"Anyone played POST CAPTAIN yet?" Topic
14 Posts
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Lt Col Pedant | 31 Jul 2015 3:09 a.m. PST |
As requested in the title: Has anyone played a game with these rules, as opposed to just reading them? I'd be grateful of your opinions. |
steady the buffs | 31 Jul 2015 5:29 a.m. PST |
Hi, We played our first game last night and we thoroughly enjoyed them. We had a French 40 gun frigate versus a British 38 gun frigate. The crew quality generated an Elite French crew (a roll of 1 helped…) and a Regular British crew. The set up is interesting. One ship is placed in the middle of the table with the heading rolled for. The other force is set up by generating a position relative to the first ship e.g. points larboard or starboard from it's position and a heading relative to it. The distance is recommended as approx 2000 yds which for the 1/2400 ships we were using is 30 inches (76.2 cm). The turn is split into three phases (Red, White & Blue) and the ships move in each phase. You can fire whenever you wish during the phases but you have to re-load. The ships have a number of crew and each is allocated to a task. The guns are divided by three to generate a number of dice to roll on the Cannon fire table. The guns are also divided down by position e.g. lower, middle & upper deck) and by weight of shot. In our game the French had 5 boxes of 18 pdr guns, 1 box of 36 pdr carronade and 2 boxes of 8 pdrs for each broadside. These required 9 crew to man out of 12 crew. The remaining 3 kept the ship sailing. The same crew are used to re-load the guns so you can see that you cannot fire both broadsides in the same phase or re-load one broadside whilst firing the other. Re-loading takes 2-4 phases depending on which navy is doing it (US &RN 2, French, Dutch, Spanish & Danish 3, Turks & Moors 4) and you cannot make extreme turns during the re-load so be careful. The ranges are less than you think and as an example when the Shannon fired on the Chesapeake in 1812 it was apparently at 35 yds which is 0.5 inches on the table at 1/2400!! The ships cards depict each mast with the spars and yards. These have colour coded sails with a number in which indicate the movement for different sail settings e.g. 7 for battle sails, 10 for easy sails and 13 for full sails for the French frigate. These can take damage or can become sprung if adjacent masts take damage. You can fire at 'upper' or 'lower' with the upper giving more damage to the rigging and yards etc. The movement is handled by your attitude to the wind and a very clever Wind Gauge indicate whether you use slow, medium or fast movement. Measuring sticks giving different increments for each mean that you use the same movement factor but move different distances for different attitudes. You can also amend your speed up or down by 1-3 movement factors depending on the sail set in use and up to your maximum for the sails set. It's very clever and pretty intuitive. Damage can be brutal and in our game the French managed to fire on the British ship first twice which resulted in two masts falling (the second was a bow rake due to the first slowing the British ship down). We thoroughly enjoyed the game even though it was a slow run through and are looking forward to more games. We think that once you are familiar with the rules then 3-4 ships would be possible for each player but 1-2 would be enough for the first few games. We would give it a strong recommendation. |
mikec260 | 31 Jul 2015 6:40 a.m. PST |
Can you use 1/300 ships with these rules? What scales are found in the rules? Great report, by the way. Sounds like an interesting set of rules. |
steady the buffs | 31 Jul 2015 6:55 a.m. PST |
Hi, The ranges are at ground scale so at 1/1200 3" equals 100 yds, 1/2400 1.5" equals 100 yds. This would give 12" equals 100 yds at 1/300 and given that ranges can go to 2000 yds that would require an enormous gaming area! Having said that it isn't really worth opening fire until you are pretty close. They do have measuring sticks, wind gauges and turning gauges at 1/1000, 1/2000, 1/3000, 1/1200 and 1/2400 but I have to say it looks and feels right when using the correct ground scale. I know that someone on the forum has asked about larger scales but I haven't followed too closely given that we use 1/2400. Thanks, Kevin. |
Extra Crispy | 31 Jul 2015 6:57 a.m. PST |
Do you mean 1/3000? The rules are scale neutral. |
Lt Col Pedant | 31 Jul 2015 8:18 a.m. PST |
steady the buffs: That was a 1st rate review. The quality of the rules shines through. I wish we'd more of this calibre of review on TMP. |
Matsuru Sami Kaze | 31 Jul 2015 10:31 a.m. PST |
I liked that ships fired whenever they wanted during movement. There are some games I could name that only allow firing after all movement is complete…missing many an honest rake opportunities. Here, hear! |
mikec260 | 31 Jul 2015 3:16 p.m. PST |
Thank you Kevin. Does sound interesting. |
Trierarch | 31 Jul 2015 11:28 p.m. PST |
Interestingly we played a game today with these a French 40 (with a crack crew) vs a British 38 with a Regular crew. The heavier guns of the French frigate (24 pdrs) convinced the RN to stand away so the action was not decisive, the the Brit lost her mizzen topsail to the only shot taken within 800 yards. We played the same action last weekend when the Brits had the crack crew and the French a Raw crew – certainly highlighted the impact of crew quality. A good summary from Kevin. Interesting points of the game include the three action phases per turn, plus one repair and one command phase. The ability to fire in any action phase as long as your guns are loaded. Retrictions on loading and major sail handling if you manoeuvre too much (crew being called from the guns or other tasks to trim sail), and the detail of the damage system. I do like the fact that the ground scale is the same as the model scale, even if this means a bit of arts and crafts works to set up the necessary guages and rulers. Probably the best set of rules for single ship actions, up to small squadrons, that I've encountered. Cheers David |
Lt Col Pedant | 31 Jul 2015 11:58 p.m. PST |
Do the rules cater for unrated vessels in much detail? |
steady the buffs | 01 Aug 2015 4:28 a.m. PST |
Hi, There are ship cards for Brigs, Sloops, Cutters, Corvettes, Schooners, Chasse-Maree, Galleys, Poleacres, Xebecs, Bomb Ketch's plus East Indiamen and merchant ships, brigs, cutters and schooners. Does that count….. Cheers, Kevin. |
jowady | 01 Aug 2015 6:06 a.m. PST |
This is starting to look like the answer to my dreams for single ship and small vessel actions. |
Trierarch | 01 Aug 2015 2:32 p.m. PST |
Unrated vessels get the same sort of cards and details as the rated ships. The rules have a separate wind guage for fore-Aft rigs and there are some specific rules for the various rigs (lugsails, lateens, polacres and the like). Also rules for boat-work, landings and cargo (loading and unloading), but haven't done more than glance at these bits yet. Cheers David |
Dexter Ward | 03 Aug 2015 7:45 a.m. PST |
There are also detailed rules for cutting out actions and even a simple set of land rules in there for combined operations (there are also print and play counters for ships, forts, shore batteries and land troops). |
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