There were nearly 60 ships of the line at Trafalgar - too many ships for our Man o' War rules. Oue ship models are too big to fit that many on the table & though the rules re very efficient it would still take too long to be played in one night. Our solution was to scale the battle down to 45% of the numbers. The scenario still presents the same issues to the commanders but is a much better game.
Nelson's column: 1 1st rate, 1 2nd rate, 3 3rd rates. Led by Victory.
Collingwood's column: 1 st rate, 1 2nd rate, 4 3rd rates. Led by Royal Soverign.
French: 8 3rd rates.
Spanish: 1 super 1st rate (Santisima trinidad), 1 1st rate, 4 3rd rates.
Only the main flagships were individially identified.
The two British columns are in the foreground, Collingwood on the right.
The Allies line has 4 French in lead, then 3 Spanish, 4 French & 3 Spanish in the rear.
The wind is blowing accros the table from behind the British,
The Allies have turned to close hauled to close with the British.
The staggered allied line meant that while Collingwood broke thru a Spanish squadron, his column was in turn broken thru by a French squadron. It may have been a bit careless of Collingwood to charge straight at the 136 gun Santisima Trinidad, but he had a even bigger problem with the dice gods. His passage thru the Spanish line with double shotted guns caused a laughably small amount of damage while the Royal Soveriegn got plastered so badly Collingwood had to moveb jis flag & let the ship break off the action. In contrast when the French broke thru the British line they smashed the ships on either side.
In the maeantime Nelson turned parallel to the French van, but the advantage of his superior crews was also being negated by the dice gods.
Nelson is fighting the leading French squadron with 5 ships to 4, Collingwood is fighting 3 Spanish & 4 French with only 5 ships, his crippled flagship flag having sailed away. But the rear Spanish squadron is not enagaged, evening the odds,if only the dice gods would play fair.
Collingwood's squadron finally gained some sucess forcing 2 French ships to strike, but 2 more ships had to bear away with severe damage & the others were unable to support their prize crews. They scuttled one but couldn't prevent the other being recaptured.
Meanwhile, Nelson in the van was finally getting some decent dice & getting the upper hand.
3 of Collingwood's ships has had to strike & the other 3 have had to break off with heavy damage.
Nelson has captured 4 French ships with none of his lost.
The Brits have only Nelson's column able to fight, but all 5 ships with significant damage.
The French have 2 ships left fit to fight, 1 barely still afloat, 1 sunk & 4 captured.
The Spanish have lost 1 ship sunk, 1 with significant damage & 4 unscathed.
Clearly not a great British victory this time.
The battle highlighted the fact that the combat system is prone to wild random variation in results. The variation does add excitement, & gives the losers an excuse other than their own incompenence, but it can obscure tactical lessons. The problem is that the dice system, which is specifically designed to be really quick & easy to use (and really is), happens to have a very wide bell curve of possible results, so seriously good or bad results are not only very common, but too often seem to come in game deciding rushes.
Despite the game going very diferently to the real thing, it showed that Nelson's strategy was good. In our case it was thwarted by 1) a better reponse by the enemy & 2) the dice gods.
