test of Solo rules and paper logsheets: a lengthy AAR

Hi all, what follows will be a long AAR, which I hope is fun to read.

The scenario is that a small British force (HMS Goliath, flag, and HMS Bellerophon), in line and with the weather gauge, have come alongside an equal French squadron (Fougueux, flag, and Duguay-Trouin). The British, naturally, leap to the attack, and the French accept battle.

The game was designed to be a test of the 4-quadrant A-B-C solo rules (the latest version I had posted). Thus I kept many pics to allow the solo behavior to be scrutinized closely

I also used this game to test use of paper log sheets to reduce table space and chit-towers. To that end, I modified the statistics spreadsheet to allow a log sheet containing any 4 selected ships to be printed out.

Notes on rules:
- Although this is 2 SOLs vs. 2 SOLs, I still used the standard solo chart. If the turn chosen was too sharp for the ship to accommodate it, then I just used the sharpest available turn. I did use the +1/+2 modifiers when in proximity.
- I didn't have any AI ships try to go offmap, so resolving that issue did not come up in this game
- I wanted to give the paper logs a workout, so I used advanced rules, including actions, critical damage, etc.
- This meant I was planning movement 2 cards ahead--and it showed.
- I used the solo rules in the rulebook for which actions to apply for AI ships.
- I allowed pre-planning of preventative extinguish-fire actions, and gave the AI credit for having done so if a fire broke out.
- I did NOT give the AI ships "prescient ammo" as indicated in the solo rules in the rulebook. All shots for both sides were with standard ball ammo.
- I did not use continuous fire or first-broadside, because I don't like them.
- I did use forced aim, although I'm not that keen on how it works.
- For collisions, I made possible entanglement the only consequence
- I continue to be unhappy with the collision resolution rules, and they did come into play in this game in annoying ways

Now to the game...

Opening situation. British fleet (me) is in the background and French fleet (AI) is in the foreground. The British have HMS Goliath in front (right side of picture), followed by HMS Bellerophon. The French have Fougueux in front (right side), followed by Duguay-Trouin.

The wind is coming along the diagonal from top to bottom of picture.

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Turn 1: The British plan is to break the French line by running between their ships. As it turns out, the British admiral (me) apparently forgot to lead his target...

For quite a bit of the battle both AI ships are keying off the lead British ship, HMS Goliath, because it is closer.

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Turn 2:

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Turn 3: Battle is engaged. Duguay-Trouin and HMS Goliath exchange long range gunfire. The French get a full broadside, but because the British are closing range, they only get a partial broadside. Fougueux has meandered a little too far from the battle to get into it, or things could have been worse for the British.

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Turn 4: Both fleets are now at risk of passing one another. Intent on battle the French tack. The British start planning to wear. Duguay-Trouin is struggling to repair a broken mast, but it's taken aback, and the random selection of red cards matches what her captain might have wished.

HMS Goliath and Duguay-Trouin miss a possible golden opportunity to clobber each other, as the crews feverishly reload guns

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Turn 5: Tacking complete, both fleets are now more or less parallel, and Duguay-Trouin has taken the lead position.

She and HMS Goliath again exchange fire at a distance, but this time Goliath has the advantageous position. Duguay-Trouin's mast has just been repaired, but now she's got a fire to contend with. Meanwhile Goliath is stuck with its own broken mast.

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Turn 6: The lines converge. Duguay-Trouin and HMS Goliath are again reloading, but they are close enough to exchange musket fire. Before, this, however, thanks to the vageries of the forced aim rule and a forward arc that just skims past Goliath and intersects the corner of Duguay-Trouin, HMS Bellerophon gets into the battle. As a result, the fire already burning on Duguay-Trouin gains new intensity, and she appears to be in serious trouble.

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Thus far the British are happy with developments...

Turn 7: I think if HMS Goliath hadn't still had a broken mast, both lines might have passed at close range, probably to the good of the British. But instead Fougueux plows into the limping Goliath, which in turn causes HMS Bellerophon to rear-end Goliath, creating a three ship scrum.

The French have a much better ammo situation at the moment. Since Fougueux cannot target Goliath dead-ahead, both ships rain short-range gunfire down on HMS Bellerophon, starting a fire. Meanwhile the French flagship pours down a withering musket barrage on Goliath. HMS Goliath does manage to train forward guns on Fougueux, starting the first of many leaks aboard her.

The tide has begun to turn.

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Turn 8: maddenly, while Fougueux and HMS Goliath are unentangled, Goliath and Bellerophon have gotten snarled. With Goliath as an immovable object ahead, Fougueux stays put. Duguay-Trouin starts to wear, while tending to the fires on board and repairing damage.

Bellerophon attempts to help Goliath by striking Fougueux with a partial broadside, expanding the leaks she is dealing with. Meanwhile the French marines are less effective this turn, but still Goliath's crew is perilously close to breaking down under the weight of casualties.

With both sides trying to fire muskets, reload and repair damage, they elect not to board each other.

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Turn 9: Miraculously all the ships are unentangled

But this is where the collision movement rules were most annoying. All ships have played pretty much their best cards to escape the mess, and they can *almost* do their complete moves without colliding, but not quite. So it's clear they could never break apart again for the duration of the battle under any circumstances. That seems stupid, so I allow them to do their moves with slight adjustments so they aren't touching.

The unexpected dividend is that Fougueux is set up for the engagement's only raking shot, a perfect close-range stern rake by Belerophon's unengaged starboard broadside.

Fougueux has her revenge, however. She pounds the wallowing HMS Goliath, with her crack marines again doing the worst of the damage. The struggling Duguay-Trouin also unleashes an ineffectual long-range salvo.

HMS Goliath strikes her colors. It's a clean crew-kill with only three boxes of hull damage. HMS Bellerophon must fight on alone...

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Turn 10: HMS Bellerophon begins tacking and moving off to repair some damage. She catches a long-range shot from Fougueux, which is beginning to get the leaks under control. HMS Goliath remains as a stationary obstacle.

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Turn 11: Bellerophon completes the tack. Fougueux and Duguay-Trouin would have collided, so I edged Fougueux's turn off a notch to allow them to pass close alongside each other.

HMS Bellerophon and Duguay-Trouin exchange broadsides, Bellerophon from the better angle. Another fire breaks out on Duguay-Trouin (3rd and final of the day).

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Turn 12: The ships continue their maneuvers and reload. Thanks to the forced aim rule, Fougueux is prevented from taking what seems like a decent shot.

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Turn 13: HMS Bellerophon is bracketed (the move the British had originally hoped to achieve). General gunfire breaks out between the badly damaged ships, with two almost-but-not-quite rakes. Fougueux, which just finished pumping the water out, gains two more leaks and is in a dire situation. Bellerophon is getting worn down, however, with only three hull boxes left.

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Turn 14: Fougueux and HMS Bellerophon come within a hair of colliding--it's one of those annoying edge cases where a slight slip of the card or base means the difference. The impartial umpire (me) rules that they completed their maneuvers successfully, ending up separated by 1mm.

At this point the ships are all down to two or three actions, while dealing with serious damage, thus significantly impacting their combat ability. All are consumed with repairs and reloading this turn. Bellerophon is leaking, but her captain decides to pump and reload ammo, rather than effecting repairs--a fateful decision.

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Turn 15: The climax of the battle. Fougueux is down to one hull box. If she can finish the repairs and keep pumping, she could be quite serviceable again in a few turns. But for the moment she is out of the fray. Instead HMS Bellerophon and Duguay-Trouin exchange full on broadsides to decide the battle.

Duguay-Trouin suffers heavily. She would have had her fourth fire of the day, but before it can even get started, the ship is demolished by the sheer weight of fire. Her captain and crew know she can fight no more.

Before she strikes, however, she unleashes her own counterstrike. Initially it doesn't seem too severe. But it has opened up new seams in the hull of HMS Bellerophon, adding to the existing leak. As soon as he sees the water rushing in, and does the math, the captain knows Bellerophon is finished. It may take a couple of turns, but there is no way to repair the leaks before the inrushing water swamps the damaged hull. Reluctantly he strikes to prevent unnecessary bloodshed.

(Note: I've just noted from the picture that the goofiness of the forced-aim rule technically should have prevented Duguay-Trouin from firing. But oh well, we will give this fight to the French anyway)

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It was a knock-down, drag-out fight. In the end it came down to two leaky ships with one hull box each--except my leaks were worse :surrender: The two forces, the maneuvering and the gunnery luck were reasonably even. The musketry from Fougueux on HMS Goliath may have been the decider.

Presumably the fact that the dice beat the human being says something about the British admiral's ability level :happy: But the AI decisions all seemed pretty reasonable.

As usual in SOG, we all ended up drifting downwind into the corner. I think I may get more aggressive about repositioning all the ships toward the center of the board when this happens, I hate for the map edge to dictate the action too much.

I was very pleased with my pencil&paper log sheet, I think I may continue to use that:

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THE END

Wow! That was pretty cool. I must say in this untried captains opinion I'd never have guessed you were playing a solo game without knowing that ahead of time. The photos were great and the narrative compelling.

Did you find it difficult at any point knowing which ships belonged to which side? Even with your clear narrative some of the angles on the pictures preclude you being able to know by sight which side is which? Maybe this is only important for AAR's, not actual game play, but I know some people are considering tape or other forms of identifying sides at a glance? With Wings of Glory you can usually tell which side has which planes as they are all pretty distinctive. With SoG it's not so obvious? I wonder how the 52 players at GenCon will ID each other once the craziness starts? :shock:

Thanks again for the test of solo rules, the AAR and the pics.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Nightmoss

Wow! That was pretty cool. I must say in this untried captains opinion I'd never have guessed you were playing a solo game without knowing that ahead of time. The photos were great and the narrative compelling.

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thanks!

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Originally Posted by Nightmoss

Did you find it difficult at any point knowing which ships belonged to which side? Even with your clear narrative some of the angles on the pictures preclude you being able to know by sight which side is which? Maybe this is only important for AAR's, not actual game play, but I know some people are considering tape or other forms of identifying sides at a glance? With Wings of Glory you can usually tell which side has which planes as they are all pretty distinctive. With SoG it's not so obvious? I wonder how the 52 players at GenCon will ID each other once the craziness starts? :shock:

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Yes, it is a shame all the ships back then looked the same :happy: :takecover:

I did find myself starting to play a movement or gunfire on the wrong ship once or twice. I think I caught it every time, but maybe I missed something. When you're in the game flow it's not too bad. But I can see looking back over the AAR that it could be hard to follow. It would have been nice if I labeled the ships on the pictures.

I don't think I'm going to be doing any custom labeling, but it definitely might be a good idea for larger multi-player games...

+1 on the great and detailed AAR!

I am impressed with your ship logs as well. Care to share them in the files section? :please:

As far as the Forced Aim rule goes I play it per arc, so if the friendly ship only blocks LOF through the rear arc you can still fire the forward section.

Eric

Great report Fred!

I think we are very close to a playable ruleset for the solo campaign!
My opinion on the movement chart is that it is good enough for the first campaign :wink:

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Originally Posted by DeRuyter

I am impressed with your ship logs as well. Care to share them in the files section?

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Really well documented AAR Fred. A copy of that ship log file would be an excellent addition to any gamers table. :please: :please:

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Originally Posted by DeRuyter

I am impressed with your ship logs as well. Care to share them in the files section? :please:

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Origins slowed the moderating process a bit. It is now uploaded here:

http://sailsofglory.org/downloads.php?do=file&id=83

On the "Ship Mats" tab you can pick up to four ships. In the upper left of each, where the ship name goes, there is a dropdown to allow you to select the unit you want. All the stats will then be filled in automatically.

If you want any of the charts to be blank, you can just delete the name (delete key or backspace) and it will be cleared.

Then you can print it--make sure it's scaling to "Fit Sheet on One Page"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fredmiracle

Origins slowed the moderating process a bit. It is now uploaded here:

http://sailsofglory.org/downloads.php?do=file&id=83

On the "Ship Mats" tab you can pick up to four ships. In the upper left of each, where the ship name goes, there is a dropdown to allow you to select the unit you want. All the stats will then be filled in automatically.

If you want any of the charts to be blank, you can just delete the name (delete key or backspace) and it will be cleared.

Then you can print it--make sure it's scaling to "Fit Sheet on One Page"

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This is so cool! Thanks for your work on this great game enhancement tool! :thumbsup:

Another steep learning curve for me Fred.
I had never come across the Forced aim rule until now.
That certainly was a mammoth engagement.
I think you were very sensible with your collision ruling. It made the battle far more enjoyable.
Rob.

:beer: Very nice battle. I like the paper log sheet . Cheers :beer:

Nicely done Fred. Glad somebody resurrected this one. Your sheet to control multiple ships is a time saver and one I may use or adapt with your permission of course.