Diecon: Battle of Lissa

[HMS Lydia]

Folks,

I will be presenting Sails of Glory, "The Battle of Lissa" at Diecon on Friday, 20 June at the Collinsville, IL Gateway Convention Center. Game is in the Friday evening time slot. This is St. Louis largest general gaming convention. If your in the area, stop on by.


Bob

[DeRuyter]

Wave 2 is just the ticket for this scenario! 4 of the Hebe class frigates and 1 Swan ship-sloop.

[HMS Lydia]

Eric, exactly. I could probably work around not having them. In order to balance the scenario, the French will have untrained gunners, and the British will be able to use continuous fire.

Bob

[DeRuyter]

Eric, exactly. I could probably work around not having them. In order to balance the scenario, the French will have untrained gunners, and the British will be able to use continuous fire.

Bob

You could also use a carronade rule for HMS Volage, like no shooting at long range but +1 chit at short range. Historically she drove off the larger French frigate due to the close range firepower of her 32 lb carronades.

I should say that I submitted this battle for the Ares scenario contest, although I couldn't resist adding a note about using the Wave 2 ships! Probably blew it there!!

I did add special boarding rules for the HMS Amphion to account for the howitzer and the battalion of Italian infantry on board. I'd be happy to send you the draft scenario.

Eric

[Nightmoss]

Thanks for the invitation although I doubt I'll be making the trip down there. Will your event be open to 'beginner' SoG folks or should they have some previous experience? Don't forget to take pictures too as I'll be looking forward to the AAR.

[HMS Lydia]

Eric,

Yes I would like a copy. I'll send you a pm with my e-mail address.

Thanks,

Bob

[HMS Lydia]

Thanks for the invitation although I doubt I'll be making the trip down there. Will your event be open to 'beginner' SoG folks or should they have some previous experience? Don't forget to take pictures too as I'll be looking forward to the AAR.

Jim,

The games are going to be Basic with special rules added as balanceing mechanic. So, definitely no previous experience neccessary.

Bob

[Nightmoss]

Thanks for the reply Bob. I hope your scenario is a huge success and that you were able to track down some of the Wave 2 ships for the engagement? Have a great time!

[7eat51]

Best wishes, Bob.

Eric, when will you be able to share your scenario publicly? I am interested in how you structured scenario-specific rules based on historical issues.

[HMS Lydia]

Thanks Eric. Diecon is the largest gaming event we have in the St. Louis area. All the other gameing events are quite a bit smaller. We're a major metro area, so don't know why there are not more opportunities.

I am anxious to see how Eric handled the British post ship. I came up with a solution, but it wasn't basic/simple. I assigned a yellow and orange gunnery factor in each arc. And then balanced the scenario through the use of special rules. The British will be able to use continouous fire and the French get the poor gunnery rule, so will take two turns to reload. This seems fair when you consider that the French out number the British almost 2/1 and 4 of the French ships are 40 gun ships. All of the French Frigates are Burder 4 or Burden 3. So lots of hull to shoot away. The British will have a Burden 4, 2 burden 3, and a burden 2 ship. So less shooting will go further.

I also am using a special damage set for this game to attempt to make the game last longer. These are 4 hour game sessions, and you play 3 games in 4 hours using normal damage sets.

[HMS Lydia]

Thanks for the reply Bob. I hope your scenario is a huge success and that you were able to track down some of the Wave 2 ships for the engagement? Have a great time!

Jim,

Thanks, sorry for the delay in my reply. The last day I posted here was right before I left work on a 3 week vacation. I didn't have reliable internet access, so for the last 3 weeks it was just e-mail for me.

Bob

[DeRuyter]

Best wishes, Bob.

Eric, when will you be able to share your scenario publicly? I am interested in how you structured scenario-specific rules based on historical issues.

I am anxious to see how Eric handled the British post ship. I came up with a solution, but it wasn't basic/simple. I assigned a yellow and orange gunnery factor in each arc. And then balanced the scenario through the use of special rules. The British will be able to use continouous fire and the French get the poor gunnery rule, so will take two turns to reload. This seems fair when you consider that the French out number the British almost 2/1 and 4 of the French ships are 40 gun ships. All of the French Frigates are Burder 4 or Burden 3. So lots of hull to shoot away. The British will have a Burden 4, 2 burden 3, and a burden 2 ship. So less shooting will go further.

I also am using a special damage set for this game to attempt to make the game last longer. These are 4 hour game sessions, and you play 3 games in 4 hours using normal damage sets.

I can post the PDF I sent to ARES for the scenario contest in the files section. Keep in mind that I had to use Wave 1 ships for the contest. I did sneak in a note about using the Wave 2 ships though (hope it didn't disqualify the entry!!).

Using the Wave 1 ships I just added 1 to the gunnery values for the 38/40 gun frigates and for the Volage no fire at long range (carronades). Victory conditions are also a balance mechanism, as the British only have to eliminate 4 of 6 French ships. I think balance is more of an issue using the Wave 2 frigates.

For the historical flavor I added: British: Charismatic Captain, Let the Men Drink (for the inspiring speech), and Amphion gets one blast of grape for the howitzer she was carrying. French: Favorite gets extra musketry/boarding chits for the infantry regiment on board. I added the flagship rule for those ships as well.

For balancing I contemplated the poor gunnery optional rule for the Franco-Venetians. For this battle in most other rule sets (WS&IM for one) the Venetian ships in particular are given poor quality crews and the British veteran or crack crews. With SoG the British gunnery factors are higher, but that is offset to a certain extent by the higher burden on the French frigates. I think you will need to use the poor gunnery rule to offset the Hebe class frigates. Don't forget that the Amphion was also a 38 gun frigate. While the Swan class is too small I think you could use one anyway. I would add +1 burden and play around with the gunnery factors. Historically she gave one of the Venetian 40s a shock at close range with the 32 lb carronades. I had her firing as a 32 gun frigate at close range only.

Eric

[HMS Lydia]

Eric,

I will use 4 Hebe class Frigates, and 2 Concordes for the French force. 1 Hebe, 2 Concorde/Charmante, and 1 Amazon with altered gunnery numbers for the Volage. The Volage only had 22 guns but had a burden of over 500 tons. I did remove an entire damage boxe from the Volage, but with a Burden of 2. I created custom ship base cards and of course grease pencil ship cards for all the ships in the scenario.

The French will have an Alligator that will not be able to fire or fired at. This represents transport. In reality the Italian landing force was aboard the frigates. The Transport will enter the board on turn 2. If the French can get it to anchorage before the British destroy or cause the French to disengage they will win the game.

Bob

[7eat51]

Thank you Eric. That was informative. I look forward to reading and playing your scenario.

[HMS Lydia]

I read the Scenario that Eric submitted and will definitely be using some of that material. I had divided the carronades from the Post Ship up into strong short, with really weak long range FP. But I like Eric's sloution of just not allowing long range fire. It simplifys the carronades.

Eric,

I'm still polishing my materials. But I'll e-mail you the entire set to look over when they are Finished. I place an AAR here after the game.

Bob

[DeRuyter]

I read the Scenario that Eric submitted and will definitely be using some of that material. I had divided the carronades from the Post Ship up into strong short, with really weak long range FP. But I like Eric's sloution of just not allowing long range fire. It simplifys the carronades.

Eric,

I'm still polishing my materials. But I'll e-mail you the entire set to look over when they are Finished. I place an AAR here after the game.

Bob

Good Luck at the con with your scenario! I'll look forward to your AAR.

Eric

[FlyXwire]

Bob, I'll be looking forward to playing your scenario at Die Con!

See You There.

Dave