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| The Waters of Valcour Bay |
Yesterday was the 244th anniversary of the Battle of Valcour Island, where Benedict Arnold led a small fleet of hastily built gunboats and ships against an also hastily built fleet of British vessels located on Lake Champlain between Vermont and New York. While the battle ended in an American defeat, it also ended the 1776 campaign season for the British attempting to come down out of Canada to take Fort Ticonderoga and Mount Independence.
The anniversary reminded me of the Battle of Valcour Island game that I had been putting together last year. In September, I build the American ship Enterprise. I had so much fun with that build, that a couple of weeks later I assembled the HMS Inflexible.
Over the winter, I dabbled a bit with putting together the game. War Artisan's Workshop has a great set of papercraft ships, covering the vessels that took part in the battle, as well as a free set of naval rules called Away Boarders! My original intention was to build both the American and British Fleets, a game board, and some custom player sheets then play out the battle this year on or near the anniversary date.
Unfortunately, I didn't make much progress on this project. I ordered a couple more ship kits, and started to assemble them, and played a bit with creating a board. Away Boarders! uses a sort of grid system, with dots in triangular formations representing ship locations. I wanted to create a board that both looked good, and was functional with the rules. The above photo was the result of my one test. A 2'x2' piece of hardboard was sprayed with a rattle can of greenish-blue texture paint that I had used on the bases of the two ships that I build. I then used a white paint pen to add very small dots in the grid system used for the game. Overall, I liked the look, however, that's all the progress I have.
With this project in mind again, maybe I'll add it to my winter project list and see about hosting a Valcour Island game on the 245th anniversary.
