Black Seas: first try out

 I had a long overdue game with my friend Andrew last week and we decided to dig out my Napoleonic ships.  A while ago... actually nearly 4 years ago!!  I painted and rigged some of the Warlord Games ships that they produced for Black Seas.  These were mainly the freebie Frigates and Brigs that came with Wargames Illustrated but I'd added a few 3rd rate ships to bolster my fleet

Their last outing was about 3 years ago (I'm always amazed how time flies by... I'd assumed it was much more recent) when we tried out Post Captain.  These are a very detailed set of rules from ODGW who produce General Quarters.  I liked the rules but they are very detailed and not to everyone's taste.  A while ago I managed to pick up a very cheap starter set of Black Seas but hadn't had a chance to try them out.  So, it was time to hoist the sails, splice the mainbrace and swab a deck or 2.

I think naval rules are difficult to get right... either you go for a very detailed, granular approach like Post Captain, or a simplified but playable approach (and risk oversimplifying things and losing the flavour of the period).  A simpler approach is very much what Black Seas does.  It's very like the WW2 game Cruel Seas with ships making 1, 2 or 3 moves depending on their speed with simple turning and tacking rules.  Speed  is dependent on your angle to the wind and is indicated by a wake marker that sits under the model in a simple but effective way.

We went for an easy starter game with a Frigate and a Brig each and didn't add in the range of optional rules which are included... apart from fire, because setting a ship on fire is always fun!

In the first couple of turns I was able to concentrate both my ships fire on Andrew's unlucky Brig which took a battering and quickly struck its colours.  We made a mistake about when to test for morale here so it surrendered more quickly than it should have but we kept this consistent for the rest of the game so it didn't make a huge difference.

Damage in Black.Seas is handled very simply... heavy and light guns cause a fixed amount of damage while carronades cause a bit more but only at shorter ranges.  There are rules for different types of shot etc.  There's always the chance of a critical as well.  Despite losing his Brig, Andrew had been slowly causing hits on my Frigate, managing to cross my T at one point and inflicting extra raking damage.  In exchange I'd managed to cause a fire on his ship but annoyingly he quickly doused this.

Perfect raking fire

A lucky shot starts a fire on the French ship

Both of us were becoming increasingly damaged and some poor steering on my part led to a collision, and both ships struck their colours leaving my Brig to claim the honours.

Crunch!

A good game and I was very impressed with the rules... I think the strike a good balance between detail and playability

More games... Napoleonics and some role playing

More games this week... nothing last week though as we were off in Glasgow for a very hectic week for the 1st time since Lockdown.

This weeks big game was a Napoleonic scrap at Eric The Shed's (I'm sure there will be a fuller write up there soon.  EDIT - Eric's write up has now been posted HERE ).  This 3 player game pitched 2 Allied forces against the French who were firmly entrenched in a small town.  The French positions were initially concealed with a few blanks thrown in to cause confusion.   I took command of the Portuguese, backed up with the 95th Rifles, while Glen led the rather superior British troops.  Eric had charge of the French (this was all decided by dice rolls at the start of the game)

The brave Portuguese march (slowly) towards the town

My advance towards the town was pretty slow but steady but as we had a time limit this was a bit of a concern.  The town was well defended with redoubts manned by artilllery and some very effective troops who were very challenging to push out of the buildings.  The French did also have some poor militia troops but sensibly kept these out of the front line for as long as possible.

The British led a spectacular charge straight through the town which had the potential to be a game winner... unfortunately this led them under the barrels of the artillery who caused devastation.  But it almost worked...

The brave British cavalry charge through the town into a hail of musket and cannon fire

The Portuguese and French cavalry clash and, as usual, both end up exhausted and ineffective

The British throw everything at the town

There were 2 large scale fights for parts of the town, both of which were eventually won by the allies but there were still a lot of French to defend the rest of the buildings.  As our turn limit we fast approaching I threw my Portuguese straight at the main redoubt, defended by the Swiss and artillery in a glorious but not surprisingly doomed attack...

The very brave, and ultimately doomed Portuguese assault on the main redoubt

 A great game... well balanced and it could have gone either way if only we'd had better dice rolls and tactics!!!

Other games over the last week or so have included trying out Discworld: Ankh Morpork as a 2 player game instead of our usual 3 player game.  It worked remarkably well and I'd definitely try this again.

I also played in the 2nd instalment of our online roleplaying game using Roll20.  We are playing Dragonquest which is a very 1980s RPG but holds up very well.  Appropriately enough I'm playing this with a couple of people I knew at the uni games club back in the early 80s as well as people in assorted countries.  The setting is an interesting early Persian style world.  So far I have learned that my supposedly agile and nimble Halfling thief is extraordinarily cack-handed and managed to fluff most critical rolls but somehow I'm still unharmed...I suspect this may not last!

A return to proper gaming...

Gaming is beginning to return to something starting to resemble normality with a couple of face to face games.kindly hosted by Eric the Shed... his newly expanded shed is big enough to safely accommodate 4 players with a bit of sensible social distancing.

So far we've played a Napoleonic battle and a refight of the battle of Abu Klea.  There are excellent reports HERE and HERE.

I have 'borrowed' these photos from Eric's blog.

Abu Klea, before the Dervish hordes arrived

The Napoleonic game, length-ways down the table

I've also continued the Imperial Assault campaign with my son... the heroes are doing well but narrowly lost the last game which means I was able to introduce a scenario into the campaign which might see the arrival of Darth Vader... bwah, hah, hah!!!

I also took part in my 1st proper role-playing game for about 30 years this week.  An old friend from my uni days in Glasgow was hosting a game on Roll20 and I was lucky to be invited along.  We're playing Dragonquest...a rather old school system from the 80s but one which has some interesting features which still hold up well.  It was great fun and interesting to be sitting round a virtual table with players from Scotland, England and Canada.  The online system worked remarkably well and it was a real blast, even if I was getting flashbacks to 1983!

Post Captain - first naval engagement

My painting/modelling moments for the last week or so have been spent battling with more rigging on my Napoleonic ships from Warlord.  I built and painted 2 out of the 3 3rd rate ships that I was lucky enough to get for Xmas and struggled through the rigging process.  As these were my first 'proper' ships (as opposed to the freebies that came with issues of Wargames Illustrated) they included some ratlines printed on acetate...I managed to successfully fasten on 1 pair of ratlines before deciding that life was too short and that my blood pressure wouldn't be able to cope and the rest were consigned to the bin!

My fleet now consists of 2 3rd Rates, 2 Frigates and 4 Brigs (although 2 of these need to have their rigging re-done as I'm not happy with it) so it was time to get them on the table

3rd Rates

Frigates

...and Brigs

I haven't actually invested in a set of Black Seas, the rules the ships were designed for.  I've read various reviews and the feedback on these seems to be mixed.  I suspect that, like Cruel Seas,  they are fine for a multiplayer game or for a quick evening game but there might not be much depth to them.  I haven't read them though so this might be very unfair.

When I think of Napoleonic era naval battles I don't really think of fleet actions or even squadrons.  Most of my inspiration for this comes from people like CS Forrester and Patrick O'Brian and most of the battles in their books always seem to be one on one clashes between ships and that is very much the level I would prefer to play at.  A bit of research for alternative rules threw up a couple of possibilities...

Signal Close Action from Langton Miniatures, which I suspect I have an early edition of somewhere in the loft, and Post Captain by ODGW, the same company who produce General Quarters.  I decided to get a copy of these as they seem to be aimed at players have a couple of ships each max.


The rules come loose bound (and annoyingly in the US format for ring-binders...I never knew there was a difference!).  ODGW very kindly give all purchasers access to their online library which also has a load of downloadable extras.  The rules include data sheets on lots of ships as well as a host of counters and QRFs.

They also provide templates for manoeuvring and for measuring ranges.  These come ready done for a variety of the usual scales for naval games and recently they have added some in 1/720 scale which is close match for the Warlord Games ships (1/600).  I was a bit concerned that this would make movement too big for our playing area so we actually used the ranges for 1/1000 scale which worked fine.  In hindsight I think we would have been ok with the 1/720 scale templates and I'd probably use this next time.


The first thing to point out is that there is a lot of complexity to these rules.  The basics of manoeuvring and firing are well explained but it gets more complex once there is a risk of colliding or boarding enemy ships etc.  The rules actually go into a lot of detail on boarding actions, landing crew onshore for cutting out operations, weather etc. For our 1st game we decided to keep things simple and avoid any of the more advanced rules

Each ship has a data card which has all the info you need represented clearly and this make it easy to record damage and find the info you need on sails, guns etc.

Each turn is divided into 3 phases (red, white and blue) for movement and firing but Captains also have to think about tasks like allocating crew to tasks over the whole turn.  This is easy at the beginning of the game when you have plenty of sailors lounging about on deck drinking rum and singing shanties but later in the game you'll need to man the guns, trim the sails, pump out the water pouring in through those large holes that have appeared in your hull and repair the rigging that has been shot away.  There won't be enough crew to go round (especially if you have taken casualties) so you won't be able to do everything you want to.  There is a bit of book-keeping required as some tasks, such as reloading or repairing rigging, are spread over multiple phases.  I know this can put some people off but it wasn't too onerous.

My initial plan was to give each of us a couple of ships each but my opponent Andrew sensibly suggested sticking to one ship each which proved very good advice!  We decided to refight a historical scenario...the fight between the frigates HMS Nymphe and the Cleopatre which took place on 18th June 1793.  Historically the French frigate suffered damage from gunfire and collided with the Nymphe, becoming entangled.  The French crew refused to attempt to board the Nymphe and, once they realised this, the British were able to board and capture the Cleopatre.  As you'll see our refight had a surprisingly similar outcome...

At the start of the game I had said to Andrew that we should avoid anything complicated like collisions and boarding...bear this in mid for later!!

The 2 ships began 1000 yards apart and HMS Nymphe quickly steered towards the French frigate, hoping to close the range and show off my superior British gunnery skills (actually both sides were evenly matched...the British had a 'Crack' Captain and could reload faster but otherwise there was little between them).  The opening salvo came from the French ship but was ineffective (even at fairly close range the guns were only hitting on a 1 or 2 on a 12 sided dice).

In response the British managed to inflict 2 rigging hits in the opening turn with a lucky shot.  The French returned fire with chain shot which caused some damage to the Nymphe's rigging and I quickly sent men aloft to repair the damage although this meant I wasn't able to man the short-range  Carronades which would have been useful when we moved nearer each other.

The French successfully managed to tack...not an easy task but one that is explained well in the rules for landlubbers like me.

In Turn 3 the ships had closed to 200 yards and a lucky critical hit from Nymphe took out the chains supporting the Mizzen Topgallant causing a Sprung mast  (a bad thing...this means there is a danger of the mast falling each turn) and more rigging and sail damage, slowing the Cleopatre.

Cleopatre then returned fire with more chain shot, firing on the up-roll (a shabby French trick!) which also damaged the British rigging...luckily I had successfully repaired the earlier damage so this wasn't great but not as bad as it could have been.

As his sails and rigging were pretty battered and Andrew hadn't been able to repair them, Cleopatre decided on a drastic course of action and as the Nymphe successfully tacked the French ship deliberately swung across its bows tangling the 2 ships together and causing damage to both ships.  In the collision the French  topgallant mast which had sprung earlier now fell completely, damaging other masts and obstructing the French guns.  The French Marines attempted to board but failed or refused, just as in the real battle.

At this point sadly we ran out of time.  The ships were tangled together but the Cleopatre had suffered a lot more damage and was unable to fire its guns as they were obscured by the fallen mast and rigging.  If we'd had time I would have ordered the British Marines and sailors over the bow of the ship onto the Cleopatre and I have no doubt that they would have swept away all resistance!!  😀

The rules were pretty daunting but by the end of the evening we were pretty much zipping through the complexities of manoeuvring (even tacking) and gunnery.  Obviously Andrew ignored my advice to avoid colliding and boarding but it did mean we got to test these parts of the rules out sooner than planned!  I have no doubt we got lots of things wrong but I thoroughly enjoyed the game and it certainly gave the feel of the kind of naval duel Forrester would have written about which is exactly what I was after.

Painting update: Tanks and boats and infantry ...

It's been a very busy few weeks at work which is my excuse for the lack of blog posts over the last 2 or 3 weeks... lots of weekend and evening meetings and pretty long days.  Despite this I've managed a few games and bit of painting.

I played a game of 'Tanks' a couple of weeks ago.  This is a fairly light tanky skirmish game which I'd actually bought a couple of years ago in a moment of weakness after playing in a demo game at a show somewhere.  I don't think I've actually taken it out of the box and had been contemplating sticking it on eBay but my friend Anthony also has a set and tempted me to give it a go.  Tanks has a WW2 version (which I have) and a modern game which is the one we played.  I say modern but 1980 is almost 4 years ago as my son likes to remind me!!

The game was good fun...not hugely deep but ideal for squeezing 2 or 3 games in an evening.   There are lots of upgrades and bonuses which can be applied to the tanks to give a bit more flavour.  in our first game we found that, with 1 tank per side, there is very little movement.... the tanks tend to take up a good position and sit there trading shots until one is destroyed.  I was gradually losing this attritional game so decided to recklessly charge across the table sacrificing cover for speed with the end result that I still died but also blew up the enemy tank with my last shot. 

Our second game should have been a bit more tactical with 2 Soviet tanks against 1 beefed up Abrams.  In the event the US tank was immobilised by a lucky shot and failed to move for several turns leaving it an easy target for the Russians.  It would have been good to have seen a bit more movement but the game has some promise as a lightweight bit of fun and it would be interesting to see how it compares with 'What a Tanker' from Too Fat Lardies (yet another game I own but haven't played!)

I've also managed to keep up my painting mojo and have completed a box of British AWI infantry

I used GW contrast paints again for the red coats on a white undercoat.   I find a white base very un-nerving as I worry about it showing through but actually it worked ok and made the red stand out quite brightly.

I've been in 2 minds about the new Black Seas Napoleonic naval game from Warlord but was tempted enough to pick up some of the freebie ships on the most recent issue of Wargames Illustrated.  I bought a couple of issues so I have a Frigate and 2 Brigs.  They are very nice models and pretty easy to assemble.  I think there are definitely some right ways and some wrong ways to assemble and paint these.  It definitely makes sens to build and paint the hulls before attaching the masts.  I painted the masts on the sprue which was a first for me but it seemed to make sense.

I think I need to give more thought about the order I paint the detail as well...trying to pick out the guns  while not spoiling the neat lines on the side of the hull or the deck colour was quite tricky and I might need to do these in a different order

The hulls assembled and undercoated

A generic Frigate

...and the Brigs

In the starter set these models come with sails and thread for rigging as well as some printed ratlines. As these are freebies the sails can be downloaded from the WI website.  I'm still in 2 minds about whether to add these or not but  I'm going to attempt some rigging...wish me luck!!!

Painting update and Black Seas

Now the holidays are over it's time to get back into painting again.   I've been busy over the last couple of days assembling and undercoating my box of Warlord Games AWI British infantry.  Unusually I've gone for a white undercoat...normally I would use black or increasingly I've been using grey, but I wanted to try the GW Contrast paints on a white base and also I hope the lighter undercoat will make the redcoats a bit brighter. The least they can do is look smart and colourful before the pesky Yankee rebels shoot them full of holes!

I popped into WH Smiths today and picked up a the latest issue which includes a free ship for the new Black Seas game which is being released imminently.   There was one copy left in my local branch which I quickly nabbed although I may have a look while I'm out and about at work tomorrow.  The issues either have a frigate or a pair of brigs.

I'm quite tempted by Black Seas although I am a little wary after the poorly proof-read (and in some cases quite bizarre) rules for Cruel Seas and the reportedly awful SPQR.   My understanding is that they have taken a bit more time over these and that David Manley has also been asked to cast an eye over them which fills me with a bit more hope.  Cruel Seas did have some good mechanics and the models were very, very nice so this may lure me into Napoleonic naval gaming:  I'll have a go at the model and see how frustrated I get with attempting rigging before I commit!

Finally I was lucky enough to get to see Sir Ian McKellen's one man show which is currently on a run in London after a UK-wide tour.  If you get a chance to go and see him I can highly recommend it. It's not every day you get to hear Gandalf reading extracts from Lord of the Rings in person!

The stage set

Sir Ian collecting money for charity after the show

The Battle of Maida - General d'Armee

I'm not much of a Napoleonic gamer...I get very confused  by who was on who's side at what point and what type of hat were they wearing in 1811 versus 1813.  Napoleonic players seem to take this sort of thing very seriously (especially the hats...).  Most of my knowledge of the period is heavily influenced by Sharpe, Hornblower and Jack Aubrey.

I did play an excellent game of General d'Armee this week however in a refight of the battle of Maida.

GdA is a ruleset published by Too Fat Lardies and written by Dave Brown.  I've previously played a few games of Pickett's Charge which has a lot of similarities, and thoroughly enjoyed them so I was keen to see if the fun factor translated over to the Napoleonic period.  We were refighting the battle of Maida which to be fair I knew nothing about...it isn't in the Sharpe novels so it's out of my reference point.  Thanks to Andrew for doing all the leg work in putting together the order of battle and supplying everything.

The rules operate at the brigade level.  In a given turn brigades may decide to obey orders or become hesitant, in which case they won't advance and are less effective.  The good news is that each turn you get to roll to see how many Aide de Camp's you have available to carry out assorted tasks including making sure the Brigades do what you want.  The bad news is that I was rubbish at rolling for these!

ADCs have other uses as well...they can also help make charges more ferocious, improve artillery fire, make laggardly brigades march a bit quicker etc.   They are also vital in stopping units running away...

Sadly as Brigades are lost you also have fewer ADCs to help shore things up and this quickly became a problem from my British brigades.

The game started well with my better class troops heading for the enemy and I had high hopes of speedily engaging the rather dubious looking Polish troops  and knocking a hole in the French centre.

Unfortunately the French cavalry (I didn't have any but did have some very effective artillery) decided to charge my Line infantry.  That's ok I thought...I've seen Sharpe...form square and see them off or stand in line and blow them away with superior British musket fire.   Unfortunately I failed to get them into square and their musketry was abysmal...

The cavalry chrarge home...

...and the infantry run away!

This in itself wasn't a complete disaster but was quickly followed by other battalions falling back and on my right flank the French routed the Corsican Volunteers and my flank collapsed, leaving the Highlanders isolated and in deep trouble and spelling the end of the game,

Really good rules...easy to pick up...the ADCs (if you get any) make for some interesting options and (quite an important factor) it gives a game that can be easily played through to a conclusion in an evening.  I suspect we'll be playing more of General d'Armee.

Saturday update - Forager figures and house building

Last year I picked up the Forager skirmish rules via a Kickstarter...of course as usual I haven't actually played the rules although they look pretty good and I had an interesting chat with the authors at Salute.  I was interested in how adaptable they might be for later periods such as Colonial: the authors weren't convinced that the mechanics and ranges etc would hold up for that period although I'm still fairly optimistic that they would work with minimal changes.

Actually my plans for Colonial skirmish is to use the Horse and Musket version of A Fistful of Lead.  I've played a couple of excellent games of this at Eric the Shed's (Link) and they should work very well, especially for multiplayer games.  We're planning to try this out next month so I'll need to get thinking about scenarios.

Back to Forager...the Kickstarter also included French, British and Guerilla figures (and Cacadores but I didn't sign up for them).  The figures are interesting...quite chunky and caricatured and at first I wasn't overly impressed but actually they have grown on me and I've now painted them all up.  They'll make a useful addition to my Napoleonic figures, either for Forager or for Sharpe Practice.

As it has been a wet Saturday I've also been working through some of the buildings that I'd picked up at Salute from TT Combat.  Building things really isn't my strong point.  I'm notoriously ham-fisted when it comes to any form of DIY.

The first of these to be completed is this 28mm Japanese Minka...I wasn't actually sure what a Minka was and when I googled it the first entry was an article on an American/Korean porn actress by the same name!  After a bit more googling (and hoping my wife doesn't look too closely at my browsing history) I discovered that a Minka is a traditional Japanese house for farmers, artisans and merchants.  It only took 30 minutes of so to stick it all together and I managed to avoid putting anything on back to front or upside down!  TT Combat have instructions for some of their buildings (including this one) online but worryingly they don't have any instructions for their Cowboy range which are next in my building queue!  This did seem fairly self-explanatory though so hopefully it will all make sense.  The model comes unpainted but with some coloured card for the timber frame and the roof and I reckon needs little more done to it.

Next was a 4Ground  28mmWild West store.  This looks a bit more impressive as it is pre-coloured but was, again, pretty straightforward to build.  I did find that some of the lugs that fit the roof onto the main building didn't align very well so just chopped these off!

Finally we have a 15mm ruined house, again from 4Ground.  I found this in my box of WW2 stuff when setting up for the game with Keith last week (see my previous post) and must have bought it a couple of years ago but had forgotten all about it.  Again it all went together surprisingly smoothly.  I have a good mind to send photos of these to my old woodwork teacher...I was asked to stop trying to make things in Woodwork classes as I was 'just wasting wood'.  On second thoughts that might be a bit weird...

Forager has arrived

Back in October I signed up for another Kickstarter...this time for the Napoleonic skirmish rules, Forager.  Most Kickstarters I've funded have taken months and months to arrive so it was a pleasant surprise to see this one developed and produced dead on schedule and,  even better, Stand To Games managed to get it posted out in time for Xmas!

The rules are very much small scale skirmish with a lot of characterisation via skills and traits allocated to figures.  I haven't had a proper read through yet... tomorrow I'm off to Glasgow to visit family for Xmas so I figured having some handy reading material might be useful!  The book itself is very nicely produced with a sensible spiral binding and very hefty paper thickness which makes it feel very substantial indeed!

The Kickstarter included some British and French light infantry and El Cuchillo, the Spanish guerrilla leader figure.  There are also some additional Spanish figures which will ship in the New Year.  I didn't sign up for the Add-ons which included Portuguese Cacadores and markers.  The figures are very nice...chunky and a bit exaggerated but very full of character which is ideal for a game like this.

British infantryman

...and alongside his French counterpart

British officer

El Cuchillo

I'm hoping these will make for some good 'Sharpe' style games but I've also been thinking about how adaptable they might be for other periods...especially for the North West Frontier.

I'll post a more in depth review once I've had a chance to read the rules properly.