The Adventures Of Harvey Knight - 1

Thomas has now added a campaign system to Torpedoes & Tides. Since I'm still trying out scenarios and poking around with the rules, it seemed a good way to structure things, so I thought that I would give it a try.

Essentially you play the lead commander of a flotilla of  torpedo boats, and get sent on various patrols and missions, hoping to gain experience and build a reputation.

I generated Lt Cdr Harvey Knight, who leads a flotilla of 72' boats - four torpedo boats and two motor gun boats - on the east coat of England. Not every boat will go on every mission; you need spares.

There's a small cast of characters as well; the other boat commanders, and some personnel back at base, but aside from giving them names you don't need to do anything else at this stage. All of the boat crews start as green; Lt Cdr Knight will have to work hard to bring them up to scratch.

For the first mission the flotilla was tasked with intercepting a convoy off the Dutch coast. Harvey took his own boat, MTB 413, as well as Lt Stewart in MTB 414 and Lt McDonald in MGB 103. The convoy had three small freighters, as well as three escorts, two R-Boats and a Vorpostenboot.

The plan was to attack the tail of the convoy. They quickly spotted a freighter. MTB 414 went in fast, dodged being spotted by an escort and launched both torpedoes at the German vessel.

BOOM! It sunk. 

An R-boat opened fire to no effect.

Lt McDonald in MGB 103 ran alongside the flank of the convoy, looking to pick out the next freighter, so that Lt Cdr Knight in MTB 413 could take that one out with his torpedoes. However the Germans were now thoroughly alerted, and the freighters were piling on all speed to escape, whilst a big Vorpostenboot came into view. The first shot it fired showed that it was well armed with big guns.

(I made some random rolls to determine information about the escorts. This was a nasty thing for the dice to throw up on a first mission. And in Torpedoes & Tides, even slow ships like freighters can crack on if they remain on blinds, so it's vital to spot them as soon as possible in order to force them into 'normal' actions')

Attacking the rear of the convoy had been something of a mistake. The three British boats piled on the speed, but soon lost touch with the other two freighters which disappeared into the night. This just left them dealing with the German escorts.

Another shot at MGB 103 inflicted light damage.

Knight decided that enough was enough and sent the other two boats home. He would stay for one shot at the Vorpostenboot rather than suffer the shame of going home having fired no torpedoes. Unfortunately his attempt to do this was thwarted by McDonald in MGB 103, who laid smoke to cover his exit and blocked Knight's shot.

At this point Knight should have followed his other boats home, but he was now intent on trying to sink the big escort (now identified as the Kobold). However the R-boats were now preventing him getting a clear shot with his torpedoes.

The Kobold opened fire on him as he worked past the smaller craft to line up a run. MTB 413 was lightly damaged.

Torpedoes away! 

They missed, and a confused helm order saw MTB steer not to the port and safety, but to starboard and a dangerous run home right past the Kobold.

Another hit! The Kobold's gunners were shooting well tonight.

MTB 413 was now battered. And at that point the Germans scored yet another hit. But for one the dice were with the British; all damage resolved as suppression; one more proper hit would have sunk the boat and ended Lt Cdr Knight's career (and the campaign) on the first game.

All of the British boats got home, with MGB 103 having suffered light damage and MTB 413 in a very bad way. Going after that escort was a very stupid thing to do.

However they had sunk a freighter and the experience was good for the crew of Stewart's MTB 414. Amazingly Knight's reputation improved as well; the story of his attack on the Kobold somehow ended up showing him in a favourable light, and people had begun to notice him.

Less good was that the repair yard was at capacity, and little work could be done on the two damaged boats, which would be  unlikely to head out on the next mission. Next time Knight would have to hitch a ride on another vessel.

Another Convoy Attack

I set up another test game of Torpedoes & Tides today. I'd promised myself I'd have a go at the False Nose Job scenario (covert operations), but I'd also got a yearning to run the S-Boats in an attack so I ran the convoy scenario again

Here's the vessels involved in a promo shot. The British have an east Coast convoy consisting of three small freighters escorted by two Fairmile B motor launches and an Isle Class armed trawler, HMS Sodor.  The Germans are attacking with three S30 type boats.

As you can see, I've actually painted the ships now!

Here's the convoy on their blinds, heading north with the moon behind them.

The Germans hugged the coastline, planning to attack from the front so as to gain the benefit of the moon. Two boats would run along the coast to take advantage of the cover of the shoreline, whilst one would go directly in from the front to draw away the escorts.

The Germans quickly spotted one of the Fairmiles.

Even better, they found a freighter just beyond it.

The Fairmile moved to cut off the German run along the coast. An exchange of fire saw both vessels damaged.

A second S-boat was spotted, as was HMS Sodor. There was more shooting.

A splash of water off the bow of S-61 indicated that HMS Sodor was ranging in its  3.2" gun. One of the things I wanted to try in this game was the Large Calibre trait for bigger weapons. They get a penalty when shooting at small targets, but score more damage if they hit them.

S-61 launched a torpedo at the lead freighter, but missed. The marker is entirely for photographic purposes; it has no effect on gameplay.

S-47 had been damaged in the early exchange of gunfire with one of the Fairmiles. Spooked by the shooting from HMS Sodor its captain lost his nerve and headed for home.

All of the German vessels were revealed now, as were the escorts.

HMS Sodor scored a hit on S-58, rattling the crew and forcing them to abort their torpedo run on the second freighter (which I hadn't put on the board yet despite it having been spotted).

S-61 launched a second torpedo at the lead freighter ...

... and it hit! The freighter began to sink.

But S-61 hadn't left enough room to turn out of the way, and collided with it. Fortunately the damage was insignificant.

HMS Sodor closed in, its big gun throwing up water but scoring no damage.

The position about halfway through. The Germans have sunk one freighter and S-58 is lining up on one of the others. S-61 is rather too close to HMS Sodor for comfort. S-47 is sauntering along the coat to the right, away from the action. The British escorts now need to turn to keep the Germans under fire.

S-58 fired a spread of torpedoes at the third freighter, but was frustrated to see them both miss. Both of the remaining S-boats would need to reload torpedoes, or rely on gunnery now.

And what of the Fairmile that first engaged the Germans? Its captain ran it aground on the English coast, and we won't be hearing of him again.

Using their superior speed and agility, both S-boats moved away from the escorts and turned their attention to the third freighter. Each reloaded a torpedo as well.

The British had other problems, as HMS Sodor almost ran down the remaining Fairmile.

Would this torpedo hit? The answer was No. 

There were a few minutes of relative inaction, but in that time HMS Sodor had come about and started firing on the S-boats again.

S-61 evaded the trawler and came alongside the second freighter. With no time to load its last torpedo it would have to rely on its guns and a lot of luck.

HMS Sodor scored another hit on S-58, who was now silhouetted by the moon.

The captain of S-58 opted for a bold counter-attack, and ran in fast, launching a torpedo at HMS Sodor. Once again the Germans saw a torpedo miss its target.

The 3.2" gun on the trawler missed as well.

Guns blazing S-58 collided with the trawler, taking damage, but not damaging the enemy vessel.

HMS Sodor's gunners couldn't resist a stricken point-blank range target and quickly sank the German vessel.

HMS Sodor finished the action picking up German survivors.

S-61 kept up a steady fire on the British freighter, but couldn't get a proper hit on it. And now the Fairmile was coming up astern.

The British gunners scored a solid hit on theGerman S-boat

The Germans fired one more burst at the freighter, inflicted no significant damage, and then headed for home.

I called he game there. The second British freighter would be able to leave the table  and the surviving S-boat wasn't going to last long against two escorts whilst trying to head back for the final freighter.

Not a great outing for the Germans, who did manage to sink a freighter (and see a Fairmile go aground), but had one boat flee the fight and another sunk in return.

It's really hard to hit something with torpedoes in this game (or my dice-rolling has been exceptionally unlucky). 

I was really pleased with how the game looked though.

War Rig!

We've been playing Gaslands for a few years now, but we'd never done a game featuring a war rig before. Caesar thought that it might be fun to try the mini-campaign in the rules though, and that features the adventures of a war rig in the wastelands.

To that end he built a lovely war rig.

The first scenario simply involves driving the rig from one side of the table to the other. The Rigger team gets enough points to buy a rig and a couple of support vehicles. That was me. It was also supposed to be Daniel as well, but his bathroom ceiling had an rain-induced apocalypse of its own (we've had a lot of rain) and he had to leave before we'd even rolled any dice.

The other four players are the Gangers. They have the same number of points as the Riggers, start on the opposite edge and simply have to stop the rig from crossing the table. They get to place two barricades anywhere on the table; you can see them positioned sensibly in the rig's path.

The campaign has a list of special perks the rig can have; it selects one. In this case I went for one that allows me to destroy obstacles I collide with once per turn. So that dealt with the barricade that was in my way.

A quick jink to the right and a run through that patch of vegetation and I would be home! But the Gangers were closing in.

My second support vehicle was off to the left, where it could zip in on the flank of the attackers.

The Gangers attack and the rig starts to take damage.

Two more Gangers close in top right.

The van had a tank gun, which made it unstable but also meant that I started to take some serious damage.

Meanwhile my second support car was shooting up the flanking Gangers.

The yellow mini was equipped with an Electric Arc Projector. This bounces its attack from one vehicle to another. It hit the rig, and the attack then bounced to my support car and then to the Ganger's tank-gun armed van. It took off the rig's last hull hits but almost destroyed the van as well!

Declan wanted to be part of things and revved up a car ...

... to ram the rig! Given I had no hit points left, this was fairly pointless, but it was fun.

So in the scenario the rig isn't wrecked when it loses its last hull points; you have to remove any special perks it has as well. Each perk has a condition which causes it to be lost. In the case of my special terrain-destroying ram it was being involved in a head-on collision with an enemy vehicle. So the Gangers lined up such a collision ...

And that was the end of the rig!

The Gangers had won this round of the campaign.

This was fun to play; the rig is an interesting and tough opponent, and the scenario made a change from our regular Gaslands games. Many thanks to Caesar for putting everything together, especially the lovely war rig.