A session report of my playtest of v0.6.1 of Sails Ahoy! by u/rancorman7

I only have a handful of age of sail miniatures actually painted up, so I've been creating my own papercraft ships to better playtest different fleet combinations.

I played the King of the Fort scenario with two rival Dutch Merchant Fleets facing off against one another. A pirate fortress full of stolen goods has been discovered, and a race to "reclaim" this treasure has ensued. The goal is to destroy the fort and then race to claim one of the ports along the island first. Captain Dirk leads his merchant fleet in his medium ship "The Bear" alongside Captain Gerrit and Captain Willem in their light ships, "The Hunter" and "The Hawk" respectively.

On the other side we have Captain Decken in his heavy ship "The Neptune" supported by Captain Cornelis in his medium ship "The Lion". 

**Narrative Battle Report**

Acting first, The Neptune sails into firing range and opens up with a light barrage into the pirate fortress at distance causing minimal damage. The Lion opts to hang back and observe the battle, out of range of any enemy cannons.

The pirate fortress responds with a lucky volley of its own, severely damaging one of The Neptune's three masts, and taking out a few of her cannons.

Captain Dirk and his small fleet sail into range of the fortress and start offering a light cannon barrage of their own into the fortress with good effect. The pirate fortress retaliates with a crushing cannon volley, pounding Dirk's entire fleet. The fortress is fairing much better than originally anticipated.

Seeing an opportunity, The Hunter and the Hawk use their superior speed and agility to split off from The Bear and set a course to go harass The Neptune as it slowly sails into range.

A number of cannon volleys continue to be exchanged between the fortress and the various ships within range, while The Lion continues to hang back, observe the battle, and wait for the right opportunity. The fortress is nearly destroyed, however all ships besides The Lion have taken significant damage in the raiding action thus far.

The Hunter, seeing an opportunity to finish things quickly, changes course away from it's engagement with The Neptune and delivers a final cannon volley onto the pirate fortress finishing it off for good.

The Hawk, true to its name, takes this chance to swoop in and raid the nearest port, easily taking it over in spite of the heavy damage she has sustained so far.

Captain Decken, furious at being outmaneuvered by his rival, orders The Neptune to load its double shot and sails into point blank range of The Hunter. A devastating broadside is unleashed into The Hunter. Unable to weather such an attack in its weakened state, The Hunter sinks with all hands on board.

The Lion, now seeing that the battle has largely died down, starts making a leisurely approach towards the second port to attempt to capture it while The Neptune begins a frightening pursuit of The Hawk, sister ship of The Hunter.

However Captain Dirk of The Bear, with his expert helmsman, is able to make a wide approach and cleanly sail into the second port to capture it, securing the island and the treasure for his own merchant fleet, winning the day.

Captain Cornelis is likely to get a stern dressing down from Captain Decken about the "overabundance of caution" he exhibited in his command of The Lion during this engagement.

**The Game**

A fun scenario, the game ran rather quickly since I used 1:700 scale ships within a  2ft x 2ft play area. Normally the game would end after the first port was captured, but that would have concluded the game after only one round, so I decided to extend the game, changing the end requirement to be that both ports needed to be captured, instead of only one.

The fortress capitulated a little faster than I anticipated, but given the number of ships focusing on it at once, that is not too surprising. It also deals out quite a bit of damage since it is able to shoot every ship within range of its cannons each time a player finishes moving their fleet, making it a high priority target.

The papercraft ships I created are based off of sketches by 18th century Dutch artist Gerrit Groenewegen. I only discovered his work recently, and he has a lot of really awesome marine sketches and etchings. I would encourage you to take a look at his work online through the Rijksmuseum at https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection. 

To encourage people to try age of sail games like Ships Ahoy! I've posted the papercraft ship miniatures that I used to playtest this game up onto Wargame Vault.  People on this subreddit can use the discount link below to get it for free for the next five days https://www.wargamevault.com/browse.php?discountId=9739c77a31

If you want to try out Sails Ahoy! you can find the free beta rules below as well as a link to the Discord. Happy sailing!

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19fzF3jjFkPaQu20ffrTSFUrB-TKHuSFd?usp=drive\_link

https://discord.com/invite/u8ApJrj7Q4

Sails Ahoy! King of the Fort - Papercraft Playtest