| Robbodrum | 30 Jun 2016 7:20 p.m. PST |
So I've been interested in the idea of venturing into the age of sail for my next project but before jumping into the deep end I wanted to try out some rules. Im intrigued with the piratical golden age and I have the game Merchants and Marauders so I thought the ships that come with it would do the job nicely. I saw somewhere that they are about 1:2000. So far, all of the rules I've found seem to deal mainly with the skirmish aspect of the era. I know it rarely, if ever, happened historically, but I was wondering if there were any rules to deal with larger actions that didn't involve breaking out 25 or 15mm miniatures to fight a boarding action and instead made it a quick series of rolls on a table or something? I was thinking about trying to run an alternate history campaign to consider what may have happened if the pirates actually DID decide to pool their resources and attempt to fight off the world powers but it would also be nice to try for 2 or 3 pirate ships vs a merchant convoy or the like. |
| Timotheous | 01 Jul 2016 4:21 a.m. PST |
Have you looked at Galleys and Galleons? It's aimed squarely at the period you describe, and would be perfect for the type of game you describe. I suppose it wouldn't fit a game of trafalgar, unless you break the fleets into groups of a half-dozen or so for a multiplayer game. For $8 USD for the PDF, it's easy to pick up and see if it's right for you. |
| Ed the Two Hour Wargames guy | 01 Jul 2016 7:14 a.m. PST |
And a Bottle of Rum has fleet rules as well as smaller fights. Here is a bat rep. link |
| Lucius | 01 Jul 2016 7:37 a.m. PST |
The Wizards of the Coast "Pirates of the Spanish Main"(and all the variations of it) would be perfect. You can pick up a random pack of the ships on ebay for $6 USD or so. You get a couple of 3-D plasticard ships that look great, and basic ship combat rules. It can easily handle 4-5 ships per side in less than an hour. There were packs for Chinese pirates, Barbary Coast, Spanish Galleons, English, French, American, Captain Nemo, and Sea monsters. A great, under-rated game that you can still pick up components for, very cheaply. |
 ColCampbell  | 01 Jul 2016 7:39 a.m. PST |
And you can use the ships for just about any sailing era rules. |
 Yellow Admiral | 01 Jul 2016 10:45 a.m. PST |
The Peter Pig 1:450 ships and the rules that go with them (Pieces of Eight) cover the period and representational scale you're talking about. - Ix |
| Lucius | 02 Jul 2016 8:12 a.m. PST |
Here is a link to a pdf that has all of the Pirates of the Spanish Main rules: link |
| Mako11 | 02 Jul 2016 8:25 a.m. PST |
Sailpower permits such "fleet" actions. |
| Robbodrum | 10 Jul 2016 10:04 a.m. PST |
Thanks for the tips, everybody! I picked up a copy of Galleys & Galleons and love it…pretty much exactly what I was looking for. I played through a couple of solo games to get my sea legs and spent the last few days furiously painting up the ships from Merchants & Marauders so I can start doing this right. Thinking about taking the plunge and buying the Trafalgar 1:2400 ships that Old Glory makes so I can get into the Napoleonic side of things as well… |
| Bertie | 11 Jul 2016 6:15 a.m. PST |
"Galleys and Galleons" can easily handle big multi-player battles as long as you are happy to tinker a little and introduce rules for squadron commands. Here is a bat rep involving 32 ships including a link to the amendments we use in Hong Kong:
link I think that something like Trafalgar would be playable as a long game, say six hours, with two British and three Franco-Spanish commanders.
Cheers,
Bertie |
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