Battle of Ironbottom Reef, 18 Feb.

Greg, Trent, & I had a very close, and very desperate, Uncharted Seas game last night. Admiral Trent commanded the Shroud Mage Flagship, Medium Cruiser and Frigate squadrons while Vice Admiral Britt commanded 2 Battleships and the Heavy Cruiser squadron. Our orders were to patrol the islands off Iron bottom Reef for suspected Iron Dwarf incursions.
About 7PM, during driving rain, Admiral Greg's Iron Dwarf fleet, accompanied by 2 airships, was sighted. Admiral Trent signalled "Close with and destroy the enemy". The battle was on!
Stay alert for Greg's detailed AAR and nice photos as usual. In the end, the airships did massive damage to the SM flagship, and the ID Battleship finished it off. Admiral Trent fighting bravely until the end. This left only the badly damaged Iron Dwarf BB and my 2 BB's remaining. The Iron Dwarf BB faded into a rainstorm while the SM BB's conduct rescue operations in an attempt to find Admiral Trent.
An excellent, and incredibly close, fight. Thanks fellows for braving the foul weather to come out for a game. Monday was the first time I've played a game in a month, and I greatly missed it. I love Uncharted Seas for its simplicity and cleanness...or maybe I just enjoy ramming things!
My detail report hey, ummmmm, I forgot to take notes . So sorry no report, but you have some nice pictures instead.
The best memories:
Having the Shroud Mage Heavy Cruiser ramming the Iron Dwarf cruiser and rolling double one on the critical chart and been sunk by the explosion.
The other was watching the air ship drop it bombs to do no damage to the Shroud Mage Flagship
Then having the Shroud Mage battleship causing enough hits on a airship for a Critical roll and rolling double one again. There was some tense moments on the Shroud Mage Flagship.
Rolling three time to see who won the initiative, that's after the Iron Dwarfs used a card that gave them a plus three.
The best was having the two Shroud Mage players worrying who was going to get prompted.


Anyways till next time, may the dice roll high for you.
Regards
Greg

UNCHARTED SEAS & FSA AND SOME TERRAIN

 

Fist up a couple of new ships for uncharted seas, one is the Iron Dwarves Guardian Class Floating Citadel and the other is the Thanaris Elves Thunderbird Class Storm Cruiser.

 

The next lot is for FSA and comes in the form of Terran Apollo Mk II Class Battleship & Terran Hermes Mk II Class Cruiser. The Directorate are not left behind either with Directorate Executioner Mk II Class Cruiser.

The last is terrain i order from proxie models(http://proxiemodels.com/). They are cheap and look good, i just need to get the roofs right. In the pictures below is the 15mm gothic building(one with the arch windows), this building is more a 10mm or smaller sizes. It works great with the epic scale figures. The other pieces are 15mm, i would say a true 15mm.

Any ways may the dice roll high for you.

Greg

UCS BATTLE

 

Greg & I had probably our best and certainly most hard-fought, game of Uncharted Seas last night. He brought over his beautifully painted Thaniras Elves and Iron Dwarves, and gave me the choice of which to use for the upcoming battle. I chose Iron Dwarves, remembering what a pummelling they gave my Shroud Mages in our last fight.

(As always Britt wrote the report and i took the pictures, I have added the forces that were used and who won)

The captains of the forces in question in the above pictures

FORCES ENVOLVED IN BATTLE

IRON DWARFS(1235 PTS)

Squadron : 160 Points Chainmail Class Flagship

Squadron : 120 Points Forge Class Battleship

Squadron : 120 Points Forge Class Battleship

Squadron : 255 Points 3 Anvil Class Heavy Cruiser

Squadron : 140 Points  4 Mortis Class Frigate

Squadron : 150 Points 3 Hammer Class Cruiser

Squadron : 140 Points  4 Mortis Class Frigate

Squadron : 150 Points  3 Hammer Class Cruiser

 

Thaniras ELFS(1265 PTS)

Squadron : 145 Points Chimera Class Flagship

Squadron : 110 Points Phoenix Battleship

Squadron : 110 Points Phoenix Battleship

Squadron : 165 Points 3 Cobra Class Cruiser

Squadron : 165 Points 3 Cobra Class Cruiser

Squadron : 165 Points 3 Cobra Class Cruiser

Squadron : 225 Points  3 Griffon Class Heavy Cruiser

Squadron : 90 Points 3 Raven Frigate

Squadron : 90 Points 3 Raven Frigate

Battle Report

The 4’ x 4’ board was set up with four islands, 2 near the centre and 2 on the player’s right. Greg’s Thaniras Elves deployed along the north edge, my Iron Dwarves along the south. I deployed conventionally, with frigate squadrons on the far flanks, then cruisers, with Battleships & Flagship in the centre of my line. Being faster (or craftier I) Greg also had light units on the flank, but deployed more in depth with his Flagship well behind the line, on his left centre.

 

The 4’ x 4’ board was set up with four islands, 2 near the centre and 2 on the player’s right. Greg’s Thaniras Elves deployed along the north edge, my Iron Dwarves along the south. I deployed conventionally, with frigate squadrons on the far flanks, then cruisers, with Battleships & Flagship in the centre of my line. Being faster (or craftier I) Greg also had light units on the flank, but deployed more in depth with his Flagship well behind the line, on his left centre.

   As is usual, the battle opened with Frigates on both sides hammering each other. I soon became aware of the facts that not only were the elves faster than me, they had longer ranged weaponry. Fortunately, Dwarf armour is second to none! My central battleships soon began to work on the Elf cruisers to my front, but the large form of the Elven Flagship appeared from behind an island soon had all my attention. On the west side, Elven Heavy Cruisers are winning the fire fight against my Light Cruisers, eventually ramming and boarding the lot. What they didn’t win by boarding, other elf cruisers finished off by gunfire. My left flank west of “West Island” ceased to exist, though my Frigates put up a good fight. In the centre, things are looking better for the Dwarfs, as the BB’s there sink most of the Elf Cruisers (including one which struck an unknown sandbar). In the east, the Elves continue to advance. A Frigate penetrates the Dwarf line and stern rakes my Heavy Cruiser,  then the Elven Flagship wades in and with a horrendous overkill, blast apart a heavy cruiser.(I never saw so many 6’s).. Next turn the Elf Flagship also plasters the Dwarf Flagship. The damage was bad, but the critical hit of -6 to future firing made my flagship near unusable. Near, but not quite I thought. I’ll ram. And I did, only to be bounced back 2 inches by some elven force field! The Elven Admiral laughed at me. Cruel. I While that transpired, most of the Elven Flagship’s support units were going under, often accompanied by the same number of my own. Still, it now had to fight alone, and the Dwarf Flagships ram the next turn was successful. It would take 2 more turns, but the Elven Flagship was captured.

   On the West flank, calamity followed calamity for the dwarfs. Even the sending in of a BB and a cruisers squadron couldn’t reverse the tide. In a bit of low cunning, a beached Elf BB blew up, killing both one of his cruisers & one of mine, and almost also destroying my BB nearby. Treacherous sods, these elves! Now the Dwarfs were in trouble as a squadron of heavy cruisers and an Elven BB swept around the West Island and toward the rear of my badly damaged fleet. A quick check told the story of the Dwarf fleet with 2 half strength BB’s, a useless Flagship, 3 Frigates and a Heavy Cruiser facing  equal firepower of 3 Elf Heavy Cruisers and a Battleship with the advantage of position.

 

 

But night was falling (i.e., 11PM), and an add up of points gave the Dwarfs a victory (mainly due to the capture of the Elf Flagship), though as viewed from the Dwarf Flagships Bridge, it certainly didn’t look that way. Both sides broke off the action and headed for port.

Points cost at end of game

IRON DWARFS: 1000

Thaniras ELFS: 710

That was an excellent game Greg with beautiful models. A most enjoyable evening indeed.

May the dice roll high for you.

Regards

Greg