Monday, 23 March 2026

Torpedoes & Tides - Encounter

I'm running a game of Torpedoes & Tides on Thursday, so I thought I'd better refamiliarise myself with the rules.

I set up the basic encounter scenario from the rules in which three British MGBs take on two German S-Boats. The S-Boats are faster and tougher, but the British have an edge in quality and are smaller. 

As every the two forces approached each other in the darkness under the cover of blinds. 


The lead British boat was spotted and the Germans sped into the attack, scoring no damage.


The action flared into life, and the British closed up on the Germans, guns blazing. Through amazingly lucky rolls they inflicted a couple of hits on the lead German boat. 


The Germans couldn't catch a break; they kept rolling sixes to hit, which would normally be great, but the British boats are 'Hard To Hit', a trait which converts a 6 to a 1. Meanwhile the British were also rolling sixes, but there's were translating to hits. Both German boats were damaged now. 


The Germans finally manage to inflict 1 (one) hit on a  British boat. 


Another is supressed.


The British organised themselves into a line (very traditional) and pounded one of the S-Boats. 


Its commander decided that enough was enough and turned for home. 


In the darkness and confusion the other German boat mistook it for a British boat and opened fire, but scored no damage. 


The British pursued, but the escaping German evaded them. 


The British turned after the second German. The S-Boat's sensible option would be to flee, but it decided to put up at least some fight first, and opened fire on the pursuing MGB. 


The British kept up a dogged pursuit.


An MGB was damaged as a second came into the action. 


The German boat now ran for it, taking fire as it did so.


Another friendly fire incident saw one of the MGBs fire on another, scoring light damage. 


Confused as to just how many enemy boats were in the area. the damaged MGB broke off from the action. 


This left one MGB chasing the German. The S-Boat fired one final shot before fleeing. 


But that delayed it long enough to give the MGB a final shot. And it was a telling blow that sank the S-Boat.

This was a fast and furious action. It was pretty much decided by the first few shots, with the British rolling a string of sixes to inflict useful damage on the Germans. German shots were nullified by the British boats being smaller targets. 

The Germans lost one boat damaged and fled, and one sunk. All of the British boats had taken light damage, and one fled the action. 

5 comments:

  1. Wow, that was a brutal fight! I ran the scenario only recently (it will be another video) and the British narrowly won by points, but no boats were wrecked - but both sides disengaged when boats were battered. And we also had a friendly fire incident :)

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    1. A sensible German player would have pulled out the second S-Boat after the first fled, but I couldn't resist the chance of knocking out a British boat. After all, the British good fortune couldn't last all game, could it?

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  2. Thank you for this, you've made me want to dig into Thomas' rules, which I've just purchased from WV. I love the fact that there are friendly fire rules! That's brilliant and added a lot of chaos to your game. Cheers, Michael

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    1. T&T is derived from Galleys & Galleons, and makes use of the All At Sea Table mechanism. The table in Torpedoes & Tides is simpler than that in G&G, but does add a certain level of chaos. And a lot is provided by the Ganesha activation system as well, allowing for daring escapes and missed opportunities galore.

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