Moby Dick whale hunt

OWS was honored (US spelling is deliberate) by some special visitors this month: my good American friends Tom Ballou and Sean Barnett.

Tom had been wanting for a while to put on a game at a UK show. This year he finally got around to contacting major UK shows such as Salute, Partizan and Colours, but without much luck until four weeks before the event, the Colours organizers got back to confirm they had a table for him. Little did Tom know, this was the one all our OWS team had had to cancel because of real life getting in the way! Clouds and silver linings ...

Anyway, the trip went ahead and, at quite short notice, Tom and Sean flew over to England. As they were going to be in the area, Tom offered to run his Colours game for us at OWS as well. Yes please!

Now, the game in question wasn't exactly a wargame, certainly not a Bloody Big Battle - but there was plenty of blood, and they don't come much bigger than the main protagonist: Moby Dick! Yes, this was a whale-hunting game in which the infamous cetacean was a dice-driven NPC, while each of us players commanded a whaleboat trying to turn him into lamp-oil and dollars. Readers with qualms about the ethics of a game like this may want to look away now.

This was my boat with its green gunwales. Each crew consisted of a harpoonist, four oarsmen and a steersman.

The mighty whale, covered with harpoons and lines trapping an unlucky seaman. Note the attendant sharks frolicking nearby and looking forward to eating the scraps.

The first three boats get into harpoon range. The disc top right has two sides, "Happy Whale" or "Angry Whale", which affects how fast he moves.

MD starts happy. Guess what harpooning him does.

MD surges angrily forward. The boats that harpooned him find themselves dragged along behind on the 'Nantucket Sleigh Ride'. The red counters indicate how much blood is in the water to attract sharks ...

... which could be bad news for sailors who go overboard, like the ones bobbing in the water here.

Meanwhile, MD is about to charge off the edge of the board. A clever game mechanic says at that point he dives out of the game. The boats then circle nervously, wondering where he will breach again. Hovering seabirds provide a clue. Dave T had had no luck all game, I don't think he'd yet hurled a harpoon, so he was hoping MD would show up close -

- but not that close! Turns out MD's favourite flavor is orange. Could Dave pass the necessary skill rolls to avoid MD's immense maw?

Nooooo! The whaleboat is crushed and its crew devoured.

MD is now Happy Whale.

Ishmael floats on Queequeg's coffin on a very uninviting cold grey sea. (This will mean more to you who have read the book or seen the movie than it did to me.)

With the exception of unlucky Dave, we were actually very fortunate and finally managed to slay the fearsome beast. This was partly because his random movement dice failed to make him dive, partly because Nick O made some monstrous damage rolls.

Regardless of the outcome, it was a tremendously entertaining ride along the way. Apart from the game mechanics, the fun was enhanced considerably by our GM, Tom, in his Captain Ahab hat, adding atmosphere with anecdotes and excerpts from the book, and expatiating knowledgeably about 19th-century whaling.

Apparently the game was created by another gentleman whose name I don't know but would love to credit, and who ran it for years at conventions. Tom played it, loved it, and with its creator's permission codified it and now presents it himself. All the models are Tom's work (can't tell you the manufacturers, sorry). We had a splendid time and I can definitely award Tom the HQGE.