"Trafalgar session reports - post here" Topic

I would be interested in reading some session reports and game play feedback. For a new ruleset that's gotten some "buzz", I haven't seen much in the way of player feedback.

I have gotten the rules, read through them, and I am looking forward to our first "scrimmage". As for the OG 1/2400 ships, I'm quite happy with them overall. You cannot go wrong with these as sturdy playing pieces.

Looking forward to hearing about some of your battle reports!

We've got a game scheduled Saturday. I'll post something by Sunday night but so far, they seem fun but with a decent period feel.

A combined French and Spanish fleet or 4 ships thrash a Royal Navy Squadron of three ships last night (1 Apr 09)at Waterloo Minis in Ashland VA. We used the new Trafalgar Rules and 1/1200 scale ships.

Due to wind advantage the FR and Sp hit the Royal Navy first and very hard. Poor CAPT JD ( 3rd Rate) ship took hits by Brian (Sp 1st Rate), Rob (Fr 3rd rate) and Gray (Sp 1st Rate) and by the end of turn three was a visitor to Davey Jones Locker with out firing a shot!

Justin (Fr 3rd rate) and Malcolm (Br 1st rate) also exchanged shots but Malcolm rolled hits badly and saved even worst! While Justin rolled well giving Malcolm some major damage too.

Malcolm and I (Br 2nd rate) tried to seek revenge once we had the wind and hit Gray back very hard wounding the Spanish giant. We also beat up on Justin too. On turn 5 Grey's wounded ship (only could go straight due to a stern rake) collided into Malcolm giving both ships below the water line damage…and in the end sinking Malcolm.

Being out numbered 4 to 1 I decided to sail away to return to Jolly old England and give the bad news to the King on turn 8.

After re-reading the rules, visiting the fourm site and using lessons learned last week it was a much better and deadlier game.

Bing

by the end of turn three was a visitor to Davey Jones Locker with out firing a shot!

!!! The sinking of a ship-of-the-line was actually a relatively rare event, and then occurred only after hours of hard pounding.

collided into Malcolm giving both ships below the water line damage…and in the end sinking Malcolm.

!!!!! Because of the hull forms and rigging plans common at the time, it was next to impossible to cause damage at or below the waterline by colliding; along most of the hull's perimeter, it was actually wider just above the waterline than at the waterline, and the spars above extended even further outboard. Usually, any damage to colliding ships was to the upper works. It was fairly common for a mast go by the boards due to a combination of the destruction of supporting channels and rigging and the momentum of the collision (especially if it had been previously damaged by gunfire), but in 30+ years of intense reading on the subject, I can't recall a single account of a ship-of-the-line sinking because of a collision.

Apparently, the designer(s) didn't feel it was necessary to read historical accounts or look at sheer plans.

it was a much better and deadlier game.

It's good that you enjoyed it; however, every report I read significantly reduces the likelihood that I will give these rules a look.

Regards,

Jeff

Funny that you wrote those comments…some of our more expereinced and "hard core" wooden ship gamers say the same thing.
This is my first set of wooden ship rules I have bought. I have enjoyed the Trafalgar rules so far but have had no other expereince or real knowledge of the era beside watching he Hornblower TV show. I did play one many-many years ago but it moved very slow and way to many charts and details to track, so did not play again..until now.

SFC Retired

I set sail on my maiden voyage last night. We played 600 points (British vs Spain) in order to keep the game length down, using 1/2400 Old Glory ships.

The Spanish brought a massive overgunned 1st rate and 2 5th rate Frigates. I brought a British 3rd rate large, 3rd rate small, and a 4th rate with Bow chasers.

We didnt finish the game because the UFC Fight Night Live came on and distracted us, but we played faithfully through commercials and breaks in the action.

The British deployed with the wind gauge and maneuvered to force the Spanish to tack their way upwind. Moving wasnt as hard as I feared it might be, and with the templates from the book printed at 50% scale, they worked just fine for the smaller scale. My 3rd rates isolated the Spanish 1st rate and did some substantial damage over the course of the game, escaping much harm until later in the game when the lines became more of a swirling melee.

Even with bow and stern rakes becoming more and more common in the swirling mix, damage was surprisingly tough to dish out. I know that historically more ships burned or struck colors than sank, and I feel this was accurately represented well. The two 3rd rates did a decent job of staying away from the Spanish 5ths, and continued rather successfully to pour fire into the Spanish 112 (they set her on fire twice, which helped a lot).

In the end, all three Spanish ships were just above "crippled", though only my 4th was in real danger of sinking due to a bad unsaved critical near the end of the game. My 3rd rates stayed out of harm's way for the most part, and I appreciated their quickness.

Only once did my Ships of the Line fail a Command check to fire on a Frigate, which because I had the Weather Gauge had not fired or declared fire on me yet, which resulted in my 3rd small taking an unanswered broadside from one of the Spanish 5ths. Those sneaks!

Next game both of us will be aiming high much more, as shooting the tires out seems like such a better strategy than pounding away at the hull until you have a stern or bow rake. As a result, I will likely be switching over to the French!

I am very impressed so far, and cant wait to play more.

(Note: the only other naval game I have played was Uncharted Seas, which disappointed to no end, so my experience in naval games is much more limited than my other wargaming experience. Take my report with that understanding)

A quick note about Collisions:

At first I thought I remembered that hits were just "low" hits to the hull, but yes, collisions between ships is listed as "Below Waterline hits". So are rules for striking solid objects or running aground.

It would be really easy to houserule that collisions between ships simply results in "low" hits rather than "below waterline" hits. Makes more sense to me, is a quick fix, and I dont think it alone should make someone not want to pick up the rules.

My 2 cents.

Thanks to all for the reports. I think I will post the link to this thread on the Captains Table, the official Yahoo user group for Trafalgar, the game. The author has made many rulings and frequents the site often.

This collision issue sounds like another mention for the errata.

I played a game today to see how the rules faired for the smaller vessels. (rates not scales)

British vs American (1/700th skytrex models)

The scenerio was that a large british merchant ship and its escorting 5th rate frigate was intercepted by an American force consisting of a 5th and a 6th rate frigate.

The british force had a choice of making a run for it or taking on the americans. Because of the slow speed of the merchantman (although it does have a decent broadside) the Brits decided to do battle.

I was quite supprised how long the game lasted but because of the low broadsides value.. 2/2/- and 2/1/- for 5th and 6th rates it became very important to think ahead. Due to my poor seamanship the british started off badly with the merchantman basically being broadsided and raked whilst its escort was still trying to sail around to get a shot in.

The britsh frigate made up for its earlier mistakes and took on both american frigates whilst the merchantman escaped having lost all its cannons. The resulting battle was a very close encounter which resulted in one of the american frigates being crippled set on fire and eventually sinking…(not before it managed to drift into the british frigate and cause 1 more damage point as it went down.

It came to a point were both the remaining british and american frigates were so badly damaged and in danger of being crippled that they each decided they had done enough and sailed their seperate ways.

All in all the game lasted around 10 moves..but had a 74 been there I'm sure it would have been quicker. This is my first ever naval game so I am a complete novice but I did enjoy it and look forward to more.

craig

scottyspainting.co.uk

I've played the new Trafalger a couple of times now. It is good for a fast play game but is much lacking in other areas compared to other games. Example, below waterline damage is to extreme. Also,if you are going to use the idea of saves then those saves should be differnt from fleet to fleet or am I missing something there. Damage should be more ramdon. In the last game I played I lost my ship to waterline damage without a single rigging section lost. If ships collide they will damage rigging and masts not their hull.
My overall conclusion is that the player that shoots first will win the game as damage tends to pile on quickly.I have problems with the game but will give it a fair trail.

"My overall conclusion is that the player that shoots first will win the game as damage tends to pile on quickly.I have problems with the game but will give it a fair trail."

I couldn't agree more. There is one huge rule issue that I think cripples the game from the onset. Whoever holds the gauge, gets to shoot ALL his ships first, inflicting damage that can reduce the return fire of the opponent, when he gets to shoot 2nd.

I think the author has made a mistake here, and should have allowed for the order of firing to be determined in the same manner that movement is determined. At the MINIMUM, he should drop reduced effectiveness of firing back. That way, at least you reward playing pieces for having the wind that allows them to maneuver for better shots.

The way it is now, a lone irrelevant Schooner can just sail towards the wind gauge, and become the most powerful piece on the board – big mistake.

We played today, it was my third game.

We had about 1400 pt fleets. A first rate French ship plus 5 3rd rates vs. 6 3rd rate British ships. The French had problems with fires the whole time and even gaining the weather gauge from a change in the wind was not enough to correct the issue.

At the end we had one decrewed ship, 1 sunk ship, 1 ship crippled, 1 struck, and two ships were sailing free.

the British lost one ship sunk and two ships were near crippled. The flag ship had lost it's main mast but that was it, the other two ships were relatively unharmed.

I do think that a big part of the French loss was due to fire. The ships were just taking so much damage for having caught on fire. I'm going to put together an expanded critical table or one that takes into account stern and bow rakes (bow rakes can take off your rudder 1 in 6 times, for example.)

So out of 12 ships having two (maybe 3 now that I think about it) sunk does seem a little too much.

But it was a very fun game, even though we got hammered.

"The way it is now, a lone irrelevant Schooner can just sail towards the wind gauge, and become the most powerful piece on the board – big mistake."

Only if there is no other schooner or unrated to tangle with it. Guess both fleets need to bring unrateds….like they did historically

The greater than historical number of sinkings was (I presume) chosen and rationalized by the designer under the beer & pretzels rationale. People like to sink other peoples little boats.

If you don't like it it's easy to fix. Double every ships below-the-waterline hits – that will probably be the house rule I go with.

Sean

Well I played my first game yesterday and I did not see to many of the issues listed here. We ran for the French a 74, a 64, and a 40. For the Brits a 64, and 2 36's. Brits started out with the weather and both squadrons sailed in to close the distance. The Brits tailed off and let the French cross their front slightly in order to cross the rear of their line. In the process the lead Brit 36 got shot up payback was almost instant as the Brits crossed the rear of the French line blasting the 64 setting it on fire. The lines then swirled and the fog rolled in. With the fog firmly in place (we forgot to roll for the change a few times) the gun ranges were reduced to close, after taking several blasts the Brit 64 decided to close for action with the 74. Grappling and boarding her the Royal Marines proved their worth but the crew of the 64 had long fought action capturing the 74. As the fog cleared the remaining French 40 gave two more long range broadsides and headed back to port.

So in the end Both Brit frigates were crippled and adrift with their crews fighting to save them. The Frecnh 64 was gutted by flames and likely to sink later. The Brit 64 was pounded but will fight another day and the captured 74 was in fairly good order. The French 40 was in good shape but thought better of trying to hold off the captured 74.

I did not see the quick resolution that some have talked about our game ran about 25 turns and was a close run thing. I see lots of good room for expansion of the rules and I like to see that the rules include all of the small coastal vessels and not just the big boys. I agree that the savings throws should have some national flavor and i will be experimenting with that. I can see changes to the critical hit table to keep the rudders from being shot off from a bow rake. I would alter that to Bowsprit and make it a reduction in turns or a roll on the Forward mast damage table. all in all I was happy and will be running the rules again soon.