Andy Blozinski
04-14-2014, 20:20
Mag-Con is a small charity fund raiser convention in New Caney Texas. It's actually becoming kind of popular. They had a pretty good and enthusiastic turn out this year. I was scheduled to run one round of Sails of Glory at 10AM-2PM. I ended up running a second game in the 3-7PM slot due to enthusiasm.
House rules used:
1) You have to start loaded with anything but double shot. You were free to dump your guns to load double shot, which a few did.
2) If you have a fire extinguishing crew plotted, the first turn of repair gets the fire temporarily under control so it only automatically causes one hull damage.
3) Collisions only suffered the chance of entanglement. I meant to do C chit, but kinda forgot.
We played with full crew management and wind direction changes (It NEVER changed!). First game was to start off (1) card plotting and transition into (2) card plotting on turn 5, but they asked me to go to (2) card plotting earlier, so we did.
The first game scenario was Escort/Intercept. The French were escorting a Spanish gold ship trying to sneak along the African coast. The British were trying to intercept it. If at any time, the British were at point blank range (C/D chit range) of the merchant ship and the French were not, the British gained control of the merchant ship. Control could be reversed again in a similar manner. Three mats were used with the French starting on one long edge near a corner. The long edge near them was the coast. Their goal was to sail across the map to exit on the opposite short edge. The British started out anywhere they wanted along the open long edge and their goal was to gain control of the merchant ship and sail it off the open long edge. There was a slight fog and the British were more familiar with the mapped coast. This meant they got to place two small land masses at their leisure, as long as they were placed at least one combat ruler away from the French. This would allow for a little pressure for re-direction.
I ended up with (7) players and they all wanted to play a single ship, so it was (4) on (3), with 1 SOL per side. I gave one French frigate two crew cards for fast loading and accurate gunnery to balance it a bit.
It went pretty well. The full special damage rules didn't cause a problem. On the contrary, I think they kind of helped. Some have wanted to give ships double burden and such to slow things down. When you're busy fighting fires and broken masts and stuff and not allocating to musketry and loading guns all the time, it kind of slows you down. The players really liked having the small islands to place down. I forgot which one of you guys came up with that great idea...but it was popular. The moving objective of the merchant ship seemed to go over well for fun factor. Despite having a good record of no early game collisions, the French managed to triple collide late in the game when they needed to regain control and that sealed their defeat. Only one ship was actually lost, on the British side.
They were so jazzed, they wanted to play again. One of the players was supposed to run his game on the same table I was on in the 3-7 slot, but the only player he had signed up, also wanted to play more SOG, so they agreed to trash that and sail to glory. We had a bit of a player change-up with a second of the rare female species of gamer. We only had (6) players, but I wanted to change it up and use (2) SOLs per side and change the combat feel. This meant we really needed at least (2) frigates as well. One guy wanted to run (2) ships and I ran one frigate, so we ended up with the mix of (2) SOLs and (2) frigates per side. This time the merchant ship started in the middle, with no one in immediate control and the victory condition for either side was to get control and sail it off either short edge. Both sides got (2) small islands to place. Blame it on the light fog and neither being sure of the terrain. It was definitely more lethal this time. Three ships lost and several shot to within only a few hull boxes left. The French got distracted and the British snuck off with the prize ship.
9666
9667
9668
9669
9670
9671
9672
9673
House rules used:
1) You have to start loaded with anything but double shot. You were free to dump your guns to load double shot, which a few did.
2) If you have a fire extinguishing crew plotted, the first turn of repair gets the fire temporarily under control so it only automatically causes one hull damage.
3) Collisions only suffered the chance of entanglement. I meant to do C chit, but kinda forgot.
We played with full crew management and wind direction changes (It NEVER changed!). First game was to start off (1) card plotting and transition into (2) card plotting on turn 5, but they asked me to go to (2) card plotting earlier, so we did.
The first game scenario was Escort/Intercept. The French were escorting a Spanish gold ship trying to sneak along the African coast. The British were trying to intercept it. If at any time, the British were at point blank range (C/D chit range) of the merchant ship and the French were not, the British gained control of the merchant ship. Control could be reversed again in a similar manner. Three mats were used with the French starting on one long edge near a corner. The long edge near them was the coast. Their goal was to sail across the map to exit on the opposite short edge. The British started out anywhere they wanted along the open long edge and their goal was to gain control of the merchant ship and sail it off the open long edge. There was a slight fog and the British were more familiar with the mapped coast. This meant they got to place two small land masses at their leisure, as long as they were placed at least one combat ruler away from the French. This would allow for a little pressure for re-direction.
I ended up with (7) players and they all wanted to play a single ship, so it was (4) on (3), with 1 SOL per side. I gave one French frigate two crew cards for fast loading and accurate gunnery to balance it a bit.
It went pretty well. The full special damage rules didn't cause a problem. On the contrary, I think they kind of helped. Some have wanted to give ships double burden and such to slow things down. When you're busy fighting fires and broken masts and stuff and not allocating to musketry and loading guns all the time, it kind of slows you down. The players really liked having the small islands to place down. I forgot which one of you guys came up with that great idea...but it was popular. The moving objective of the merchant ship seemed to go over well for fun factor. Despite having a good record of no early game collisions, the French managed to triple collide late in the game when they needed to regain control and that sealed their defeat. Only one ship was actually lost, on the British side.
They were so jazzed, they wanted to play again. One of the players was supposed to run his game on the same table I was on in the 3-7 slot, but the only player he had signed up, also wanted to play more SOG, so they agreed to trash that and sail to glory. We had a bit of a player change-up with a second of the rare female species of gamer. We only had (6) players, but I wanted to change it up and use (2) SOLs per side and change the combat feel. This meant we really needed at least (2) frigates as well. One guy wanted to run (2) ships and I ran one frigate, so we ended up with the mix of (2) SOLs and (2) frigates per side. This time the merchant ship started in the middle, with no one in immediate control and the victory condition for either side was to get control and sail it off either short edge. Both sides got (2) small islands to place. Blame it on the light fog and neither being sure of the terrain. It was definitely more lethal this time. Three ships lost and several shot to within only a few hull boxes left. The French got distracted and the British snuck off with the prize ship.
9666
9667
9668
9669
9670
9671
9672
9673