St George's Trafalgar

The all day Trafalgar Game to celebrate St George's Day. All ships supplied and painted by Matt, along with his home-brew rules, a cross-breed of Wooden Ships and Iron Men and a bucket of dice.

Admiral Telson commands the British as they engage the joint French and Spanish force commanded by Martin (Admiral Villeneuve) off the coast of Spain.

From St George's Trafalgar

Colin was Admiral of the Vice Colinwood, and was the first to break the enemy line, mainly because the advanced ships decided run to avoid the incoming Victory lead column. Despite taking substantial damage and soon the area is totally snarled up with wrecks and struck ships. This is despite many of the tail ships of the column not getting to see much action.

Phil was in command of the Allied Van, attempting to turn around across the wind to help. In charge of the rear was Tony, as Admiral Don Gravina, having to deal with the full brunt of Colin's attack.



HMS Africa, the lone ship of Matt's command (the frigates that accompanied her in the actual battle being ignored here), faced off against seven ships and did commendable work in delaying them, but eventually had to succumb to the overwhelming fire power. This lead to the situation where the British now only had two commands verses the enemies three, so even when the British win initiative the enemy gets to move at least one section last.



The rear section of 'Nelsons column', now commanded by late turn up Kieron, finally caught up with the lead after taking the risk of putting up full sail and entered the fray. They had made good use of the delay by double shoting all cannons, and proceeded to bow and stern rake the ensnared opposition to devastating effect.



After the sixth hour of the game the table is a lot less neater than at the start.

This is the pile up at the end of the game, with 14 French\Spanish ships sinking or struck. A few of the British ships, including the Temeraire and the Leviathan were also starting to strike after being trapped by elements of the Van, who ahistorically actually managed to get into combat.



HMS Victory ended up in much better condition than the real battle, shots were bouncing off it all through the game, despite being at close range of the enemy, the French ship Neptune in particular, for most of the action. A few spots of paint and it'll be as good as new.


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