John was running late (he came up with some cock and bull about tractors, red lights and weather - all to cover the fact he overslept) so we tucked into bacon baps and cups of coffee while we were waiting and discussing the merits of using iPads for wargaming (I'll do a post about this soon).
Somehow, Mark managed to break Ian's posh coffee machine simply by looking at it (that's cowboy electricians for you) and we had to resort to instant coffee - a shock to us boys who are used to the finer things in life.
Mark also quoth the immortal "I'm just thinking about what Waterloo is" to which the instant reply was "A battle in 1815 between the British and French - or a railway station".
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| Ships lined up (British closer and with the weather gage) |
Eventually John turned up and set up so we could begin the battle in earnest.
Ian and myself drew the French - meaning the resident attack dogs that are Russ and Mark drew the British.
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| The British with the rules. Russ studies them intently. Mark makes a paper aeroplane. |
Not today though!
The victory conditions required the British to knock out 7 more ships than the French and / or break through the line to get at the convoy with enough ships in good condition for a major victory. The French basically had to avoid losing too many ships or stop the British breaking through to claim a strategic victory.
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| Ian and myself - the brave French (with a cunning plan). |
Mark and Russ left the room to create a plan. Which means Mark made a plan and Russ went along for the ride. I have no idea what the plan was but if it was to create an absolute mess and lose heavily then it worked like a dream!
Ian and myself however had a good plan. As the British had the wind to their advantage, we decided to shoot high (to damage rigging and so slow the British down), turn 180 degrees (to get the benefit of the wind and put distance between us) and keep shooting as they tried to close.
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| Russ finds a view of the hedge more interesting than Mark's dialogue |
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| Russ then hides under the table to escape Mark's jabbering. |
Both sides moved ahead and the French opened up. Mark kept on trying to knock our shooting down by one ("Over ten inches!!!!") to be repeatedly shouted down ("First broadside!") as British rigging turned to string. Broken string. HMS Russell alone took 4 hits and lost a mast. Boo-yah!
Unfortunately the British crews were a bit better than ours and we took a hard pounding back. The Juste had its cable ties snapped and it started to drift across the French line.
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| The French open up down the line. |
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| Russ comes back from under the table to start rolling 6's. |
We used some cotton wool sprayed with black for gunsmoke, thereby explaining John's cryptic comment "It works with the little puffs".
Ian managed to collide two of his ships, but this paled into insignificance as Mark collided no less than three times! We could hear the chopping of axes and the snapping of cables above the cannon's roar. But the turn was underway as the British continued straight. This was the key of the battle (though we didn't know it at the time). We almost forgot to return fire but managed to get some more rigging hits in and crucially put distance between the fleets.
There were also accusations of trickery on both sides - from nefarious pre-measuring ("I was seeing how wide the 15" pizzas are"), nudging of ships in and out of range with clumsy tape measures (or just knocking them over like I did), claiming to be hitting a ship as a bent mast brought it into range and other underhand skulduggery (like me accidentally measuring 17" rather than 15") - led to John's classic line that "Britannia is waiving the rules".
More cannon fire was exchanged which was better for the British who were making their better crews and runs of 6's pay dividends. Especially on the 'Juste' ("That's Juste in range ha ha ha ha...I'll get me coat") which was catching most of the British fire and suffered 2 Criticals! Our 1's in return (when I say 'ours' I mean 'mine') meant we were once again hostages to the dice.
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| Russ claims a hit courtesy of a bent mast. |
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| The British employ a flag system for communication. This means "I have knackered the coffee machine and our chances of winning". |
In order to catch the French, some of the British then went up to plain sail (which could result in double damage to rigging with any high shots that connected). We were happy with the French plan and we were turning to get the wind on our side. Importantly, we were also maintaining a solid battle line.
Ian kindly informed the British where they had gone wrong (should have turned into the French immediately, should have cut off the back of our line when they had the wind and we didn't etc.). I think the British really appreciated these constructive comments.
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| The Jemmappes drifts through the French line. |
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| Ian tells the British where they messed up. |
More cannon balls flew across the open water. One brief moment of levity for the French was when the Jemmappes was shot at. I had the ships boats in the water trying to turn it around to bring the guns to bear - Russ got another Critical on the Jemmappes and it said that the top deck was splintered and the ships boats were wrecked. But as they were in the water, John allowed us to waive the loss of the boats. Huzzah!
The British were now having to turn themselves. Mark asked the question when two ships were touching "Does that collide" which was answered by a simultaneous "YES!" by myself, Ian and John. He also tried to get full shots in from ships that had just changed sail. Shocking!
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| All is well on the French side as the plan comes together |
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| Signs of dissention on the British side. "I'm going that way" "Well I'm going that way" |
The next round, Ian cunningly said "I'll let you go first" - with good reason. We wanted to see if the British ships turning towards us were in range - and so we didn't waste our first Starboard broadside. He's a cunning dude.
We finally got our first Critical of the day as Russ went out to put the pizzas on for lunch. I'd thought that he'd already done this as I could smell burning - which turned out to be Ian's open fire. It's a bit sad that I associate the smell of burning with cooking! Says a lot about the wife's culinary skills.
This was followed by a '1' ("More of that please!" quoth Russ and "So its not just Phil that rolls '1's" from Mark). There was then a moral victory as the wind dropped and changed direction - that'll teach them. This meant it would take a lot longer for them to close within the necessary distance and also caused the British to start moving their squadrons into each other, which gave us the classic line...
"You'll be shooting up my arse on double-bubble".
I hope they were talking about the battle.
Mark's tape measure seemed to have a life of its own and he was given the moniker 'Add An Inch' - and "Does the wife know you add an inch?".
However, there was a disaster unfolding as the semaphore system broke down and Russ' and Mark's squadrons both began converging on the same point on the map.
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| The first signal is missed as Russ is distracted by Ian cracking his 7th terrible joke of the day. |
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| A demented ship's monkey takes over communications |
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| Russ cowers in fear from the flurry of signals. |
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| Ian loving the mess that is the British battle line. |
This of course did not stop the quality of British rolls - another three 6's came our way in quick succession and caused a fire on a French ship (luckily in the rigging). Even Mark rolled a 6 - his last one for some time as his gunnery would turn to mush after lunch.
Pizzas were served and we enjoyed the spectacle of Ian's gardeners lopping branches off trees in the cold, wet garden as we stood in a nice warm kitchen. We were kind enough to toss pizza crusts to the labourers through the back door and were rewarded by "Thankee zur!" and touching of forelocks. Ian told us off for this "Don't spoil them - they're used to being paid in mouldy potatoes". Labour is a lot cheaper in Wales...
So back to the table and French shooting - still aiming high to reduce British speed and manouverability. More flag signals followed which we think said "Church parade at 10" and "Send three and fourpence" as an absolute mess appeared on the British side.
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| Rigging fire on a French ship |
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| Mark tries to work out why British ships are all over the shop. Russ contemplates the disaster and has his excuses ready - "it was Mark's plan!" |
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| Russ takes some Dutch Courage and explains in detail the flaws in Mark's plan. |
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| British ships on collision course. |
A couple of our ships were closer to the British than the rest and took an absolute hammering - but meant that most French ships were relatively undamaged. The Jemmappes was one of these and finally struck as the hull was reduced to matchwood.
We then switched fire to 'low' to reduce gunnery and hull integrity on the British ships. This had an immediate result as the Marlborough hull caught fire ("Someone's lit a Marlboro").
Quoth Mark "I think I know what the problem is". Quoth Ian "We know what the problem is". As did Russ. "What a cock-hole you've made of this". Much hilarity on the French side.
The Marlborough's hull took an absolute battering from massed French guns and the fire did the rest. It blew up and set fire to the Bellepheron (aka the Billy Ruffian or - on our table - the Blowuperon). Ian's dice were behaving as - for a change - were mine. Mark's squadron's however couldn't hit a cow's backside with a banjo and he suffered 4 rounds of appalling shooting.
"We've messed up here" said Mark.
"We?" answered Russ.
Communications completely broke down and Russ declared "I shall sail as I wish" and changed sail to catch us up and thus sail even faster into Mark's ships.
"You know you'll take double damage on your sails"
"He knows - he did the same thing last week!"
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| Nice neat French battle line vs ships all over the place and afire. |
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| Caption competition : What is Russ thinking at this moment? |
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| John pretending to use his Kindle to read the rules when he's actually reading a Mills & Boon hospital romance "Love on Ward 3B". |
Our low shots were counting as Russ' damage was coming down and his dice started to misbehave.
"The Russell has done bugger all!"
"Which one?"
Mark tried Russ' new dice tower to change his luck. It worked, as his dice rolling got even worse. The bickering between the British also got worse.
"Stop using the bleeding dice tower!"
"Just relax"...then he throws three '1's.
"You came up with this stupid idea"
"That's because you had no idea".
"That's my ship! Fire your own bleedin' cannons"
"That wasn't a good round for me"
"Just like the last two"
Meanwhile, all was peace and tranquility on the French side. We were enjoying the confusion and unfolding disaster and Ian had already claimed victory as we'd knocked out a couple of capital ships and few British ships were undamaged. We'd kept a close eye on the victory conditions and felt that the British had not inflicted enough damage on us and we'd kept the convoy safe.
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| The British going in two different directions and coming head on into massed French guns |
If not singing, the fat lady was definitely clearing her throat. But the British could still attempt to cut the line so we aimed to close up and I turned my squadrons to continue to fire into Mark's.
But the British were desperate for any sign of success. As Russ hit one of Ian's ships he cried "That's got to be crippled!" "You've only hit it twice" responded the French admiral.
"I see what's gone wrong - you let us shoot first" said Mark.
"I think we all know where you went wrong" said Ian.
Another round of bad firing from Mark led to finger-pointing ("That was the ship's monkey firing the guns").
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| Russ writes down what he thinks of Mark, his plan and his gunnery skills for future reference. |
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| Admiral Mark receives new orders from the Admiralty - "Join the French Navy" |
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| Textbook sailing by the French. |
"Save us Ness! Throw us out now!" squeaked Mark. But nothing could save them now. Russ had already thrown in the towel and the tin hat was put on by an absolute awesome French round of shooting. Ian threw six 6's for criticals for his 12 ships and all hit Russ' ships.
I asked Russ how many hull points were left on HMS Gorgonzola (as it was full of holes) and he held up two fingers in response. I think he meant two hull points...
The captain of the Royal Sovereign also had wet feet as his ship was dismantled around him.
"Should I abandon the ship?"
"No need, the ship is abandoning us!"
I also finally steamed into Mark with three critical of my own. The consequence was that we decided to call it at that point (as sleet was smacking into the windows and the gardeners had turned blue).
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| Russ contemplates defeat. |
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| Trying to keep up with the damage the French are inflicting. |
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| At the start of the day - neat lines and joyful confidence |
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| The end of the day - a car crash, crushed spirits and despair. |
John had one look at the table and called it both a tactical and strategic victory for France.
Vive le Revolution!