2016 Decembers Solo mission: "Last bite of the cherry”.

[Union Jack]

Decembers Solo mission: "Last bite of the cherry”.


Aye m’hearties ‘tis Ol’ Tom agin. ‘n aforin yeh mention it, it aint my round, so yull ‘ave t’wet me whistle aforin A’tell yee about the last bite o’ the cherry.

Wot sez you Madam, 'how did I loose m'hand and eye' well if'n yeh can keep yer trap shut for morun a second Aall tell yee....now where's me drink?

Aargghh yeragudin matey. Cheers, now where wuz I, oh yes, last bite o’ the cherry. Twaz the backend of the year ‘nd we wuz ‘eadin’ home after a poor voyage t’the Indies. Twas nearun dusk when the mast head lookout, poor Gregor....ee wuz frum Rusheeyah, eye like an eagle ee ‘ad, but no more...anywayz Gregor shouted out, ‘Sail ho 4 points to port off the stern. Big Jim looked thru ‘iz telescope ‘nd sez to me, “We’ve got a good one Tom, full sail, heading north by north east. We’ll fool her like we did the others close and with one broadside she’ll drop her skirts and give up her precious cargo”. So I ordered all sail and we sailed nor’ by nor’east.





She wuz a big Spanish merchantman. She would carry a handsome cargo. So we closed as the Spaniard tried to sail past us with full sail too.



But she wasn’t a merchantman. Oh no. The Spanish were out to get the Big E. If the Spaniard didn’t wait until the last moment and opened a row of gunports hidden from us. Jim realized she was a big 74 and we wuz going to get hammered!
As we closed She let loose a hail of chain shot which tore through the ship clearing the upper decks. She also had marines a plenty and they let loose a hail of shot and many lads went down. I saw Gregor blown out of the mast, cut in two by a chain shot gone high.



Jim ordered the Big E to port so the port battery could get in the action when the Spaniard, quick as you please, turned sharply to starboard. ‘We have her now’, shouted Jim when I looked at the Spaniard again I could see her guns all run out again.......



Boom boom, Boom boom. Her canons crashed in two’s upper and lower deck together as they bore. She had reloaded faster than we could bring our guns to bare. The steering was damaged, more of our lads went down.
We kept turning to port and Jim managed a ragged broadside but most of our shots missed.



The Spaniard whipped round tacking across the wind and fired a broadside down the length of the Big E......



We gave her the slip as night closed in but we wuz hurt and hurt bad. Twaz that last shot which knocked me t'the deck 'and when I cum round then, I was short an eye and a hand.

Butchers Bill:



Terminus Est: 5 hull boxes damaged/8 crew boxes lost/RTP
Jim rolled a 7/8/10 for injury and came out ok.

San Christobel: 5 hull boxes damaged/5 crew boxes lost/RTP

SUMMARY
1. Well don’t bite off more than you could chew.
2. Decided to make this a little different and randomly chose a Captain Ability for the Spaniard. This was along the lines of the Spanish had lost too many ships and were after revenge and sent one of their best captains.
3. The chain shot and 2nd salvo nearly did for me, all crew boxes down bar one. Had to escape.
4. They nearly got me too but the distance was too big for them to make up and I could always keep out of gunnery range so wrote in about night closing in and the dusk making it hard to identify the ‘merchant’ correctly.
5. Try and give a random captain ability to your next enemy you encounter, it’s not nice to be on the receiving end!