No Escape-KmH

Last night we had another game of Kiss me, Hardy. Still learning the rules but decided to go with multiple ships this time. This is a historical battle that took place after the Battle of Tralfager. A British squadron of four 3rd Rates (there were actually 3 frigates as well but for scenario purposes the frigates were dropped) giving chase to four French 3rd Rates. 

British Squadron-Strachan

HMS Caesar, 80 guns, Elite Jolly Jack Tars

HMS Courageux, 74 guns, Elite Jolly Jack Tars

HMS Hero, 74 guns, Average Jolly Jack Tars

HMS Namur, 74 guns, Elite Jolly Jacks Tars, Foul bottomed

French Squadron-Dumanoir

Le Formidable, 64 guns (down from 80), Average Sans Cullottes

Le Scipion, 74 guns, Average Sans Cullottes

Duguay-Truion, 74 guns, Average Sans Cullottes

Le Mont Blanc, 74 guns, Poor Sans Cullottes

The wind was blowing east and all 7 ships were "on the bow". The HMS Namur started off table. 

I was playing the French so I started off making a starboard turn to get my ships "on the quarter". Unfortunately, one of my ships was a poor sailor so out line was almost immediately broken, the HMS Namur entered the table at the end of the 2nd move and appeared to be crewed by good sailors and very soon got caught up to the rest of the squadron.

Here are some photos, apologies again for lack of rigging and you will see that I used Scandinavian ships for the British squadron aside from the Hero, which was RN flagged. I used Spanish ships for the French aside from Duguay-Truion which carried French colours. The 80 gun ships were 3rd Rates and the 74 gun ships were 5th Rates from my collection.

British Squadron

French Squadron have swung to their starboard and are running on the quarter, aside from the trailing ship  which has the wind to the stern.

The French squadron had the luck of the cards at the start of the action and were able to pummel the Caesar, as they were able fire 2 broadsides as well as a bow rake early on. It was looking good for the French but the cards turned and the British were able to get some close in short and point blank range shots off, with the extra dice provided to the Jolly Jack Tars due to their superb gunnery they were able to rain hell down on Le Formidable, the ship caught a fire, and lost 2 of it's 3 masts..........

............and then the wind failed (this was in error but it added to the fun) and all the ships became becalmed! At this point 3 of the 4 British ships had targets at close range while the French had only 2 ships with targets and one was at long range. Le Formidable was captured. The conclusion was forgone....A British Victory, history repeated itself. Well played Pierre-Yves!

The Summing Up

British Squadron-Strachan

HMS Caesar, 54 DP left at 7 cm speed. Steering damage

HMS Courageux, 58 DP left at 11 cm speed. Boats destroyed

HMS Hero, untouched

HMS Namur, 61 DP left at 10 cm speed. Foremast Destroyed

French Squadron-Dumanoir

Le Formidable, Struck and captured

Le Scipion, 49 DP left at 8 cm speed. Boats lost

Duguay-Truion, 70 DP left at 12cm speed. 

Le Mont Blanc, 71 DP left at 12 cm speed. 

The more I play this ruleset, the more I enjoy it but I have to say there are some challenges to playing it virtually. I will look forward to getting to play in person. I believe P-Y is planning to work on some templates for the game which will assist with deciding if where a ship is in the wind and more importantly when a ship has a full broadsides.