The Miller's Tale - Episode 11

Episode 11: In which Mike catches up with Mike Hutchinson of Planet Smasher Games, a past guest on Meeples and Miniatures and creator of (among many other things) Gaslands.

Useful links:

• Planet Smasher Games
• Mike's podcast with Glenn Ford, Rule of Carnage
• Osprey's (pre-)order page for Pacific Command
• The Space Gits Kickstarter
• Mike's book "The Fundamentals of Tabletop Miniatures Game Design"
• Hereward Wargames Show! (FB page)

You know, if I did those more often, I'd spend less time remembering how all these moving parts go together to get it up online in all the right places :D

That said? Watch this space for episode 12, in a couple of weeks.

Battle Report - 10-Aug-2015 - Sails of Glory

 Back to the club for the first time in a while, and a nice little game of Sails of Glory. We went for something a bit different this time - Andy took a French first-rater (the Orient), while Miles, Dave and I took a frigate each (the Terpsichore, the Meleager and the Iphigenia).

It.. could have gone better for the English. It probably would have gone a whole load better if we'd actually coordinated our battle plan, rather than sailing merrily up to the Orient as we felt like it. The Iphigenia was the first to go - I took only a partial broadside from the Orient, but pulled a really vicious set of chits from the B bag, and wound up with one hull box left and on fire....

Ouch... Iphigenia on the receiving end of a partial broadside

For those unfamiliar with the Advanced rules for SoG, the first thing that happens in a turn is you determine if the wind changes. Immediately after that you resolve continuing damage (before things like movement and crew repair actions!) - and guess what, if you're on fire you lose a hull box. Exit the Iphigenia, a charred and drifting hulk, sails and masts ablaze (and probably with her magazine gone).

Miles' captaincy of the Meleager didn't fare much better: the ship wound up caught in irons when the wind changed, and due to some less than inspired movement choices, she drifted onto a rocky island shore and foundered.

Which meant it was all up to Dave and the Terpsichore....

The Terpsichore getting hammered...

He did his best to pull of a piece of Bolitho-esque heroism, but it wasn't to be - almost managed a couple of rakes of the Orient, but in the end the first-rater's superior firepower did for him.

A fun game, with lessons learned - we may well try this scenario again next week!

Holiday reading... ok, listening

Given my current gaming addiction (Sails of Glory, in case you've been on holiday longer than I have) it may come as no surprise to learn what my holiday listening was.

My right eye is still not 100%, so instead of print (which also takes up valuable luggage space) or e-books, I've been using up Audble.com credits on the Alexander Kent "Richard Bolitho" series of Napoleonic-era naval books - the series is being read by British actor Michael Jayston, who brings just the right aura, and a wide range of accents, to the novels. I was kind of hoping to grab some good SoG scenario material out of them, but Bolitho is, of course, the hero of a book. and thus most of his victories come against odds ranging from the unfavourable to the impossible, so some tweaking will, I suspect, be required.

Good to dip in to them again - Jayston reads them very well, and they're a bunch of rattling good yarns.

Battle Report - 22 Jun 2015 - Sails of Glory

More a general summary of progress to date than a battle report...

We've now, I think, played enough that it's starting to fall into place - there are some quite deep subtleties in the phase order, for example, that add some very elegant twists to the rules. I did, to my considerable satisfaction, prove the doubters wrong and that it is possible to tack to windward and come about cleanly in a 100 gun first rater, if you know what you're doing, too :D

This week we tried something a little more sophisticated - two French ships on one short edge of the table, stern to wind, two British ships awaiting them in the middle of the table. Dan and I took the French and... technically won, since Dan's frigate made it off table on the opposite short edge. I crossed the T rather neatly on Carl's third rater and managed a full broadside bow rake... and then  for the first time ever, I committed the 'confuse right and left on a movement card' error, and managed in quick succession to sail into Dan and then off the table :D

Trying to work our way past the British....

A lucky escape...

In the foreground, Dan and Dave tangle and board, while
I cross the T on Carl...

Battle Report - 1-Jun-2015 - Sails of Glory

Again :D

Three a side teaching game this time, a first rater, a third rater and a frigate each: Dave, AndyM and I took the British, and Chris, Vince and Reuben the French.

First blood went to the French, as Andy's frigate went to the bottom, largely due to being on the receiving end of a broadside from the first rater. In the meantime, Vince's 74-gunner managed to get herself caught between the two British ships of the line: we almost pulled off a simultaneous broadside from both sides, but had to settle for grappling and boarding her inside.

The only problem was that in order to avoid colliding with the other British ship, I had to veer off downwind, and combined with several wind changes left my third-rater at the mercy of a 110-gun French ship...

...who very fortunately couldn't /quite/ stay on the table...

If this wasn't a teaching game we'd almost certainly have gone for a bigger table, and I suspect I'd have lost in pretty short order: being loaded with chainshot was all very well, but the changing wind kept stopping me from getting close enough.

Sails of Glory - check this out

I was going to post about something else today, but I know at least a few of my followers will want to see this from the Anchorage: fredmiracle's AAR on the recreation of the Glorious First Of June at Enfilade in the NW USA...

I mean, holy <bleeping> <bleep>....

...and that's just the British rear division!

Battle Report - 25-May-2015 - Sails of Glory

All about to go sadly wrong for the French...

The game I was /meant/ to run, with fewer players since they'd all played last week - specifically, just me and Dave :

Captured, pardieu!

I took Le Berwick, and Dave HMS Defence for a little one on one scrap. Things opened up with a mutual broadside, causing Le Berwick to spring a leak and Defence to catch fire, and we spent a goodly while circling each other while effecting repairs. I missed one golden opportunity in which I had an uncontested broadside, but no crew free to fire that side, before eventually misjudging how close to the wind I could sail, and being grappled and boarded by the British.

And it all fits flat on the floor of the
boot of the Skoda....

Another good fun introduction though - that's another person keen on the game who is up for more :D

Battle Report - 18th May 2015 - Sails of Glory

That's HMS Terpsichore in the middle of this dance.
The wind's blowing bottom to top....

Well, that wasn't meant to happen this week :D

Sadly, Gary, who's running our 100 Days Black Powder campaign, is busy discovering the joys of parenthood, specifically the bit where your kids give you their viruses, so at about an hour's notice I got to run some Sails of Glory.

We went for a pretty basic 2 on 2 from the starter box, the French (Rich and Dan) having the Courageuse and the Genereux, and the British (Carl and Dale) HMS Vanguard and HMS Terpsichore.  Dale rapidly proved he should be let nowhere near anything involving sailing and the wind, as the Terpsichore found herself in irons, bow into the wind, then collided with the Vanguard, and then in rather rapid succession was broadsided, then simultaneously boarded and raked stem to stern by the French. Meanwhile, Carl managed to survive the collision (having the bigger ship!), and by dint of some smarter manoeuvring and being the only Captain never to get caught bow-to-wind, managed to sail to safety back off the British edge of the table.

Initial impressions? Great fun. I'd reckon a second game would be ample to get comfortable with the rules. You do, though, need a fair amount of peripheral table space for the ship logs/counter storage. Every time I found myself thinking 'I wonder if the rules cover...' I found out they did. :D I'd have liked more than 30 mins and a couple of YouTube gameplay videos worth of preparation, and the folks on the Anchorage forum are dead right on two points:

• it's not worth it unless you play the advanced rules (special damage, crew actions etc)
• the rulebook layout is NOT conducive to playing the advanced rules :D

The forum has a downloadable reference sheet [you'll need a forum login] with turn order and page numbers, and this is utterly invaluable and makes the advanced rules much easier to follow, as log as you read it through a couple of times, and then follow it step by step! As you can guess, we didn't for the first few turns :D

Rigging

Anyone recommend a good reference for the standing rigging on Napoleonic ships?

No, I'm not planning on doing it. I'm married to a veterinary surgeon, who is much better at micro-sutures than I am. ;)

More Sails of Glory

Well, actually, more just an amused note.

The ships, it transpires, are 1/1000 scale, much to the annoyance of a lot of naval wargamers who have existing fleets in 1/1200... However, on the good side, 1/1000 is pretty much 2mm scale, and there's a bunch of folks do some pretty nice (and cheap!) buildings and scenery in that scale - Brigade Models, Langton and Irregular Miniatures for starters.

The only amusing thing is that '2mm scale' in wargames terms is 1/1000, whereas if you ask a railway modeller, '2mm scale' is 2mm to the foot, not 2mm figure height, and therefore about 1/144 scale. Plenty of scope for useless Google results :D

Sails of Glory

I appear to have had a minor accident online, as it were :D

I use the Dice Shop Online enough that I'm on their mailing list, and last Thursday they decided to do a sale (I assume because they're stopping stocking it) of Sails of Glory - main box down by £10, ships down by almost 50% (£17.50 ships of the line for under a tenner). Since I've didn't yield to temptation on the Kickstarter, I bit...

It doesn't count towards the pledge, yer honour. They\re already painted (no, I'm not going to rey the 'it's a board game' argument) :D

Already had a chat with Lesley's Bits Box (a KR dealer) at Campaign re more sensible packaging. Which is good, because I also just picked up another starter set and FOURTEEN extra ships on eBay for £130. *scuffs feet, grins sheepishly*

I feel a club campaign coming on....