South Sea Action

I gave my new South Seas vessels an outing last night, in a straight fight between the two factions I've painted them as, which for now are the Black Prows and the Yellow Prows. Both sides fielded the same forces - four catamarans and four groups of canoes. I'll post the stats below.

Here's the Black Prows, ready to sail into battle against their arch-enemies.

The position a few turns into the action. The terrain was a couple of islands and some reef (rocks). Shallows were not a concern since all of the vessels ignore them.

The Yellow Prows (top) advanced in a long line, whilst the black Prows tried to concentrate their forces in a column aimed at one of the Yellow Prow flanks.

The first firing saw casualties in a Black Prow canoe group. None of the vessels are armed in this action, so all firing is small-arms only. 

The two groups closed and missiles flew between the vessels. Both sides took more casualties.

The catamarans of both sides now closed up, and soon vessels were grappled together as the boarding actions began. Both sides tried to bring up canoes in order to outnumber their opponents.

An overview of the action. At the top and in the centre the Black Prows have catamarans that are fighting against odds of two-to-one.

The action becomes bloodier. The numbered counters represent damage to the vessels, and casualties were mounting on both sides.

By this stage, some ships and canoe groups on both sides had struck. In the close-packed melee, the victors were sometimes struggling to ungrapple and seek new targets.

A new melee breaks out to the south of the action, and both sides had sent flanking forces in that direction.

Although losses were mounting on both sides, the Yellow Prows just had the edge. At this stage, with the majority of vessels either struck, sunk or pretty much trapped I called the game.

I called it a draw but with the Yellow Prows gaining the greater honour. These are the surviving vessels - the Yellow Prows still had three of their catamarans active, albeit damaged. The Black Prows had lost all but one of theirs, but still had two active canoe groups.

As expected this action quickly became a series of close-fought boarding actions, with the victory going to whoever could concentrate their forces on the other or get the activations to seize the initiative. Ships breaking off from boarding actions after victory was an issue. A ship may cut grapples for free if the opponent has struck, and is then turned by the minimum amount necessary to clear its former opponent. However in many cases this would still leave them sailing into another nearby vessel. causing a collision, so staying grappled to their former foe was the only way to stay safe.

Despite those frustrations this was a fun little action. I now have an idea for a variant of it, this time with some gunnery involved.