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Back in April, Mark and I decided to return to the Flying Colors series, and ended up at the “Battle of Chios” from Blue Cross, White Ensign. We had some troubles as we started going, as there are some charts oddities that took a while to sort out. The latest versions actually do fix it all, but we only have those because of the deluxe version of Flying Colors. For some reason, GMT has not put the latest and greatest main rules and charts up on the their site.

The scenario itself is hard to find much out about. The Battle of Chesma seems to be the… “siege” of that bay after this battle when the Ottomans withdrew into there, leaving no easy references to this action 1-2 weeks earlier. At any rate the scenario is interesting, with a Turkish fleet at anchor and near shallow water (the shoals near them automatically cause ships to run aground, while the shoals on the other map are ignored). The Russians have the higher audacity rating (2), and in this period are using the “edinerog”, which was a cannon designed for using incendiary shells. This means any damage result can cause fires, but there is a chance of setting your own ship on fire with a poor roll. Overall, there’s more Turkish ships, but they’re all low 3rd and 4th rates, while the Russians have two 1st raters with the rest being 4th.

Mark had the Ottomans, and won the initial initiative, after declaring his entire fleet as one big formation, rotating everyone at anchor (we used the optional rules around anchoring, including only being able to rotate 180° while anchored, and the “turn in succession” rule). I had split into two formations, the lead three ships, and then the rest. Spiridov’s leading formation simply went forward, running with the wind, and headed for the end of the Ottoman line. The larger formation turned towards the Ottomans (just starting at the end of movement) to close the range.

The same arrangements continued into turn 2, with the Turks now having turned 120° towards the oncoming Russians. Evropa got to range 9, and did a hull hit to Seyf-I Bahri. Mark completed his 180 turn at the start of turn 3 (making Seyf the front of the line, instead of the rear), and Evropa and Seyf traded a hull and rigging hit, with Evstafii Plakida missing completely with it’s broadside (this is still all range 9), while Orlov’s main group was still in the middle of its turn.

For turn 4, I split off the rear two ships into a third group (which basically ended the ‘turn in succession’ order), and Mark split his fleet into three formations. For the first time, I won the initiative (on a tied roll), and Spiridov’s formation continued firing at the Seyf and turned in, getting an R and H on it, while taking 2R on Evstafii and Trekh Sviatitelei suffered an accident with its edinerogs to take a hull hit. Cafer Bey’s (now) forward section slipped anchor and started turning towards the shore to bring broadsides to bear, with Tilsim-I Bahri firing for no effect (the rest were still out of range). Elphinstone’s rear ships ran with the wind to pass behind the former center of my line, and head towards Spiridov and Evstafii. The other two Turkish formations got underway, while Orlov continued in, and started turning to fire broadsides into the middle of the mass of Turks. Ianaurii took 2R 1H while doing 2R to Peleng-I Bahri.

I won the initiative on turn 5, with Orlov going first to engage the Turkish line, Rostislav suffering another mishap with the edinerogs, but Trekh rolled well, helping put Cafer Bey’s flagship, Ziver-I Bahri, to 6 rigging damage, and -2 movement. Cafer’s command did 1H1R to Evropa while approaching the shore. Two of Spiridov’s ships turned to the opposite course of Mark’s line and did 4H to Seyf and set it on fire. (This had been the rough plan from the start, to get to the end of the line, and then start cruising down it, firing both broadsides. I never got a chance at that part.) Hassan’s large command cruised forward, doing 6R1H to Ianaurii (one shot got down to range 1!), while Peleng took defensive fire for 1H and caught on fire. Elphinstone turned to follow Orlov and try to close the range faster, while Ali Bey turned to come right at them. Seyf took another 1R1H from the fire, while Peleng‘s magazine caught, causing the ship to explode while still in good shape.

On turn 6, the wind shifted two points clockwise, which put half my ships in irons (including Elphinstone’s ships), and the rest reaching, while the Ottoman fleet was scattered between every status other than in irons. Commands stayed largely the same, though we had some trouble during the turn with finding the exact rules for ships that were reduced to 0 MP by rigging damage, so things went a little strange there for a bit. Ianaurii and Mukadd Serif traded broadsides for 4H and 2R damage respectively. Trekh had another mishap to take a self-inflicted hull, but Ziver caught on fire from the shot. Evropa and Trekh took rigging damage during Cafer Bey’s activation, and Spiridov managed to get Trekh out of irons, and a couple broadsides caught Ukaab-I Bahri on fire. Ali Bey’s “rear” section was now running with the wind, and did some more damage to Ianaurii, while Rostislav suffered firing mishap. Elphinstone got his two ships out of irons and Hassan largely just moved to better positions, but another close-range broadside flipped Ianaurii to damaged. Seyf‘s fire went out (after one more rigging hit), Ukaab took a rigging hit, but the Ziver-I Bahri, also exploded, taking Cafer Bey with it.

We left a session there for the week, and then I remembered we needed to do the break check, so the next session was very short as the Turkish fleet broke and fled, ending the scenario.

Afterword

Once I got used to the edinerogs, they were interesting; trading a DRM for a possibility of damaging yourself. I had a fair amount of bad luck during the scenario, as you can see from all the mishaps with them. But as things went on, the odds started evening things out, with multiple ships catching on fire, though I never managed the multiple fires on one ship which is a special feature of the edinerog.

Mark’s dice were better, but when they failed him, did so in spectacular fashion, with two ships exploding from the fires.

Mark got three VPs for the audacity difference and damaging one ship, while I got 14.5 for the two destroyed ships and Cafer Bey’s death. A fairly convincing victory, and purely because of the edinerog.