Hunting the Kaisar Gurita

Local traders in the East Indies had fed the Dutch and Portuguese stories of the Kaisar Gurita, a giant many-tentacled creature that destroyed ships and whose capacious belly contained the remains of the treasure-laden cargoes the ships had been carrying.

Both nations sent a squadron of ships to investigate and kill this creature for the fabulous wealth its carcass would offer them

(Almost certainly the traders were telling them about the treasure on the hope the annoying foreigners would  go after the monster and get destroyed. But that's irrelevant.)

The Dutch sailed in three cromsters, the Java, Reijger and Eendracht.

And the Portuguese were in three carracks, the Santa Amaro, Misericordia and Madre De Deus.

As the ships approached the area in which the Kaisar Gurita lurked, they had to work upwind.

The monster lurked under the surface, avoiding contact with the European ships.

The Dutch turned into the wind and waited for the Kaisar Gurita to surface. Meanwhile the Portuguese struggled to round the island; a small shift in the wind meant that only their lead ship, Santa Amaro, had sea-room to get past. The other two ships had to perform a slow tacking manuever.

The Java fired at the Santa Amaro as it headed between the island and the rocks.

The Santa Amaro headed towards the Dutch, who, despairing of seeing the giant octopus they were hunting, turned to engage.

Behind them the Kaisar Gurita emerged from the water, looking for easy pickings.

The Santa Amaro's course took it between the Reijger and the Eendracht, and it fired a broadside at both, inflicting some damage. Indeed the Eendracht caught fire ...

... and exploded.

With all of the other ships heading away from the Santa Amaro, the Kaisar Gurita saw an easy opportunity, and latched onto the Portuguese vessel.

The crew fought the monster, and inflicted some damage, but took casualties in return.

Meanwhile the Java was discovering that the area they were in wasn't just the domain of the Kaisar Gurita; there was a mighty whirlpool out on the fringes. And in trying to round some rocks in order to bring the fight to the Portuguese the Dutch ship had fallen into its pull.

The Santa Amaro cut free of the Kaisar Gurita, and ran out its guns.

A broadside did no damage, but it did seem to stun the monster, which remained inactive for a while.

The Kaisar Gurita submerged, seemingly unwilling to attack the Portuguese ship again, despite it being badly damaged.

In fact the Santa Amaro managed to get away, and spent the rest of the game repairing, never returning to the action.

The Dutch continued to work towards the two remaining Portuguese ships, which were still floundering downwind from the action.

But the Java was now in trouble. It had been on the edge of the whirpool's influence, but now couldn't turn fast enough ...

... and was sucked in, to be lost with all hands.

The Dutch now just had the Reijger left, and as it shaved past the island it took fire from the Misericordia, losing some rigging.

It returned fire, dismounting the Misericoria's foremast.

Another broadside from the Misericordia damaged the Dutch ship, which struck its colours.

The fighting attracted the Kaisar Gurita, which saw the stricken Dutch ship as a possible kill.

But the Misericordia was also a tempting target, and soon the Portuguese vessel found tentacles wrapping around its hull and remaining rigging.

A desperate struggle ensued, with the monster savaging the Misericordia's crew, whilst they poured fire into its buk, wounding it again and again. The Madre de Deus saw the mighty octopus was striken, and set a course to ram it, but neither ship nor monster took any significant damage.

But now the Kaisar Gurita was fighting two enemy ships. Sensing its weakness it concentrated its attacks on the Misericordia, whose crew soon had enough, and took to the boats. 

But the monster was weak now. It put up a ferocious fight, and soon the Madre de Deus was damaged as well. But eventually the volume of fire, added to swords and axes cutting at its tentacles, was enough to finish the monster.

For the Dutch and Portuguese victory was determined by killing the monster, with some points for destroying or capturing enemy ships. Meanwhile the monster scored some points for destroying enemy ships but also got points simply for surviving a turn. This latter score I found problematic; the Kaisar Gurita could simply submerge every turn for one action, and remain immune to attack. It could then simply pick up points and the Dutch and Portugueses could do nothing. I changed it such that the monster only scored points if it was on the surface at the end of its turn, where it is potentially exposed to attack.

Anyway, on that basis, the Kaisar Gurita scored 9VP, but also picked up 1VP for forcing the Misericordia to strike. This latter was also an issue; the scenario says that the monster only scored points for destroying enemy ships, but the octopus fights by boarding and can't destroy them. I assumed that forcing one to surrender was sufficient. But see below.

The Dutch scored nothing.

The Portuguese got 3VP for destroying or capturing two Dutch ships and, in addition, 10VP for killing the monster (they'd have also got that for driving it off, a possibility via critical hits). So they won the scenario.

The scenario was 'Thar She Blows!' from the original rules. The setup seems very much to favour the monster, who can set the terrain, set up anywhere and then choose the wind direction and starting corners of the opposing forces. As the monster I simply set both flotillas in corners where they were heading into the wind in order to reach the monster's position, safe in the knowledge of being able to pick up points simply whilst watching them have to tack to where it was. In future I'd randomise the monster's position, maybe, and allow the ships choice of wind direction and position in the way most other scenarios do it. I did randomise the terrain setup, which is how the maelstrom worked its way onto the board. I think this is the first time I've lost a ship to one.

I adjusted the ships slightly from the previous scenario in order to even up the forces a little and match points with the monster. The carracks lost the sluggish train, which increased their points value, whilst I dropped yare and master gunner from the Dutch ships, replacing the latter with carronades.

I added two small changes. Firstly I used the 'Jury Rig' rule I mentioned in an earlier post, which allows a ship to spend one action per activation to nullify the effects of one rigging critical. This actually allowed the Misericordia to work upwind to the monster towards the end. I'd need to rename the rule, as 'Jury-Rig' is already a trait in the game. Secondly when pondering how the monster could destroy a ship, I added an 'destroy' option to boarding. A ship or creature that is grappled to an opposing ship which has surrendered via the All At Sea table, or via excess boarding damage or criticals can spend one action to scuttle it. This cuts the grapples for free, and the enemy ship then sinks. To be honest by the end of the scenario I'd decided that forcing the crew of a ship to surrender was enough for the monster.