Remembering Nelson

                                     

 
                                          Gotta love some wooden ships and iron men!

I am a great fan of the author Tom Pocock and have several of his titles in my collection. The book you see above is the latest and was acquired at a local boot sale for the princely sum of 50p. Captain Sir William Hoste was in command of the Royal Navy frigate squadron at the battle of Lissa in 1811 and 'Remember Nelson' was the signal he ordered to be run at the onset of the action.

Hoste was very familiar with the Adriatic and the operations therein would make for ideal gaming material due to the scale involved - none of the fleet actions so beloved of wind and water naval gamers, this was real low level stuff - raids, cutting out and taking on the odd fort for good measure. In fact his exploits would be very familiar to anyone that has read Hornblower.

I rather like the idea of gaming in this theatre in some fashion or another and would not expect to need much in the way of kit to do so. I am thinking that Peter Pig's 'Pieces of Eight' pirate rules may be a good place to start in terms of rules ideas as they allow for government forces as well as pirates and other assorted irregulars.