FoG:R Wars in North America & Caribbean 1622-1700 in Campaign 2013
Buccaneer vs Buccaneer
Game 1 Buccaneer vs Colonial French and Huron
Game 3 Buccaneer vs Huron Indians
Game 5 Buccaneer vs Colonial French and Huron
Pictures of Pirates from my Photo Directory
The lists for me band o'Pirates and the other fella's band o'Pirates from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Campaign can be seen here in the FoG:R Wiki.
Review of the Buccaneer army on Madaxeman.com TV
Even if you don't normally watch these, you really do have to give this one a go...
Game 2 sees a Pirate Civil war - but this time the enemy wins initiative and chooses not to put down a waterway having rather knavishly not selected a ship in their list. Th' only rum on table be an impassable gateway to Davy Jones' locker that sits on me base edge.
Th' terrain rather dictates me deployment, tuckin' into a corner to give a go' 'n overwhelm one flank 'o th' near identical enemy army
The Ship, appearing here for purely aesthetic reasons, occupies the salty deep. Not sure how it would have gotten there, but for 50 pieces of eight, who cares…?
Shivver Me Timbers! This time me army is much more Pirate-ey, charging forward to try and maximise the weight of numbers their lopsided deployment has created before the enemy can redeploy to match the piledriver attack
Ahoy! Pirates stream forward towards each other, sweeping through terrain and open ground with equal enthusiasm
The densest concentration is on me left (or away on the port side, as a Pirate might say), with waves of Mad, Old and Normal Pirates making a simple charge at the enemy
Jumping Jellyfish! In moments the two armies are almost upon each other. There will be many dice deservedly resting later this afternoon after some hard pounding soon to come
Whats actually happening now?
Me Hearties have attempted to overwhelm th' enemy on th' left flank, but with two almost identical armies this has proved more difficult to engineer and the opposition are feeding more units into the battle. My army has some larger units, but less of them and apart from that there is little to choose between the two sides
On the left me band o'Pirates is almost upon the enemy guns - a victory in these melees will count double as the enemy guns will fall as well as the infantry defending them - that may be the only difference between the two sides, me old salt!
Ahoy there Jim Lad! Musketry is thinning out the Pirate charge rather worryingly, but there is still a huge numerical advantage on this flank
Heave to! An 8-strong unit be takin' all 'o th' enemy fire, 'n has be thinned to th' point 'o near breakin' by th' incomin' musketry. Gunna they even make it into combat?
I could see from the crows nest that a wall of Pirate on Pirate combat was sweeping across the table, as waves 'o dice crash against each other in luck-based combat.
All ye pirates has rear support, all ye pirates has helpfully positioned Generals, the only advantage is that slightly more of the Impact Foote Pirates in me band o'Pirates are engaged, and mine are also in 8's rather than 6's. Skill has been squeezed out of the game…Yo ho, yo ho!
Whats actually happening now?
Weigh anchor! Me band 'o pirates have come off worse in shootin' 'n have hit th' rather solid enemy line in a somewhat piecemeal fashion. But my uncommitted troops are providing rear support and a second line whereas some of the opposition troops are still out of the game due to their wide initial deployment
The Dice will decide... the Scallywags!
Hoist the anchor! The two armies come to blows in a cinematically beautiful combat which is simultaneously rather hard to describe in the accompanying text a manner which avoids becoming rather repetitive as'tis basically all 'bout th' dice from hereon in.
Thar she blows! The flipside of attacking in depth is that it creates a certain loss of width, and the result is that th' end 'o me line becomes exposed to a horrifyin' flank attack! Not clever, and a huge unit FRAGGED and soon to break for sure.
Well, tie me to the mizzenmast! They break, but the enemy are also losing units and losing bases at a rate of knots too - Th' core battle be swin'in' both ways 'n all ye pirates be engaged toe to toe in a bitter struggle to spy wit' ye eye who can win before their shipmates lose. Brutal!
Arrr, this be not most pleasin' to my eye It's a roll-up! The enemy Pirates are making far more of their flank attack than me band o'Pirates are making of their attack in depth. The Pirate line is under severe pressure…
A desperate redeployment as Pirate-ey generals try and build a coherent second line to repel the rampaging enemy bearing down on their right side. DISR markers are scattering like dubloons shed from a burst treasure chest as units react unfavourably to the loss of shipmates all around them..
It's a routing shambles, but at least it gets a few good quality close up frontal shots of me band o'Pirates into the battle report. These are mostly Blue Moon, with the chap speaking being from Peter Pig, and the musketeer being a Polish Dragoon from Essex on a rather long haul holiday. Don't forget to visit the Pirate Wiki page so ye can see how to throw all these companies a bottle o’ messages and order some yerself!
On the flank where things are supposed to go well, thing's be goin' well. Me band o'old Pirates have crushed their opponents and captured the enemy gunnes, and the rest of the enemy horde is finally crumbling away in the face of a concerted assault from my own Pirate warbands
Whats actually happening now?
My right flank is collapsing, but my left is winning. And the left hand side is worth more attrition points to me than my right is to my opponent
Little grand maneuver, but the game is swinging marginally my way
Well well well, Me Hearties! The unit shoring up the collapsing flank is hanging on grimly - FRAGGED, and with a General joining in the combat it is the last bulwark against a total rollup by the enemy crew…
But where me band o'Pirates have carved a hole, they are now in full throated pursuit and their Pirate-ey battle cries echo across the open plains between them and the enemy baggage. 'Tis be a bloodbath wit' both sides losin' units by th' bucketful, 'n no clear picture 'o who be in th' lead in th' race to defeat through attrition emergin'
As I live and breathe the flank guards have just about hung on long enough to allow the rest of my army to win and pursue out of risk of the enemy flank attack - but inevitably their time is now up and they break and flee
With that the game ends… in a narrow victory through attrition alone to me band o'Pirates! The Result is a 11.5 to 8.5 win for the Good Pirates.
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition, or read on for the post match summaries from the Generals involved, as well as another episode of legendary expert analysis from Hannibal
Post Match Summary from the Buccaneer Commander
Suffering seagulls! What chance did I ever have to exercise skill and generalship in a match against an identical army? I must be happy with the result, even though it was by the narrowest of margins..
When my men started to lose bases to artillery on the left I was thinking to myself, "Staggering stalactites! This could end in disaster!" but in the end my plan of attacking in strength worked out OK
The nautical nitwits on my flank could have surely done better and then a bigger victory would have been mine, but for now I will gladly take this result and move on with hope in my heart
Plundering porpoises! the army now has two wins out of three. Almost time to stop and take stock I feel!
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
You’ll go down with the tide long before you can claim this as a game of no skill? Surely when all troops are equal, the only differentiator is generalship, and any true general should welcome such matchups as a chance to prove their skill against a worthy opponent, not regard it as a mindless dicefest
But you are not such a captain, which to my mind makes you more of a Cabin boy than a Captain - you hopless striped shirt wearing idiot!
And where was the treasure map? You know, the one stained with tea and with a corner missing which just happens to hold the most important bit of information for finding the treasure? And not one shot of a buxom barmaid either? Call yourself a Pirate? What a disgrace!
In these rules depth gives you a +1 in morale tests for rear support, whilst a flank gives you a ++ impact combat, an automatic morale level drop and almost guaranteed victory. And you chose depth. Yellow was never a pirates colour, yot you wear it welll....
That alone tells me that the dice favoured you here, and that is the cause of your pathetic victory, a victory so narrow that if it were a plank to be walked you would need to be a tightrope artist to get to the end. I’ll peel your skin like a mango and then bring on the next defeat I say, Bring It On!
Click here for the report of the next game in this competition
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Game 1 Buccaneer vs Colonial French and Huron
Game 3 Buccaneer vs Huron Indians
Game 5 Buccaneer vs Colonial French and Huron
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