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First game of Sails of Glory - Solo Scenario "Sitting Ducks"
I played my first game of Sails of Glory today. It was the solo mission that came with the starter kit called "Sitting Ducks", and despite using standard rules and having no company it was quite fun. Here's my battle report:
My British HMS Terpsichore and HMS Defence had orders from the Admiralty to take care of the French Unité and Aquilon, which lay anchored behind a reef that was bordered by two islands. The plan was to stay out of reach and to make my way to a place where those ships could be raked from the bow. I knew going upwind would be tricky, and I turned slightly starboard to be at a steep, beating angle - so far so good. The approach was faster than I expected - the sails were powerful and some technical defect led to an inability to decrease sails on BOTH ships. I quickly had to try to avoid 2 reefs that were right in the line of my two ships. Forgetting about the wind I gave orders to sail around the reefs on the starboard side - that made me turn completely into the wind and this led to the smaller Terpsichore to be taken aback soon thereafter. Firstly though, my orders were executed with a delay and both ships hit reefs about at the same time. It would have been impressive if it hadn't been such an embarrassment to the Royal Navy. The smaller ship, the Terpsichore got away with 1 poor sailor, the ship's Irish surgeon hitting his head on the lifeboat and bleeding out on the spot - a bad omen? The larger ship, the Defense, ran aground after taking heave damage to its hull. Luckily, it was positioned well enough to repeatedly rake the Unité from the front with her inability to return fire - which lead to her eventual sinking with a little aid from the Terpsichore.
Technically, the British side won after the Unité took heavy damage as far as only up to half of the damage boxes. However, I let the game play out.
Meanwhile, the Terpsichore managed to turn herself away from the wind and got into a position for a close range bow rake of the mighty Aquilon. Unfortunately she was so swift to offer the Aquilon her stern for retaliation. Taking a round of heavy damage from the stern, the Terspichore disappeared off into the horizon and was never heard of again (left the playing field due to a combination of player incompetence and inability to reduce sails). What was left was the anchored Aquilon having a shootout with the run aground Defence. Here, a combination of superior French gunnery and inferior British luck decimated punished the Aquilon heavily to the point where none of the cannons were able to fire back. Shortly thereafter she began sinking, with only a handful sailors having survived on lifeboats and attempting to flee in diverging directions.
My takeaways: Having a surface where the boats don't slide around would be helpful as the precise location and angle of ships can be crucial. Also, ships can move really fast, so don't expect them to make sharp turns or even be able to slow down in the standard rules. I feel like getting a good feel for the movement of the ships takes several games to achieve. Overall, even with standard rules it felt like a believable simulation - something that's a good enough base for your own imagination. Having a 3 tier system of complexity is really nice, and I feel like the advanced rules will definitely challenge me at first and ultimately satisfy my need for simulation. Also cotton looks cool when ships are firing :)
Apologies for failing to put the pictures in chronological order!
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