Ahoy maties!
Last night I had a couple of friends over for games, which included a trial game of Pirates! I kept it simple to start with, using basic ships without keywords and sticking to single faction, 40 point fleets. My friends selected the French fleet and Pirate fleet, while I took the British.
The fleets were not master crafted affairs; I used what I had, though I made a point of including one five mast gunship in each and a couple of speedy gold runners as a minimum. No crew were included for simplicity.
Standard rules, no terrain and rather than counting out a gold value, I used random value coins. I like that wildcard.
Our table set up was pretty basic and all three of us ended up with home islands more or less in a row against the southern board edge. The British were on the left, Pirates middle and French right.
In the first few rounds the British, Pirates and French rushed north to the three most distant islands with our quickest gold runners, while our slower ships sailed to the closest middle isles. The pirates split off aggressively, attacking their two neighbours, attempting to plunder the middle islands while our gold runners were away. The pirates scored first blood, with the Harbinger blowing a three mast French ship to dereliction before using her power to capture and return both ships to the Pirates home isle for repair. The pirates attack on the British fared poorly, with the single ship out-gunned and derelict. Unfortunately for the British, the pirates scuttled the ship before they could capture her!
Meanwhile to the north, the French were hot on the tail of the cheap, single mast pirate ship attempting to plunder their northern island. This is where our ‘moment of the game’ occurred, with the British and Pirates expecting the French to attempt to manoeuvre close for a shot… but instead the French ship performed the first ram action of the game. A quick rule review… roll higher than the number of masts. Which was one. We all burst out laughing as the French ship smacked into the cheeky Pirate, making it a derelict, before boarding and retrieving the treasure. The fast gold runners of the French and British could now loot the northern islands with impunity and no more conflict occurred.
Back at the middle islands, the repaired Pirate fleet set sail again, sending their recently captured French ship for another cheeky grab at the British middle island, while their five mast Harbinger crept towards the French home island and the hovering French five mast gunship. The French-now-Pirate ship engaged the British but was devastated by long range cannons and again derelict by the British. With much thanks, they towed the Pirate-French ship home and and made her the British-Pirate-French ship.
By now most of the gold was taken. The French and Pirates exchanged a lot of insults, but little cannon fire. The game was almost over, so the British snuck over to the Pirates home isle and stole a treasure. Just because they could. With no more gold to be had, we called the game and added up the plunder.
The British had the most coins, the French not too far behind and the Pirates got an A for effort.
It was a quick, simple and fun game, with a few funny moments and we all agreed we’d happily play again.