Jacht & Galleon

I've been ill for most of this week (aches and a fevers that, at least, didn't manifest into a full-fledged cold, but still knocked me out completely for a few days), so as I recovered I forced myself to play a couple of quick games last night just to get my brain up and working again. This may not sound like much, but up until then my greatest triumph had been to choose a series to binge on Netflix, something which took two days to achieve.

Anyway, Galley & Galleons was still out on my table, but I couldn't rouse the energy to design any ships or even find designs I'd done for previous games, so I simply played the Pursuit scenario with the suggested 'starter' ships from the rules - a Jacht attacking a Merchant Galleon.

The Jacht is a low combat-value, high-quality, with Yare and Shallow Draft. The Merchant Galleon actually has better rigging, so sails faster downwind, has a lower quality and a higher combat value, modified by it being a merchant. It's slow to turn as well. On paper they're equal in points.

It turns out that they're not really equal on the table.

In every game I played the Jacht has lost; in most it hardly damages the Galleon and in a couple the Galleon has bested it in a straight fight. In one the Galleon grappled and boarded it even; the odds are with the merchant even there.

The problem is that the Galleon is a fairly well-balanced design for the points, whilst the Jacht is really geared up to manoeuvre. Unfortunately whilst manoeuvre can get it into a good position, it's hard to maintain it in most games. The Jacht gets on good shot off - even a rake - then the Galleon can return fire and do damage back. The Jacht really has to hope for a lucky critical with its first shot to slow or hinder the Galleon.

For all the imbalance it's been fun playing the games. I shall look for a better raider of Galleons though.

As you can see in the first picture I have reconfigured my terrain a little. I started playing games with three types - carpet-tile islands, felt sandbanks and blue shallows. However the sandbanks (treated as islands, but you could fly or fire over them) never really got used in any game in a way that made them unique, so I have decided to scrap them (except for special scenarios, of course) and use the felt as beaches for the islands, making them more interesting. The blue shallows I have jazzed up with some rocks. And ship can sail through them; they're just for show. They just make the table look more interesting.