Beat to Quarters! 7/8 Wargame Club Meeting Pictures! Battle Report for Form on the Admiral's Wake!

During this month's SBGC meeting, I decided to give naval wargaming a try for the first time and participated in Bob Bergman's Form on the Admiral's Wake match. Inspired by the movie "Master and Commander" and the Hornblower series, I had already collected a sufficient number of 1/2400 Napoleonic ships from Old Glory to recreate the famous Battle of Trafalgar, so I knew that one of my future goals was to delve into Age of Sail wargaming rules. Bob's game presented the perfect opportunity for me to test the waters and explore this genre of wargaming.

(The Old Glory ships, the models aren't the prettiest and they'll need a lot of clean up)

Form on the Admiral's Wake is designed to be played on a hex mat and uses a card-based activation system. With this system, each card is associated with a specific action. Hence, if you aimed to perform an action such as reloading, tacking, moving, slipping, turning, or boarding, you would need to wait until the corresponding card was drawn. It's worth noting that the only action that doesn't require a card is shooting. Players can engage in shooting at any point in the game, even during another player's turn.

I and another player each took command of three British ships each, while our opponents had a similar-sized fleet of French and Spanish ships. I was in charge of commanding HMS Dreadnought (98), HMS Ajax (74), and HMS Orion (74) while my teammate controlled HMS Neptune (98), HMS Tonnant (80), and HMS Mars (74). The enemy consisted of three Spanish ships - Rayo (100), Neptuno (80), and San Ildelfonso (74) - and three French ships - Indomptable (80), Formidable (80), and Scipion (74). 

When the game started, both sides entered from the right side of the map. Our fleet was split into two separate columns, while the opposing fleet arrived in one long column at a 45-degree angle from ours. I realized that we would all be trying to cross each other's T ( (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_T) ), and so I suggested that we separate our groups. This meant that if the enemy managed to cross the T of one column, the other column could provide support and potentially launch a counterattack on the enemy ships.

 

My teammate, assessing that the opponent was in a better position to cross his T, decided to turn his ship so that he was sailing parallel and in the opposite direction from the enemy fleet, meanwhile I was in a good position to get raking fire onto the Spanish group heading my way. 

Couldn't quite cross the T of the Spanish fleet, I had to fire now to prevent him from crossing my own T in his next activation. HMS Orion fired on San Ildelfonso and scored good hits. The next card drawn is a boarding action card and I chose to board the San Ildelfonso with the Orion to prevent it from getting away or moving across my T. Unfortunately I would lose the melee roll and the San Ildelfonso would successfully manage to cut the grappling hooks and slip away. 

As I fought the Spanish fleet, my teammate was being out sailed by the French who successfully evaded him and were now sailing to support the Spanish against me. In the above picture you can see my teammates fleet turning to chase after the French who are heading towards me.

I spent the next couple of turns trying to simultaneously maneuver my fleet to fight the Spanish while trying to withdraw from the approaching French fleet, but the winds were not in my favor. Trying to avoid both fleets would require me sailing into the wind, which you cannot do. With the wind and card based activation working against me, my fleet floated around helplessly as the Spanish managed to maneuver their way in front of my fleet and cross my T. Disastrously, the Rayo's first salvo at the HMS Dreadnought scored a critical hit. I rolled a 12 on the critical hit table, meaning one of the Rayo's cannonballs hit my ammunition and caused the Dreadnought to immediately explode, damaging any ship adjacent to it. There goes a 98-gun 2nd rate in the first few rounds of action.

Meanwhile, above me, the French player has turned the Scipion to hold off my teammate while he sends the rest of his fleet to fire on my trapped and helpless ships. It's clear I've gotten myself into a bit of a pickle.

A few turns of shooting later and my Brits have struck their colors and my teammate is sailing his own fleet away towards the edge of the table and back to England. Admiral Nelson would be deeply ashamed of us, today Spanish and French crews managed to out maneuver and out gun British crews, something that was quite rare in reality.

I had an great time playing Bob's game. Overall, I think I like the rules, and I can see why Bob enjoys running this game at conventions. The rules are straightforward, and the game is fast-paced while still providing a decent simulation of combat between ships of the line. 

The first few turns of the game were very suspenseful as we jockeyed for position and tried to outmaneuver one another. We knew that our ships were on an inevitable collision course, and time was running out before the decisive moment. I found myself on the edge of my seat, completely caught up in the moment. 

Once the combat actually began, I was impressed by how well the rules captured the struggle of trying to control massive, wind-guided ships in close quarters. The wind direction rules and the card-based activation system were a good simulation of the challenges of naval warfare during that era. 

There are still a lot of other naval wargame rules I want to try before I'm ready to run my own Trafalgar game at a convention, but Form on the Admiral's Wake is definitely one that I'll keep in my back pocket. Overall, I had a lot of fun and thoroughly enjoyed this game.

And while I'm posting things from yesterdays club meeting, here are some pictures from the other games being ran.