Sails of Glory

Our planned Black Powder campaign game tonight was cancelled at the last minute so one of the regulars down my local gaming club brought along something new for us to try in the form of Sails of Glory.

Now I've never played any Napoleonic naval games before, but this seemed pretty good. Despite our frantic consulting of rule books due to the GM having not played it before (he originally had it planned as a demo game in a week or two's time), it seemed easy to pick up. I got a few photos, but due to a combination of my shaky hands and temperamental iPhone camera, they unfortunately turned out too blurry to post up.

We played a simple game with a ship of the line and a frigate on either side, French vs British. I took command of the French ship of the line, with my three fellow players also taking a ship apiece. Much amusement was had at the inexpert sailing of the commander of the British frigate, first attempting to sail straight into the wind, then swerving into the rear end of his teammate, then getting caught in a vicious two way boarding action against the opposing frigate, resulting in his prompt sinking. Despite this, the British Line Ship succeeding in giving the French the runaround, doing tremendous damage before legging it for open water with both French ships dogging his heels and eventually making it off the board before we could catch him. I worked out too late that if only I'd swung my ship a few degrees to port to get the wind behind me for a burst of speed, I would have caught up enough to fire another broadside into him. Oh well, I live and learn.

Anyway, good fun was had by all involved and plans are afoot by Mike (the GM for the night) for massive expansion and an awesome terrain set to match. I definitely want to try it again and I'll hopefully be able to get a few photos for a battle report too next time too.

I also managed to pick up the paints I needed tonight, so hopefully progress on my Sons of Horus will be on the way soon!

Edit: Mike put up a much better report from the game on his own blog here: http://troubleatthemill.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/battle-report-18th-may-2015-sails-of.html?m=1 . He did a far better job of covering it than I did and has a better grasp of naval warfare than I do, making for a far superior read!