Catamarans and Canoes

In my previous post I promised I'd share how I made my Pacific Island canoes and catamarans. And here I am keeping my promise.

Obviously the first thing I did was scour the 'net for pictures, and then jumble them together in my head so I had a kind of generic look to aim for. Not unlike how I did my European sailing ships. Then I sketched out what I was trying to do. I assumed that I'd use matchsticks as the basis for the hulls, and worked from there. The sailing ship at the top of the sketch was just for scale.

And here's the basic bits - 20mm and 15mm lengths of matchstick, shaped with emery-board.

I used small pieces of thin card to create the effect of the highly curved bows and high sterns. The platform for the catamarans is card, with a matchstick fighting platform. I've probably made the catamarans a little wide, but they look right to me, so I'm sticking by the design. I mocked the vessels up on bases to make sure I had the right look. I'd sketched two canoes to a base, but three looked better in reality. 

Catamarans

Canoes

And finally the finished vessels. I cut the masts at 15mm and added sails using thick craft paper cut into triangles.

Theses designs will be very easy to replicate if I feel the need to expand my fleet. There's just over 100pts of vessels in those four, which is an adequate force for a game, but it would be fun to expand this force and then create a duplicate one in a different colour-scheme for some Pacific Island naval warfare.

Stop The Boats!

Last week we went to Canberra for the weekend, and one of the things we went to see was an exhibition called 'Cook In The Pacific' at the National Library of Australia. It was an excellent exhibition, with loads of maps, paintings, drawings and artefacts covering all three voyages, as well as some stuff on how Cook is interpreted and regarded now (very topical in Australia, for a number of reasons). Sadly, though, if you thought it sounded interesting, you've missed it.

Anyway, I ended up inspired to know more about Cook, so bought Nicholas Thomas's 'Discovery: The Voyages of Captain Cook', which covers the key features of each voyage and Cook's interactions with the various people's he encountered and does so without either deifying or demonising him.

Needless to say, all this reading about ships and adventures in far-off parts of the world inspired me to play some more 'Galleys & Galleons'. I thought it would be fun to pit some irate Pacific Islanders against a European voyage of discovery, especially as it would give me a chance to try Boats as a vessel type covering native canoes. This mean, of course, that I had to design and make some Pacific Island vessels, which I did. But that's for another post. Once they were made and statted up, I was ready to play.

So here we are. HMS Opportunity and HMS Explorer are two sturdy Whitby colliers on a voyage of discovery in the Pacific. Under the command of relgious zealot Lt. Morrison and his thuggish bully subordinate Lt. Dutton, the two ships have been wandering the globe looking for trade opportunities and a chance of fame and prestige. Needless to say, in the newly discovered twin islands of Nanus and Mauru, they have seriously upset the locals and find themselves having to flee for safety.

But the natives have assembled a war-fleet, consisting of canoes full of warriors, and some larger swift-sailing catamarans, and are trying to intercept the British vessels before they can make the open sea.

Can Morrison and Dutton stop the boats, and make it to safety?

The terrain had an island bang in the centre, so the first decision was whether to run to the north or south or it. Morrison took the Opportunity and Explorer north, deftly navigating a course between the island and a nearby reef.

The Nanus and Mauru islanders also mostly passed north of the island, hoping to catch the British ships as they turned for the open sea. They shallow-draft vessels could easily negotiate the reefs and shallows. One catamaran passed south of the island, to catch the British from the rear.

As the islanders came into range, Opportunity fired a broadside, to no effect.

Opportunity had weathered the gap between the island and the reef better than Explorer, and a gap had opened up between the vessels. A catamaran steered for the gap, aiming to split the two British ships. The canoes closed slowly, and a little reluctantly at times, on Opportunity.

The British ships continued to fire when they had the chance. The catamaran survived another broadside, this time from Explorer, whilst Opportunity managed to destroy a canoe. Whilst they look imposing compared to the native craft, remember that Opportunity and Explorer were equipped for a voyage of scientific discovery, so were not as well-armed as a warship of equivalent size.

A native catamaran passed across the bow of the Explorer. Rather than risk a collision, Dutton took his ship in and grappled the islander vessel. But he lacked the initiative to launch a boarding action.

The natives wasted no time, swarming ferociously over the Explorer's bows. But Dutton was an old hand when it came to cracking skulls, and his crew fended off the attack before launching one of their own, cutting a bloody swathe through the islanders.

But the second catamaran was coming up in support.

Morrison was stuck upwind of his consort, so left him to his own devices, making a run for the open sea in the Opportunity. But the native canoes got their act together, closed in and grappled the collier.

A second group of canoes closed in as well, and a fierce melee began. The natives had ferocity and numbers, whist the British had a bigger vessel and better discipline.

On the Explorer, Dutton was having trouble reorganising his crew, and hadn't managed to cut away from the one crippled catamaran before the other came up on his stern, disgorging a fresh batch of warriors into the fight.

It was over quickly. The British crew were overpowered, and the Explorer was lost.

The crew of the Opportunity were fighting like demons, though, as their veteran petty officers ensured discipline was maintained and prevented the ship being taken. Bloodied but unbeaten, they forced the handful of surviving natives back to their canoes, before cutting free ...

... and escaping. The catamarans had already broken away from Explorer and were in pursuit.

One closed rapidly, but whilst Morrison's ship was near crippled with injured and wounded crew everywhere, they were equal to the task of steering the ship to safety without incident. The Opportunity escaped ...

... leaving Dutton and the surviving crew of the Explorer to an unknown fate.

The VPs for this scenario are quirky. The pursued ships (the British) get points for escaping, but also for damaging the pursuers. The pursuers get nothing for damaging their prey, only for sinking or capturing them. In this case their capture of the Explorer was offset by the escape of the Opportunity, despite the heavy damage it had taken. And having lost both groups of canoes, as well as having a heavily damaged catamaran, the points gave the British a decisive victory.

Gunnery played a minor role in the action, and was virtually ineffective. The islanders did fire a couple of volleys of spears and stones at the British ships, also to no effect. Everything was decided in the cut and thrust of boarding actions.

Finally, here's the stats for the ships. The British ships were run as merchant vessels to reflect their scientific rather than military function. The native vessels are simpler, and built entirely for boarding using their Intimidating warriors.

HMS Opportunity - Q3 C3 - Galleon Rigged, Merchant, Chasers, Reinforced Hull, High Castles, Veteran NCOs, Pilot (58pts)

HMS Explorer - Q3 C3 - Galleon Rigged, Merchant, Chasers, Reinforced Hull, High Castles, Veteran NCOs (54pts)

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

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

Rebels and Patriots

'Rebels and Patriots' is the latest installment in the Rampant series of games published by Osprey, and is aimed at skirmish warfare in North America from about 1750 to the end of the ACW. Obviously that's where the 'fluff' and examples in the book is pitched, but it would cover just about anything else geographically in that period as well. Caesar and I decided to give it a try last night, playing the introductory scenario using the book's 1862-63 ACW lists.

The game is skirmish level, so each unit is basically between 6 and 12 men. However we used my 6mm ACW troops, and had one base of eight figures representing two men, which is an unusual scale (0.25/1) but looked OK. Basically a full infantry unit is 6 bases, we used two artillery stands to represent 'a gun' and, had we used cavalry, we would have had three bases per unit, as they operate with six figures normally.

Are you completely confused yet? We weren't.

We played on a 2' x 2' board and halved all game distances to compensate.

The scenario basically has a ridge in the middle of the board and an objective point on the ridge. Each side scores points if they are the only one with units within a certain distance of the objective at the end of a turn.

I took the Union - one artillery piece, and four line infantry units, two of which were veteran and two of which were green. Caesar had the Confederates, who also had a gun, but a smaller force of three veteran infantry units who were poor shots, but aggressive.

The terrain was fairly open aside from some fences, which slowed movement and provided light cover.

I put my veteran units to the fore, leaving a green unit in reserve and another to cover my left flank.

The green troops advanced through a field, and soon had some rebels in their sights. They opened fire and inflicted a goodly number of casualties with their initial volley.

Meanwhile I pushed close to the objective. Caesar reorganised his troops for a single aggressive push over the ridge.

The first lot of Confederates to poke their heads over the far end of the ridge got them shot off. The Union were closed up and firing volleys with confidence and relative competence.

Unfortunately the Union reserve came under Confederate artillery fire, and decided to skedaddle.

Caesar pushed forward, and sat on the objective, contesting it. There was much firing.

The Confederates came of worse in the firefight. The problem was that they couldn't charge something unless they could see it, so Caesar had to crest the ridge on one turn before charging on the next. As each unit crested the ridge, the Union troops shot it down.

However the veteran Confederates, whilst depleted, still had fight left in them. Their aggressive train makes them pretty formidable in close combat, so even when outnumbered their charge was enough to push back their opponents and give the Confederates a couple of turns of control of the objective.

But it wasn't enough. Control of the objective also meant being exposed to fire, and steady Union volleys made short work of the Rebels. With a few turns left in the game the Union had undisputed control of the objective.

I picked up the big victory points for control of the objective, and we both picked up points for inflicting casualties on our opponent. In addition I got a bonus point from fortuitous random events during the game, and that gave me a convincing 5-1 win.

The game played very smoothly and we didn't have to look up very much once we got going. Obviously we know the system reasonably well, and whilst this version does have some fundamental changes, prior knowledge helped. The fact that we really only had two troop types in play kept things simple as well. The biggest changes in 'Rebels and Patriots' are that all units get a chance to activate, rather than a fail ending your turn, and the fact that a morale tests are easier to pass (since you only factor in casualties inflicted that round, rather than accumulated casualties), with a failure leading to disorder rather than a straight rout. Units basically have more staying power, although this is somewhat offset by the lethality of firing.

This game very much covers the same ground as Sharp Practice, but I found the system easier to follow, and it was more obvious how to set about achieving an aim. It's probably slightly lighter in terms of chrome than SP, but certainly easier to play. A worthy addition to the Rampant stable.

Thanks to Caesar for running the game, for which I just provided toys, terrain, and a righteous cause.

Galleys & Galleons - House Rules

I have been looking through some old files on my Google Drive, and came across these house rules for Ganesha's 'Galleys & Galleons'. Whilst I have alluded to them in past posts, I don't think I have ever got as far as posting them anywhere, so I thought I'd share them on the off-chance someone might find them of use.

They are in three main sections. The first is a change to the Weather Change rules. In G&G, a change in the wind is based on failed activation rolls which means that, to some extent, a player can influence it by their choice of dice. I felt it was easier to have it as a separate roll, even if it adds an additional roll into the turn. Elements of it are based on the weather change rules in the classic 'Hearts of Oak' game. The second section covers Criticals, basing them on a single D6 roll, and clarifying (for my purposes at least) how they are applied to various different vessel types. They also add in the possibility of a crew abandoning or surrendering a vessel if it becomes immobilised. Finally there are a few random changes to Traits, which are purely personal or which I felt helped clarify things.

NOTE: This version of the house-rules has now been superseded by a NEW VERSION

Weather Change

At the beginning of each player’s turn they throw a dice. If there are more than two players in a game only the first two players to activate that turn throw a wind change dice. On a score of 6 the wind may change direction.

Throw a dice for how much:

1-3 – Wind changes by one point
4-6 – Wind changes by two points

Roll another dice for wind direction:

1 - The wind changes anticlockwise and is backing. -1 to the next wind direction dice throw (down to a minimum score of 1).
2 - The wind changes anticlockwise.
3 - The wind changes anticlockwise and is steady. Ignore the next weather change roll.
4 - The wind changes clockwise and is steady. Ignore the next weather change roll.
5 - The wind changes clockwise.
6 - The wind changes clockwise and is veering. +1 to the next wind direction dice throw (up to a maximum score of 6).

“Veer +1”, “Back -1” and “Steady” markers can be used as reminders by placing them on the wind gauge and removing them after they have affected the next wind direction dice throw.

Critical Hits

Excess damage scores one critical regardless of how many hits should be applied.

Roll a red dice for the effect, and a white dice in case of secondary rolls.

1 – Quarterdeck (1-3: Captain killed, 4-6: Rudder hit)
2 – Hull (Surface, Submersible or Airship only: 5-6 Holed)
3 – Hull (Surface, Submersible or Airship only: 5-6 Holed)
4 – Rigging
5 – Rigging
6 – Fire (6: Explodes)

Captain killed – The first time this happens the vessel operates at +1Q for the rest of the game. If the vessel had Flagship or Dread Pirate then these abilities are lost. Any subsequent rolls are treated a 1 Hit, but if this is excess damage then the crew abandon ship.

Rudder hit – The vessel must expend two actions in order to turn. The second time this critical occurs the vessel must expend three action to turn. If it occurs a third time the vessel can no longer turn. Any subsequent occurrences are treated a Hull hit.

Hull – The vessel takes a point of damage. If this is excess damage then the vessel sinks.

Holed – This replaces a Hull critical if it occurs. A surface vessel or submersible is holed, and is treated as if it has the Sluggish special ability for the rest of the game. If the vessel is already Sluggish then treat as a Hull critical. A submersible which receives this critical can no longer submerge. An airship which receives this critical can no longer ascend to high altitude. If it is at high altitude it immediately drops to sea-level. Any further occurrences of this critical are treated as a Hull critical. Ornithopters and Gyrocopters never test for this critical; they always take a Hull critical.

Rigging – Sail: The first occurrence of this critical causes the vessel to reduce all movement in all directions by one step – Long becomes Medium, Medium becomes Short and Short becomes 0. The second occurrence reduces all movement by two steps. Any after the second mean the vessel cannot move at all, and the crew will abandon ship if it is excess damage. A vessel which has taken two or more unrepaired rigging hits may no longer use Razee or Sweeps. Razee may be used in a direction which is not In Irons but which has been reduced to zero.

Rigging - Galley: The first occurrence of this critical causes the vessel to reduce all movement from Medium to Short. The second occurrence means that the vessel cannot move. Third and subsequent hits have no effect unless they are excess damage in which case the crew abandon ship.

Rigging - Steam Engine: The first occurrence of this hit causes the vessel’s speed to remain fixed at the current setting. The second means that the vessel may no longer move. Third and subsequent hits have no effect unless they are excess damage in which case the crew abandon ship.

Rigging - Unorthodox: The first occurrence means that a -2 is applied to all movement die rolls. A second means that a -4 modifier is applied. Third and subsequent hits mean that the vessel cannot move, and the crew will abandon ship if it is excess damage.

Rigging - Ornithopter: The first occurrence means that the vessel cannot go to high altitude, and drops one level if it is at that altitude. A second occurrence means that the vessel crashes.

Rigging - Gyrocopter: The first occurrence means that the vessel can only move once per turn. A second occurrence means that the vessel crashes.

Fire – If the vessel does not immediately explode, then it catches fire, or receives another fire if it already has at least one. At the start of the player’s turn, before any ships activate, roll a dice for each fire on the vessel. If any of them score a 6, the vessel explodes. If the vessel does not explode, then roll for a critical hit. Only one critical is rolled for, regardless of how many fires are on the ship. The vessel rolls activations as normal, but all actions for that turn must be expended fighting one fire. Extinguish one fire on a 1-2 if the ship rolled one action, 1-4 if it rolled two actions and automatically if it rolled three actions. When a ship fights a fire, it may also automatically cut grapples to one opposing ship if it rolls 2 actions or more. This is a free action, and does not reduce the ability to fight the fire.

At the start of a player’s turn, test for any ship not currently on fire which is in contact with a ship which is on fire. If it is simply in contact, then it catches fire on a 1-3. If it is grappled to the ship then it catches fire automatically.

Explode – The vessel is removed. Roll for each vessel within Short distance of the explosion; on a 6 the vessel receives a Fire critical. (Any vessels grappled to the exploding vessel receive 1 hull hit if they roll equal to or less than the exploding vessel’s C value on a D6).

All At Sea

On a roll of ‘2’ the opposing player can force the vessel to do one of the following, so long as it does not cost more than one action:

Full turn to Starboard
Full turn to Port
Move

If a vessel rolls a result which is not possible with one action (a turn when the rudder has been hit, a move if the vessel is immobile or firing if no target is available or the vessel is unarmed) then treat as a roll of ‘6’. If a vessel rolls a ‘6’ and has no activations to reroll, then ignore the roll.

Traits

Chasers - Cost is only 2 points if they fire to just one of bow or stern

Dread Pirate - The Dread Pirate ability also applies not only to any ships with the Merchantman trait, but also any opposing warships if they both have a C value equal to or less than that of the Dread Pirate’s ship, and have taken equal to or more hits.

Fireship - Once a fireship is on fire it rolls no activations, but takes damage from the fire on board normally. If it contacts another ship, it automatically grapples it.

Razee - A ship with this ability loses it if it has taken at least two rigging criticals.

Sweeps - A ship with this ability loses it if it has taken at least two rigging criticals.

Ornithopter - Allow use of Reduce Sails move to move Medium instead of Long.

Marksmen - Ignore the rule as written. Instead, in the first round of boarding after a grapple, a vessel with Marksmen rolls 2 dice for combat and selects the highest.

Lucky - When rolling two dice for which critical applies, if both dice score the same, then the critical is ignored.

Thursday Games

Thursday game reports have been a bit sparse recently because we're doing a bit of Secret Playtesting again. But last week I took a couple of photos of some of the other games just so that you wouldn't feel deprived. Geoff and Peter played Art De La Guerre, which they seem to be enjoying more than large-scale DBA.

Ian and Gary played Bolt Action

I think Gary's lovely armoured car was a Cancon purchase.

Ian's Russians were fuelled by a copious quantities of cocaine.

This week Caesar and I will be giving 'Rebels and Patriots' a go.