Salty Squigs a'Sailing - Man O' War AAR

At what may become a regular session on Thursday, John hosted another game of Man O' War, with myself commanding the opposing fleet and Sam watching over the game.

John decided to stick with his previous Greenskin flotilla, with a Hulk surrounded by two squadrons of Drillakillas and two squadrons of Bigchukkas.

Since we were adding wind rules to this game, I commanded an small Empire fleet, with a Greatship supported by a squadron of Wolfships and a squadron of smaller Wargalleys.

Like last time, John's Drillakillas surged forward in front of his fleet, hoping to use their massive drills to sink my ships before the rest of the Orc fleet chugged into position. The Imperial fleet shifted to the right, readying their cannons.

And of course, because it's an Orcs & Goblins force, pure luck came into play against John. One Drillakilla was immobilized by a cannon from a Wargalley. Another managed to hit a Wargalley but sunk in exchange for a bit of damage. And the last Drillakilla hit the Greatship but only sunk itself!

I had to split my fleet in two, with the Wargalleys moving to intercept the second squadron of Drillakillas. These managed to do some actual damage, with one of the Wargalleys losing its oars and begin left out of the fight.

Now the fight was between the Greenskin Hulks and Bigchukkas, and the Imperial Greatship and Wolfships.

I scored a lucky critical hit early in a turn on the Hulk, which resulted in the crew panicking and wounding the admiral. This left the hulk unable to act in the turn, which gave my Wolfships free reign to turn and engage with their bow guns.

Unfortunately for John, he tried to board the Greatship with his Hulk after I rolled extremely lucky against his Smash-hammer attack (which should have done a lot of damage, but I stopped five of the six hits). Between my cannons, crew, and a Man O' War card that gave me an advantage in boarding actions, the Greenskin ship was quickly denuded of its crew.

However, the small crew I assigned to the Hulk was then boarded by the crew of a Bigchukka, who tossed the humans overboard.

That crew was then evicted by a ramming attack against the big hulk! (Although I messed up here - ships can't ram using their sails, only under oar power. Sorry, John! I'll study the rulebook more.)

The concentrated fire of the Bigchukkas was able to sink one of my Wolfships.

With the Hulk uncrewed and the Imperial fleet mostly concentrated in the same area, John decided to concede, since the Bigchukkas were outmatched.

Apart from a few rules hiccups, I enjoyed the game. Like I said, it looks like we'll be making Thursdays our Man O' War night as we add in more rules like Wizards, Magic and Fliers (and make sure to double check old rules!).

On the High Fantasy Seas - Man O' War AAR

Recently, John put out an invite to play Man O' War, the naval combat game set in the Warhammer Fantasy universe that came out in 1993. 

I was two years old at the time. Yeesh. 

Anyway, I volunteered, got shanghaied, and found myself commanding a dwarf fleet facing off against an orc armada.

The objective was simple - sink more of the other side before they managed to sink you.

The dwarves looked like they were steaming out of the late 19th century, with a Dreadnought, an Ironclad, a Nautilus (submarine) and a squadron of Monitors.

The orcs were fielding (sea-ing?) a large flotilla of barely floating ships. The greenskin admiral led from a Hulk, flanked by two squadrons each of Bigchukkas and Drillakillas.

With both sides equipped with either steam- or slave-powered paddles, neither fleets needed to worry about the direct of the wind, and so powered forward.

The Nautilus was the first to fire a shot, diving and launching torpedos at the oncoming Drillakillas. Unfortunately the orc ships were just out of range.

My Monitor squadron was less lucky, as one of John's Drillakillas surged forward, rammed, and sunk a dwarf ship of the line. The Drillakilla sunk as well.

The dwarfs had their hands full dealing with the Drillakillas, while the slower orc ships advanced in a second wave. My Ironclad and Dreadnought were able to handle the orc assault ships, defeating the crew of one in a boarding action and immobilizing the other.

The Monitors continued their run of misfortune, ultimately sinking after being rammed by more Drillakillas.

The Dreadnought and Ironclad readied for contact with the rest of the orc fleet.

I thought the Nautilus would be enough to handle the three Bigchukkas on its own, but a well aimed shot from a catapult smashed through the submarine, sinking the boat and drowning the crew.

Now it was up to the two Man O' Wars in the dwarf fleet. The Ironclad was taking a pounding, losing hull integrity and taking on water. Both it and the Dreadnought fired volley after volley into the advancing orc Hulk, watching as the massive ship and its close-combat weaponry loomed ever larger.

However, the broadsides eventually broke through the Hulk's hull, causing enough critical hits and damage below the waterline to sink the greenskin juggernaught. With only a few Bigchukkas left, the Orc fleet retreated as the dwarfs raced to rescue their waterlogged compatriots.

Well, damn. Here's another fun set of rules that I'm tempted to get into. And it's only for a game that's been out of print for nearly three decades!

Luckily, John has a massive collection of original models that are beautifully painted. I'll have to read more of the rules and learn how to move ships under sail, as well as learn how wizard and aerial units work. While I'm interested in playing as the Empire, I may join John in a campaign, pitting his Bretonnians versus a combined fleet of Dark Elves and Skaven.

Painting Update - ACW, WWII

The painting continues!

I've restarted progress on my 10mm ACW project. With the Union finished for now, I need to get the Confederates painted up. I started with two mounted commanders and four regiments of infantry. 

I'm not going to drive myself insane trying to mix and match the infantry's clothing at 10mm, so I'm just doing it by regiment. These first four regiments are either entirely gray, or gray with brown hats. 

The Bolt Action slow grow league continues. I was looking to add another squad of infantry, but I wanted something different from the overdone Fallschirmjager or Waffen-SS squads. So I picked up a Luftwaffe Field Division box. The picture unfortunately washed out a lot of the blue from the miniatures. 

I also picked up one of Wargames Illustrated "Giants in Miniature," Captain K. It's an ersatz copy of Captain Klenzendorf from Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit. Which, by the way, is worth watching. 

The pandemic and lockdown has made requisitioning reinforcements for my platoon very difficult. We're getting to the point where tanks and armored cars are going to be more prevalent, so a captured M4 Sherman (that was going to be used for What a Tanker and painted in olive drab) was instead pressed into service with the Wehrmacht and dubbed Kätzchen.