Wednesday 16 March 2016

December Pirate Game

We played a fun, beer and pretzels game at my club in December. The game was a pirate attack on a Jamaican port. We used a variant of the popular Sword and the Flame rules. The game began with a simultaneous pirate attack using small boats on one end of the town while the "mother ship" began an artillery duel with the fort. As the game progressed, the pirates made good progress in looting the town while their ship battered the fort, causing many casualties among the gunners. A force of infantry tried to exit the fort was was beaten back by accurate fire from the ship. All that stood between the pirates and complete victory was the heroic town militia. Then, out of the horizon, a ship of the King's Navy appeared. Instead of turning about and engaging the King's ship, the pirate ship continued to fight the fort and then abandoned the pirate landing party to its fate. The Kings' ship fired a devastating broadside into the pirates on land and sunk their small boats. In the end the town survived, but a high cost in infantry and artillerymen.











3 comments:

  1. Looks like a fun game Nik. Great figures. Years ago, we did a similar scenario. With the gamemaster (me) controling the town militia and citizans. Goal was the players had to collect as much treasures as possible to win the game, but teams could lose pirates to booze, woman or in fights with armed citizans. It ended in an hilaric way with the pirates fighting each other, one shooting with the towns battery at a booty ship. But it was with many unpainted figures, so your game looks far beter. Also some nice buildings.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for your nice comments. Next pirate game I will try to incorporate some of the conflicting goals for the pirate groups like you did. I think pirate games should be all about creating mayhem! Looking at the photos, I realize I really need to paint that red ship's wheel on the Playmobil pirate ship!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nick, and others, what a fantastic game! I regularly lavish myself for inspiration in the pirate game that Jamie Delson has published on his blog ( https://haroldsrangers.wordpress.com ) titled: The Port Diversion on El Quattar’s Mother’s Town – Part One... That's why I started to collect all kind of pirate (and marines) related figs, bits and things, like the obsolete Playmobil ships. Creating paper sloops myself and started constructing a modular town-wall.. This posting answers to all these primitive toy soldiering motivations and raises feelings not unlike a good vintage 'The Crimson Pirate'-like movie experience! Thanks.

    ReplyDelete