The Dutch Navy At War

After about a month of little to no hobby I finally managed to finish a project* and get a game in using them, in this case, my 1:1200 Dutch fleet. Like I said in my last posts, tis fleet has been on the backburner for so long that it had stopped being funny, so getting started was a brilliant feeling. I got to the point that I was really enjoying knowing I had an afternoon rigging a ship, which is something I didn't think was possible. So the last ships I needed to finish were: 

 *for the moment 

The three 54 gun ships

The correct ship with this name (I noticed that I had misnamed a 64 gun ship by accident)

The last pair of ships.

Hofnor is the only non-historical name in this fleet - named after a schooner (Jestor) in the Alan Lawrie stories I'm reading at the sec.

   Then last week, I headed round my mate Neil's house one evening to give my fleet a baptism in fire. My fleet was slightly bigger than Neil's British, but his fleet were generally heavier ship for ship, so it made for an interesting game. We used his Quick Play Naval Rules for the engagement as they feel like an age of sail battle without bogging you down with rules.

I messed up my deployment badly, so spent the first turn trying to get my ships into the semblance of an order of battle, before we hit each other at the start of turn 2.

It was first blood to HMS Captain (74) firing on HNLMS Admiraal de Ruijter (68) but she was soon ganged up on by both HNLMS Admiraal de Ruijter (68) as she pulled past and HNLMS Erfprins. With little HNLMS Ajax (24) getting a cheeky raid in before learning why a small ship shouldn't fire on their betters.

We ended the game on a draw as both fleets were about to begin manoeuvring for their second go past. Thanks again, Neil, for the game, I really enjoyed myself.

Thanks for reading