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Our first game of this ended in a 2-point Allied Victory; Villeneuve sallied from Toulon and successfully invaded Alexandria (a high-value Pitt objective) but was intercepted by Nelson on the way to Spain - the French fleet suffered considerable damage but Nelson was killed and the objectives were well worth the ships lost. The Allies also got a large fleet to the West Indies in two pieces (aiming to surprise the British with superior force, a plan that did not work), successfully carrying out three raids.
However, the Allies also had problems. They got into port before hurricane season and left the Spanish treasure fleet's departure as late as they could (based on a sensible assessment of the turns needed to get home), both because it would be destroyed in a hurricane and because the blockading British fleet would be suffering severe weather damage while the Allied fleet was undergoing repairs. However, the trade winds dropped - bad luck with wind counter draws meant the fleet was still one turn from Europe - and furthermore it turned out the British had correctly guessed the destination port and assembled considerable force, so an earlier arrival might only have made things worse. Since the treasure fleet was the highest value Napoleon objective, this was a serious blow, explaining the close result.
In that game we did hit on the following cheese, which we agreed not to use. When an Allied fleet sorties, the Allied player should also sortie some blocks which contain one low-value ship (Spanish 74s with their 0/0 VP are ideal). If the main fleet is not spotted, each extra block which makes it out of port unspotted not only effectively acts as a Fog of War block, on the face of it, it creates two real Fog of War blocks. This clearly ought to be forbidden, but how? Only one sortie per port per turn? That could occasionally make life difficult for British operations out of Plymouth and Portsmouth.
My reading of 7.6 and the rest of the rules is that none of this pertains to blocks in port, whether or not the port has a slot on the display sheet. Ships in port may be assigned to fleet blocks or removed from them completely at will. The only effect of not having a slot on the display sheet is that the player cannot save a block by moving all the ships in a fleet on to the display sheet. Is this correct?
When does combat take place? My reading is that (from 14.5) if a fleet is intercepted in a Narrows combat takes place immediately. If the moving player carries out a search, combat takes place after all movement because all search attempts do (14.1). But there is no explicit statement about the case where player A moves through a Patrol Zone and player B searches for them; I think the answer must be that combat also takes place immediately.
Section 14.2.2 contains three paragraphs beginning "If he stops in the Inshore area", "If he stops in Loose Blockade", "If he proceeds out to sea". These are worded differently, but save for the effect on blocks Off Station in the final paragraph, appear to describe the same mechanics. Is this the intent?
Can the British player find out if a raid was even attempted when he reveals a "No raid..." marker? There's no provision for this in the rules, but surely one can distinguish a real French fleet attempting a raid from a FoW block turning up and doing, well, nothing.
This is not a question - the rules as written are quite clear - but the way that a ship costs the face-up defence factor in manpower to move out of In Ordinary makes for a lot of extra bookkeeping (as one checks every ship that arrives wrecked to become damaged/In Ordinary to see whether it wants manned or repaired first) for a very small difference to the game. I wonder if the Living Rules might possibly just rule that a ship must be repaired before being manned? Repairs are in much greater supply, so I not see that this would seriously inconvenience anyone.
Last but not least, is there an online Order of Battle for 1805? Games where the counters are the only record of the OOB seem to invite problems. If not, would it be permitted to upload one to the 'geek? We have compiled one for our own use.
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Phil Fry
United States
Toledo
Ohio
My father (circa 1945). He navigated B-24's (5thAF 22ndBG) in the Pacific Theater.
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damerell wrote:
In that game we did hit on the following cheese, which we agreed not to use. When an Allied fleet sorties, the Allied player should also sortie some blocks which contain one low-value ship (Spanish 74s with their 0/0 VP are ideal). If the main fleet is not spotted, each extra block which makes it out of port unspotted not only effectively acts as a Fog of War block, on the face of it, it creates two real Fog of War blocks. This clearly ought to be forbidden, but how? Only one sortie per port per turn? That could occasionally make life difficult for British operations out of Plymouth and Portsmouth.
My reading of 7.6 and the rest of the rules is that none of this pertains to blocks in port, whether or not the port has a slot on the display sheet. Ships in port may be assigned to fleet blocks or removed from them completely at will. The only effect of not having a slot on the display sheet is that the player cannot save a block by moving all the ships in a fleet on to the display sheet. Is this correct?
When does combat take place? My reading is that (from 14.5) if a fleet is intercepted in a Narrows combat takes place immediately. If the moving player carries out a search, combat takes place after all movement because all search attempts do (14.1). But there is no explicit statement about the case where player A moves through a Patrol Zone and player B searches for them; I think the answer must be that combat also takes place immediately.
Section 14.2.2 contains three paragraphs beginning "If he stops in the Inshore area", "If he stops in Loose Blockade", "If he proceeds out to sea". These are worded differently, but save for the effect on blocks Off Station in the final paragraph, appear to describe the same mechanics. Is this the intent?
Can the British player find out if a raid was even attempted when he reveals a "No raid..." marker? There's no provision for this in the rules, but surely one can distinguish a real French fleet attempting a raid from a FoW block turning up and doing, well, nothing.
This is not a question - the rules as written are quite clear - but the way that a ship costs the face-up defence factor in manpower to move out of In Ordinary makes for a lot of extra bookkeeping (as one checks every ship that arrives wrecked to become damaged/In Ordinary to see whether it wants manned or repaired first) for a very small difference to the game. I wonder if the Living Rules might possibly just rule that a ship must be repaired before being manned? Repairs are in much greater supply, so I not see that this would seriously inconvenience anyone.
Last but not least, is there an online Order of Battle for 1805? Games where the counters are the only record of the OOB seem to invite problems. If not, would it be permitted to upload one to the 'geek? We have compiled one for our own use.
Hi David,
Very nice AAR.
Only one Allied fleet may sortie from a given port during a single activation (a failure to spot the sortie results in adding two more Fog of War blocks). A single ship in a block constitutes a "fleet" in game terms. So you can't do a "starburst" with a bunch of Spanish ships in individual blocks, essentially "gaming" the system to create extra FOW. (This was a loophole in the published rules that was addressed in the Living Rules.)
You have the timing on when combat takes place correct. If a stationary block spots a moving block, combat takes place immediately. Otherwise, it takes place after spotting at the end of an activation.
The Living Rules had the spotting section rewritten for greater clarity. (I'm assuming your confusion arises from the published rules. Correct?) Patrol Zone spotting (arriving, passing through, etc.) is probably the toughest portion of the rules to grasp. Alan (the LR Editor) did a great job improving the language in that section.
British can find out about a Raid / No Raid by visiting the port (even with a frigate). The status is revealed when a player would normally "count masts". We wanted the British Admiralty player to be unaware of exactly what was happening thousands of leagues away.
Many ships have a greater defense factor on the damaged side than on the undamaged side. So it makes sense to repair the ship first to reduce manpower cost; which in my experience players will do 99% of the time. (But I do get your point.)
By all means, please feel free to upload the OOB to the Geek. That would be a great addition.
Fair winds,
Phil
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philfry wrote: damerell wrote:
When an Allied fleet sorties, the Allied player should also sortie some blocks which contain one low-value ship (Spanish 74s with their 0/0 VP are ideal). If the main fleet is not spotted, each extra block which makes it out of port unspotted not only effectively acts as a Fog of War block, on the face of it, it creates two real Fog of War blocks.
Only one Allied fleet may sortie from a given port during a single activation
The Living Rules have it 'per "May Sortie" chit [...] during a single activation', which does not prevent the use of this cheese in the West Indies (eg to cover the treasure fleet). Suggest deleting 'per "May Sortie" chit' - by 5.11 "one per port" it's not like the Allied player can stack more than one such chit in a port.
The spotting rules are indeed considerably clearer now. Thanks.
I think I've found a loophole in the Living Rules. The Allied player can set the current port as a destination, moving that fleet out into the Patrol Zone (so not "at sea), but cannot change any destination currently used by a fleet "at sea". So can he order a fleet out to a Patrol Zone on a useful wind and then set the destination later, saving himself the MP for the sortie on that later turn? Surely that is not the intent.
Quote: British can find out about a Raid / No Raid by visiting the port (even with a frigate). The status is revealed when a player would normally "count masts". We wanted the British Admiralty player to be unaware of exactly what was happening thousands of leagues away.
Aha, you've answered the question everybody asks, but not the one I asked. :-)
What I'm asking is - when the British player _does_ do that, should they find out if a raid was actually attempted? Presumably the locals might be expected to know, distinguishing a Fog from a fleet. On the other hand this raises the spectre of the Allied player keeping track of a series of raids and weak Allied fleets not actually raiding to make the British think they are Fogs and... maybe it's not such a good idea.
I have, however, spotted a slight problem with the rules as written. Suppose that the British have ships in a port when it is raided and no further Wind Chit is drawn before the second Initiative chit, offering the British player no chance to count masts. The British player now faces a slight difficulty in the next repair phase inasmuch as he does not know if he can use the port's repair capacity!
This is a plausible situation - the British might well distribute damaged ships amongst all nearby friendly ports after a battle to maximise the use of repair capacity (especially in the Med or West Indies without the high capacity ports of Plymouth and Portsmouth nearby), and these pickets also can count masts when Allied blocks arrive thus immediately dissipating Fogs that move Inshore.
I suggest that when a raid is attempted the British player tells the Allied player if he has ships or frigates present (the Allied player may not have had a chance to count masts yet since he can only do so from a patrol zone at the start of an activation); if so the success of the raid is immediately known.
Quote: Many ships have a greater defense factor on the damaged side than on the undamaged side. So it makes sense to repair the ship first to reduce manpower cost; which in my experience players will do 99% of the time. (But I do get your point.)
However Princess Orange, Goliath, and Thunderer have a higher defence factor when undamaged. That leaves the British player with an incentive to check every wrecked ship to save at most a miniscule amount of manpower - and since none of them starts the game damaged+In Ordinary, a rule that you always repair first would not affect the initial British buildup.
(My notes also say that Caesar goes from 8/7 to 5/5 when damaged but I do wonder if that's a transcription error on our part... or a counter error. I don't have my set here.)
Quote: By all means, please feel free to upload the OOB to the Geek. That would be a great addition.
Thanks for your permission. I'll do so as soon as I have the opportunity.
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Alan Richbourg
United States
Arlington
Texas
I seez u be makin ur beeg move
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West Indies: good catch. That was one of the last things added to the LR; I need to go back and revisit that.
"saving himself the MP for the sortie on that later turn?": It would not save any MP, because leaving a patrol zone on the way to the sea costs the same MP as leaving both a port and it's patrol zone in the same activation on its way to sea. It is certainly possible though and within the design intent to just sortie into the port's PZ and remain there until leaving in a later activation. The Allied fleet would typically need a good reason (such as favorable winds, perhaps) to sail out of the protection of it's port.
About raids, the answer is no. The point of Fog of War attempting raids is that the rumors are believable. Think of it like this, a real fleet that attempts but does not achieve a successful raid may have had no more effect on the area that a Fog of War, e.g. bad weather may have made it impossible for it to ever achieve contact with any enemy merchant vessels, etc.
Repair in a possibly raided port: good catch. I should revisit this, but I think the answer will be that the British can determine the status of a raid marker in repair step if there is a British ship in port.
"The only effect of not having a slot on the display sheet is that the player cannot save a block by moving all the ships in a fleet on to the display sheet. Is this correct?" Yes that's correct, I believe.
Thanks
Edit: I will be making a list of issues for future improvements, so (everyone) please continue to post anything you find.
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chargetheguns wrote: "saving himself the MP for the sortie on that later turn?": It would not save any MP, because leaving a patrol zone on the way to the sea costs the same MP as leaving both a port and it's patrol zone in the same activation on its way to sea.
Oh, so it does. We got that right when playing, we were just a trifle confused when looking for edge cases this week, and in that case there isn't really a cheese here.
Thank you for the other replies here and elsewhere which I have nothing to add to.
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