Cruel Seas - Japanese vs British

Colin and I  had a couple of games of Cruel Seas at the Tring Club last night, it was an opportunity for Colin to try out his new little AB-Tei gunboats from Scotia Grendel. Unfortunately I forgot to pack my nice sea cloth for this evening!

The scenario was 3 gunboats were escorting a supply convoy of sampans and barges along the Malayan coast, when they were jumped by British motor launches, 4 Fairmile Bs and a Harbour Defence Motor Launch. Colin had made all his gunboat crews Experienced, which had an unexpectedly devastating impact on the game.

The British flotilla.

The Japanese convoy.

Japanese air support, who failed to turn up in either game.

With experienced crews and 57mm guns in the AB-Tei's turrets, the Japanese were hitting the British on a 5 or less at a range of 80cm. The British lost 3 Fairmiles before they could even get most of their weapons into range. We called it when I just had the HDML left and had only scratched the paint on a couple of gunboats. For just 25 points per boat, Experienced crews are really under-pointed for the difference in shooting and other benefits they give.

We reset and tried again, this time dropping the HDML and making all the Fairmile crews Experienced as well.

Again the Japanese put the transports in the middle of their formation with the gunboats split on either side. The British decided to veer across and concentrate all their boats on the side of the convoy with just one gunboat. However the other two Japanese gunboats managed to get into range and scored two hits on the nearest Fairmile, sinking it, but at least it had knocked out one of the turrets on the closest gunboat first.

The solitary gunboat found itself taking fire from all three surviving Fairmiles and was badly shot up. As the Fairmiles closed in, they started targeting the nearest barges with their smaller guns, keeping they main weapons pounding the unfortunate AB-Tei, which was sent to the bottom.

The convoy had turned into a bit of a turkey shoot and tried to veer away from the British as two barges were swiftly sunk. The AB-Teis tried to turn across the front of the convoy to target the attackers.

It their rush to escape the British motor launches, two of the barges narrowly missed colliding!

As the British boats moved behind the escaping convoy they blasted one of the sampans into matchwood, but a salvo from each of the AB-Teis caught the closest Fairmile, which had been damaged in the earlier firefight with the solitary AB-Tei, and it slipped below the surface.

Too late for the rest of the convoy however, as the other two Fairmiles were now in range with all their guns and sank the rest of the transports with a single broadside.

It was a fun game to play and much more of a balanced fight than our first game had been.
But we have decided that Experienced crews are just too effective. In the first game they had vastly outclassed the Regular crews and it the second game, once I had got closer to the transports I scarcely missed with a single shot. The points system does not reflect their overwhelming superiority at all.
In future we will only use Experienced crews for scenarios and them probably limit them to one crew per side.

Emperor of Ice - Sellswords Campaign Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - The Tower of Teuton

Gunnar trudged disconsolately at the back of the party. “I bet that’s the Tower of Teuton”, he said, pointing at a tower.
Sir Robin looked at him. “How do you know?”
“It’s the tallest.”
Christos laughed. “Well you’re right – it must be the one we are looking for. It is the one that glorifies the Lord of War, Bane of the Unnatural, the Great God Teuton. Well spotted.”
“Nah, because it’s the tallest one round here, it will have the most steps up.”
“Steps are a cultural enemy to dwarves,” whispered Sintamo to Eldarondo.


View of the table set up.

Viewed from the PC's entry point.

The three floors inside the Tower.

The heroes in their starting positions.

 But danger is waiting for them.

 Sintamo eyes up the distant skeletons, allows for the wind and takes a long shot....

....Thunk! A skeleton bites the dust!

As the rest of the horde shamble forward, Eduardo (giggling to himself) starts to gather this magical energy....

....FIREBALL!

 As the PCs move forward, a horde of bandits led by a thug, move onto the table behind them.

In the meantime Brother Christos rushes on ahead of the rest of the group and encounters a horde of skeletons, but they didn't last long!

Only to be ambushed by a giant Ice Serpent. Christos misses his attack, but just parries the snake's jaws with his shield.  His counter strike crushes the beasts skull.

The PCs hear a distant howling, a werewolf has arrived on the scene.

The bandits hang back, keeping downwind of the werewolf, which rushes towards the party.  Eddiesdrew himself up to full height, pointed at the beast....and sent forth a small shower of sparks! Intrigued, the werewolf moved closer to the pretty lights.
Sintamo called to Eldarondo, "We'll have to do this the old fashioned way!" and promptly stuck two arrows in the beast.
Gunnar stepped up to shield the bemused Eddie, who just stood by, muttering to himself.
Eldarondo added an arrow to the werewolf's collection of feather-related jewellery, before the enraged monster charged Gunnar. The dwarf was knocked backwards by a viscous swipe, but the beast's claws just scrapped off of his armour.
Gunnar promptly relied by splitting the werewolf's skull with his axe.

Emboldened by the arrival of another horde of their friends, the bandits used the distraction of the werewolf to rush closer.
Eddie suddenly looked up, wide eyed.
"I've got it!" he cried to no one in particular.
"I should have done this" he explained to his invisible audience, and promptly blasted the oncoming bandits with a large fireball!

In the distance Christos was heard to call "I've found the door".
Eldarondo yelled "Come on everyone, run for it."
As Gunnar ran past the giggling wizard he called out.
"Eddie, what's the most important rule?"
Eddie paused for a moment, pushing thoughts of fire out of his mind. "Urrr...if I'm at the back, run."
"You're at the back, laddie!"
With a startled yelp, Eddie ran after his comrades.
More bandits and more armoured skeletons now entered the table.

Turning to aim at he skeletons, Sintamo was surprised by a giant snake emerging from a nearby pile of rubble. He avoided the serpent's strike and shot it through the throat.
"I thought you'd have a better way with endangered species" Sir Robin said innocently.
Sintamo glared at him.
"I'm a ranger, not a snake charmer!"
"Scorpion charmer more like!" Robin muttered.

And now a wandering Ogre entered the table!

As the party drew together, Eldarondo called to Eddie.
"Don't look now Eddie, but you are being chased by a giant spider".
With a frightened squeal, Eddie increased pace and overtook the rest of the group.
Eldarondo shot the creature as it scuttled towards them.
"You should have checked with Sintamo, he might have wanted to keep it as a pet."
"Shut up!"
At this point the party too a brief rest, to allow Christos and Eldarondo to use their healing skills and patch up the wounds suffered so far by the party.

Now came the real challenge, every time a PC touched the tower, it would turn in a random direction. This would only happen once in each PC's turn, so the group realised that as soon as the tower stopped moving, they needed to jump onto the tower quickly, before it moved again.
Sintamo, Eddie and  Eldarondo managed to get onto the staircase leading to the door (unfortunately, so did two hungry wolves!)......

While Sir Robin and Christos elected to scale up the wall. Gunnar found himself on the far side of the tower to the rest of the party, with multiple hordes of bandits closing in, so started to climb the wall on that side. Fortunately, as soon as one of the bandits started to follow him, the tower turned, carrying him out of reach of his angry foes!

Having dispatched the wolves, Eddie, Sintamo and Eldarondo climbed the staircase. The ranger was muttered as he rummaged through his pack.
"What are you doing?" Eldarondo asked.
"I've got as set of lock picks in here somewhere, I knew they would come in handy".
The elf gently tried the handle as Sintamo triumphantly brandished his lockpicks.
The door swung open with a low creek.
"It's unlocked!" Eddie explained unnecessarily.
In the meantime, Sir Robin and Christos climbed in through the window.
"Where's Gunnar?"
Two sets of fingertips could be seen, grasping the windowsill across the chamber. With an accompanying grunt the top of a helmet came into view, only to slump back down out of sight.
A second time the helmet came into view, then dropped back out of sight.
"Perhaps it's some kind of Dwarven exercise regime." Robin mused.
"Just give me a hand you two, will you."
"And stop laughing!"

Venturing up to the second floor, Gunnar was sudden attacked by... giant frogs!
"Hop along you lot!"
"Gunnar, that's not really funny."

The dwarven axe made short work of the over-sized amphibians.
"That last one's croaked!" Gunnar chuckled.
"No, no more jokes Gunnar."
"I TOAD you it would be alright."
"Seriously, stop it now!"

The rest of the party followed Gunnar up the stairs.
"Where do you think this relic is going to be?" Eldarondo asked.
"On the top floor, of course." Christos replied.
"It would be" Gunnar mumbled.

As they climbed higher they encountered more aggressive frogs. As Eldarondo finished the last one off, Eddie paused for a moment, looking quizzical.
"I think something is coming up the stairs....."

"...Wolves!"
"What are they doing in here?" Eldarondo asked.
"Hunting frogs?" Sintamo suggested as he shot an arrow over Eddie's shoulder into the throat of one of the beasts.
"Oi, watch my ear!"

By now Sir Robin and Christos had reached the top floor and there, on a stone pedistal, was a bejeweled book with a red and green cover.
"Is that it?" Robin asked.
"I think so." Christos replied.
"Only think so, what does it say".
"I'm not sure, I can't really read it."
Robin raised an eyebrow.
"It's in a secret code know only to the most senior priests of my order, but I do recognise some of the characters."
"Just grab it and let's go."

As the rejoined the rest of the party, Sintamo was musing on the tower's ecosystem.
"I can see why the wolves would come in to hunt all these giant frogs, but what are the frogs eating?"
"Insects?" Eldarondo suggested.
"They'd need to eat bucket loads of insects to survive."
"Big insects, then?"
"GIANT SPIDERS!" Eddie screamed.
"Yes, that would work, no need to shout I'm right next to you."
"NO, GIANT SPIDERS!" Eddie repeated, pointing at the ceiling.
Looking up the party suddenly noticed the amount of cobwebs sprawling across the high, ceilings. From all four corners, a black mass of  writhing creatures scuttled forward.
"Everybody out, now!" Christos yelled and led the race for the door.

Once outside the tower, they saw that all the bandits were gathered together at the far side of the tower, so the PCs leapt of the steps and escaped into the ruins before they were sighted.