Treasure island

 

As the year ends it's time to play the last games on the list. Today we've done a Manowar match with two elf fleets sailing towards the treasure buried in an island

First to land is the white fleet, that sends parties of seaguard ashore to search for loot

That is soon found when a 6 is rolled!

The eagleship soon pays for her recklessness, the enemy flagship wipes out the skeleton crew left behind and scuttles her, leaving the remaining sailors stranded ashore!

The black fleet is now without losses, and their own eagleship is sunk by massed boltleys

Finally as the black dragonship grabs the treasure from the cold, lifeless hands of the enemy, the white flagship is holed by two critical hits and destroyed sealing the game

The Black Gulf

 Rumour has it that an ancient dwarf tresure is buried in the abandoned forts of the Black Gulf, two rival fleets from Ulthuan have sailed out looking for adventure and plunder

Prince Yltrain's fleet's flag the Isha is stilled by a spell

 While the first landing parties from prince Hallian begin searching the island

 An eagleship fires long range bolts, that knock off some eagleclaws

 Prince Hallian himself leds an exploring team and finds the treasure in no time

 The coffer is stowed below decks

 Hallian's pet wizard unleashes a monster on the striken Isha

 Hallian bullies his way to safety through several hawkships

 In the other side of the battle an eagleship is stung by her lessers

 Coiling its body around the Isha the sea serpent constricts its prey

 With a turn of the rudder the dragonship sails away with the treasure, sealing the game

Ambush at the Tower of the Sun

 After a successful commercial expedition to Catay the fleet of Ulthuan is coming home with its holds full of valuable spices, jade sculptures and silk. The ships are sailing lazily trough some straits south of the elfic colony called the Tower of the Sun when suddenly a pack of sinister ships is spotted ahead. Man your stations, the renegade pirates are upon us!

  First to open the ball are pirate hawkships that pelt the enemy flag with bolts

 The high elf dragon ship veers and opens up with her broadsides

 In the left a pirate eagleship and some hawkships exchange broadsides

 The pirate prince dragonship rams and sinks an enemy man o' war, sadly the treasure goes to the bottom too

 The spear of Caledor, pride of Ulthuan's fleets fails to sink the enemy flag

 Pirates board an escort and capture the third treasure

 With a flawless turn, the pirate dragonship sends her counterpart (and treasure) to the bottom

With just two hawkships remaining, the high elves run for it admiting defeat

The Strait of Dawn

 With two basic elf fleets ready it was time for some Man o' War action!

Each fleet has one dragonship, one eagleship and a squadron of three hawkships plus a wizard.

As terrain I used some of my recent shoreforts; the wind was coming from the far table edge.

 Music was on point too

 The battle began with my wakships bombarding the enemy dragonship

 My flagship then closed with the enemy, firing the prow bolt throwers as it went

 The enemy hawkships sailed around an island intent on turning my flank

 The high elf hawkship struggles against the wind

 My dragonship rams and damages her counterpart

 Then my eagleship fires a volley of bolts, causing a critical and sinking the enemy dragonship

The remaining eagleship fired a broadside, but wa soon overtaken by my ships, dismasted and conquered in a one sided boarding action. The high elves conceded at this point.

Since this first game was played in under an hour, we had the chance to do another two to get to grips with the rules, my opponent even winning once!

After the three fights it became clear that the hawkships need square bases to ease their moves. 

The first battle was played at 600pts, which seems about the right size for quick and funny games, so if I make further fleets they'll be 600ish points each.

Man o' War eagleship

 Painted up another eagleship! This one will be for the "pirate elves" fleet; hence I painted it in sinister, badguysy colours reminiscent of dark elves. I did not remove any high elf detail, that way I can combine both fleets into a bigger thousand points one, which is the standard size for Man o' War. Someday I might scratchbuild a second fleet so the elves have someone to bash against.

Spooky halloween ship?

Man o' War hawkships

 Painted some dreadfleet auxiliaries as high elves

Man o' War galleys

 Did some galleys for the game, these will be jacks of all trades, doubling up as most of the one wound ships across the fleets