Drink up me hearties... Yo Ho!

Just when you think you have a plan and its all sorted, a chance re-union and we're off in another direction again...
I mentioned in my earlier post about getting some Cherry blossom trees from good mate Roly. Whilst there, my son, Chris, and Roly's daughter, Monique, got chatting, and Pirates of the Caribbean came up...

So guess what ... once home, Chris was wanting to play a pirate game...

So we got out the pirate board, and came up with a scenario, using Legends of the High Seas rules...

Chris wanted to play a game where a pirate crew, would land at port, have to sneak into town to the  tavern, and recruit more crew and get out again. He would play the pirates.

I got to play the Royal Navy defenders. There would also be 2 loose 'Thugs' who would attack anyone in range, and 4 prospective new crew near the Tavern who would be 'recruited' once they were in base contact with a Pirate. The pirates and crew would then have to get back to their ship...

The town awaits, as the pirate sloop moors alongside the jetty...

[please excuse the white board ends -  damage to board during storage was half way being fixed]

Unsuspecting Caribbean town... Port Royal?

Chris the Pirate!

Gotta have the right musical accompaniment!

Pirates hit the jetty

 4 pirates come ashore...

The 'thugs' are noted by green tokens. The 'recruitables' are marked by yellow tokens... We played by the sentry rules so navy could not activate until 'triggered'.

Marine musket gives fire...

Pirate 1st mate shoots at thug...

Hand to hand action starts to hot up...

It's not looking good for the pirate captain...

Melee up the side alley...

2 more pirates come onto jetty, from the sloop, looks like the lads need a hand...

Recruitment starts, in town square...

More action on the dock...

One second, recruited.. the next second, shot!...

3 vs 2 against the pirates, its not looking good...

The game ended with all the pirates killed! But the Navy midshipman and a marine also fell...

It was a fun little game, and yet I couldn't help think the game would have played better using a different skirmish set of rules... and I got thinking about Empire of the Dead.

Don't get me wrong, I like the core LOTR SBG game mechanic, used in LotHS, which works well for large skirmish battles... but having played Empire of the Dead, I think that rule set is better suited to these smaller 'gang fights'...

Empire of the Dead, although for a gothic horror, steampunk setting, can still handle the pirate setting as it has rules for medieval weapons and muskets etc, and a few custom tweaks can be added as necessary - perhaps adding the Fame and Fortune points for the heroes, and heroic actions, as I like those elements of the SBG game..

EotD also has more interesting rules for hiding and sneaking about, wounding effects in combat (not just alive or dead), and I think the single model activation in turn works better, plus there's an over-watch type shot mechanism... All of these factors I think would make for a better pirate game experience.

So we'll give that a whirl and report back...

Of course this little bit of C18th fun, had me reaching for my scratchbuilt Brig, in an effort to finish it off properly... here's where I last had it... shown from an earlier game, quite some time ago... usable but not finished yet...

Since this pic was taken I had added more cannon firing ports to the hull sides, and also a mermaid-like figurehead below the bowsprit, see below pics.

Also, I was never fully happy with the sails and fighting tops - it seemed wrong the sail was in the way of the crew man accessing the fighting top from the rigging ladder (to be added)..., attached to mast, behind him.

So I trimmed back the sails, adding a slight curve to their undersides and added the railings round the crows nest and fighting tops...

I think it looks much better now, and models wont accidentally fall from on high either if the table or boat takes a knock!

Next I need to add the rigging - that's going to be a fiddly job no doubt! Any tips from folk who have already done it to their models ships - I'm all ears!

I had also made another addition to my terrain collection - I ordered a set of cargo/stores made by Infinity, from Slave to Painting.... I can see these being widely used through many settings - LOTR, EotD and of course Pirates!

Foundry pirate for scale...

Just need to get them trimmed and painted up....