Galleys & Galleons - Fair Winds & Foul Tides Supplement Playtest

So I get to play-test the new "Fair Winds & Foul Tides" Supplement for Ganesha Games' Galleys & Galleons.  It's targeted to expand the fantasy / steampunk / whatever side of plain old naval combat.

Short answer?  It does it quite well.  Long answer?  I need to play this some more.

Galleys and Galleons – Fair Winds and Foul Tides supplement playtest

The illustrious Lady Chatterbox's ship has run aground on her way to the West Indies.  Her betrothed, Lord Ramsbottom, has scraped together his fastest ships to go and rescue her.  However, the evil and dastardly Spaniard El Supremo has sent a mix of strange craft to intercept.

Scenario:  Both fleets start in opposing corners, with an equal wind.  Lady Chatterbox’s ship is across the board.  Either side wins by rescuing / kidnapping the Lady or driving off the other fleet.

The ship's aground on the shore of this deserted desert isle...

Lord Ramsbottom’s fleet:
Man Of War with Pyromancer
2x Frigates with bombs

El Supremo’s fleet:
Submersible with sweeps and torpedoes
Large Airship with bombs
Small Airship with bombs

For some reason the Jack Tars refer to the Spanish Airships as "Easter Egg Boats"...

Game start
Both fleets start sailing towards each other, with the ManOWar heading closer to the island.  An early turnover by the British!  First fire by the bow chasers of the large airship misses, and the submersible goes under the waves.

Bang and a miss, Strike One

Heh Heh, Nobody can see me now...

British lead frigate rolls a wind change!  It helps him, he sails close enough to launch a full broadside at the large Spanish airship (long range).  Thanks to the trained gun crews, and an abysmal roll by the defender, the airship takes a critical damage.  The airship’s large rudders have been shot to pieces.  And then the second frigate rolls a failure, and the wind changes yet again.  The Spanish are now heading directly downwind.

Spanish go, and the wind veers yet again.  The small Spanish airship fires a full broadside into the lead Frigate, to no effect.  The sub keeps cruising underwater.  The big airship gets 3 successes, drops altitude, and fires a full broadside at close range into the Frigate!  But again the dice don’t support the Spanish, and the frigate only takes 1 damage.

British Frigate 2 finally joins the fight, and zooms in to blast the large airship again.  But he misjudges the angle and misses.  Lord Ramsbottom sails closer but is still out of range.  The other frigate just gets out of the way.

Bombs away!  Having foolishly strayed into the path of both airships, the 2nd frigate now suffers a bombing run from the large one.  Masts are blasted as the frigate takes heavy rigging damage.  The small airship rolls a turnover, including yet another wind shift.  The wind has veered a full 90 degrees from the start, severely inconveniencing the British.  His bombs drop on the frigate, catching her on fire!

Not having a happy feeling here...

This is definitely not looking good...

Before the pyromancer could react, the frigate blew up, as the fire reached her magazine.  Both airships rode out the blast and did not catch fire.

Bye Bye Frigate

I completely forgot about the pyromancer after this turn, and he never acted again.  The 1st frigate sailed up as close to the damaged Lady’s ship as he could and dropped anchor.  Of course he struck ground in the shallows as he did.  Finally the wind started changing back, and the ManOWar sailed in close, firing a full broadside into the small airship, for 1 damage.

The Spanish sub, feeling left out (and a bit short of air) surfaced and turned towards the action.  The ManOWar had stayed just out of bombing range, so it was back to guns.  The small airship misjudged his full broadside and missed.  The large airship tried a Q roll with all 3 dice and failed his damage die!  The All At Sea roll turned up exactly what he wanted anyway.  He fired into the anchored frigate as they attempted to rescue Her Ladyship, but to no effect.

The frigate only risked 1 action, and successfully loaded Her Ladyship.  The ManOWar turned as tight as she could into the wind, and fired on the small airship.  Critical damage, the airship’s Captain was hit!

With the Captain taken below, the small airship could only turn into battle.  The men were too rattled to fire off a cannon.  Wind veering again, the large airship blasted again into the Frigate to no effect, before sailing over the island.   The sub continued to (slowly) advance.

The Frigate successfully raised anchor and started slowly sailing away, barely managing to avoid running aground again.

Cutting it kind of close, there, Carl!

Lord Ramsbottom on the ManOWar fired a full broadside into the large airship and shot the rudder up even more.  The large airship, almost powerless to change heading now, was doomed to drift off the board.

In a last, desperate move, the small airship rolled for 3 activations, risking the 2 damage dice.  One came up a 1!  The Captain’s orders were garbled, and the airship sailed past the frigate without firing a parting shot.

Some thoughts:

• a vessel powered by sweeps needs to close quickly.  Waiting around for the wind to change in his favor kept him out of the combat.
• Even though airships and waterships crossed each other's T's repeatedly, I didn't allow any rakes.  Those would only be allowed from ships at the same level.
• Don't forget about your magic users!