The Age of Fighting Sail, The Full Nelson, 1/1200 scale

We were all at sea again this week, with another playtest of The Full Nelson, the forthcoming age of sail rules from the Too Fat Lardies. So far we’ve only had good things to say about it, so our aim  was to try and see if we hit a problem. We kept the game small – just two ships a side. We set it in the Leeward Islands, with a British frigate and brig keeping an eye on the port of Basse-Terre in Guadeloupe. A French frigate, the Hortense (40 guns) was there,  and so the frigate HMS Aeolus (38 guns) was lying off the port, accompanied by the Brig HMS Pelican. On seeing the enemy put out of the harbour, the British turned to intercept.  Cap. Meillerie of Hortense was making good use of the offshore wind. He was accompanied by a French corvette, the 20-gun privateer Bellette, commanded by the rapacious Cap. Chirac. Meillerie’s orders were to escort the Bellette past the  British, to begin a cruise. Hortense would then return to Guadeloupe. To make this work, Chris – playing the part of Cap. Meillerie, planned to keep his frigate between his charge and the enemy.For my part , as Capt. Fitzroy, I planned to have Aeolus take on the  French frigate, while  Pelican intercepted the French corvette. In this scrap it was the British who fired first, with both Aeolus and Pelican firing a close range broadside into Hortense. So far so good…Despite Aeolus raking Hortense across the bows the broadside wasn’t decisive. The French frigate, though, turned and shot past Aeolus, positioning herself  for a stern rake. Last time this happened Chris was let down by his dice. This time his gunnery roll was devastating!This caused havoc on the British frigate, and I lost one of the ship’s two gunnery dice. Still, the bow rake from Aeolus caused the loss of a French leadership and sailing die. The wind was now pulling Hortense away from Aeolus, this looked like the brief duel was over. In fact, the French wgot to fire first, before even moving. So, the ship reloaded and fired again, before sailing out of range. This cost Aeolus her last gunnery die. So, Aeolus was now toothless. So, Capt. Fitzroy decided to keep sailing to nearby Antigua and its shipyard. So, it was up to the gallant little brig Pelican to keep up the fight. Pelican lay between both French ships, and fired at the French frigate off the brig’s starboard quarter, and then raked  the Bellette, causing significant rigging damage. Pelican was fighting a good fight, but the odds were against him. So, he pulled away and closed with  Aeolus. In the end we judged the game a draw, as honours were pretty much even. Next time, though, I’m sure we’ll see a fight to the finish!

Tags: The Full Nelson