March and April 1660: Two Months In A Leaky Boat
An apologetic aside: last weekend in January was the Lunar New Year and the Superbowl, so as you can imagine I was a little preoccupied by real life events. And the following weekend, I had designated Sunday as the day to get this project going. Saturday night it snowed enough for my technical assistant to enjoy a little sledding down our driveway and one of the hills at the park. Much fun...but it slowed things down a bit. The weekend after that sort of went to heck in a handbasket, as did the following weekend...so instead of doing this in one two-hour chunk, it's been done in bits and pieces as time and attention have permitted. And has been just about a month in post-production because the best laid plans of Pandas and Papas are at best fraught with peril.
Still, here we are at last. Now on with the show!
As established at the end of last turn, our happy band of freebooters is currently in Sector 6 on the Campaign Map which has a much higher Area Activity Level (the large red number on the map). This means there will almost certainly be some action this time 'round!
As you can see, there are two settlements in this area, one belonging to the local nation of the Lung Ho, who are very much an independent body of folks who govern themselves without benefit of a noble class, and the Chang Wang, who are a pirate nation. One of Aledys's little helpers hails from Lung Ho, so it's possible he may prove useful at some point.
For a quick rundown of Lily of Anjou's stats, here's a 5th Rate Merchant Ship (as modified by the extra guns):
Size 3
Defense 3
Guns 4
Maneuver 9
Cargo Capacity 9
Crew 5 min / 10 max
Queen Anne's Revenge or Old Ironsides she ain't, but it's what we have to go a-gallivanting about Lemurian waters.
None of this means very much for the March 1660 turn, because the encounter roll came up 6,6...which means that even with the impressively busy Area Activity Level, for March 1660 Lily of Anjou does not encounter any other vessels! Apparently either my luck with dice is very much inheritable, or someone has yet to develop good rolling technique. Aledys takes yet another hit to her Fame due to failing to take a Prize, another round of Loyalty checks, et cetera.
Moving ahead to April 1660, things become a little more active. Famine to Feast, actually: two possible parties are encountered: a Lung Ho 3rd Rate Merchantman, caught in irons as her captain has made a poor tactical decision, and a body of Vendya Merchanters, being three 4th Raters and one 5th. With the recent stinging comments of crew in her ears, Aledys makes what may soon prove to be a fateful decision and throws over to Piracy. Her class immediately changes from Privateer to Pirate (but that Letter of Marque is still in her possession! Who knows what may yet come?) and she barks orders to the crew to engage the larger and equally armed but slower Lung Ho junk.
The Fates do the Lung Ho merchantman no favors. No favors at all. Swooping down like a hawk, cutting across her bow as crossing the "T" as elegantly as any master admiral alive, Lily of Anjou succeeds in making a wide, curving path around her victim over the three short, sharp turns of this encounter. The Merchantman doesn't only returns fire on one of the three turns, only to roll the dreaded Boxcars of Epic Fail that invariably result in humiliations galore...and promptly surrenders as a result of the only damage scored all game.
Here's the initial setup, more or less (although I had to telescope the original distance to get the ships close enough for the shot. A good photog I am not). The ship in the lower right is Lily of Anjou.
And here's the point at which Aledys no doubt began wondering if the lads were loading the cannons before they lit the fuses...two turns of broadsides without result beyond smoke and noise. Maybe a Master Gunner recruit is in order?
It's almost child's play to finish the sweep, going to half-sail to avoid overshooting the victim, and with the merchant's craven embrace of simple survival it seems likely that Aledys is about to become Admiral van de Zeldenthuis...only...there are a mere four tons of cargo in this junk's holds! No sign of anybody worth ransoming, either. This is almost as much payoff as watching Geraldo Rivera unearth Al Capone's vaults.
Her Lung Ho crewman (Rep 4, Wary) whom I shall now dub Peng in honor of a former co-worker, says something scathing about the merchant captain, his lineage, his hygienic and sartorial shortcomings, and his presumed predilections before pitching the poor man overboard and loudly announcing to the crew that they have a simple choice: join or swim! Eyeing the sharks closing in, they decide that perhaps a life on the account will not be quite so horrid as all that.
Aledys surrenders to the inevitable and rechristens her new and larger flagship Gertrude of Ulm for no particularly clear reason. She's a third-rate merchantman with a Rep 4 Carpenter and a Rep 4 Gunnery Master on board, and Aledys grants command of Lily of Anjou to English Edward for the time being.
Her fame rises by four points (one for each point of Size of her prize). Her Personal Loyalty holds steady. Someone suggests that maybe those Vendya Merchantmen might be easy prey now that there's another ship at their disposal! And what could it hurt to try looking before paying a visit to the Chang Wang?
But that's another month.
Gertrude of Ulm (former Lung Ho 3rd Rate Merchantman) Flagship
Size 4
Defense 6 (currently 5 due to damage)
Guns 4
Maneuver 5
Cargo Capacity 4 / 35
Crew 10 min / 20 max (currently 14 due to casualties during the battle)
Rep 4 Carpenter, Rep 4 Gunnery Master
(All die rolls for this session were provided by my technical assistant. She was gravely disappointed to learn that her "I rolled great! Look at all the 6's, Daddy!" performance was, for a gunnery check, not at all auspicious. I'm just glad we weren't playing Risk instead.)
Still, here we are at last. Now on with the show!
As established at the end of last turn, our happy band of freebooters is currently in Sector 6 on the Campaign Map which has a much higher Area Activity Level (the large red number on the map). This means there will almost certainly be some action this time 'round!
For a quick rundown of Lily of Anjou's stats, here's a 5th Rate Merchant Ship (as modified by the extra guns):
Size 3
Defense 3
Guns 4
Maneuver 9
Cargo Capacity 9
Crew 5 min / 10 max
Queen Anne's Revenge or Old Ironsides she ain't, but it's what we have to go a-gallivanting about Lemurian waters.
None of this means very much for the March 1660 turn, because the encounter roll came up 6,6...which means that even with the impressively busy Area Activity Level, for March 1660 Lily of Anjou does not encounter any other vessels! Apparently either my luck with dice is very much inheritable, or someone has yet to develop good rolling technique. Aledys takes yet another hit to her Fame due to failing to take a Prize, another round of Loyalty checks, et cetera.
Moving ahead to April 1660, things become a little more active. Famine to Feast, actually: two possible parties are encountered: a Lung Ho 3rd Rate Merchantman, caught in irons as her captain has made a poor tactical decision, and a body of Vendya Merchanters, being three 4th Raters and one 5th. With the recent stinging comments of crew in her ears, Aledys makes what may soon prove to be a fateful decision and throws over to Piracy. Her class immediately changes from Privateer to Pirate (but that Letter of Marque is still in her possession! Who knows what may yet come?) and she barks orders to the crew to engage the larger and equally armed but slower Lung Ho junk.
The Fates do the Lung Ho merchantman no favors. No favors at all. Swooping down like a hawk, cutting across her bow as crossing the "T" as elegantly as any master admiral alive, Lily of Anjou succeeds in making a wide, curving path around her victim over the three short, sharp turns of this encounter. The Merchantman doesn't only returns fire on one of the three turns, only to roll the dreaded Boxcars of Epic Fail that invariably result in humiliations galore...and promptly surrenders as a result of the only damage scored all game.
Here's the initial setup, more or less (although I had to telescope the original distance to get the ships close enough for the shot. A good photog I am not). The ship in the lower right is Lily of Anjou.
And here's the point at which Aledys no doubt began wondering if the lads were loading the cannons before they lit the fuses...two turns of broadsides without result beyond smoke and noise. Maybe a Master Gunner recruit is in order?
Her Lung Ho crewman (Rep 4, Wary) whom I shall now dub Peng in honor of a former co-worker, says something scathing about the merchant captain, his lineage, his hygienic and sartorial shortcomings, and his presumed predilections before pitching the poor man overboard and loudly announcing to the crew that they have a simple choice: join or swim! Eyeing the sharks closing in, they decide that perhaps a life on the account will not be quite so horrid as all that.
Aledys surrenders to the inevitable and rechristens her new and larger flagship Gertrude of Ulm for no particularly clear reason. She's a third-rate merchantman with a Rep 4 Carpenter and a Rep 4 Gunnery Master on board, and Aledys grants command of Lily of Anjou to English Edward for the time being.
Her fame rises by four points (one for each point of Size of her prize). Her Personal Loyalty holds steady. Someone suggests that maybe those Vendya Merchantmen might be easy prey now that there's another ship at their disposal! And what could it hurt to try looking before paying a visit to the Chang Wang?
But that's another month.
Gertrude of Ulm (former Lung Ho 3rd Rate Merchantman) Flagship
Size 4
Defense 6 (currently 5 due to damage)
Guns 4
Maneuver 5
Cargo Capacity 4 / 35
Crew 10 min / 20 max (currently 14 due to casualties during the battle)
Rep 4 Carpenter, Rep 4 Gunnery Master
(All die rolls for this session were provided by my technical assistant. She was gravely disappointed to learn that her "I rolled great! Look at all the 6's, Daddy!" performance was, for a gunnery check, not at all auspicious. I'm just glad we weren't playing Risk instead.)
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