South Sea Fleets

I finished off the new additions to my South Sea Islander forces for Galleys & Galleons over the weekend - six catamarans and six groups of canoes, as described in my previous post.

I did them with two subtly different colour schemes so that they can fight each other if required. Yellow bows on the left and black bows on the right.

In addition I made the catamarans on the one side all single-masted. I'm not sure about the sails on the two furthest and may redo them at some stage. The advantage of these simple scratchbuilds is that stuff like that is easy; I'm only dealing with card, paper and PVA.

Here they are with one of my medium galleons for scale.

One small issue is that since I last did any prints of the sea-texture I use for the bases, we have a acquired a new printer, replacing our old inkjet with a colour laser printer. And the colour reproduction of this new printer is a lot better, as you can see from the brighter bases of the new models compared to the four older ones.

I didn't make any more outriggers (as shown in the last post), but may do that as my next project.

More Catamarans And Canoes

Back in 2019 I shared how I'd made some South Sea canoes and catamarans for Galleys & Galleons. I said in the post that I'd look at expanding my fleet, and today, a mere two and a half years later, I made a start. 

I'm making six more bases of canoes and six more catamarans. That will give me a total of eight of each, which I can split into two forces.

I also mocked up a design for a large outrigger vessel.

The stats I've used for these vessels in the past are:

Catamarans - Q3 C2 - Lateen Rigged, Unarmed, Intimidating, Shallow Draft, Sweeps (24pts)

Canoes - Q2 C2 - Boats, Intimidating (28pts)

I'd run the outrigger as a catamaran, drop it to C1 and give it the Razee trait. I'd possibly consider giving the catamarans and the outrigger the Yare trait as well (making them 28pts)

Some Blood Sweat And Cheers

I've been in a bit of a doldrums recently with regard to gaming. We played some Love Letter whilst we were away the other week, but otherwise the games of Unterseeboot I played last week have been my sole activity for a while. However this lunchtime I pulled out my arena and played a few games of 'Blood, Sweat and Cheers'.

To start with I put the dimachaerus Spiculus up against the hoplomachus Ellenikos.

It was a pretty short fight - Ellenikos never really got any momentum going, and Spiculus soon knocked him to the sand and forced him to appeal for mercy. The crowd didn't grant it.

Spiculus stayed on and faced Scylax, an armoured scissor.

Scylax's armour wasn't enough to protect him from a series of lightning attacks from Spiculus, and the dimachaerus picked up another win.

Pugnax was his next foe. The little myrmillo attacked swiftly, and was wounded for his trouble.

But he fought back, and the fight ranged from one side of the arena to the other.

And although both gladiators ended up wounded, it was Spiculus who succumbed first.

It was good to feel the desire to roll some dice again, and all three games were entertaining as well.

Unterseeboot

A few months ago my brother sent me a copy of a print and play game, Unterseeboot. This evening I finally got around to printing and playing it.

The game is s simple solitaire game in which you command a U-boat on patrol in the Atlantic, looking to sink as great a tonnage of Allied ships as you can before you get sunk or decide to return to base. Obviously it's fairly random, but there are a few decisions to be made, and at the end of the day it's about how far you're willing to push your luck.

Here's the setup. It's all played on a single A4 sheet. On the right-hand side is the area in which the submarine's resources are tracked - battery power for when it's submerged, how much damage it has taken and how many torpedoes it has left. Along the top are the areas which show if the U-boat has been spotted by aircraft or detected by allied destroyers. And the main area of the board is an abstraction of the patrol area. There are five potential targets along the top, and four possible depths the U-boat can operate at - Surface, Periscope, 100m and 200m. A game ends if the U-boat survives 20 turns, or is destroyed or it voluntarily returns to base.

Away we go on my first patrol. I stayed at periscope depth on the first turn, which uses up battery power, but prevented me from being spotted by aircraft. If you are adjacent to a potential target you roll a D6. On a '1' it's a neutral and is removed. Otherwise the roll represents how many thousand tons the ship is. My first target was a mere 2000 tons, but I went for it anyway.

I sank it, but was detected by the destroyer escort.

Once detected by a destroyer it will attack every turn, with its odds of hitting decreasing the deeper the submarine goes. At 200m the U-boat can evade the destroyer altogether, which loses contact. I decided to dive; I had the battery power to do so.

At 200m the destroyer lost contact.

I came back up to periscope depth, and picked up a 5000 ton merchant ship; a much juicier target. Sadly my torpedo attack missed, but I was detected by the destroyer again, and hit with a depth charge. 

Despite the ongoing attack I had to surface to recharge my batteries. An aircraft spotted me, but I evaded its attack. Sadly I once again failed to sink the enemy merchant ship. The destroyer spots a U-boat on the surface automatically, but its attack missed.

I submerged once more, which meant that the planes could no longer find me. I also spotted another 5000 ton target. However I reckoned I'd be pushing my luck trying to take them both, especially as I took another depth-charge hit that, once again, my damage control parties failed to deal with. Another hit would sink me. However I sank one of them.

At this point I decided that returning to base was my best plan, and once more submerged to 200m in order to avoid the destroyer. Even at that depth I took damage from a depth-charge, but this time my crew actually got their act together and damage control dealt with it.

Having evaded the destroyer, and a final air attack I returned to base, with 7000 tons on Allied shipping sank. Not a total disaster, but not outstanding.

I set up a second game, but didn't take as many notes. In this one I stayed on the surface at the start, and immediately spotted a 6000 ton target. I promptly sank it, but was damaged by the destroyer escort. Submerging I went after the next target, a 4000 ton ship. I sank that too, and then took out a 5000 ton ship as well. I was doing well. Looking to shake off an increasingly irate destroyer I submerged to 200m, but was hit by a depth-charge and damaged again. With one hit left I decided to return to base, but on coming to the surface I spotted yet another 5000 ton Allied ship and couldn't resist one last attack. Unfortunately I failed to sink it with three torpedoes, but was hit and sunk by the destroyer escort. 

I shouldn't have gone for that last ship, but I did sink 15,000 tons during the mission.

I'm not sure how much long-term playability this game has; with less detail than the similar 'B17: Queen of the Skies' I can see that most missions will tend to be samey. The game 'Brown Water Submaries' is also similar, but I feel has  more tension. However I'm glad i prinetd it off, and will certainly play again.

Frocktober 2021 - Part 3

And here we are, at the end of another Frocktober. 

The first thing to do in any post is to give you the link for donations; you can continue making donations for the next couple of weeks: IT HAS POCKETS

As you know we are raising money to support the work of the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation here in Australia. Each October I wear a range of lovely frocks to do this. 

Frock Nine. We went away for a few days last week, but I took a couple of frocks with me, and wore this lovely gingham one from Little Party Dress for our first day roaming around the Blue Mountains.

We did some relaxing too. I'm reading a book on photography there, whilst Mrs Kobold is resting her eyes for half an hour or so.

Frock Ten. On the day we checked out we decided to have a high-tea at the hotel, so I dressed appropriately (or maybe over-dressed, given that it was only 11am).

The high-tea doesn't feature in any pictures, but it was delicious, and the view (which is overexposed here) was lovely.

On the way home we stopped off at Mt Annan Botanical Gardens. I seem to have reached the age where wandering around botanical gardens is something of a high point of any holiday.

With ten frocks done - my target - I could have rested on my laurels. But I squeezed in one more. This is Frock Eleven. Which I wore for a visit to more gardens.

I got this pretty floral dress in a charity shop before the lockdown, and had been saving it for Frocktober.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us this year. We did reach our target, but obviously we're happy to exceed it by as much as your generosity allows. Here's that link again: IT HAS POCKETS