resolving boarding: much more realistic

[spiessbuerger]

I was playing around with some alternative boarding rules. Here is my concept:

when boarding succeed each ship received as much E counters as the other ships two leftmost crew slot numbers declare.
Plus if a ships burden is smaller than the other ones it draws as much additional E counters as the difference is.

Example 1:
Unite (burden 3) -> 2+1 (2 leftmost crew on HMS Meleager) = 3 E counters
HMS Meleager (burden 2) -> 2+2 (leftmost crew on Unite) + 1 (1 lower burden) = 5 E counters

10364 10365

Example 2:
Unite (burden 3) -> 3+2 (2 leftmost crew on HMS Vanguard) + 2 (2 lower burden) = 7 E counters
HMS Vanguard (burden 5) -> 2+2 (leftmost crew on Unite) = 4 E counters

10364 10366

With that alternative rule the number of left crew men has an effective influence to the boarding. Not only the burden of a ship.
For wave 2 ships it's now possible that even a small but fully manned Sloop (burden 1) can successful board bigger ships if there are only three or two crew slots left.

[fredmiracle]

one side-effect is that in almost all cases it seems to make boarding more deadly (i.e. more E counters drawn in each cases than w/ standard boarding rules).

I wonder if a sloop ever did board and carry a ship of the line that was battered but hadn't already surrendered. My hunch is probably not...

[Andy Blozinski]

I think you mean "Musketry", not "crew slots".

[spiessbuerger]

one side-effect is that in almost all cases it seems to make boarding more deadly (i.e. more E counters drawn in each cases than w/ standard boarding rules).

I wonder if a sloop ever did board and carry a ship of the line that was battered but hadn't already surrendered. My hunch is probably not...

The boardings are more deadly, yes. And successful boarding happens earlier. But that's ok, because this means that every ship sends as much men into the boarding as possible.
And I think a fully equiped Sloop with 125 men is able to enter a wounded frigate. (of course not a SoL)

If you divide the crew number of the small frigate HMS Meleager (220 men) by the musketry boxes (9) you get around 24 men per box.
So if the Meleager for example has 3 musketry-boxes left (~72 men) then the Sloop (125 men, ~18 per box) has a chance for successful boarding.

Let's compare this case:

Official rule
Meleager (~72 men) draws 1 E counter (always)
Sloop (125 men) draws 2 E counters (always)

my rule
Meleager (~72 men) draws 4 E counters
Sloop (125 men) draws 3 E counters

[fredmiracle]

A few things to think about...

first off, I'd just keep in mind that crew damage is abstract, and represents morale as much or more than losses. So a frigate with 3 crew boxes left has a crew that is stunned, demoralized, but usually still only a few dozen dead and wounded. The small ship could carry the day, but almost never by preponderance of manpower, only by "shock and awe." That is not to say your logic is wrong, but that things are perhaps not quite so cut and dried as 72 vs. 125

Second, I find that in advanced rules, actions help to address this type of situation to a certain extent. Normally a ship that is seriously damaged, and in contact with the enemy, has many things it wants to do. It may have a necessity to extinguish fires or pump leaks. If the guns bear, it wants to fire or load them (sometimes on both sides). It wants to fire muskets, and it wants to board. If the sloop has 4 actions and Meleager has 2, that may allow the sloop to gain an advantage; and once the frigate is down to one action, it's in serious trouble. If the sloop has the boarding advantage, then it will inflict the extra E token and apply its damage first, which helps to even the odds.