Captains sir Edward Pellew and Jack Aubrey goes at it.
I took some picture when I ran a scenario for an attack on a bay guarded by a fort. I decided that I wanted to use my HMS Indefatigable and HMS Surprise as attacking ships and they were under orders to try to find a French frigate that had been harassing British trade from that bay. Orders were to take, sink or burn her. There was a fort with two arcs (fire power 4 and 3 with 9 "burden") and two ships anchored. The ships would be randomly decided as either a French frigate (roll again for burden 2, 3 or 4 ship) or a merchantman or a neutral.
When the attackers came within two rulers of the ships their identity would be decided and placed on the table. When within one ruler they would be "activated".
Six turn after passing between the fort and the sandbank the French would get reinforcements in the form of a squadron of ships of the line arriving from the river being placed on the table at the edge to move the next turn and another ship would follow every other turn.
Captain John Aubrey of the Surprise under the command of Commodore sir Edward Pellew of the Indefatigable.
The first ship turned out to be the sought after frigate, determined as Comète of 40 guns.
The other ship turned out to be a French merchantman, Dauphin of 14 guns.
The fort did considerable damage to the ships on the way in and even with lucky damage draws the ships merely scratched the surface of the fort.
There were some not completely thought through manoeuvers by the merchantman generated from the AI fitting perfectly with the confusion of a surprise attack.
Collision and broadsides!
The merchantman continued to sail erratically. After loosing a mast Dauphin collided with HMS Surprise blocking the guns from the fort. Jack Aubrey had just been waiting for an opportunity to board. The two ships became entangled. Dauphin struck the surprise's crew continued on the work of clearing the mast and rigging a new mizzen. HMS Indefatigable tried to board the Comète but their grappling attempts all failed.
While the Surprise struggled to free herself, the Indefatigable pounded Comète into submission but was unable to take possession and headed on a starboard tack.
The arrival of the Alexandre of 80 gun made the small price crew from the Surprise use all their french words they could muster to fool them in the long tradition of Jack. The other British ships crowded all sails but on Indefatigable the needle and thread would be needed to increase the speed.
The Alexandre was followed by Imperial marking the end of all thoughts of staying to fight and motivating the price crew on Dauphin even more.
The Imperial turned to avoid the known treacherous waters but Alexandre had expertly navigated straight through in a confident manner showing great local knowledge.
As the parting British ships left the bay Alexandre turned and gave Indefatigable a parting broadside that would forced Surprise to strike, had she been in the firing arc.
After first scraping the docks and then touching sand with her keel the merchantman Dauphin managed to finally tack and clear the harbour.
All in all, it was a fun game even though the British didn't really succeed in the mission. The french frigate struck but was not taken and had neither fire nor leak. They did however cause considerable damage and take the merchant. Yes, it would have failed to escape had the French attacked, but I thought I could give the British that as a "Captain's ability".
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