Galleys & Galleon's 'pursuit' game

In the lead up to Christmas I was able to sneak off to gaming buddy Jim's place for some G&G. We played a basic pursuit style game with my two 200 point fleets. I ran my Dutch merchant fleet as the defender, and Jim took the pirates and played as the attacker.

My merchant vessels tried to make a straight run up the centre of the table to escape through my designated 'safe zone'. The Nassau, my escort sloop, headed off to distract the pirates before they could engage with the merchantmen.

The view from the Haarlem and the Brabant.

Skipping forward somewhat.... this shot shows the pirates Jezebel (on fire) and Oberon closing on the Brabant. In the upper left you can see the Haarlem beset by pirate cutters. In the centre is the wreckage of the pirate galleon Irrepressable which failed to negotiate the shallows while to the left, the Nassau continues to rake the sterns of the pirates.

The same - but from a different angle... 

Towards the end of the game, it all went very badly for the Dutch. The Brabant also sank due to shallows (why do I never learn????!?) and the Haarlem was overrun by sea dogs. The sloop Nassau and the junk Tea Chest (apparently unloved by the camera) slunk away off one of the non-safe table edges leaving the pirates in control of the table. On the up side, the pirate brig Oberon ended up having its rudder shot away and - shortly after this photo was taken - ran aground on the smuggler's island. Although technically the winners, the pirates had a most Pyrrhic victory, losing both their galleon and brig.

A fun, bloody and chaotic game. My thanks to Jim for his hospitality!