Monday 7 October 2013

It Is Warm Work - AAR

After rushing to get my ships ready for Viking-con it was time for a test game of the rules I am going to use namely It Is Warm Work. It is a fleet level game that is fairly simple rules wise. Mastering them is another matter ;) Each ship has a "strength tack" that describes its condition in terms of damage, crew, rigging as well as how heavy a broadside it is able to deliver. 

Since my ships are in the absolute low end (minimum guns in the rules are 20) so a strength tack for my ships looks like this (1) (1) (1). What this means is that each ship can take 3 hits in total and fire with one dice each time it fires a broadside. On the yahoo group it was suggested that because we were playing with few ships rather than a whole fleet we could give each ship for strenght tack rows. So onwards me and my youngest spawn went. He seems to be turning into a  francophile and has from the very beginning of the construction been wanting to play the french so here he is plotting the opening moves for his french ships.




So far so good - everything is in order to here.. trodding along merrily (we started out using centimeters as space was limited, but as max movement is 10" the 10 centimers soon became odd.. longest range of guns is 10" as well.. and once more 10 centimers for firing looked very odd.. so a few turns in we reverted to all inch based measurements).


Above you can see the result of the first truly bad move made by yours truly. .turning the Raven (closest british ship) into the wind.. And my devilspawn moving in for a raking fire with his red french ship. Here I took my first hit.


Since we played the "in irons" rule wrong when turning into the wind, I remained in irons for the next turn and the devilspawn just inched forward and delivered another raking fire. Sigh. 

Had we played the rules properly I would only had been in irons for one turn, but alas such is the result of not doing my homework.

Just a top view of Raven getting raked.


And yes...  he managed to move the Loire into a raking position of HMS Sophie in the background as well.. Before this I decide that 4 rows of strength tacks took too long and with only 1 dice for each broadside things were taking far too long compared to what I had in mind. 
So I reduced the rows of strength tacks to two and changed them into (2) (1) (1) meaning they would each fire with 2 dice until they had taken a hit. 

Proof of my poor seamship skills ;)

In the end he had to move the Lynx away from it's raking position, but still well within firing range. More hits to the Raven... And with both my ships strength tacks reduced to firing with 1 dice I was already in poor shape here.

I managed to move HMS Sophie (top british ship) to a better position. And HMS Raven was still drifting due to being in irons.

I was somewhat saved by the bell (bedtime for the teenager :D). The Lynx had moved to a new raking position and the Loire and HMS Sophie squared off in a broadside firefight. 

A clear victory for my son. 

Hit results:
French
Loire 1/6
Lynx 0/6

British
HMS Sophie 4/6
HMS Raven 3/6

When we go to the convention it will be with the following strength tacks for each ship.
(2) (1) (1)
(2) (1) (1)
Giving them 2 dice each, until they have taken two hits. I think this will work very well as a small scale convention game. 

I was very please with the rules. Although they might seem simple, they do have the right feel (for me at least). I look forward to taking revenge on the french!

"Signal Close Action"

Sunday 6 October 2013

Shipyard production almost complete

Since I started last sunday (1 week ago) I have been working like a mad man to get the next three ships done. 
I have corrected a few errors I did on Sophie and introduced a few new ones, but all in all the new ships turned out pretty well. 

I will not comment all the pics below as the process is the same as for the previous posts when I made HMS Sophie. At times it was a daunting task when everything I did had to be tripled. 

As for the colors on the ships I know they are not completely historical, I went with white bottoms of the main masts on the french ships, something they did in warmer waters. The same goes for the jib boom, the color choice is mainly enforced to make sure that the ships stand out easily on the gaming board. Especially until I get some flags on them :)

I have used thicker thread for the rigging this time - which makes it more visible than what I first used. I much prefer the new rigging. The ratlines are still thin thread, and I might still add the horisontal lines later on.

I still have to finish the jib sails and the after rigged sails, but that is something that can be done after the convention if I don't make it before. I want to do a few cliffs and a small island (you can see the preparations for them below as well).

I have made a name change as well. The second british vessel is now named Raven rather than Retribution.. My reality sense kicked in when it dawned on me that I wouldn't be able to fit that name in on the ship with my lousy brush handling ;) I added a slab of card on the back of the quarterdecks for this version because I corrected an error I made on Sophie. The bottom of the aft part of the hull side should have been cut to have the quarter deck hang out over it. But when I did this on the new ships I had much less space to decorate the back., thus the added card.

At the bottom of this very image heavy post (sorry) you can see all the ships of my current fleet.






































From left to right : Lynx, Loire, Raven and Sophie.

From left to right : Lynx, Loire, Raven and Sophie.

From left to right : Lynx, Loire, Raven and Sophie.