Skirmish Between Le Swiftsure and HMS Goliath (Solitaire)

[Salem Vendari]

This week I went out and bought myself two SoLs: HMS Goliath/HMS Bellonna and Le Berwick/Le Swiftsure, and decided to I wanted to try them out. This was another game using the Advanced rules, as well as several optional rules: First Broadsides, Let the Men Drink!, and Variable Wind.

The two ships started opposite each other on the map, HMS Goliath in the north, and Le Swiftsure downwind in the south. The wind blew in from the west, giving the Goliath (AI) the ability to use the wind to its advantage. It promptly turned south-westward toward the Swiftsure, which sailed straight ahead at full sail for two turns before turning slightly westward to catch the wind. This move brought all of her starboard guns to bear as Goliath unfortunately turned her nose into an incredibly powerful bow-rake at short-range (a whopping 10 damage after applying rake and First Broadside). In addition to killing several members of the crew (3 boxes), several rounds shot through the sails, knocked down a mast, and knocked over some lanterns that started two different fires. This was a devastating blow, taking out three of the Goliath's hull boxes.

Goliath had several members of its crew working to repair the mast and put out the fires (which took out two more boxes), but managed to get off a full broadside (a whole 4 damage with its First Broadside) that managed to knock out a small portion of the Swiftsure's crew and fill two hull boxes. Then the Swiftsure, coming about at backing sail, again brought all of her guns on the port side to bear, though this time just barely missing the rake shot. The damage from this salvo left only two points open in the Goliath's final hull box, but the fire still remaining on board took her out of commission.


Unfortunately, I have no pictures this time (something happened when copying them to my computer and I ended up losing all of the interesting ones).

Some thoughts:
-Fires are extremely powerful, to the point that I think, from a game perspective, they need to be nerfed. However, this could also simply be the result of having two onboard at once, but I still feel like fighting fires takes too much time to save the ship (a ship loses a minimum of two hull boxes before it can put out the fire, versus countering a leak with the pump action and taking no damage). I'll still play with it as-is for the time being, however.
-1v1 is kind of boring, especially when it comes to the advanced game. I'm looking forward to bigger games where there are multiple targets.
-Artificial intelligence is a little wonky when it comes to repairs; I feel like given the situation (with it only having two or three hull boxes left) it should have prioritized repairing the hull rather than the mast (especially considering the amount of fire damage it was taking). I might end up overriding AI decisions when certain choices are obvious.

[Comte de Brueys]

We changed the rules a little bit with the fire damage, so the ship should loose only one hull box to the fire.

You receive the fire damage during combat and place a fire damage token into the special damage box.


At the start of the next turn you receive the fire damage token on the damage track. You plan an extinguish fire action during the planing phase an put it, after you revealed it on the special fire damage marker in the s.d. section.

At the end od the turn the fire is extinguished.

You are not allowed to plan fire extinguish actions in advance.


We treat the repair actions similar with the exception that you can not use repair actions twice in a row. If you repair something, you have to wait a turn to use this action again.


That's our way of delayed actions.

I understand that fire on a ship should have consequences, but two closed boxed are very harsh and the rules abouve make the advanced gaming much easier to handle and to control as a Game Master.

[Salem Vendari]

See, now that sounds a little more fair. With the way the rules are written, you have to take six fire damage from two fires before they can be put out (four before the first goes out, then two more before you put out the second). I get that fires are an incredible hazard to have on a wooden ship, but it's not fun from a game perspective when your ship is half-dead before you can put it out. I will have to implement your house rule.

[Comte de Brueys]

Test it.

I had the experience during some games that I always had to ask my fellow captains "When did you plan this fire extinguish/repair action? Now - the turn before?".

When you pump out the water the action take place imediately, too.

[Salem Vendari]

Test it.

I had the experience during some games that I always had to ask my fellow captains "When did you plan this fire extinguish/repair action? Now - the turn before?".

When you pump out the water the action take place imediately, too.

I definitely will test out your fire rules (and maybe try a variant of the fire rules from PotSM). However, the Pump Water action seems fine to me. The damage isn't permanent, and even two leaks are manageable, as it only takes a couple extra pump actions to get rid of the water (assuming the crew can get on it straight away).

[Bligh]

Fire rules seem fair if you get it under control quickly it should not do much damage, but if you leave it, it will soon turn to a conflagration which is unstoppable.
Rob.

[Salem Vendari]

Fire rules seem fair if you get it under control quickly it should not do much damage, but if you leave it, it will soon turn to a conflagration which is unstoppable.
Rob.

The problem was Goliath took two fire damage (which should actually be a low chance since there's only 3 in any given damage type). She had the crew actions to jump on it immediately, but fighting two fires equates to 6 damage if fought as fast as possible. It just seemed way too strong to deal with.

In addition to Sven's suggestion, I might also try limiting it to one fire damage per turn. This would drop the damage to 4 from two fires if dealt with immediately.

[Bligh]

Seems like a very sensible way of rationalizing the effect to me Salem.
That way you won't lose the enjoyment of fighting your ship all in a few moments.
Rob.

[Union Jack]

Perhaps removal of the fire tokens or reducing the number would help. My bags have 6 sets of counters in so I have x6 the probability of a fire. Two fire on 1 ship in 1 engagement has only happened once.

[Salem Vendari]

That is also a suggestion, though I might keep the tokens but simply ignore the special damage (rather than risk losing them).

So many things to try.

[Bligh]

So many things to try.

That's the nub of this game that makes it so good Salem.
An infinity of different choices and scenarios to try out.
Rob.

[Herkybird]

I always use fire tokens in this way:
Damage counters are allocated highest to lowest as per the rules
If a counter has FIRE, it always finishes off that box. If there is no damage in the box already it destroys that box the same as if there was already damage in it.
Next turn, an extinguish fire action is played, the burning ship takes a box damage at the turn start, as normal, but the fire is extinguished at the turn end.
This means the fire causes a minimum of 2 boxes lost, with possibly 1 of these boxes being partly lost to damage and partly to fire.

I hope that makes sense....!!!

[Bligh]

Crystal clear Richard.
I think even better than in the rule book.
Rob.

[Union Jack]

Fire only becomes a danger when you don't have enough crew actions to do all those other things you want to do too, ie man the pumps, increase sail, reload the guns, fire the guns and board not forgetting those muskets.....damn fire, damn crew casualties, to strike or not to strike that is the question?