RM5.4 conclusion

The game table at the begining of the game

As Le Mollusc lay in the placid waters of the northern lagoon, five German combat divers approached her. Captain Wangai and a few of his men were keeping watch, but as the hours passed, their attention faded. Suddenly there was a muffled clang as Diver Nr 5 failed to get his grappeling hook attached quietly. Slowly he pulled himself up out of the water, but suddenly he realised there was some one on the ship peering over the side. It was a young Turk with wide eyes, and unsure what to do, Diver Nr 5 took a shot at the sentry with his silenced submachine gun. He missed, the bullets scattering wildly along the ships side, and then he dropped back into the sea. Captain Wangai peered over the side and saw the ring of disturbed water in the darkness.
"Alarm! Attack!" The young Turk cried out, and one by one the sleepy crew began to crew began to pour out onto the deck.

Far out in the darkness, Baron von Shöenberg and his men waited for a signal, the sound of gun fire perhaps, or a flare. But neither the sounds of alarm, nor the noise of the silenced weapon carried across the sea.

As the crew of the small freighter clustered about the super structure, they became aware that several divers had climbed onto the front of the ship and were attempting to turn the 75mm gun to face the bridge. They were immediatly met with a hail of gunfire as Captain Wangai looked on. The divers, under the commander of Hauptman Horst Steinhof soon found themselves pinned down and in an impossible position. Even loading the gun proved impossible as the amount of ammunition richocheting about their ears created a lethal killing zone around them. Eventually, a 75mm shell was dropped on its nose and began to hiss ominously so the three divers manning the gun paniked and jumped over board leaving Hauptman Steinhof by himself. Steinhof didn't have time to shout orders though because the hatch he was guarding suddenly opened and a fat Turk tried to emerge from within the ship.

Hauptmann Steinhof and his men attempt to seize the 75mm gun

All this gunfire had since alerted the lurking patrol boats and Kapitan Michael Lerner gave the order to attack. The patrol boat 'Hela' switched on her searchlight for a few seconds, just long enough to spot Le Mollusc and give the Heinkel a burst of gunfire from its main gun, a 20mm MG FF autocannon, firing high explosive rounds. The seaplane was destroyed but didn't catch fire, as Kapitan Lerner had hoped (his idea had been to illuminate the freighter with the burning aircraft).

Hela

Hauptman Steinhof, still fighting on the bow of Le Mollusc sent the fat Turk back down the hatch with a vicious chop to the back of his head, but even as the shame faced divers attempted to crawl back up the bows to help him, a mad Irishman wearing a fire helmet, greasy underpants and nothing else, climbed up the hatch clutching a fire axe! Hauptman Steinhof knocked him back down, but failed to kill him, and a few moments later the grinning Celt was back for a second try. This time, thanks to Diver Nr 3 having clamboured back to the bow, Hauptman Steinhof managed to make the first kill of the game and the Irish man went down for good (a post game die roll established his death).

THWACK!

Diver Nr 5 takes a pot shot at Captain Wangai

Whilst all these shenanigans were taking place, Hela was fast approaching, zig zagging to bring all her guns to bear, and spraying the rear of Le Mollusc with gun fire. The pirates weren't shy though, and returned fire with gusto. Alas, every one opened fire at extreme range so no one was doing any significant damage, though a lot of people spent their time suppressed.

Diver Nr 5 was still treading water, looking up at the ship he'd failed to climb aboard. He'd tried to climb aboard the Heinkel, but the 20mm gunfire from Hela had almost take his head off so he was left aiming his sub machine gun up at Captain Wangai* and naturally he took the shot, with a die roll of 1. Wangai noticed some one was firing at him, but didn't pay it much attention (thus passed my last decent opportunity to meet at least one victory criteria).

Time was running out and neither of the German boats was going to make it in time and when the sands ran out, we ended the game with an unsatisfatory victory for Le Mollusc and her crew. Curious to see whether they could make a dash for it, two of the divers on the bow started for the ships super-structure, only to be instantly cut down. At the same time, Ivan on the twin .50's took a tentative long range shot at the approaching dive boat and polished off a rifleman.

The game was unfortunately something of a failed attempt. The original idea had been to have a gunfight on board the ship, but what we end up with was two long range duels which took so long that we ran out of time, and as a consequence of the last few games I've come to the conclusion that narrative skirmish games can't function properly within the constraints imposed by our current system BAYONET.

Our solution will be to adapt the rules to this kind of game by increasing the length of time allocated to each round. Essentially what this means is that an unencumbered human running across good terrain will move twelve inches per round, instead of three. Oleg suggests automatic gun fire becomes more effective as a counter to the different time frame and I think this is probably a really good idea given that people will be moving much faster whilst the effective gunfire rate will be cut by a third. Its a compromise, but I can't see how else this type of game can function if each round only represents one second in game time.

Chapter Five will continue to use BAYONET, but after Christmas, RM6 will be played using BAYONET+. Oleg also has plans on putting all of our various rule systems online sometime next year, so any one curious will be able to see how the system works.

* Silenced sub machine guns were available in 1936, but I'm less sure about submachines which would function when fired from the sea... it is a historical ambiguity, I'll admit, but hardly a sticking point in a game like Rocketman.

Captain Wangai on the bridge

Edith Flavien

Le Mollusc returns fire against Hela

The dive boat, shown here prior to the game beginning, never even made it into the fight

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