"Caribbean pirates playtest" Topic

I have started solo playtesting the "Real Pirates of the Caribbean" scenario that I had planned to run at this year's SYWA convention (that would have been held this weekend, before being postponed). I don't much like solo gaming, but there aren't many other options under the current circumstances.

For this game, I printed out some of my 1:300 scale kits at 50% to get models at 1:600 scale. They're a little more challenging to build at that small size, but they fit nicely into the table space.

There's a few more pictures in a Flickr album at the link below. I apologize for the low-res photos; I seem to have temporarily misplaced my camera, and rather than spend playtest time looking for it I just used my tablet. Better than nothing, anyway.

link

Looks really great!

Thanks for sharing.

Did you use the "Away Boarders" rules?

Did you use the "Away Boarders" rules?

Yes.

They look great Jeff .hopefully in July everything will be on.

Great looking models and a great looking game Jeff, I hope you get to run it for others soon. What are the objectives for the two sides?

It depends. Since I never know how many players I'm going to have, I design alternate scenarios for different numbers of ships (in "Away, Boarders", it's generally 1 ship per player) and the two player scenario has different constraints than the larger ones.

In the full seven player scenario, the captain of the Indiaman, obviously, wants to escape with his ship and cargo intact. His escorts, the two gun brigs, need to protect the Indiaman, but would also like to capture or destroy pirate ships.

In general, the pirates need to neutralize the escorts and get someone aboard the Indiaman to take control of the prize, but I have layered on individual objectives for some of the players: for example, the ostensible second-in-command of the pirates gets a bigger win if, in the course of the action, the pirate leader is killed or captured, even if the Indiaman is not taken. This is why, in one of the photos, you see the pirate leader (commanding one of the schooners) heavily engaged with a French escort, while his lieutenant (commanding the other schooner) hangs back, effectively pulling a "Jesse Elliott" on his superior.

That sounds like a lot of fun. I love the twist of the rivalry between the pirate captains.