of rules. It took us a number of goes, but think we kept the bases of Ryan’s rules. By adding some small chances, new gunnery chart and “Save” and “Damage” rules. NO MORE MOVING FORWARD INTO THE WIND! Ryan liked them too. So now they are up on the F.B. site as an official up-grade for the rules. We have got good feed-back on them. All Pete and I ask is give the rules with the up-grades a go.

Be safe

Rory

He who says he makes no mistakes, is making the biggest mistake of all. Or does bugger all. Rory

[Autodidact-O-Saurus]

Looks like fun, Rory. What are you using as your table? The colors are exactly what I’ve been looking for for my ocean table cover.

Interesting that the rules let you move forward into the wind. Though I suppose there would be some forward inertia carrying you forward for a bit–enough to carry you through a tacking maneuver. I recently played my first game of of ‘Sails of Glory’ and was surprised that there is no way to tack in that game (at least with the ships I was playing). If you move into the wind, you actually end up moving backwards.  Now I know some ships (and captains) could back sails–and very few rules replicate that. And I can understand forcing a player to do it if they are caught in irons. But my understanding of tacking is that in general the head of the ship would swing through the wind. You’d lose some headway until the sails fill again. But I think tacking was generally achievable without being forced backwards.

Just a ‘hmmmm’ moment.

Self taught, persistently behind the times, never up to date. AKA ~ jeff
More verbosity: http://petiteguerre.blogspot.com/

[Paul]

Man I love the look of miniature ships. Beautiful.

Those are brave men knocking at our door. Let's go kill them!

[Don Glewwe]

“Man I love the look of miniature ships.”

Yup!  For a (relatively) cheap way to get into the genre, check out WarArtisan.

[Rory McCreadie]

A-O-S,

We hated the forward movement into the wind. It was the dumbest part of the rules. One had to do a 2″ move before tacking. The rules said you HAD to always move min 2″ before any type of turning. We chanced that one, by saying “If heading into the wind, this was the only time you turned (Tacked) before moving.

It was one of many things we looked at. The gunnery was deadly. The up-dates helped all this and more to make the rules better. We think no Napoleonic Naval Wargamer play-tested them! Or any one that had any idea of the period. We think Osprey let Ryan down on that one.

The sea mat is not mine but Pete’s. I hope to play with him again next Thursday, so will ask him about it. (If I forget slap me!) I will get the info for you at some point.

The ships are all Langton’s. All the Brits are Pete’s, the French mine. As I am doing 1-2400 scale ships with little to no rigging, Pete lets me do his rigging for him. Only one of his on the table is not rigged by me.

I to like Artisan’s ships, but they only work and look good if rigged. Thy are also a bigger scale. You can print them in a smaller scale, but that makes them harder to make.

Be safe

Rory

 

He who says he makes no mistakes, is making the biggest mistake of all. Or does bugger all. Rory

[Rory McCreadie]

Tim,

it was one of many. The ground/base of the rules work. If you go to the Fighting Sail Facebook page you will find all the up-dates (top of the page).

It’s the paper-less bit that kept me tweaking them. Once you’ve worked out the fleet list, it’s just go and play. To have no ships-logs is a big thing with bigger battles.

Be safe

Rory

He who says he makes no mistakes, is making the biggest mistake of all. Or does bugger all. Rory

[Rory McCreadie]

A-O-S,

E-mailed Pete about the sea mat. I’m seeing him tomorrow to play a game, but he e-mail me back today.

The mat is from “Tiny Wargames UK battle mats” http://www.tinywargames.co.uk Hope this helps.

Be safe

Rory

He who says he makes no mistakes, is making the biggest mistake of all. Or does bugger all. Rory

[Autodidact-O-Saurus]

Thanks, Rory.

They do some beautiful mats! Sadly, that would be a real budget buster for me. Certainly provides some inspiration, though.

Self taught, persistently behind the times, never up to date. AKA ~ jeff
More verbosity: http://petiteguerre.blogspot.com/

[Volunteer]

Great pictures and AAR Rory.

Now to the shrinking photo bit, didn’t we get that straightened out? 

"Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing"
Wernher von Braun

[Rory McCreadie]

A-O-S,

You may not like this mat, but they do different size waves, colours and size mats. For around $10 (4 by 6) you download the mat  and print it yourself. I got a banner maker to print mine on plastic (With no eyelets). I’m going to get them to print of one 4 by 4 at some point. By having the two black ends cut off by the printers I will have a 4 by 6, 4 by 4 and by putting them together a big 10 by 4 mat (maybe for Christmas?). I got it from “Wargame print” a U.S. Firm.. I did use a textile surface not flat (Looks better in my eyes) so was a little more to print.

 

He who says he makes no mistakes, is making the biggest mistake of all. Or does bugger all. Rory

[Rory McCreadie]

Vol,

I know! I can get my photos to fit on this site. But to get a number of photo’s in one post I cannot do! Maybe you or some one can show or tell me how?

This would make each photo smaller. Some one did say they did not want smaller photo’s!!!!!!!!!! So it’s one photo per post for now.

He who says he makes no mistakes, is making the biggest mistake of all. Or does bugger all. Rory

[Volunteer]

Wargames Vault

http://www.wargamevault.com

"Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing"
Wernher von Braun

[Author]

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