Pirates! - a first game set up with Blood & Plunder

 Pirates!  of Blood and Plunder, by  Firelock Games

The tales of swashbuckling have often filled pages of wonderful books.

I read about the details that had been studied by the Firelock Games crew and their attention to the realities of what was the golden age of piracy.

While I did not get in on the first kickstarter, I was not far behind the launch and jumped in for a pair of sloops, four rowboats and some Spanish and English crew.  Since then I have picked up the minis for an independent crew and a Brigantine ship model, still to be completed.

This was the first setup for my 'office table' and camera organization.

Screen shot of the whole setup

I did a time-lapse of the process:

Then we laid out some minis and ran a sample game to see how it all works:

the Spanish were defeated ...

reverse angle on the landings

flash shot of the Spanish mid-game

storming ashore

battle in progress

Spanish Guarda Costa

hitting the beach

the English Sea Dogs

long view of setup

Big Damn Story Telling Game of Thrones Game

 Long have I wanted to create a story-telling game that could permit the players to take a 'larger' creative part than 'just' one player character - as with most role-playing games (RPGs) - the idea was one where each 'storyteller' could 'in turn' take on any of the 'main characters' as generated - or create new ones - to advance a storyline.

So we started with the known 'starting point' of the Game of Thrones start at season 1 -just before the trek north of Robert Baratheon to convince Ned Stark to become the 'Hand of the King'.

Then using playing cards, some storytelling cards (that my two boys are familiar with), some fun items from the Game of Thrones toys (a 3-eyed raven, a sword and a miniature throne and some castles and places from a 3-d puzzle) combined with the RISK game of thrones version we started out a "new" tale.

amazingly our story also started with a special secret of the 'king'
being found out by the 'whole faction' of the Starks (spades)

many of the parts used in our game

lions and stag at Kings Landing

wolves of the north

more action around the Kings Landing

the 'crown' came to be captured in darkness
by the Starks

while the 'queen' of the dragon clan chose to raise $$$
and start a family in Pentos

her brother and a 'hidden old ugly cousin' joined forces to
start to dominate 'slavers bay'

in the end out 3-eyed raven was a previously unknown
thief who stole his way into the awareness
of the sea fairies who pushed him
to become the new 3-eyed raven

It is a story-telling set with much potential, as I have small boats and banner men planned for the future.

ECW Campaign II - Action at Highmoor - the Lobsters!

 Wanting to see the Lobsters in action, they were dispatched from Glocester along with supporting forces and Sir William Waller to command them.  They had hoped to potentially engage Prince Rupert, though in the end it was Prince Maruice and smaller forces that were engaged along with the Earl of 4th.

William Waller takes command

The Parliament forces were large and numerous, with the Lobsters stationed to the right across a stream, the rest of the Parliament host, 'the Western Association' consisted of two massive horse commands, some ultra light guns, a few local border horse and a mob of clubmen.  The Royalists under Prince Maurice's command were more humble, with only the Earl of 4th as the main strong point ...

 

clubmen in the towne, with border horse nearby

the Western Association horse

Hesselrigge's Lobsters, with a commanded shotte behind

Parliament lines

Table at game start, with the Royalists holding open ground
between a small village and a hill
across the stream at Highmoor

start of turn 2, the horse of both sides had advanced

 

cannonades were exchanged on both sides, with the Royalists coming off much the worse with many powerful hits sustained by the whitecoats!

newly raised Parliament pike & shot unit marches forward in column

Royalist horse take the stream bank

Earl of 4th oversees the cannonade

clubmen in the town ... have a prayer meeting

most of the rest of the Parliament line hold fast

while the Western Association horse gallop to the forefront

creating a mass of horse that is unmistakable in move

some small pistol carracoles then began 

Overview turn 3

Royalist whitecoats take another pounding from
cannonade and now pistols

Parliament raw pike & shot now form a line
the clubmen continue a prayer meeting in the
town (to the right and rear)

field at start of turn 4

the 'Lobsters' (seen to the far left of the image)
are bearing down on the Royalist whitecoats ...

prayer had ended in the town ... still no moves from the clubmen

in the center the swirling masses of horse continued
carracoles of pistol fire

the whitecoats had driven back some horse

only now to see the dreadded lobsters closing in for the kill

Hesselrigge was now with his lobsters and prepared to hammer into the damaged veteran whitecoats.

first the whitecoats were driven back

then artillery was dispatched as the Earl of 4th fled

then more artillery was destroyed

leaving the Earl of 4th desperately wounded and clinging to the
edge of the battlefield with his equally wounded whitecoats

field overview turn 6

the lobsters triumphant would now finish the whitecoats
and kill the Earl of 4th

while the rest of the field engaged in limited pistol exchanges

Lord Barkshire managed to keep the border horse from fleeing

while the bluecoats could only hold on and hope to survive
the next attack from the lobsters

Earl of 4th's last view as his command was
over-run by the lobsters ...

by turn 7 the battle was all but over
here the lobsters are seen reigning in, after eliminating
the whitecoats

all across the field Royalist troops now looked over their
shoulders ...

everywhere but the center, where the pistol
duels continued

with Parliament border horse only remaining because
of the influence of Waller

now the whole Parliament line had re-oriented
they knew this was a victory

Turn 8 and 9 were ones of mopping up the last Royalist supporters and attempting to extricate what good troops could be ... this was a failure.

only minimal Royalist forces clung to the hill and stream

all of them were disrupted in some way

the lobsters faced a massive volley from the bluecoats

they were damaged, yet not enough that they could not recover
after the battle

the lobsters press home the attack

bolstered by Waller the border horse start to win the pistol battles

unable to fully recover much of the disruption
the Royalist horse start to falter ...

last turn, as the Royalists only just managed to 'not' retreat
in the morale roll from the last turn

Royalist border horse forced to retreat

the lobsters finish off the blue coats

unable to retreat the bluecoats go down fighting

only the officers and some local militia managed to
flee from this action

The campaign has plans to continue, once the school actions called for during a more restrictive period of plague protection are done (read my son has schoolwork to focus on and we have an expanded set of COVID-19 restrictions happening here that has messed with time availability for anything).

Cheers everyone.