A good turnout for our Tuesday Night Gaming at Game Nite featuring A Lord of the Rings Game and The Battle of the Nile using “Limeys & Slimeys” rules with some modifications for fleet action.
Lord of the Rings had a great looking table filled with spectacular looking figures as the Elves took on the Fellowship at Amon Han!
We ventured back to the year 1798. Napoleon had invaded Egypt backed by the French Navy and Lord Nelson was on his way to interrupt such an affront to the Crown.
Historically a fairly even match on paper in number of ships, but the French started the event at anchor with half their crews ashore as foraging parties leaving the ships seriously undermanned. To even things out a bit we put the crews back onboard and allowed the French to start to slip anchor as the British came within 24” of their ships. L&S is a 1980s era set of convention game rules designed for 25mm ships and an I go You go system. In order to add a bit of chaos to the game and get closer to a simultaneous movement we used a card draw initiative system by player. A red card allowed the British to pick a player to move, a black did the same for the French.
Our players for the French were Pat L and Tim L with the Royal Navy commanded by Andrew B, Mark J and Nate R. The British started the game with the initiative and Andrew made the most of it by closing with Pat’s force in the lead. This move did a great deal of damage to the leading French ships and also screened Nate’s forces from having much input early on. Pat and Tim responded as best they could with some slick maneuvering but the dice were not in their favor.
With Mark arriving by fast dispatch boat a bit into the game the British split up their command leaving each player with 4 ships to run.
The British with the wind to their backs used it to their best advantage… Andrew cut through Pat’s line getting several raking shots, Mark closed and boarded some already damaged vessels and Nate having to take the long way into battle moved to engage Tim’s forces at the back of the French line but not before taking some significant damage to his sails leaving two of this craft adrift.
In the end the game was judged to be a victory for the Royal Navy as they had captured six of the French fleet leaving Emperor Napoleon forces somewhat in a bad place.
With this modification to the rules still being a work in progress, it was great to get valuable feedback from the experienced array of Game Masters who participated. The activation sequence needs adjustment, some additional markers need to be added, the boarding actions modified to make them simpler and the method of judging a ship’s turning needs a look. The ships with their new bases courtesy of Kurt Linke’s 3D printing machines and the coastline terrain done by Pat Lewis for the upcoming AWI 250 Project Valcour Island Scenario.
Thanks to all the players and to Game Nite for their continued support and we remind our community to shop local.
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