Battle of La Baie d'Audierne Game Report

Ooh La La...the shallow line of doom!

Bugger...out of range!

Phutt!

Damn and Blast!

Turn Five..Tea's Up!

Merde!

They're behind you!

Ha Ha! Rosbifs!!

Ouch!

I say...fancy an echelon turn?

I had a cracking game of Broadside and Ram this afternoon, which had quite a few sticky moments for the French but eventually led to an overall defeat for the Royal Navy. I won't detail all nine turns in depth but it went a bit like this. The French rolled a +1 AP rating for their overall commander but the others both ended up as +0. Using this to his advantage, the French commodore decided to full steam ahead at maximum speed. So, in the first three turns, the two forces approached each other in line astern from opposite ends of the table. 

The French commodore had decided to split his two squadrons and attempt to force the perfidious British into choosing one or the other, allowing the other one to get away thus achieving the scenario objective. The Royal Navy commodore decided to steam right up the middle, splitting fire between the two French squadrons but also forcing the second, weaker one close inshore, with the aim of driving it into the shallows. The idea was sound but being outnumbered was going to make it difficult for the British to inflict sufficient damage on this squadron in order to knock it out of the game.

The Royal Navy ironclads therefore decided to bombard the weaker French squadron at close range to inflict the maximum chance of crippled or shattered damage, leading to the French drifting onto the sandbanks out of control. In the end, after sailing down the French line and blasting away at the second squadron with all it could bring to bear, the Royal Navy managed to silence three of the four ironclads and twice to inflict crippling damage, once on the flagship and twice on the Provence which was bringing up the rear of the line. It was only a lucky high AP roll that enabled her to repair in the last turn that avoided her drifting a couple of inches into the shallows and disaster.

So, despite smashing the second French squadron for minimal damage in return, the Royal Navy ended up steaming off northwards while the French escaped, albeit with one squadron very badly mauled. This was despite a nifty echelon turn to starboard in the penultimate turn of the game, allowing HMS Minotaur to rake the Provence from stem to stern, at the risk of the entire British squadron going aground in the shallows. There was also a tea break for a Kit Kat and a nice brew half way through the game, which might have given the French a bit of a breather? I'm sure their Lordships will have some questions to ask at the court martial?

I really enjoyed this game and it was a bit of a nail biter at times too, so I'll definitely be re-running it as a multiplayer game for the club at some point in the next few weeks. It wasn't difficult to manage the three separate squadrons and I only had a couple of moments when I had to re-check the rules, so from that perspective it was a good learning exercise. It was frustrating that no critical damage was caused, despite all the numerous bits of ironmongery flying backwards and forwards. and I was surprised that no ships ended up going aground, although that very, very nearly happened at the end. 

Good fun!