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
Another day, another early start and a Pirate Civil war! I could not imagine anything more Pirate-ey!
Pictures of Pirates from my Photo Directory
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The lists for me band o'Pirates and Buccaneer from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Campaign can be seen here in the FoG:R Wiki.
The Pirate Memory Game Sketch
Yet again the dice gods smile on my navy, presumably as they don't be wantin' t' end up in Davy Jones' Locker, and The Ship is on table again along with some rather unusual terrain which sees an impassable lake landed in my opponents deployment zone. In a radical change of plan my army masses along the waterside and prepares to reproduce the tactics of the second game by launching a fast and furious assault on the enemy before they get to redeploy
Me band o'Pirates baggage finally gets the photographic recognition it deserves, with Peter Pig's boat and crew alongside some beached Blue Moon Pirates and some architectural s that cost a buried treasure fortune making a strong bid to cost more than The Ship
FoG:R hint -Naval unts get three dice at artillery factors at anyone within 6" of the coast. No enfilading factors apply though
Arrr, this be most pleasin' to my eye! The enemy have spread out almost across the whole width of the table, but this time terrain is also helping defend me band o'Pirates flanks
Pirate Speak - turn any sentence into Pirate speak with this handy Post Like a Pirate website
Me band o'Pirates race forward on a relatively broad frontage, with more Impact Foote than my opponent any sort of combat will be good, and with a little more concentration of force but not so much as to render half of my units pointless observers rather than active participants there is a vague sense that Game 4 in the competition and Game 5 Ever are where this army is starting to find its feet..
The Indian skirmishers are busy from the off, holding back the opposing Pirate pedestrians and allowing me band o'Pirates an unfettered advance across the open ground to make sure the fight takes place on enemy territory
It's a mad rush, and most of the enemy army is way out of position as the first engagement starts to hove into view on the near side by the water. The enemy units caught between the Impassable Pond and the Waterway look hopelessly outnumbered!
Whats actually happening now?
This time me band o'Pirates appear to have a better plan - a refused rather than ignored flank, not too many troops in reserve positions where they will not get into combat or to shoot, and again an opponent who has perhaps deployed too wide across the table to concentrate force effectively.
The Impassable creates plenty of problems for the opposition, and opportunities for me. A good start.
Outnumbered, and outgunned! Skirmishers aided by my own artillery inflict some terrible damage on the enemy lead units and thin them out to the point of near breaking long before the main lines close.
Suddenly, the incautious enemy skirmishers drifted dangerously close to the water's edge - Pirates opened up on the from the front, and naval gunfire raked them from the flank - 6 dice blasted the hapless skirmishers, hitting every time!
My Pirate's gunfire was proving deadly, and whole enemy units just evaporated before the remorseless advance of my Pirate warriors! The enemy bottled up next to the waterway were in fear of their lives as a torrent of Piracy descended on them from all sides and naval gunfire shelled them from the sea
Out on the open flank the enemy advance had become somewhat disjointed, and emboldened, a unit of Mad Pirates decided to make a bolt for an isolated unit of normal eneme band o'Pirates.
Near the waterway a decisive clash moved ever closer…
Whats actually happening now?
The enemy are committing units piecemeal, which are being outgunned by co-ordinated shooting from my men. This is thinning the opposition even as my trops bear down on them across the board.
The attack on the waterway is being pressed home with haste and forms the core of the strategy, but elsewhere combat is being delayed unless attractive unit on unit opportunities present themselves
The enemy had almost given up on saving those cut off by the waterside, and were forming a new defensive line in the middle made up of some of their best troops. This was not a place where my men were keen to engage, with better opportunities elsewhere… however now the enemy were formed the could step forward and bring us to account.
The battle was shaping up to become yet another engagement between equal forces across a broad front - the challenge was how to prevent that happening, and with unit losses already racking up for the enemy perhaps a trade-off of attrition may even be soon in my favour? The only combat so far is in the middle where an advanced unit of 6 enemy Pirates is facing 8 of mine…
The skirmishers do lot like being pounded by ship-borne artillery against which they have no right of reply, and break and flee back through their own lines.
The advance guard of the enemy army are being thinned out rapidly by superior numbers of my Mad Pirates. Their end is now in sight..
Near the table edge the enemy launch a desperate attack, after coming under sustained shooting, bomb hurling and naval artillery they have little choice but to close to cutlass-point as soon as possible!
But their desperation leads to bravery, and they cut a swathe through my men in an otherwise equal combat! The powerful flanking attack I have planned and executed lies in tatters as the most water-close unit is shattered and flees in unexpected rout! Will the plan now unravel too?
Maybe not. The unit in the middle inevitably wins, and my men pursue, led by their Great Commander and skittle into the rear support behind
Elsewhere, on my right flank the 8-strong Mad Pirate unit that last appeared some 7 or 8 photos ago has found a target - and has caused a cohesion drop at impact as well. Some decent luck and they will have carved a hole in the enemy line before any of their opponents have time to react, me old salt!
Heave to! In the middle the solid line of enemy troops has moved up, and rather than lose a shooting exchange me band o'Pirates decide that losing a combat exchange is probably a better bet - especially with more of my Superior Old Pirates in action, as their added resilience may mean that they can avoid defeat until the game is won elsewhere on the field…
Whats actually happening now?
The attempt to delay combat on my right has run out of time, as the ability of any opposition with muskets to form a solid line, advance and shoot effectively is coming to the fore. This means avoiding combat is no longer an option, and some difficult choices need to be made about how many losses are acceptable to preserve the integrity of the main attack
Along the waterside the main attack has suffered some setbacks, but overall is progressing well. The enemy guns and skirmish units will likley be swept up in the collapse of the opposing Pirate foote, racking up units to add to the victory pile - and Dead men tell no tales
Well well well, Me Hearties! A badly embattled unit survives a rather unlikely cohesion and death roll to keep the line intact
And in the combat I am supposed to and am expecting to lose, the Old Pirates are proving their worth with some excellent dice skills - winning against the odds, and winning big to boot!
Yo ho, yo ho! The unit of Old Pirates is proving irresistible, and their opponents melt away in the face of the onslaught of Superior Pirate Skills they find themselves facing at sword length range..
Thar she blows! By the waterside a game of cheese is developing, with units wheeling around each other at close quarters, all trying to engineer the "you can't wheel to make a flank charge if you start within 1" of the enemy" rule work to their advantage. And all the while the bombers and naval gunnery keeps chipping away at the enemy unit, step by step damaging its cohesion and placing bases at risk
Ahoy there Jim Lad! A massive wave of combat which I by rights should be expecting top win ripples across the entire table - and every combat is drawn or lost against the odds….right the way up until when the final unit, the 8-strong Mad Pirates in the middle, also lose but then roll a 6-6 to kill off the enemy general they are facing ! Their opponents rapidly lose heart..
Whats actually happening now?
Good matchups engineered across the table for my troops have been working, and even a one-round setback is not going to be enough to save my opponent from Davey Jones’ Locker now. Even pirates, before they attack another ship, hoist a black flag and so here the loss of an enemy General is an added bonus, and leaves their Allied command unable to rally it's troops.
I could see from the crows nest that in the middle the resistance of me band o'Pirates has finally crumbled, and a unit breaks and routs through the supporting infantrymen, the Scallywags!
Well, tie me to the mizzenmast! The enemy follow up in a very Pirate-ey manoeuvre and clatter into the second line of Pirates
Whats actually happening now?
The game is degrading into several isolated unit-on-unit battles, as neither side possesses enough men or units to take advantage of the breaks in the enemy lines they are creating.
Attrition is still working in my favour though
Shivver Me Timbers! Where the enemy General has been killed a similar scenario is playing out - the general-free unit rout and are destroyed after bursting through their own supports, and a unit of Mad Pirates charges home in a sweeping cavalryesque attack
It's potentially game-winning, so the flag-bearing General wades in.. and his effect is electric, causing a red marker to appear on the enemy unit almost immediately!
Hoist the anchor! The enemy are now on their knees. But the final coup de grace is in fact delivered in the best possible fashion - a combination of ship-borne artillery and LF bombers manages to kill the final base which breaks the final enemy unit.. and the enemy army shudders, twitches and slumps to utter defeat!
Here's a lovely picture of the enemy baggage
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 me band o'Pirates Commander
Scuttling cuttlefish! It's so refreshing when a plan comes together and actually works - and this most definetely was such an occasion !
The deployment of my opponent allowed me to cut out almost half of his army from the game, but like a bevvy of stuttering starfish I was also able to rush forward in a very Pirate-ey fashion and put him to the sword !
And once my men got amongst them it was a case of Blistering barnacles! The enemy were overwhelmed and crushed - a great victory for Piracy!
And, to top it all off, the final deed was done by the 30-point naval element! Scupper me skull-and-crossbones, I can now go home happy - and if only here wasn't another game to go I would
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
You lucky chancer, sneaking a great and material victory through the injudicious placement of unfortunate terrain by your opponent
How on earth did your opponent manage to deploy so many forces in such an isolated and unsupportable position, trapped between almost literally the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea? Not many people will offer up such gifts from the deep, and to then give your hardly hard to notice ship the chance to actually shoot as well - providence smiled on you from on high today you lucky Pirate!
Looking at it on a meta level, you still managed to lose a good number of good men in this small action - taking on superior numbers in the middle and hiding behind the fig-leaf of "holding up the enemy" instead of just getting out of these sort of situations by falling back and incurring no losses?
And I also don't remember seeing anything about crewmen with missing arms, wooden legs of with patches over their eyes, and no-one wiped any sweat from their eyes with a frilly lace sleev cuff either? Call yourself a Pirate? What a farrago of dissapointment!
Remarkably, your army is now 3 and 2 as the Americans say (including your one practice game). Hold you tongue and your whinin’ for them that’s at your beck and call, because I ain’t and lets see how the final game serves to balance the odds...
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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