Formigues 1283, final round

 John lined up scenario three of the Formiques naval campaign of 1283. This featured the (by now) rather battered and reduced Franco/Genoan and Catalan galley fleets.

For this session we had myself, Pete and Simon with John running the game. I dug out my old helmet, as befitting the period. As there were more Catalan ships, I took the French, while Pete and Simon took the Catalans.

This scenario represented the final battle of the campaign, and unusually it started with a number of ships already damaged. All the ships were treated as a single flotilla however, so every ship could support every other one, which was quite handy.

I set up in the north in a mutually supporting cluster, with my most powerful ship in the middle. As usual, our ships were better in melee than the Catalans, but much worse at ranged fire.

The Catalans set up opposite us. They had four ships to our three, and annoyingly had the wind gauge.

My only real hope was to get stuck in at once, as the wind allowed the Catalans to set the pace of the engagement. Charge! My two undamaged ships piled forwards, while I kept the damaged one our of the way. As you can only take one action (in total) per turn, a smaller fleet is more manouverable than a larger one, which is an interesting wrinkle.

Sadly, the Catalans came out on top of the exchange of missile fire and then grappling. I was still (just) in play as I hadn't quite lost 50% of my hits yet, but losing a ship was a blow.

My cunning plan revealed! I broke away from melee, and sailed right through the Catalan fleet, taking the wind gauge! I real 13th Century Nelson!

Sadly, the Catalans very unfairly ganged up on my damaged ship in the north and took it in a boarding action. What a rotten trick. Over half my fleet was lost, so time to head for home.

Having finished that game quite quickly, we set it up and ran it again. 

This time I kept my fleet together, as even the damaged ship could provide some combat power. The Catalans tried to maintain formation which meant I could outmanouvre them (as I could shift my whole fleet using three actions, whereas theirs took four). 

This time I managed to take out a Catalan ship and damaged another for a loss of one of mine. I've got three steps left and they have four.

In the final action, we both took another hit each, which meant both fleets reached their break point simultaneously. A draw! Tbh, that was probably the best I could manage given the disparity in position and strength, so I was very happy to take the draw. 

Another good pair of games, and an interesting system covering a period I know little about. I'm tempted to have a look at 'Galleys and Galleons', often played by Captain Kobold on his blog, which covers similar sorts of things. Well, something to think about anyway.