"Ship size and scale: or, when is a ship a terrain piece?" Topic

Greetings Lads and Lasses,

After owning the rules for some years and never playing, I thought that I'd play "Pirates!" by Flagship Games. I'm a 28mm kid of guy (makes it hard to buy off the rack) thus the reason for these rules.

I see that Pirates! is abstracted in that it's about 10:1 in scale, with a sloop being about 6 inches and having up to 4 guns. In a more accurate scale for 28mm, a sloop might be 11 to 12 inches and carry 12 to 14 guns, with a brig-sloop being bigger.

In the ship gaming experience, when does a ship model go from playing piece to terrain?

Synjin

The Eureka ship is definitely a terrain piece. I can't see anyone maneuvering with it, but I am certain there are those who do.

I cannot say for the Eureka ship, but I do use the OG ships ( link ) all the time as gaming pieces.
But then again, I also use them as terrain when its more HTH fighting…

BTW… I think Pirates! is a great game, and I use Flagship's boats for that, while I use the OGs for LotHS games…

Boarding action?

If a pirate crew were boarding a vessel, it was pretty much game over. The merchant crew with nothing invested in the cargo would roll over nearly every time without a fight. The best interest of the merchant crew was never tied to the cargo they were carrying. I believe that the threats of the closing pirates, the inevitibility of the capture, and the disconnect the ordinary seaman had with the owner of the cargo meant most of the time: NO FIGHT.
Pirates never liked to damage their prize by gunfire. They were going to get it anyway. Why damage it? So why have it in a game? So called Pirate cannon offered for miniatures games appear way to large for me to believe. I have four pounders at best. For my money, the more interesting pirate scenario is a land-based attack with looting and rapine as the goal. The cannibal/voodoo warrior episodes sound like fun.
Good luck with the shipping news.

Thanks for your opinion, Matsuru, but this thread isn't called "Share your opinions on why everyone's fun pirate games are not historical." :)

Thanks, fozzy. I needed that.

I am often rather amused with some out there who seemingly have read or seen on history channel just enough history to determine it was never a real fight, thus hardly any fun for a gamer to represent. While it is true that a smart pirate rarely picked a fair fight, and that most fantasy pirate games are fairly unrealistic. Certainly there are countless historical references to ship to ship fighting, of running battles between pirates, and so on.

The most common pirate ship was a single masted shallow drafted sloop, mounting 8 to 12 2 or 4 pounder cannons. The most common names? Adventure and Revenge. The great golden age pirates often ran in small fleets, and some even captured galley frigates, or great indiaman which were converted to the pirate cause.

If you want to set up your ship as a terrain piece, feel free, but pitched and running ship to ship battles DID occur.

Blackbeard's demise is a heck of a small ship battle.
link

Black Bart was killed by grapeshot in a running fight with a royal navy warship HMS Swallow.
link

"The pirates' plan was to sail past the Swallow, which meant exposing themselves to one broadside. Once past, they would have a good chance of escaping. However, the helmsman failed to keep the Royal Fortune on the right course, and the Swallow was able to approach to deliver a second broadside. Captain Roberts was killed by grapeshot, which struck him in the throat while he stood on the deck.

The battle continued for another two hours, until the Royal Fortune's mainmast fell and the pirates signaled for quarter. One member of the crew, John Philips, tried to reach the magazine with a lighted match to blow up the ship, but was prevented by two forced men. Only three pirates, including Roberts, had been killed in the battle. A total of 272 men had been captured by the Royal Navy."

But even before that he was never shy to engage, and his men thought he was "pistol proof"

From the same wiki: "In late February 1720 they were joined by the French pirate Montigny la Palisse in another sloop, the Sea King. The inhabitants of Barbados equipped two well-armed ships, the Summerset and the Philipa, to try to put an end to the pirate menace. On 26 February they encountered the two pirate sloops. The Sea King quickly fled, and after sustaining considerable damage the Fortune broke off the engagement and was able to escape.[21] Roberts headed for Dominica to repair the sloop, with twenty of his crew dying of their wounds on the voyage. There were also two sloops from Martinique out searching for the pirates, and Roberts swore vengeance against the inhabitants of Barbados and Martinique. He had a new flag made with a drawing of himself standing upon 2 skulls, one labelled ABH (A Barbadian's Head) and the other AMH (A Martiniquian's Head)"

In fact, not only were many pirates not the cowards described previously, They would vote out captains who were not fearless enough:

link

"Rackham originally sailed as a crewman for Charles Vane, an English pirate captain. During 1718, Vane refused to attack a French man-of-war, to the dismay of his crew. The crew voted for Rackham (at the time the ship's quartermaster) to depose Vane for cowardice. Vane was cast off in a smaller sloop with a handful of crewmen who had voted against Rackham[4]."

At the end of the day, I feel there is no reason you can not have pirate ship engagements in a realistic, or slightly hypothetical manner that are stimulating, engaging and so on.

On another note a 2 or 4 pounder cannon is not the pop gun that seems to be implied by some either. The cannons being pulled from the Whydah galley are 2 and 4 pounders, yet weigh over 1500 pounds and are six to eight feet long!

The hold of the Whydah had 40 of them! many very old, but these were taken off armed prizes!

link

I personally feel that many 28MM ships, while pretty, tend to be improperly scaled for 28. I recently modeled a 28MM great sloop with 12 guns, Modeling at 3/16 to a foot a 70 foot sloop comes out to 14 inches long! bigger ships properly scaled would be huge!

This is why I personally prefer 15MM. It's large enough to be fun, yet small enough to allow some basic exaggerated scale sailing and maneuvering.

(Shameless plug time)
If you would like to check out my 15MM miniatures, or my 28MM great sloop, or my 15mm rules set which converts to 28 with a simple 2X multiplier see sailpowergame.com

Happy Buccaneering!
Brian Carnes
Designer, Sailpower: Fun Scale Combat in the Age of Sail

If you're playing a typical pirate game, you've got a ship that's big enough to have separate figures on it. Anything smaller is age-of-sail naval. Such a ship is a building that moves. As long as you're dealing with ships firing on ships, it's a playing piece. If you had access to a gymnasium you could play any sail naval rules in at least 15mm. Once the ships are along side each other and you go to boarding, it's a piece of terrain. Figures in the tops should have an advantage in firing down on the deck. I personally prefer 15mm as a happy medium. The ships are small enough to maneuver on the typical 4x8 ft. table. 25-28mm means more emphasis on what is a basically a skirmish.