Finally got around to playing a game involving Galleys (tough but weakly armed) and Xebecs (fast and powerful, just don’t look at them too hard) and as always ran into a few issues, mostly with Oars.
The rules for moving under oars is nice and simple – ‘move as if at Battle Sails’ – but can a ship move slower if it desires?
Likewise, is a ship moving under oars at the equivalent of Battle Sails speed subject to taking damage if it comes to a sudden halt (e.g. boarding action or entanglement)? Logically the ship structure (and crew) would still be shaken/thrown about from the sudden deceleration, so we assumed it would be.
Should the ‘Sails Critical’ be considered a ‘Sails/Oars Critical’, affecting whichever propulsive system is in use?
Ships on fire leaving the board (in this case, Rudder Critical Hit) – logically, the fire isn’t going to extinguish itself so do we still roll for the ship being extinguished? On the board we can concentrate on extinguishing the fire at the cost of other actions – can we do this off board? Presumably this would add one turn to the ship’s time of return each time this option is taken.
Likewise, nothing prevents a ship that will automatically fail a crew test (e.g. Crew Critical Hit) from attempting to extinguish the fire that I can see – so you can still sacrifice the ability to control your movement in order to prevent the ship exploding on a roll of 1, correct?
Finally – for now – when does a Boarding Action formally end? The clash of our flagship Third Rates had resulted in my opponent’s having to Strike Colours but was still alongside when my opponent got in a perfect Stern Rake at Point Blank Range (mutter, mutter, treble damage moan) including a critical hit. The debate was around whether we still counted as grappled for the purpose of both ships taking damage (and my ignoring the Critical Hit that was inflicted)…I lost the dice roll on that one.
.
