Napoleonic Naval

Having made enough 1:1000 models on my 3D printer to fight a battle, tonight we tried them out.  We used our old "Men o' War" house rules we used with the old Victory models, but modified them to dispense with the hex grid - now using templates to control simultaneous maneuvre. 

Allies (SteveJ): French: 1st rate & 3 3rd rates, all regular crews.
                          Spanish: 1 oversize 1st rate & 3 3rd rates, all inexperienced crews.
British (Mike):  1 st rate & 3 3rd rates.  (Jim & Mark): 1 2nd rate & 2 3rd rates.
                          All elite crews.

Down wind is to the left on the seam.  The Allies are at the far end if the table, French to windward.  

The Allies sailed directly at the downwind British squadron.  

The leeward British squadron realised they had blundered too late.  They tried to tack away, but the Allies surrounded them while the windward British squadron was too far away to help.

The leeward British squadron is being pounded from 2 sides.  The lead ship is already a shambles & drifting helplessly downwind.

The other 2 ships of the leeward Brit squadron are now critically damaged & the windward Brit squadron is still not able to help.  

A 2nd British ship has floundered,.  The third ship is a drifting hulk, but the windward squadron has arrived & saved it from having to strike its colours.  The Spanish are content with their day's work & are running for home . The French briefly exchange shots with the British windward squadron before turning to follow their Allies.

The Brits lost 2 ships sunk & 1 a dismasted wreck but still afloat.  The Allies lost no ships in rare victory.

The experiment of using templates instead of hexes worked well.  The players soon got the hang of using the templates & the new command logs.   The extra flexibility of having turns measured in 22.5 deg points rather then 60 degrees hex sides definitely improves the game.