North Sea Pursuit

1916. The dastardly Hun have bombarded an insignificant English coastal town and are running for home. But the Royal Navy are hot on their tail! And they have ships moving to cut off the German escape as well.

The stage was set for another Thursday evening game of Broadside: Empires of Steel.

Here's the Germans - eleven cruisers and light cruisers. And maybe battlecruisers. To be honest I'm not sure. Their objective was to get into the blue zone at the end of the table. British ships would be pursuing them, and some capital ships would appear at the sides of the blue zone as well. Any German ship not in the blue zone at the end of six turns would be assumed sunk by the High Seas Fleet.

Into the action as the British arrive in hot pursuit. They had the problem that they could either only fire their forward guns, or risk losing ground against the Germans by turning to use their full broadsides. That said they managed some telling hits on the Germans.

The British took some hits back. The dastardly Hun were being assisted by zeppelins! Whilst SMS Bayern shelled her, HMAS Australia was bombed by one of the mighty gasbags.

As the Germans approached their safety zone the British capital ships began to appear. The Germans took HMS Warspite under fire, but were taking hits in return.

I thought I'd taken a few more pictures, but obviously not. We had to abandon the game halfway through because we ran out of time; the scenario was simply too big for an evening. At the time we finished the Germans had lost a couple of light cruisers, whilst Australia was close to sinking as well. The Germans looked set to reach their safety zone within the time limit, but would still have to spend a few turns being battered by the three capital ships that had turned up by the end whilst also dealing with the pursuers. There was still plenty of action left in the game.