Bonus Battle on Lake Ontario

The weekend weather forecast was for warm sunny weather, so we planned to take advantage of the good weather to get in a bonus outdoor game. While the weather did not meet the forecast, we did get in the game. This time we brought out a blast from the past with Mark Waddington's scratch-built War of 1812 Lake Ontario ships. The ships made their last appearance at DANG 2012 and it seemed like time to pull them out again. This time we decided to try out the Form Line of Battle rules, using the Small Actions modifications for small and unrated ships. 

The British (left) and American (right) lines set up for action

The scenario had four ships from the British Lake Ontario squadron returning to their base at Kingston while five American ships moved to cut them off and force a battle. The Americans had a corvette (Madison), a brig (Oneida), and three schooners (Sylph, Scourge, and Hamilton).

American ships Madison (left) and Oneida (right)

American schooners (L-R) Sylph, Scourge, and Hamilton

The British had two corvettes (Wolfe and Royal George) and two schooners (Sir Sydney Smith and Beresford). The British ships were only armed with carronades, although most had some bow and stern chase long guns. Most of the Americans also had carronades, but Sylph and Scourge both had long guns as their main armament, with Sylph have three 32 pound cannons on pivot mounts. 

British line looking from the aft.

In Form Line of Battle (FLOB), each side has three phases - a Command Phase and two Action Phases. During the Command Phase a side carries out all their administrative tasks, such as reloading guns, fighting fires, cutting away fallen masts, and so on. In the Action Phases ships move, turn, and shoot, but a ship can only fire broadsides once per turn. The order of the phases is determined by card draw, with the first card draw for a side always being the Command Phase. This can lead to some interesting situations where one side gets to reload, move and shoot before the other side can reload. Additionally, movement distance is randomly determined per ship by rolling a number of D6 dice based on the ship's position to the wind. The ship can move the total of the dice or the distance of one die. The randomness of movement range makes it harder to keep ships in a line and the random movement order makes it tougher to plan your action. But, as I said, it does make for an interesting and unpredictable game. 

With our game setup, we started out with the British moving slow and trying to keep their line together. The American lead ship (Madison) rolled well for movement and decided to move quickly to block the British exit. The second ship (Oneida) tried to keep up, but this left the American schooners behind.

Madison blocking the way

With most of the ships armed with short-range carronades, the British decided turn on the schooners. 

The lead British ships (mid-left) turn toward the American schooners

They were able to close with the smaller schooners and hammer away at Sylph, causing the schooner to strike.

Sylph strikes after being blasted

The larger American ships were too far was to stop the attack, but quickly turned to close with the British.

Oneida watches as Sylph strikes

The schooner Scourge, after seeing what happened to Sylph, sped past the ships. But Hamilton's movement rows did not turn out as well, leaving her too close to the enemy as the British schooners caught up with the action.

Hamilton (center near the struck Sylph) in the middle of the British

Long-range (for carronades) fire from the larger American ships continued to concentrate on the Wolfe, the lead British corvette. But Wolfe was having problems of her own. In the FLOB rules you have to make a roll during the Command Phase to reload your broadsides and Wolfe had failed all reload attempts. So while she was doing good service by providing a target for the Americans, she was not doing any damage in return (Yes, I was running Wolfe and rolling badly). 

On the next turn Hamilton took the brunt of fire and struck too. But the British line was somewhat disorganized, with every ship acting on its own. 

Hamilton strikes after taking heavy damage

Madison and Oneida were still doing a good job of blocking the British exit. The British were not in good positions to support each other. 

Madison and Oneida (upper left) and Scourge (upper center) block the channel

Wolfe (damaged and still with unloaded guns) tried to make a run for the harbor, using one of the islands as a shield. 

Wolfe tries to limp away

Madison and Oneida blasted the British schooner Sir Sydney Smith and then turned to catch Wolfe. Wolfe finally reloaded her much diminished broadside, but the random turn order allowed the Americans to move and shoot first, finishing off British corvette.

Wolfe loses the last of her hull and strikes

The action was starting to wind down, but the American schooner Scourge and British schooner Beresford were still fighting it out. Scourge did get in front of Beresford, getting in one last shot before losing her last hull and striking.

Scourge gets in one final shot

At this point Royal George and Beresford decided to escape off the map, ending the game. The British lost two ships, one corvette and one schooner, and the others were damaged. The Americans lost three schooners and the brig Oneida was moderately damaged, but Madison was pretty much unscathed.

Madison and Oneida watching the retreating British

Overall, it was a fun game, even with my bad die rolling, and it was nice to get in a bonus outdoor game. The FLOB rules were easy to pick up and had some interesting twists. After the game we talked about using some of the Warlord Games Black Seas ships with the rules.

Philippine Finale

 As the calendar turns to Fall, we are coming to the end of lawn gaming season. But we were able to get in one more game on Saturday (despite an iffy weather forecast). This time Kevin brought his Philippine Insurrection (AKA Philippine-American War) game. Kevin had originally planned to run the game at Enfilade 2020, but since it was cancelled this was a good chance to get the figures out. 

Some Filipino irregulars set up to stop the Yankee imperialists

The game used Daniel Mersey's "The Men Who Would be Kings" rules, which led to a fast paced game. The Americans were making a three-pronged attack involving regular U.S. Army units, U.S. Volunteer units, and a naval landing party. The Americans trying to capture a Filipino supply cache and destroy as many Filipino units as possible, while limiting casualties. The Filipinos were made up of irregular and tribal troops with a wide variety of not very good weapons (except for melee combat). They are trying to delay the American advance and get as many supplies and units off the map as possible. 

Washington State Volunteers were pushing from the west

U.S. Army regulars with dismounted cavalry

We started out by going over the rules (most of us have played other Mersey rules, but these have a few different twists) and setting up the troops. With everything in place, we were ready to begin the battle. 

The battlefield and troops all set up. The Filipinos had to exit off the edge at the bottom of the photo

In the west, the Washington Volunteers began pushing the Filipino irregulars back, while the U.S. Army regulars pushed to close the escape route and the naval standing party steamed into the bay.

Volunteers on the attack

U.S. regulars move to push the enemy out of the rice paddies

The naval landing party (Marines and Sailors) coming in for a landing

The Filipinos had their tribal units (good in melee, but not ranged combat) picking up supplies to move off the board, while the irregulars tried to delay the Americans.

Filipino tribal infantry getting supplies and hoping to get into melee combat

American firepower did a lot of damage to the Filipinos in the open. Over in the rice paddies, the irregulars hid behind the berms, forcing the Americans to charge in to force them out. Meanwhile, some of he tribal units began making their way to the edge of the board.

Skirmishing continues in the west

Filipinos moving to escape

Army regulars clearing the paddies

Marines landing party being greeted by "friendly" natives

On the bay, the Marines were jumping off their boats and the Sailors had docked their gunboat and began unloading the Marine field gun. The Army and Volunteers continued to press the Filipino units back, but were taking their own casualties. 

Marines on the beach, ready to chase

The Marine field gun and sailors unloading

More fighting in the paddies

At this point, the Filipinos saw a chance to inflict some heavy casualties on the Americans as one tribal unit decided to turn around to attack the Marines, rather than getting the supplies off the board. 

Die Marine!

It looked like things were going to go bad for the Marines. The attack caused heavy losses, reducing the unit to half-strength and forcing it back. The situation did not looks good, but the second Marine unit was able to use superior firepower to stop and pin the Filipinos, giving the damaged unit time to recover.

Marine firepower blunts the attack

The heavy Marine firepower eventually wiped out the Filipino unit, leaving their supplies stuck on the battlefield.

Meanwhile the Army regulars drove off the Filipino irregulars, closing the easy retreat path. the Sailors moved to start taking long range shots at the other Filipino units.

U.S. regulars closing the door

The Washington Volunteers continued to press the Filipinos back to the regulars. 

Volunteers clearing out the bamboo forests

The situation was looking pretty bad for the Filipinos, but the still had some fight left in them. A tribal unit (with a fierce rating for extra melee bonus) slammed into an Army regular unit, wiping out the American unit. But American firepower again saved the day, pinning the tribal unit.

At this point things looked pretty bad for the Filipinos. They were surrounded and being pressed on all sides.

Filipinos caught in the crossfire of the Volunteers (left) and naval landing party (right)

Army regulars pin down the Filipino tribal unit

With most of their units pinned or destroyed and little chance of getting off the board, the Filipino players called it a game. They did get one unit off the board (although it was technically retreating) and killed an American unit. But they did not get any supplies off and most of their army was wiped out. So a pretty resounding American victory.

It was a fun game (at least from the American side) and it was great to see all of Kevin's figures and terrain on the table. 

We'll keep our eye on the weather for any more outdoor gaming opportunities, but we all expect this to be the last for a while. We are talking about next steps for games, but there are still a lot of variables out there. So it may be back to painting and in-progress work entries on my blog. Overall, I was really glad I bought the pop-up canopy and had the chance to do some lawn gaming.

Battle of the Yalu River

Over the past couple months we've been discussing games to play while the weather is still good. John and David both have some of the old 1/1000 scale Houston's Ships for the Battle of the Yalu River (1894) and with the 126th anniversary of the battle only a couple weeks away, it seemed like a good time to pull them out. So this week's outdoor gaming event was the Battle of the Yalu River 1894 using the Fire When Ready rules. 

Chinese battleships and cruiser prepare for action

We did a little show and tell before the start of the game and then got things going. The Chinese had 14 ships, including two battleships, but all the ships were older did not have very good guns. We split the Chinese into 4 groups and they entered the map from one edge in line-abreast formation.

Chinese entering the table

The Japanese fleet of 12 ships was more modern (except for a few older ships), but mostly smaller guns. They entered in a line-ahead formation led by the four cruisers of the flying squadron.

Japanese moving in

The shooting started with the Chinese making lots of water splashes, but doing little damage.

The Japanese flying squadron gets doused

Initially the Japanese return fire concentrated on the older cruisers and gunboats, wrecking that side of the Chinese fleet.

Japanese gunfire wrecks an old cruiser

As the ranges closed the Chinese gunfire and damage improved, but so did the Japanese attacks.

Japanese cruiser Takachiho catches fire

Another Chinese cruiser is wrecked

Damage was accumulating on both sides. Damage was slowing the Chinese battleships, but it was looking like the Chinese cruisers would be able to make it off the board edge. Then the first Chinese battleship took enough damage to become wrecked.

Chinese battleship wrecked

Chinese cruisers headed for the board edge

The Japanese flying squadron also took a beating with all the ships becoming wrecked over the next two turns. But they did wreck the other Chinese battleship.

Two cruiser wrecked the third limps by, but is wrecked on this turn

The last flying squadron cruiser is wrecked

The second Chinese battleship succumbs to damage

Even with the loss of the flying squadron, the Japanese main fleet had enough ships to finish off the remaining Chinese cruisers before they could escape.

The Japanese main fleet finishes off the Chinese

With the last of the Chinese ships wrecked, we called it a game. A decisive Japanese victory. While the Chinese lost all their ships, they did manage to put the Japanese flying squadron out of action, so they did better than their historical counterparts. Overall it was another fun game of Fire When Ready. 

 

I'm hoping to finish out the summer with a few more games. The weather for the area normally stays good through the end of September. So that gives us around four more weeks of outdoor gaming opportunities.

Row Well

We got in another round of outdoor gaming this Saturday. This time it was galley warfare using a friend's galley warfare rules, called Row Well and Live, and his Xyston 1/600 scale galleys. I have played the rules before, but it has been a while and there have been some changes. 

My galleys for the game

The rules are tactical in scope and each of us ran a couple galleys. Experienced players could probably run two to five galleys. But there are some key decisions to make about moving your ships and there is a lot to do when you get into combat, so more ships per player can slow things down.

The battle was a meeting type action and victory was basically "row well and live" in a 2 player vs. 2 player setup. On my side of the table placed our ships a little farther back than the other side, so we were somewhat behind in getting into action. 

I'm on the right, closest to the back, while my ally is very close to the enemy

 We started out the game a cruising speed, so that we wouldn't fatigue the rowers. I had a medium and heavy galley (a teteres or, if you prefer, quadrireme and a hepteres or septireme). My ships only had archers and marines for combat, while everyone else's heavy ships had some sort of bolt thrower or catapult. But my medium ship did have a superior crew, which would help out. 

There were some tentative moves as we relearned the game. But the action started out soon enough with archers and catapults getting into action.

Catapults with fire pots start a blaze

The scrum on the left started with bow and catapult fire and an oar rake attempt, which failed. But this set up a ram attack by my ally's medium ship. The ram was successful, but didn't do a lot of damage because the attacker had not gotten up to full speed.

Burning ships and a ram

On the next turn, the medium ship turned and grappled with the opponents light hemiolia, while the heavy ships tried to douse their fires. The subsequent boarding action saw the hemiolia surrender.

Grappling and boarding action

Over on my side of the table, we were finally getting close enough to shoot at each other. I didn't do well on the imitative rolls, which allowed my opponent to try an oar rake (which failed). But I did cause a lot of casualties with my superior archers. After seeing what happened to the other hemiolia, my opponent decided to keep his out of arrow range and try to sneak into the non-firing arcs.

The ships pass as the oar rake fails

On the other side of the table, the still-burning enemy heavy ship moved to grapple as other ship pelted it with arrows and stones. The initial boarding combat was inconclusive and would run for another turn. By then the enemy's marines had been whittled down and they surrendered.

The boarding attempt fails and we get more galley slaves

On my side of the table, I was working to turn my ships around and catch the enemy heavy ship. The light was speeding away and their was no way I was going to catch them.

Turning to pursue the enemy

By the time I turned around and was getting close, the action on the other side of the table was done. Now outnumbered 2 - 1, the remaining enemy galleys headed for home.

We rowed OK and lived

Overall it was a fun game and great to see the Xyston ships on the table. Hopefully we'll see more of these in the future.

It was another successful outdoor game, even though the morning weather was a little threatening. We've got (hopefully) another month of good weekend weather to come and have a few ideas for upcoming games.