Ship yards of York (7): Action Under Sail Play-test

It went really well. I am a happy chappy.

Before I could stage a game of "Action Under Sail", I needed to 'find' my table.  I moved everything to the far (left) end of the table, gave the now clear section a sweep and vacuum and then unrolled and laid about 1.2 x ~2 m of my recently purchased 'ocean' material.

I was applying off-white (Tamiya 'deck tan') to the sails of the Spanish ships when Julian arrived. He waited patiently while I completed that and then applied blue with a blue-grey wash/highlight to the bases, all the while making me feel good about how the painted ships looked. It's wonderful to have wargaming friends! :)

It also gave him a bit of time to look at a few aspects of the rules that I wanted his thoughts about. The delay was not too long and we were ready to sail.

Above, Spanish squadron, lead by Argonauta, followed by San Agustin, Santisima Trinidad (flag), Montañés and San Felipe Apóstal, with the frigate Ninfa protected by the ships of the line and positioned to relay signals.

English squadron, Zealous in the lead then Agamemnon (flag), Bellona with Adamant out of photo to left. Frigates Sybille and Phoebe on the Spanish side of the line.

Consistent with the first game using any new set of rules, it took us a while to get going and to get into a 'rhythm', but we were soon sailing away and finding that we'd made mistakes in the fleet and movement orders for our ships—player mistakes, not mistakes with the rules. For two reasonably experiences tabletop sailors, we were directing our mini charges in an amateur fashion!

Fleets on course to come to grips, Spanish nearest camera, Ninfa yet to be moved.
Note the good looking and useful wind direction and ship orientation tool that is provided with the rules, for printing and assembly.

The English squadron turned to intercept the Spanish...

and came on aggressively.

Sybille and Phoebe came too close, receiving broadsides from San Felipe Apóstal (at the former), Montañés and Santisima Trinidad (at the latter), while Argonauta (furthest from camera) fired at HMS Zealous in the lead of the English line.

The frigates HMSs Phoebe and Sybille sailing too close to the Spanish line drew the first broadsides of three of the ships, including the 'biggest ship in the world' Santisima Trinidad. Bonuses for initial broadside and the double-shot that I had loaded resulted in serious damage to the hulls of both frigates—damaging all of Phoebe's starboard guns, and killing some crew.

We had a fair bit of discussion about this result. Made some calculations, considered alterations and thought about a change. We then moved to the firing of Argonauta against HMS Zealous and decided against the change. Further firing over the next three turns confirmed us to stick with the rules as writ!

I was engrossed in the game and our discussion about the firing, so forgot to photograph a couple of turns—oops! The Spanish kept sailing on and it appeared that our inept sailing might result in a minor action. Argonauta had lost her main mast top gallant in turn five.

Ah, the admirals were not complete buffoons after all, turning their ships to engage.

The time that we had taken over the first seven turns now paid off. We were comfortable with orders, movement and firing, which was good since the next two turns were really involved. We pro-rated the movement of the ships to more easily determine which fired at which and when during the turn.

English ships of the line approach the turning Spanish.

Montañés fires a raking broadside on Zealous, while she in turn rakes San Felipe Apóstal. 

Half-way through the turn, Bellona got her turn at San Felipe Apóstal, taking out more guns and crew.

The English have élite crews, compared with the raw of the Spanish (on a three-level scale), enabling them to fire and reload more rapidly and so be able to fire at the beginning and end of a move. Zealous had this point-blank stern rake on Santisima Trinidad. She had fired previously part-way through the move, rather than at the beginning, so this shot should not have been allowed, but we wanted to see the effect. A shot at the hull damaged guns and killed some crew.

We both should probably have followed the more usual tactic of disable first (fire at rigging) and then move in to hammer (and board) the enemy ship, but, aside from this, the firing and damage seemed reasonable for single broadsides.

Both squadrons continued to turn. Spanish in line in centre of photo, frigate Ninfa off to the left (showing ill effects of my clumsy hand on the delicate mast). English frigate Sybille in the foreground (Phoebe out of photo behind her), while the four English ships of the line are coming around the Spanish.

At this point Argonauta and Zealous were positioned to exchange broadsides, but no. Zealous was unloaded on the starboard side due to that rake on Santisima Trinidad. Argonauta duly unloaded her port side guns on the English ship's hull.

We continued the ship's wearing.

It was Argonauta's turn to be unloaded (top of photo). She took fire from both Zealous and Agamemnon, adding losses of guns and crew to her previously 'felled' t'gallant. Sybille fired at the unloaded Montañés, while Phoebe (with the guns of her undamaged port-side batteries) and San Felipe Apóstal exchanged 'pleasantries'.

That was our lot. I had to rush into town before shops closed and Julian needed to leave, since he'll be heading to the airport today for his 'international man of mystery' work. 'Twas no matter. The aim was to try and to evaluate the rules. In nine turns we did and they were... pleasingly good. There have the detail that I am after, but it has been cleverly integrated and somewhat abstracted so as to streamline play without losing the flavour and challenges of trying to command and to move ships on a tabletop sea, to bring them to fire on your opponent's ships and in a state of readiness to be able to do so.

Most importantly, we'd had a good game. Lots of decisions and challenges as players, discussion of results, quick looking up to compare with general statistics, getting comfortable with the system and having an absolute ball. After all the weeks preparing these lovely, fiddly little ships it was so pleasing to have them 'sailing' around, getting contorted together and sharing the joy of it all with a fellow-traveller in the naval caper.

Thanks Steve Birnie. If you are still around, I hope that someone is able to bring to your attention this little game in which two wargamers who enjoy French Revolutionary-Napoleonic Naval 're-discovered' the rules that you wrote—some 47 years after the event—and spent a really enjoyable 4–5 hours doing so!

Next step 19th November 1791, 'Battle of Tellicherry'. English frigates HMS Phoenix and HMS Perseverance engaging the 'neutral' French frigate Résolue of 32 under capitaine Gallamand. I'll prepare a description of the historic action for reference and as a comparison with the action as played. In the meantime, the other ships need to be completed, rigging to be applied to them all and then the ships from Forged in Battle, which I expect to arrive any day now, will need to be done—interspersed with painting the now long-neglected land forces.

 'Tis a joy to have so many wonderful hobby 'jobs' to fit in! :)

Summary of the game

Rules: Action Under Sail, 2nd Edition by Steve Birnie, published November 1977 by Tabletop Games.

Scales: not stated, but presumably the rules were designed for 1/1200th scale ships, with a time scale of a few minutes per turn.

Ships: Navwar 1/3000th scale Napoleonic ships.

'Terrain': a roll of material for a blind or 'block out' purchased from Spotlight :)