Black Seas: Out of the Fog, Alone

Sailing the Black Seas Alone 

Since I am stuck at home, I have decided to play through a few of the Black Seas scenarios solo so that I can get an idea of the rules and what I like and don't like about them.

Because I only have US ships painted at the moment, I will imagine these battles taking place during the Civil War -- even though on checking the only ship on the Confederate side (of this type) was the United States (they didn't change the name which I have always found a bit odd) and it was stripped down and used as a harbour defence vessel. The Union had more ships of the vintage covered in Black Seas but even there they were regarded as obsolete. As an aside, I do hold out hope that Warlord will eventually do some Civil War vessels in this scale (there is a fair bit out there in 1/600 anyway but it is nice to have the common ships in plastic)

Scenario One -- Out of the Fog

This scenario is basically a duel between two ships. There is a bonus of 4 victory points for the first ship to exit if it is undamaged (and 2 if it is damaged) with each ship getting 1 victory point for each point of damage inflicted on its opponent. Since the windward ship always moves first it makes sense that it go to battle sails and move across the board as fast as it can (there is a -2 penalty to hit for the firer is under full sails so there maybe a cost to this when combat starts)

Here are the ships ready to go. The windward ship (further from the island) is going to sail as fast as it can across the sea and the leeward ship will turn as close to the wind as it can to get into combat as soon as possible. I will be using all the advanced rules particularly the More Realistic Wind Effect on Movement and the Fire as She Bears rules.

A roll of 6 indicates the wind does not change and the windward ship sails speedily across the map moving 3 times its 5" Rate of knots.

The Leeward ship moves a single multiple of 5" and turns to be as close to the wind as allowed.

The Leeward ship has the enemy in its firing arc but the Light Cannon bow chasers are just out of range (14")

The wind remains constant so the Windward ship carries on at Full Sails -- it will take a penalty to hit but will get the first shot. It is also going to sail off the table next turn barring catastrophic damage or a collision

A Frigate normally gets 2 Heavy Cannon, 1 Light Cannon and 1 Carronade but because this is its first broaside it gets a bonus of an extra Heavy Cannon and an extra Light Cannon. The only modifier that applies is the -2 for shooter under Full Sail so a 3 or less will hit

The 1 on the Carronade die indicates a critical hit and there is one other hit from a Heavy Cannon. This does 5 points of damage to the target (3 from the Carronade and 2 from the Heavy) A D6 roll of 1 gives a Quarter Deck critical hit meaning the ship will need to make a skill check to change sail level or direction.

Fortunately the Leeward ship can get its target in its broadside by continuing straight at light sail. The same dice will be rolled this time needing a 5 (It could fire high with a -2 hoping to slow the enemy with mast criticals but the odds of that working seem worse that just hoping for lots of damage)

One more hit than the enemy for 6 points of damage. The light cannon critical rolls a 6 for the critical setting the Windward ship on fire. A D6 roll of 2 causes 2 additional points of damage.

Right now the Leeward Ship has 8 points and the Windward ship 5. The Windward ship will only get 2 bonus points for exiting so it will lose if it leaves the play area this turn.

The wind remains steady and the captain of the Windward ship decides to concentrate on the battle rather than devoting crew to putting out the fire  A skill check of 2 means the fire continues this time doing 6 points of damage. By dropping to Battle Sails and turning as sharply as possible the ship remains barely in the play area (using the island to indicate the edge of the play area is wreaking havoc with the narrative at this point!)

The ship has not taken half damage yet so still fires its regular broadside

But it looks like the crew are distracted by the fire and the guns miss their mark.

The Leeward ship starts to tack across the wind to get to its target.

The carronades are out of range but the other cannons hit twice for 3 more points of damage and another critical from the light cannon

The critical is a rudder hit on the the stricken Windward ship (which is no longer actually the windward ship but I will stick with the names)

The Leeward ship is now moving first but becuase it is facing into the wind it needs to make a skill check to complete its tack. It fails and moves straight forward and is now considered anchored.

Oddly, there is no anchored token in the otherwise generous sheet of tokens provided with the game so I am using a whale token. There is nothing I can find that stops the ship using the Fire as She Bears rule before going into irons so it fires away

Even without the -2 modifier for Fire as She Bears these shots weren't hitting anything!

The windward captain is going to try and put out the fire this turn but rolls a compulsory turn for the rudder hit meaning it can't do damage control. The skill check for the fire fails and it burns doing 2 more damage to the ship. Even with the compulsory turns the ship moves off the map.

The Windward ship ends up with 5 points for damage plus 2 for exiting first for a total of 7. The Leeward ship has 19 points for damage (maybe the fire shouldn't count for points but either way it is clear which ship won)

Single ship duels are usually pretty pointless from a gaming point of view but this was a good introduction to the mechanics of the the game. They are a bit simple and even the advanced movement rules leave something to be desired but I think with a few more ships this will be a pretty good game.

I will probably play the second introductory scenario in a few days and hopefully I will get to play with an opponent some time in the not too distant future