BLACK SEAS - HOW TO LOSE YOUR NO CLAIMS BONUS!

 After a week or so painting, rigging and fitting sails, I have a grand total of TWO of Warlord Games' beautiful little sailing ships ready to play Black Seas. I decided to start small and paint brigs, one each for the Royal Navy and the French Navy. With two brigs completed, it's time to get them on the table and try out the first scenario in the rule book.

My Royal Navy brig is HMS Reliable, commanded by Lieutenant, The Honourable, Archie Browne-Trowsers, younger son of the Earl of Fordwich.

Sworn enemy of Browne-Trowsers is Lieutenant Maurice Mangetout, Master and Commander of the Honnete.

As mentioned above, my very first venture into the Black Seas, was to be the opening scenario in the rule book, Out of the Fog.

The table was set up with the wind blowing a gentle westerly and the random die roll gave the Honnete the weather gauge, sailing from the southern edge of the board.

The first lesson you learn about Black Seas, is that, although the ships seem to be miles away from each other at the start of the game, the distance between them closes so rapidly that, by Turn 2, they are suddenly passing each other at point blank range.

I need to read the rules about "fire as she bears" before my next outing, as Mangetout missed the opportunity to inflict some damage on Reliable as they passed. First shots in the encounter were fired by the Reliable however and Honnete suffered a couple of points of damage.

In the videos I've watched of Black Seas games, the wind never seems to change direction, but on Turn 3, the wind shifted a point, moving round to a south-westerly. This was massively significant, as it gave the weather gauge to the Reliable and she was able to start a manoeuvre round to port to chase down the Honnete, which has begun to make a dash for the table edge and an honourable, if somewhat boring, draw.

On the next turn, Reliable caused more damage to the Honnete and attempted to grapple the French brig. Fortunately for Mangetout, the Royal Navy failed their Skill Test and the grapple failed. However, the Reliable used the rest of its activation to swing round in front of the Honnete, forcing the Frenchman to take a collision test at the start of its next activation!

Yet more failed Skill Tests led to the Honnete smashing uncontrollably into the Reliable and the 8 points of damage, on top of the earlier firing damage inflicted by the British gunners, triggered another French Skill Test... inevitably, the Dice Gods looking unfavourably down on the Honnete, another failure resulted in the Frenchmen Striking the Colours and surrendering to a delighted Browne-Trowsers.

So, the young Lieutenant Archie has taken his first Prize and the First Republic had lost its first ship to the Royal Navy. Surprisingly, I didn't roll any Critical Hits in the game, which was a bit annoying as I'd spent a large part of the previous day making a "Critical Hit Table", to print onto the reverse of the QR Sheet. All in all, I'm looking forward to the next game, even though I found some bits a bit fiddly. I used paper clips to keep track of damage, rather than the tiny card markers in the set and, I found making turns a tad knotty as the ships slid about quite a bit on the shiny surface of the mat.

The festive season is going to need some time committed to more ship building and some further reading into the Additional Rules section of the rule book. For now however, we need to say Adieu to Maurice Mangetout and the crew of the Honnete, as they sail into the frightful captivity of a prison hulk!

Black Seas Brigs

This is the French brig Honnête, my first attempt at a Warlord Black Seas warship! I've always had a fascination with people who have a fascination with the sea, but have never had any sort of hankering for a naval life myself. The last time I set foot on a boat was about twenty years ago, when we were stupid enough to actually pay someone to take three generations of our family on a tour of the Farne Islands, on a day when there was 'a bit of a swell'!

I made the mistake of watching some 'how to play' videos and suddenly, the Postman was knocking on the door with a Master & Commander Starter Set. Why I did it, I just don't know! The idea of painting a 1/700th scale brig model, rigging, fitting sails and ratlines must have been born of sheer madness. But, there were lots of pictures of other people's models, so it must be possible!

 There is lots of information out there, but it does take some considerable investment in time and effort to pull it all together. There are some really good tutorials on rigging frigates but the only one I could find on a brig was one where the tutor was using the guide to rigging a frigate in the Black Seas Rule Book.

If you are thinking about having a go with Black Seas, then my best piece of advice is to think in terms of how things appear to have been done historically; make yourself Master & Commander of the ship you are painting and you choose how it's all going to be done.

There is a really good method of rigging your ship with a single length of thread on the Black Seas Facebook page; I adapted that slightly and then went to Stage 3 of the rigging instructions in the Rule Book (the bit about rigging 'backstays') and that was enough for me. It is very very fiddly, but if you keep it simple and work to your own limitations, then it is massively rewarding when you get to the end.

I would definitely recommend buying the bases from Warlord, as I found that all my lovely paintwork on the hull started to disappear with all the handling you have to do when working on the rigging and sails.

 This is my, currently nameless, Royal Navy brig, preparing for many deadly encounters with the Honnête. I think that experience is paying off and this attempt is an improvement on the first. Once I saw how much work was involved in getting these things on the table top, I vowed that I would only ever do two, but now I'm thinking that these long Winter nights would be a good time to continue learning and making more of these lovely little ships. I'm definitely not going to build anything bigger than a frigate!

I can see all those Hornblower and Bolitho novels that I have read over the years paying dividends now as my little ships take to the high seas, without any possibility whatsoever of me getting my feet wet.

I have to say 'hats off' to Warlord; they have put together an excellent package in the Master & Commander Starter Set. There is everything (apart from bases!) that you need to get you started. As I said earlier, it has involved a lot of rummaging around on t'internet to get to a point where I feel comfortablish with what I should be aiming for with my little ships, but I would certainly recommend the Black Seas Facebook Group as a source of helpful information. I think I was on the verge of giving up at the rigging stage, until I came across a photo posted on the group page of a simple one thread method of starting off and that got me motivated to press on and have a go.

The Master & Commander Starter Set can be found here on the Warlord site. £56 is a major investment, but you do get a lot for your money. I've already got the Merchant Vessels set on my Christmas list.