Sluys-It Couldn't be Better

In my previous post, I noted I arrived late to Enfilade, which gave me time to check in, grab a very quick meal, and grab my stuff to set up Sluys for the evening period.  I was on the convention floor at 6:00, which gave me an hour to set up.

I was pretty nervous about the scenario.  On one hand I was very excited because it was my hand made project and I was so proud of it.  I thought others might think it strange and geeky and my work unworthy.  Really the latter troubled me more because most of my game projects are strange and geeky.  I was also worried the rules wouldn't work right, or I would somehow screw them up because I'd only run the scenario once. 

I shouldn't have been concerned.  The game was filled.  Mark and Sam Fortner, and Al Rivers ran the English.  Keith French, Brian Renninger, and Arthur Brookings ran the French.  Best, and most importantly Dave Schueler was there to help me with the scenario.  I'd re-written the quick sheets, taking changes from our playtest into consideration, so that helped.  We took the time to walk through the rules, and while there were some inevitable holes to fill, the game played pretty smoothly.  By the end of the fourth turn, I was no longer necessary, and Dave and I could talk about the Mariners-Yankees game.  Most gratifying, many gamers dropped by the table to look and ask questions about the cogs, the period, and the game.  Doug Hamm and Andrew Mah, tasked with scoring games for the Friday night period, chose Sluys for best of  show for the period.


The set up with both fleets hard against the Cadzand Is. shoals.


The game began with the French shuffling the order of their ships,while the English grouped theirs. The French position was centered between Cadzand Is. and the headland, and the English were prepared to take advantage of a small gap between the island and the fleet.  Unfortunately the gap closed with the night's tidal action, so the battle proceeded pretty much head to head.


Another view of the set up.  The French fleet clearly overlaps the English right. 


For the first three turns the English and French engaged in desultory artillery and missile fire.  Though there were some lucky die rolls on both sides, by turn four it was clear to the English they were going to have to close to win. In turn four the English closed and began supported melees in true DBA fashion.  Unfortunately DBA also requires some decent die rolling, and the English commanders, Mark and Sam, had much better dice karma than the French commanders, Brian and Arthur.  With poor command points, and much less capable of removing damage points, the French line began suffering large holes in the first squadron. 



The French third squadron moves toward their left flank.

 After turn four, Keith unchained his combined cog and galley squadron and began moving around the French left.  Though he had some early success, this flank attack was quickly stymied and then defeated.  By turn twelve, with the French suffering three times the English losses of five ships, I called a halt to the bloodbath.  Though the French three times during the battle, crippled King Edward's cog, the game was up.

Even so, there were lots of smiles afterwords, and I was happy the game was so well received. All photos were taken by Doug Hamm, and I thank him for letting me use them.

Sluys terrain pieces

In April, while playing Sluys with Dave, Mark and Joe, we chatted about the table for the game and how I might spice it up.  Let's face it, there was a naval game-never an eye catcher, in a big roadstead with lots of land, and all the pieces were made of felt.  Based on my illustration of the area, in living color in Fighting Techniques of Medieval Warfare (Matthew Bennet, et. al).  The picture shows the land area, the river estuary, headland and island.  In the illustration there are four small villages forest covering the rest of the area.

Bare felt terrain from March.  Lots of open space

I started out by thinking about the villages.  We're talking about the 14th century, and all I could imagine was that each little village probably had a church with a number of houses and other folks living in the surrounding area.  To keep it simple, I decided to make structures out of square wooden dowels available in the craft department at Michael's.  I cut them in a couple of different sizes and shaped their roofs with a Dremel sanding tool.  I painted them a brown and the roofs a yellow brown for thatch.  Each church I made pretty much the same on a much later model-but using my 28mm Miniature Building Authority church as an example.  The structure is longer with a bell tower.  I kept the painting deliberately simple

One of the four villages made with wooden blocks and somewhat shaped Litko bases.

 Trees were a bit more of a challenge.  I had an unopened bag of small tree armatures from Woodland Scenics.  The question was:  what to do with them?  It thought seriously about individual trees mounted on washers for weight.  I thought I'd just be picking up a bunch of trees all through the game.  So, I cut up some sheet styrene for bases, and applied some acrylic modeling paste from Liquitex that was tinted with Ceramcoat spice brown. Then I just squished the trees right into the paste and let dry for a couple of hours.  I wish I had more sheet styrene because I could probably use some more clumps, like twice as many as I have.  Hopefully it will look a bit more than a few clumps of trees.

One of the larger tree bases

Cadzand Island with trees and village.  Yeah, still seems bare to me too.

Sluys Playtest

On Saturday I met with Dave Schueler and Mark and Joe Waddington at Daveshoe's house to try out Sluys.  I decided to play the scenario straight out of the box as it appears in David Manley's Medieval Fleet Battles rules.  I put together some quick sheets and hauled my ships up to West Seattle.

(Note, if you would like a copy of the Medieval Fleet Battles rules, which include the Sluys scenario, David is willing to send a pdf.  Just contact him at dm dot at dot dstl @ btinternet dot com  .)

 I set up the game so the English began within 6" of the French.  I allowed the French to configure their three squadrons in the order they wished explained their positions shifted two inches to right against the shoals of Cadzand island.  This was a historical occurrence that badly tangled the French deployment according to HYW historian, Jonathan Sumption.  It also left a gap for the English to move to and through. I gave the English the option of the cannon ship offered in the scenario and they accepted that. I also provided that the English would always be player A--given they were the attackers, and the French adopted such a defensive stance.

The English have covered the French front and are moving around the French left.  The closest cog, however, has run onto the shoal and will remain stuck there for some time.

Both players found the artillery exchanges were largely useless. Very few hits were made.  The French did well on their command rolls and usually were able to pull their damage.  Missile fire was a bit more successful, but not so much to offset the French close combat bonus.

Another view of the two fleets coming together

The English moved to the French left flank, but had difficulty making progress. With the French close combat superiority, it was challenging to get enough pluses to make a difference.  As turn four rolled around the French unchained their third squadron and moved to the attack. The English were stuck and not much good was happening.  The three galleys, with their superior boarding factors really made a difference, making short work of a trio of medium cogs.  When the Flemish appeared on turn 10, they were immediately confronted by three medium French cogs, and rather than turning the tide against their enemies, the Flemings found themselves fighting for their lives.

Turn seven.  The French third squadron is loose the galleys are beating up on the English flanking force.

At about turn 12 the pizza arrived and we called a halt to the festivities and debriefed the game.  We agreed on some changes and tried those out.  We made it more difficult to pull damage chits and gave the English a +1 boarding factor for this battle.  There were historical justifications for the changes that give the English a bit more of an edge, at least the opportunity to follow up on their missile successes. In the end, as with the historical battle of Sluys, the artillery and distance shooting is nice, but the battle had to be won with the sword. With the French close combat advantage, and the number of their supports that was going to be very difficult. 

 I think everyone had a good time and are anxious for another try.

The Shipyard is open

Blank hulls for large and medium cogs waiting for built up fighting platforms

Today is a critical day for me to get stuff done on the Sluys project.  I really want to wrap this up before Lorri and I shuffle off to La Conner on the 26th and this is a very ugly-looking deadline week. Not only that but they've stolen another hour from me with the move to daylight savings.  At this writing, it's eight o'clock and I'll have to go into work for a couple of hours this morning.  I've probably got nine or so good work hours-no doubt filled with interruptions-but I did try to get my honey-do's done yesterday.  Called my parents, did the grocery shopping, changed my oil.  Missed the Husky baseketball game (blues.) Anyway, the scene is set for a big time hobby work day.  I'll end-of-work-session pictures tonight.

Galleys got their decks and masts painted.  Still need forward superstructures and awnings painted, as well as basing stuff done.

Yesterday I got ready for today but wasted a lot of time.  However, I did finish all the small cogs for the Flemish and French forces at Sluys, did a little bit of painting on the galleys, but most importantly, I shaped all the hulls for the French fleet.  About 30 of those, so no small deal.