Sunday, February 11, 2007

The Battle of La Coruna



The Peninsula War is in full swing and Britain is preparing for a new offensive. Troops and supply’s are being brought to assist Field Marshal Wellesley and Marshal Beresford. Captain Sir John Franklin has been given command of a heavily armed convoy and promoted to Commodore with acting orders to bring his ships safely to Lisbon. Under his command are twelve men-o-war, six of whom are acting supply ships.

Opposing the Royal Navy is a French squadron of ten ships under the command of Captain Georges de Feure, all men-o-war, and, having received a tip off, all intent on preventing the supplies from reaching their destination. Despite Commodore Franklin trying to evade the French, the two forces meet some seventy kilometres due west of La Coruna on a cool and clear morning with moderate sea’s.


Its been a good long while since I made my little Napoleonic ship counters and now finally, it looks like we might actually get around to using them! The above is the intro to a game my friends and I have planned for Thursday, using 'the big table'. Its been a whole year since we did any sort of table top battle. I can hardly believe it. We play every Thursday we can and yet a full year has passed since the last time we had the big table board out. The problem is all the bleeding fantasy campaigns we get bogged down in, we're still doing two now, alternating every week between them. One is winding down, but the other is only just beginning. Fortunately, we're set to play ROCKETMAN III soon and that will be a series of five games (which were originally planned for a year ago). Frankly I'm thinking of giving up fantasy role playing games. I've had just about enough of them. They're all so similar, I want to do something new, or at least something old that I haven't touched in a long time. Call of Cthulhu maybe...?
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2 comments:

brando said...

I just signed up for GenCon today. I haven't been to one before, but I'll give it a try. I read the Call of Cthulhu sourcebook, and it's a bit too dark for my tastes. It feels like there's no way to win, because the monsters are waaaaay to strong.

I was big into 40K for a while, but they just got too darn expensive.

moif said...

Yeah, you don't win in CoC, you try to survive without going inasane. Its a bit like Denmarks national health service.

I've never played 40k. I've bought a few figures for other purposes,a nd I was drawn to the game in the very beginning, but the price and the many uber geek fanatics put me off. I love sci fi and I'm fond of wargames, but the Warhammer combinatin had to much of the trainspotter about it. Too many anaraq's as they would say in the UK.

Also, history appeals to me more. Its 'real', and there is an endless source to draw upon, and the geeks tend to be older, less driven by teenage angst and more inclined towards levity.