FoG:R Wars in North America & Caribbean 1622-1700 in Campaign 2013
Buccaneer vs Colonial French and Huron
Game 1 Buccaneer vs Colonial French and Huron
Game 3 Buccaneer vs Huron Indians
Game 5 Buccaneer vs Colonial French and Huron
The lists for the Buccaneer and Colonial French and Huron from this game, as well as all the other lists from the games at Campaign can be seen here in the FoG:R Wiki.
Pictures of Pirates from my Photo Directory
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Game 5 and we be diggin for buried treasure of the trophy kind under yonder palm tree!
The final game be against another Colonial French and Huron army - similar to the one from the first game, but with less Huron warriors (hoorah!). Astonishingly The Ship made it on table yet again as well, making it 5 games out of 6 (including the practice, but discounting the one where it sat in an Impassable as decoration). Whether this was good luck, good planning or just the sympathy vote from the extensive Facebook marketing campaign I had carried out over the previous 3 months was hard to tell, but at least it was now down under ten pieces of eight per use.
Have a wild stab in the dark about how I chose to deploy the army….? My opponent stayed well away from the waterway, and so a 4-foot game was clearly in prospect
Arrr, this be not most pleasin' to my eye as whilst the French had a lot of skirmishers as a screen in front of their rather plodding army, all o'the Pirate gunnes were able to fire through them and target some of the incautiously deployed French infantry behind them, much to their surprise and annoyance.
Shivver Me Timbers! Me band o'hearties were advancing on a broad-ish front, with the 3 big units of Mad Pirates in the middle, shored up with a Superior Old Pirate unit. Most of the Average Pirates were steaming down the water's edge along with the now familiar bombers
With natural light and plenty of space in front of my army, I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the units from the front - well, when they were not routing of course
Hoist the anchor! The cake decoration palm trees were waiving in the breeze as the brightly clad Pirates waltzed forwards
The Great Commander (from Redoubt) was happily waving his men towards their doom…
The enemy skirmish screen soon got into range of the unopposed Pirate units, who opened up with as many as 6 muskets and soon caused some dramatic casualties and enem more dramatic markers to appear on table
Arrr! Some of the dastardly Frenchmen and their Huron allies had deployed far too far away, and were now navigatin' the stormy seas of the tabletop to try and get into a position where they could realistically claim to almost be in the same game as the one where the fighting was already kicking off
Ahoy there Jim Lad! The French skirmish line was looking about as comfortable as a plate of eclairs on a table out of sight of the main dining room at a weightwatchers convention as me band o'hearties steamed forward towards them, opening up with musketry and all manner of gunpowder based implements as they closed
Thar she blows! The Ship was clearly not going to play anything other than a decorative role in the game, as me band o'hearties swept round in a broad Western Desert Panzer type arc to pile towards the far end of the French line in considerable weight and force
The decks were being swabbed clean of French skirmishers as they were being brushed away by the rising tide of Pirate-ey goodness homing in on the real Gallic forces they were supposed to be protecting. Me band o'hearties were ready to go, and much of the French army was still struggling to get into position
I could see from the crows nest that the edge o'the world was hoving into view as Pirate after Pirate sailed onwards. The French skirmish screen was routing back through their own lines, causing barely a ripple of concern on the flat Gallic pond of preparedness - they had their own weapons primed for the real battle to come.
The two lines of combat ready troops squared up to each other. This time there was only one Huron unit, and it was only Average, and it was not in quite such a good position. The rest of the matchups mostly favoured me band o'hearties against the cutlass-free colonials who would soon be sent to Davey Jones’ Locker
Heave to! Indian on Indian action with nary a Cowboy or a Poppadum in sight as the Pirate skirmishers delayed the Huron and the rest of the Buccaneer horde advanced incautiously towards what looked like a fairly thin line of enemy troops. There would surely be overlaps for me band o'hearties here, in which the cutlasses and swords of the Pirates would deliver some gorgeous +2 POA action
Everywhere the French were outnumbered as the Pirates converged on what targets they could find - the Scallywags!
My salty sea-dog's swordplay was a blur too fast even for the mechanical photography machine to properly capture as the two sides closed to close quarters
The Frenchmen were losing bases rapidly, and many of their 6-strong units soon dropped down to a much more risky 4 bases as both sides used Generals to urge their men onwards to victory
Arrr, this be not most pleasin' to my eye! The initial breakthrough has happened soon after first contact, as a French unit in the middle of the line simply evaporated under a barrage of cutlass strokes. Me band o'hearties toasted their victory with a brief tot of rum and stormed forwards eager to get to grips with as many Frenchmen as they could
With the skirmishers long gone me old salt, and the first combat done and dusted, both armies were now girding their loins for a proper set to. Bayonets were sharpened, muskets were primed, cutlasses were unsheathed, grappling irons were starting to swing and billy clubs were doing whatever it is you do with a billy club to get it ready to hit someone sharply round the head with, and everywhere small metal men were praying to the Dice Gods that today would be their day to roll 6's (apart from the Poor units in the French army that is) !
Apparently these are called "horses". No, I have no idea either….
Near the Pirate base edge the French had sent the Huron in as the first unit to get to grips with me band o'hearties. Pirate on Indian action for the third time in a weekend took place - having not been seen outside a primary school playground for almost 40 years previously. Arrrhh!
And the Pirates soon realised for the third time that weekend that Stetsons, silver 6-shooter guns with pearl handles and a propensity to eat somewhat tasteless white chocolate formed into always disappointingly thin bars were all in fact quite necessary preconditions for beating Indians, and their array of striped trousers and facial accessories to artificially create temporary monocular vision were not really going to cut it in this game either.
Avast Ye! Elsewhere things were going much more swimmingly for me band 'hearties, as the French started to feel they were taking a long walk down a short plank to Fragmentation and Rout.
And now for today's results. The Under 8's Caribbean and North American Playground League, 2nd Division South, sponsored by Haribo: Red Indians 1, Pirates 0.
Arr, Me hearties, I spied in me spyglass that the French had no answer to the swordplay of me band o'hearties, and everywhere they started to lose cohesion they were on a slippery slope down to a world in which my opponent's stash of markers would risk being exhausted by the end of the game.
Fifteen men on the dead man's chest! As bigger gaps appeared in the French lines me band o'hearties took heart and redoubled their efforts - every lost French unit represented 2 more overlaps that nailed the lid firmly down on the coffin of continued French Colonial presence south of Louisiana
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum! Me band o'hearties had taken barely a scratch as they had been carving swathes through the Gallic woodsmen and regular troops who were now wishing they had not taken the trip from their homeland to this island un-paradise
The Huron were the only real success story for the French, and they had now found themselves in a position where they could surpass the sequel-free, conceptually interesting but ultimately a little less good than it should have been Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig hybrid action thriller "Cowboys and Aliens" and write a second chapter of "Indians and Pirates".
Me band o'hearties smashed another huge hole below the waterline of the French resistance. Not so much "Allo Allo", more "Adieu, Adieu"
Well, tie me to the wheel and let me feel the taste of the cat o'nine tails if I am wrong - as my Pirates pursued, rear echelon Poor quality Frenchmen (insert your own Jeremy Clarkson-style comment here) quaked in their stylish Parisienne-made boots as they contemplated receiving a very Pirate-ey impact in the near future.
Ahoy there! The decisive clash was getting closer as the French formed a final line to try and hold out against the tide of Piracy sweeping towards them on their own base edge. A few DISR markers were not going to dissuade me band o'hearties when they were this close to the treasure of victory!
The Huron were now behind the flank of an isolated band of pirates, who were pinned to their front by more Frenchmen. This was the opportunity the Huron had been waiting for…. (obviously the idiot who did the caption on the photo didn't remember what happened 4 photo's ago).
Another tidal wave of attacks swamped the French lines as the Pirates sensed blood in the water…
Arrr! The French barely had time to roll their dice before they were fleeing in abject terror at the ferocity of the close quarters assault they had just suffered (although the DISR and FFRAGGED results the Pirate shooting had caused them before combat played a fairly fundamental part as well to be fair)
The Huron turned. But they still were a turn away from clattering into the flank of the Pirates! Who would get there first…?
Everywhere Pirates were in full throated war cry mode, sweeping through the woods and dislodging the Colonial woodsmen from their hiding placed in amongst the trees with a flurry of musketry and swordsmanship.
Ahoy! In a move of almost total irrelevance, some of the French emerged out of a patch of jungle near the base edge o'me band o'hearties, fresh - or probably quite sweaty, tired and frustrated - from a Long March across the table to find no opposition and the battle nearly up having been played out in a totally different part of the field. But at least they had the satisfaction of being in striking distance of capturing the Pirate gunnes.
The Huron were poised for action… but then the Pirates inflicted the final casualty on the unit facing them to break it and cause it to flee away in terminal rout! There was still no clear way out for me band o'hearties to escape but at least they would be swapping a unit for a unit - and the French were running out of units far faster !
By all that is great and good it was great to see that back on the French table edge more French units were imploding - this time the one defending their paltry light artillery park was broken, and me band o'hearties added a couple more pieces of swag to the haul, no doubt soon to drag them back up to The Ship and include them in the next broadside…
With that the game ended in a resounding victory for me band o'hearties! Even the Huron had not had time to execute their charge..
The Result is a major victory for me band o'hearties
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
Plundering Porpoises! Me and me band o'men have a jolly nice prize to take ohome with us - far more civilized to actually be given it by a nice gentleman from Milton keynes, saves an awful lot of washing the blood out of my trousers if all that swashbuckling and swordplay can be avoided methinks!
What ho, me hearties - it was almost as if I had started to work out my own plan, and my men had learnt how to fight like real Pirates! There was a good balance developing between proper senisble tactics, and a load of Pirate-ey goodness of charging forward and yelling for more Rum!
I'm not entirely convinced that I will be making many regular appearances on these august pages in future, as my chaps lack of horses and pikes do sort of mean our use is only going to happen in period, but a trophy is a tropy, so that is all still one in the pirate bank.
Now, I wonder where I can go and stash my dubloons...? Roger! Roger!! Where is that cabin boy.....
Hannibal's Post Match Analysis
Indeed, a victory, but one at the end of a weekend in which there were victories richer than this left on the table no doubt - were you not helped by the stumblings of some of the other teams you would have been a mere mid table mediocrity and I’d be flying your bloody head as my banner young man
And damn you the depths for picking an army that can win 4 games out of 6, end up with a trophy and still not be one you can dare to take again to the next competition! Beezelbub himself could hardly desire better company when you will soon sit in Gods own waiting room having been trounced in another competition when your only succesful army languishes in a drawer at home
There is more fire in a small, dead fish that in all your slow body to eke out such paltry reward from the joy of piracy on the high seas of Milton Keynes.
The only saving grace is that in this game one figure had a parrot on his shoulder. So, one figure out of what, 250? Actually, it was still a disgrace! I expected it to be a lot more Pirate-ey. Shame on you.
The only important thing here is that at least some of the lessons I have passed onto you remain learned when you attempt to corral more traditional armies in future. That indeed is the only real Pirate Memory Game
That's the end - so why not go back to the Match Reports Index and read some more reports?
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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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