Makes me glad I remember my hand-to-hand combat. If I ever see Earth again, I'll send my grandfather a bottle of Brass Monkey to thank him for the training.
Somehow I doubt I've gotten the hang of that dice thing to any praticable degree, so I find myself once again at the mercy of the house when I go ashore. I'll look for a place to hang around when it's my turn to go ashore, and once again I'll follow a more experienced sailor - Walt, Dooley, or Donald.
If there's no drinking to be done and no gambling worth the odds, I'll pass my time ashore sitting on the pier playing my flute. They don't have laws against panhandling, do they?
Walt will certainly spot you for a drink if you like.
Who are you asking about the panhandling thing?
--M. J. Young
The panhandling thing was more an idle musing. If anyone tells me to move along while I'm sitting there playing I'll move along. I'll have a drink on Walt, and spend the rest of the time looking around. If nobody is willing to show me around, I'll spend an hour or so walking around, probably up the longest straight road I can find. If I can, I'd like to find a place to buy a map of this city, and if they have one, a map of Sardic, too, so that by the time we get to Sardic I'll know somewhere worth going. Not sure what I'll buy it with, but at least I can find out what one costs.
A map of Tempest costs ten diktar for a printed one, one hundred for a good hand-drawn one. No one in Tempest that you can find sells maps of Sardic.
Tempest is a much rougher sort of town than Durnmist was, the sort of large city with ample squalor and strong class distinctions from one neighborhood to the next. You can understand why weapons are banned, but it doesn't seem likely that there aren't any around.
--M. J. Young
Being out and about in such a town makes me even more glad for my hand-to-hand training. Seeing as I haven't a cent - what do they call fractions of a diktar, anyway? I would sound foolish asking that, but anyway - haven't a cent to my name, I won't go buying any maps, but if I can I'll take my time looking at one, getting a basic feel of the place.
Interesting that they have printing. I hadn't exactly expected that. The printing press was a revolution in our world, but it doesn't seem to have done a heck of a lot for these people. Maybe these people just aren't seeing any trickle-down from it. Too bad there are no schools. Well, good thing there are none of the German-style schools my homeworld suffers under, but too bad there's not something better, like Roman-model schools...
Ah, idle musings. Not wanting to get shanked in the streets, I make my way back to the ship. Back to my quarters, or the map room, to practice my dice.
It wasn't exactly the printing press that caused the revolution; there were prints prior to that. What Gutenberg invented was movable type--which permitted the rapid creation of pages of books or newspapers. The maps you've seen printed are full sheet maps made from a hand-carved block, the sort of thing that takes months to make but then can be reused hundreds of times.
Oh, and congratulations--no one has ever once that I recall asked what fractions of a diktar are called. I expect that they use a binary system--break the coin in half, in half again, in half again, like pieces of eight. I don't think the system will support sixteenths, so unless you've a better choice, we'll call the fractions by their fraction names--eighth, quarter, half. You'll have heard the use when you go out with Walt anyway, so you've no need to ask.
After a few hours in the city, you return to the ship. Donald is glad to see you, asks if you'll stand watch in navigation for a few hours so he can stretch his legs ashore. That gives you the map room to yourself, and nothing to do unless one of the officers pops in with a question, which is unlikely.
I presume you've nothing else on your plate except a good night's sleep before the ship pulls out tomorrow.
--M. J. Young
Mmm... sleep. Sleep sounds good indeed. Of course, that's after a few hours of playing with the maps, figuring out where we are and doing the calculations to plot a route to the next destination, getting in some practice. When that gets boring I'll practice with my dice, or look out to sea with Telescopic Vision, taking this opprtunity of downtime to try a new trick: adjusting my zoom on the fly, zooming in and out during one manifestation, rather than switching it off and refocusing, to see if its any harder.
Yay for me adding to the world, though. Pieces of eight is a system I'm decently familiar with, so that shouldn't give me any trouble. Even though I don't have any yet.
You find it difficult to change focus; your impression is that at your current level of ability whether you change focus or stop and refocus afresh seems to be about the same difficulty, but that given a lot of practice it would probably be easier to change the focal distance than to shut down and regain, so you'll probably want to practice the changing as part of the routine.
The next port is Tristar, a volcanic island where shore leave is sometimes restricted due to conditions but manufactured products are as cheap as anywhere. However, due to the unstable nature of the volcanoes, it is sometimes the case that the ship is not permitted to stop there, or that having docked it is sent away immediately without loading or unloading cargo. It usually takes about two weeks to make this piece of the journey.
There are also more ships here in the civilized part of the world, traveling similar routes between the ports; it is not at all uncommon to see patrol ships, other trading vessels, and passenger liners in the distance.
Oh--Walt returns your sword once you are out of the harbor.
--M. J. Young
Very glad to have my sword back. I will resume wearing it constantly, and go back to fencing with Walt whenever he feels like it and our schedules mesh. Duty shifts consist of playing with maps and focusing on my Telescopic Vision, dreaming of the day when using it becomes as effortless as lifting a glass to my eye. Off-duty consists of a combination of playing with my dice and practicing my flute, and fencing with Walt when the time is right.
Two more weeks... I think during this leg of the journey I'm going to focus more on my map work, try to get used to this world and its geography a little bit, and how is best to navigate around - take my work home with me a little, as it were.
Four days out of Tempest you log yet another ship sighting, and then head to dinner.
You're just finishing up your repast when you hear the commotion; alarms are sounding. Someone runs past the galley door and shouts, "Pirates! We've been boarded!"
--M. J. Young
(I'm assuming I couldn't make out a pirate flag on that ship I sighted? They would've told me what to watch for, no? Or noticed when I said, like, "That ship has a flag with a skull and crossbones / flying dragon / demon rampant on it" and gone "oh carp, pirates!")
Nonetheless, I beat feet up toward the deck, drawing my sword once I get there and looking around for anywhere I can be of assistance. Particularly if they've got gangplanks - big and sturdy and not bolted down, perfect for a quick TK Pulse into the water. Or if they have guys who aren't being fought yet, whom I might engage in blades.
<i>Great gods, my first real swordfight. Thor guide me...</i>
Actually, in civilized waters clever pirates generally don't fly identifying flags--they'd rather be mistaken for a patrol ship than recognized by one. So no, there would not have been anything marking them as a pirate ship.
There is a lot of rushing around--some men ducking for cover, others organizing to repel boarders. You reach the main deck and find security already fighting, assisted by several of the deck hands; there's a medic cowering nearby with his bandage kit handy.
I'm curious about this:
Great gods, my first real swordfight. Thor guide me...Is your character saying that, saying it aloud as a prayer, and how much of it is he saying?
--M. J. Young
(He wouldn't be saying it loudly, but it is indeed a whispered prayer IC. The whole thing would be, "Thor guide me. Put strength in my hands and rage in my heart, to defend my friends and break my enemies," whispered while discerning who my enemies actually are and clutching my sword as a kind of focus object.)
I move up to one of the lines organizing to repel boarders. While listening to their plan with one ear, I furiously TK Pulse the boarders they're trying to repel. I haven't tried moving anything as big as a man before, but... well... Yoda always said weight didn't matter, so... Flick. Flick. You there with the axe, you crazy bugger, Flick.
Of course, if any of the pirates actually get anywhere near me, I stop playing wizard and stab him instead. A lot.
Since security is five men and deck crew is six (including their respective officers), and the defense of the ship falls largely on the shoulders of these men, the appearance of a known crewman carrying a sword is a welcome sight.
First Mate James also appears with sword in hand and a pistol in his belt. The deck crew are armed mostly with grappling hooks, rather potent polearms when used against live targets, while security personnel each have cutlass, dagger, flintlock rifle, and flintlock pistol.
Someone has set off several smokepots on the deck, apparently to confuse and disorient someone, with the result that visibility is somewhat limited up here. The smoke is not caustic, but when you're in it you can only see a matter of feet and when you're not in it there are clouds of it all around obscuring sight in various directions.
You pray, but you don't have any sense that it made a difference.
There may be between twenty and thirty pirates attempting to board, some by ropes and a few by planks. You pick a plank and aim your mind at it, but your concentration is interrupted when you attempt the push, and you get nothing. You collect yourself to try again, and then feel a surge of energy running inside your head like fire. You close your eyes for a moment and open them again. Smoke is everywhere, pirates are moving onto the deck, and Qwartz says to you, "So, are we going to get these guys, or what?"
--M. J. Young
"For ship and captain!"
If I can see my way to the nearest boarding plank, I want to try and hold it, use it as a chokepoint so I only have to fight a man or two at a time. If it has to be two at a time, at least there's Qwartz. (Edit: On third thought... who the heck is Qwartz? Have I actually met him before?)
On second thought, I don't want to kick the plank over. I want to hold them. I want to aim for hits on the pirates that may or may not kill them, but will cause them to fall off the plank and encourage more to pile in behind them.
Get them to waste enough men trying to board us, and we may be able to turn the tides completely...
A savage grin at the thought of taking this insolent ship as a prize, and I lace into my enemies with relish.
To clarify: I'm told that "Qwartz" is the correct spelling of the name of the fellow who sat in the con suite with us creating a character, and who started with you on the Tropical Island. I don't have anything in writing, and my memory for names is particularly poor, but I had the impression that you knew him. Thin, much dark curly hair, near eastern or north African complected, good musician--ringing a bell? He's the person talking to you now.
With sword in hand, you race over to one of the boarding planks. It rests on the gunnel, with a spike coming down on the inside to help secure it. There is a pirate crossing this two-foot wide walkway, and he's standing on a level about three feet your own floor, carrying a cutlass, and advancing swiftly.
Are you staying on the deck and attacking his legs, or stepping up to his level on the plank?
--M. J. Young
The skinny dark-skinned kid with the really fluffy black hair? That was Ronny, and he's Cuban. But yeah I know the guy you mean. In fact I know him in real life.
"Cover my flank!"
I snarl and focus, poking the pirate with a TK Pulse (sideways and slightly upward) when he is about halfway across. Then I spring up onto the plank to engage him.
It occurs to me - but I'm not taking my eyes off the guy with the sword long enough to look right now - that if they have riflemen or archers, this is about to suck for me rather a lot. Nonetheless, for now I will focus on pressing the attack.
O.K., so none of us remembered his name. Ron it is. I probably should have guessed Carribean.
You give him a good tweak, but he compensates, apparently taking it for a pitch of the ship, and keeps his feet. You leap up onto the plank to engage him, and he moves in for a swing. You deflect his sword, which falls from his hand into the water below. He has a dagger on his belt, and is reaching for it as you make your attack.
In order to run the combat, I'm going to need to fill in a few of your attributes. These obviously are not 2@ attributes, or you'd have said so; so the question is, just how good or bad are you at each of these:
- Strength
- Stamina
- Resistance
- Hand/Eye
- Will Power
--M. J. Young
Strength... hmm... I can lift 100lbs with some effort, but I can't do pullups at all.
Stamina... I can run full-out for half an hour, covering two miles in that time, give or take a bit.
Resistance... Depends a lot on what I'm resisting. I have almost no resistance to disease, for instance, but I've been out in negative wind chills and not felt cold at all. I have a decent tolerance for pain, even though I also fear pain a bit, which is paradoxical but true.
Hand/Eye for purposes of fencing and marksmanship is quite good. I throw like a girl, but with swords, bows, guns, I'm a fairly wiz marksman. When I'm in fencing form - which practicing on ship would've gotten me back to, as it takes me very little - I can do a double-lunge that clears a room and bullseye a quarter taped to the wall at the end.
Will Power... I'm incredibly stubborn, and I can do a lot of mind-over-matter kinds of things. Half the time my cold tolerance I'm convinced is a mental effect.
If I had to estimate, I would put Strength 1@3 or 4, Stamina 1@7, Resistance... gods know, Hand/Eye 1@6 at least with penalties to throwing, and Will Power 1@6 or 1@7, but again that's me and my 1@3 Game Mechanics (Multiverser).
When he reaches for his knife, he'll have to take his eyes off me, if only for a second. In that second, I snap out with a thrust at his side, under the arm he's reaching for the knife with (I'm picturing him cross-drawing this, his right hand going for his left hip, am I right?).
If he's not cross-drawing, and if I see that his eyes aren't going to drop, then I just thrust center mass, slightly upward, aiming to either stab him in the heart or goad him into blocking high, which will put me in a position to roll my hand over and thrust downward, over his block and into his face.
Or, if he's managing to block me too high to pull that off, I let him deflect my sword, then kick him in the nuts for his trouble.
*grin*
Is "kick in groin" a maneuver you've been taught or practiced or otherwise used? Just trying to figure out whether to add this to your sheet, and if so at what skill ability level. (That is only half kidding, by the way.)
You get a solid jab on him, landing a blow that surprises him and clearly wounds him.
I am thinking that the smallsword combat style is probably what would be called fast aggressive weapon-dependent--it puts more into attacks than defense, hits more frequently than an ordinary swordsman, but does not provide much benefit if you do not have the weapon in hand. Would you care to modify or refine this description? My next step in terms of rendering it to paper would be to list sit-mods (adjustments to the chance to hit) and damage mods (adjustments directly to damage inflicted) on your attacks and separately on your defense, and since it's your style, knowing where you think these should go will help.
Are you going to kick him, too?
--M. J. Young
If I stunned him with that attack (which was a sword to the face, by the way, not a punch - when I said "turn my hand over" it was referring to a change in the angle at which I was attacking with my sword), then yes I will kick him in the groin. This consists of setting my left foot behind me with my toes at a right angle to my opponent, lifting my right foot straight off the ground, then snapping my leg forward such that the heel of my foot is driven directly into his crotch.
Yes, it's a legitimate maneuver, part of my unarmed combat style. I learned it along with my military hand to hand from another guy I was practcing with. It's NOT an Army move - the guy I learned it from, my friend Niko, is a fellow Greek who learned Pankration. This kick comes from that. The guy who demonstrated Pankration on "Human Weapon" on the history channel used this kick to break a standard phalanx shield in half with two kicks.
Legitimate smallsword fencing is supposed to be a back-and-forth of attacks and defenses. I happen to practice it in a very aggressive way that is actually boardline reckless. So yes, your characterization of it is perfect for me, but it ought not be either aggressive or defensive in the hands of someone who is a better student (if there is a balanced category, otherwise it remains aggressive, but much more marginally so than my personal form).
I did not take your description as a called shot; if I had understood this to be the long way of saying you were aiming for his head, there would have been a size penalty on the target. I like the description, and it often gives me room to work, but ultimately the amount of damage is determined by the dice--even if "stab in the face" is a special maneuver doing special damage, because you might leave an ugly scar but do little damage. I don't usually track where hits land if they do not do at least ten intensities of damage without killing the target.
You connect solidly on the kick. It is evident that you have broken something, as his eyes roll back in his head and he falls off the board into the water beneath.
Another pirate steps up on the board, sword in his right hand, and draws a flintlock pistol from his belt. He is standing twelve feet from you, and with a steely look in his eye points the weapon your direction....
--M. J. Young
Thor protect me...
I lash out at him with a TK Pulse, trying to throw his aim off.
As I unleash that I'm already moving, springing off with my left foot. I won't land with the right but keep it high, landing with the left and kicking off again, immediately into a second, shorter hop that ends in a thrusting lunge. Twelve feet is almost the limit of how far I can do this, but I'm in fighting fit and I should be able to manage it if he doesn't shoot me first. (After all, this exact maneuver is what proved my hand-eye stat.)
He won't be parrying with a gun, so no need for anything fancy, just a good old fashioned double-hop lunge aimed center mass.
The gun comes out more quickly than you anticipated; your TK pulse disrupts him, but he recovers instantly and pulls the trigger. Intuitively--perhaps because of your prayer--you duck, and the bullet whizzes over your head--but your sword slices into the man's left leg.
It is a severe wound, and the man is bleeding profusely; he recognizes that he will not be able to stand, never mind walk, if he does not get help. He is falling back toward the deck of his own ship, trying to draw his sword as he does so.
The pistol drops onto the plank and lies there; the pirates behind this one are making room for his retreat, apparently not too eager to get up next to you at this moment.
You feel the protection you just summoned, which held while you were in the thick of the risk, fading.
--M. J. Young
Holding my sword in a defensive posture, I scoot forward and pick up the pistol, then begin to fall back. I'm a decent shot with a rifle, but I've never fired a pistol in my life, much less a flintlock one, (edit: and certainly not left-handed!) so I'm not menacing anyone with that - if they called my bluff I'd be in a bit of a spot. With Soulmourn I can actually deliver. I grin and think thankful thoughts to Thor (who I hope appreciates alliteration).
Once I have the pistol in hand, I fall back along the plank, and reevaluate the situation. Specifically I'm looking for:
1: Anybody else with a gun pointed at me? If yes, I shoot at him. If no, then
2: Anybody else from the Piper backing up my plank? If yes, hold the plank till they arrive. If no, then
3: Anybody else from the Piper boarding the pirate ship from other planks? If yes, hold the plank and look to draw attention off them. If no, then
4: Are the crew of the Piper losing at any of the other planks? If yes, abandon the plank and go to help them. If no, then I move forward toward the pirates and prepare to issue them a challenge.
The planks are good. Walter is behind you with what looks like a boarding pike, and as you fall back off the walkway he prepares to knock it into the sea below.
You've recovered the gun. It should be readily apparent even on a glance that it's a single shot weapon, and that shot went over your head when you ducked, so you'll have to learn to reload it if you want to use it again.
There is a knot of about ten pirates doing battle with three security officers and a deck hand. The security men fight like demons, to the point that you might say the pirates are outnumbered. Security chief Balcon in particular is fast and deadly with his sword such that he might be able to take them all himself, and his number two man Brown, only half as fast perhaps, still rarely misses and is twice as fast as any two pirates. That, though, is where the fight seems to be; Davis has already knocked two other boarding planks overboard, so only one remains, and it looks like Balcon intends to force any surviving pirates to retreat across it.
--M. J. Young
At the edge of the plank, I shake my head at Walter. "Come on. If we go across, we can take the fight to them. Balcon and the others are winning here and making it look easy. If we hurt them enough we might get them to surrendur completely. There aren't that many left. If you get everybody who isn't fighting, I'll lead the way. If I could take two of them myself, they can't be that tough."
Ronny yells, "Come on, we can take 'em", and charges across the planks.
Walter hesitates, looking first back at the others, then over at the ship, and then, sword drawn, points to the plank.
--M. J. Young
I spring onto the plank right behind Ronny, tuck the pistol into my belt, and hare off after him in battle, sword in hand.
You reach the other deck; Ronny has apparently vanished for the moment, behind the clutter here. There are two pirates coming toward you, cutlasses drawn. Walter is behind you, but you hear gunfire from somewhere and can't be sure how soon he'll catch up.
--M. J. Young
I keep my back to the plank, so I can retreat if the need arises. As the two pirates come up, I present SoulMourn in a defensive posture. It's actually a bit of a ruse.
"Thor protect me..." I wait as they approach, waiting for the right moment, the moment when the pirate closer to the edge of the deck is mid-step when this ship is almost at the height of bobbing in the water. When it reaches its height, I TK pulse his upraise foot, aiming to off-balance him at a critical moment and, ideally, topple him into the water.
The second pirate will get a sword in him as soon as he's within my lunging distance, but that's not yet...
You pray.
You manage to catch the foot of your target, but the man has obviously spent many years aboard ships and easily keeps his balance against the push.
Several other pirates have spotted you, and are coming your direction. Walter reaches your side. "I hope this was a good idea," he says, "'cause now we're committed."
Balcon and the others have driven the pirates back from the Piper onto the plank; your retreat is cut off.
Ronny is on your other side, and says, "Back to back then. We can take them."
--M. J. Young
(Other than Walter, how many of his guys followed us? It seemed like there were more than just us. And by the way, when Ronny attacks somebody, I want the equivalent of a Will save to realize he's not there. Why? Ronny is a devout Buddhist pacifist.)
"Walter, get our backs and let's give them all we've got. The planks are cut, but we can win the day. If we keep the fight moving they won't be able to get guns on us. Target anybody who draws one, but otherwise don't take chances. We used up our ration of stupid for the day just coming over here."
As the two pirates continue to approach, I want to angle myself to engage the one farther in on the deck, hoping to use the momentum of the fight to keep him between me and the other guy. I do hope there are some marksmen on the Piper or this is about to be a very long afternoon.
Can I get a quick estimate on just how many pirates we're dealing with on the deck of this ship? According to the North Carolina Office of Archives and History, the Queen Anne's Revenge, flagship of Blackbeard, had a crew of 75 and was a fairly substantial ship.
And by the way, when Ronny attacks somebody, I want the equivalent of a Will save to realize he's not there. Why? Ronny is a devout Buddhist pacifist.
In Multiverser, we tend to avoid this sort of mechanic as if it were a William Shatner poetry recital - that is, we only suffer through it if you absolutely force us into it. Either you believe Ronny exists and is here, in which case you also believe that he's acting very strangely and not like usual self at all, or you don't believe he exists and/or is here, in which case you'll have a hard time justifying belief in anything else that your senses are also telling you is true.
As Scott observes, the problem here is that there's no question of you not believing it; Ronny is there because you believe he is there, for the moment. Ronny acting inappropriately is Ronny acting inappropriately.
Besides, I've been pretty careful to this point, for an entirely different reason: Ronny acting ineffectively would be the basis for an intuitive leap to conclude that Ronny isn't really doing anything. You've not seen Ronny attack anyone, not because Ronny would never attack anyone, but because if he did it would have no effect, and your psychosis won't permit itself to be challenged that way.
As to Ronny encouraging you to fight, well, that's not quite the same thing--that's really your projections of a side of your subconscious into his words. Besides, as I read just today, William Penn, being a Quaker, could not travel to western Pennsylvania to kill indians--so he hired George Washington to do it for him. You're not the Buddhist; your grasp of what a Buddhist would and would not do might not perfectly reflect what Ronny actually would do in a given situation.
Don't worry--it will wear off, this time. You'll just have to live with the fact that your character believes Ronny is there, until either he isn't or your actions and the reactions of those around you have given you a basis for questioning whether he is or is not there. (E.g., if you start telling Ronny to do something while including Walter in the conversation, Walter is going to wonder who Ronny is. In the multiverse, that doesn't actually prove no one is there--only that Walter can't see him.
Oh, and since you're "in" on it, I do expect you to play it naturally--fine to talk to Ronny in front of Walter to try to get a reaction, but only if you're already talking to Ronny when it is not for that reason, or if it's obvious that you're treating it as if you really believe he's there. If this were not the forum (where we train referees, so there aren't a lot of secrets), when you asked whether Ronny was a hallucination, I'd have answered, "How would you know?", and left it to you to figure out how to get your character to stumble on the truth. As far as the guy on the ship is concerned, Ronny is there, and it makes perfect sense that he's there. If it stops making perfect sense, we'll give you intuition checks, and they you can treat him like Nash in A Beautiful Mind.
The crew of the piper is about thirty; the crew of this ship is probably about the same. More of their men are fighters, but your good fighters are much better than their best.
Most of the security team and a few deck hands were fighting that knot of pirates which is retreating across the plank even now. You and Walter crossed the plank, and of course Ronny, who has disappeared into the crowd somewhere, but no one else joined you yet.
"All right, I've got your back," Walter says. "Don't worry; these guys probably aren't good enough to get a job in ship security."
As the pirate comes close, you take a stab, and come inches from getting him, but he sidesteps and and returns a slash; you sidestep this, and move in again, this time gashing his left arm. You have another opportunity.
--M. J. Young
I can't circle him like I'd planned to without leaving Walter open - since he and Ronnie are side-by-side - so I press the attack with a kiai, a shout during the attack meant to mentally off-balance him and focus me. "
Ya!" and stab. I'm aiming for his left side, to force him to compensate for an already-there wound.
It might make him flinch towards his right, which would make him back up into the guy on the water-side of the fight, which would work well for me, or he might just react defensively, which is fine since the bigger motion takes more out of him than the quick thrust does out of me.
You catch his side quite solidly with your jab; he's severely wounded, but still functional. He slashes wildly at you and turns to escape; you try to land the finishing blow but catch only air as he rushes away from you.
You can pursue him or choose another adversary. Ronnie shouts that help is coming, the pirates have been forced back across the plank and the security team is following them.
--M. J. Young
If I've run off the guy on the inner side of the ship, there's still the guy he was with, who I've been trying and failing to push into the water. I think instead of taking a finishing blow on his fleeing friend, I will instead take that opportunity - the moment when his friend flees and thus leaves him facing me alone - to step out of the fleeing man's shadow, too close for this guy to stab, and give the poor fool my signature kick in the nuts, as we established previously.
You hit him solidly, and it's obvious that you hurt him; he, however, maintains his control and strikes you, a serious gash up your leg that's going to require stitching or something akin to it but is not disabling.
Your move.
--M. J. Young
Bugger! Ow... Alright, favoring that leg more than a little, now. No reason to let up on him, though. I'll feint high on that same side, then turn my hand and attack low instead.
Seems my strategy of picking these guys off by knocking them overboard isn't holding out. Alas...