Cruel Seas: Convoy attack!

Last week, David and I broke out the Cruel Seas boats and had a thoroughly enjoyable night shooting each other to pieces.
(Wargames - one of the few hobbies hobby when you can legitimately beat up your mates).
David and I tossed a coin for whgo played which side and David got the allies. I chose three German S85 Schnellboats, and much fun they were. This shot has nothing to do with the actual game, it just looked good as we were getting boats out and setting up!


Breaker 1-9, this here is Rubber Duck, looks like we got ourselves a CONVOY! David had three Fairmile Bs, a Flower class corvette and two tankers (who acted as one) to try to get across table. That's an awful lot of firepower! I am meant to have a larger ship guarding table end, but I've never got round to buying one!
 

My first shot, at long range, with a bow 20mm gun does this to a tanker! 3d6 and extra damage on a critical, woohoo! (To be honest, I never beat this roll all game).


"I don't know, fly casual!" Ships that pass in the night. David's first shot with 6 pounders tears huge lumps out of my lead boat.


Being out numbered AND out-gunned, I decided not to get distracted by the Fairmiles, and go in on the tankers all guns blazing at combat speed (just fast enough to cause me to be slightly difficult to hit, just slow enough not to upset my own gunners), plus I was going to be inside torpedo arming distance from the off, so needed to get round to lengthen the range.


Might have SLIGHTLY miscalculated the move distance here? Actually, I missed ramming the corvette amidships, miraculously. David brackets me with Fairmiles while his third tries to move to overtake the convoy and assist. By now all guns that were unmasked were concentrating on the rear tanker, if any could hit. The left-hand boat kept up her formidable hit record, while the others were patchy to say the least!


It's a wee bit choppy in his wake! My schnellboats even get to use their crew pistols, bottles, stones and bridge MGs to try and hit the tanker! Thankfully, I was inside the minimum range of the corvette's big guns, because his smaller stuff was tearing through the plywood.


His number 3 boat decides not to bother chasing me round, and turns back up the tankers instead, bringing its 6lbers to broadside.


Disaster! With two Fairmails and a corvette concentrating on it, an realativly unscathed S-boat turns turtle, while the tankers still plough on, despite the rear one taking a slowing engine hit


Who left the dice bag there! My two remaining S-boats make a hard turn to pursue the tankers, threading the needle between them and the nearest Fairmile.


Double disaster, after taking a crew hit, my second S-boat also goes under. Daid was now grinning very broadly with every miss as the damage counter appeared to go on for ever as only a few smaller callibre shots landed.


Fish in the water! Thankfully, not a dud. BANG! David at this point kindly pointed out that if I rolled the 16d6 for a successfully hitting torpedo, it would be somewhat overkill as he had less than 16 points remaining!


Glub!


But it was too late for my boats as the Fairmiles pull alongside my stricken boats to rescue the crews.


It was at this point David showed me the damage counter for the last tanker. 1 point remained!


A glorious win for the British and a huge giggle all round, a very cinematic game, and a huge laugh. Thank you. Even the sky was brilliant on the way home.


Love it