Angus Konstam's Edinburgh Wargames

Pirates!

Arrr mateys..prepare t' be boarded!

  Angus' New Pirate Book - Out Now!   Piracy: The Complete History 

It was inevitable really. After years of writing about them, and trying to take pirates seriously, I eventually caved in and decided to buy some. Actually I had a bunch of pirates several years ago, but I gave 'em away to a friend whose son turned them into pirate zombies. Such a waste... Anyway, I've no intention of treating this as a sensible wargaming period, and I'm going to play it solely for laughs. After all, its never going to be a major period - only something that gets brought out once or twice a year for a knock-around multi-player game. Pirating for Pleasure should be the catchphrase. In fact, that would make a great title for a set of rules!  I've just started painting them. I've got to say, the figures really look superb, with bags of character. I also whistled up a selection from Dixons, whose figures are equally good. In fact Dixons make far better ships's guns than Foundry. Finally I picked up a pack from Old Glory, who make a nice little range, as well as a few figures and some great pirate flags from Redoubt.

In fact I took part in a large multi-player pirate game in mid-March, and I built two fully-crewed ships for the game - the large pirate ship Queen Lativa's Revenge and the smaller brig Madagascar Molly. I've actually built the brig (from the Old Glory kit), and very good she looks too, although the original model has some faults, like companion ways that block doors or gunports, or 'tween deck spaces which aren't large enough to stand a figure up in. As the ship names suggest, the game was set around the East Coast of Africa and Madagascar.

In the future we aim is to play the occasional fun game, designing the scenarios for multiple players. After all, this isn't really gameable as a straight two-sided fight - it would be rather dull - so instead I'm planning to script everything so the scenarios we play out have loads of scope for skullduggery, deeds of derring-do and nasty surprises. Once I dream up some fiendish scenarios I'll post 'em on this site.  

These superbly-painted pirates are the work of Barry Hilton, of the League of Augsburg...

As for rules, I bought several sets, including Pirates! by Flagship Games, Privateer by Dropwing, Them that Dies is the Lucky Ones from Redoubt, and a couple downloaded from the net. All had their quirks - Pirates! looked good, but their ship combat system seemed pretty clunky, while the other two needed a lot of record keeping (Israel Hands with a shattered kneecap just isn't worth writing down in the middle of a game). I then thought I'd try Buccaneer, Broadsword & Blunderbuss, produced by Old Glory. It had exactly what I was looking for - a simple combat system that anyone could pick up, it was eminently adaptable as circumstances dictate, and above all it looked fun, with a good flavour for the period. It also came with a bunch of scenarios which help a lot when coming up with ones of your own.

Now there's the new Warhammer Historical set Legends of the High Seas. I've read them, and they seem to have lots of flavour, and will be fun to use. for better or worse Warhammer rules always have a strong following in my club, and this set will inevitably lead to a resurgence of interest in the period. It might be time to pull my ships out of mothballs and take to the high seas again!

Then again, some of these photos came from that recent big game where the rules were dreamed up by Andrew and Peter Nicholson. It was fantastic fun, so I'd be tempted to try them out again...

Oh, we've also tried writing our own rules - or more accurately we've adapted some of out favourite rules systems for piratical use. Our club favourite for this kind of thing is In the Heart of Africa by Chris Peers, although our adaptation might prove a little bloody for some molly-coddled swashbucklers. I'll post our In the Heart of the Spanish Main playsheet as soon as we've come up with a way to recreate sea battles. 

Extra Bits to Plunder:         Pirate Ships          The Big Pirate Game

For examples of Pirate games see Journal 10 , Journal 11 , Journal 19  &   Journal 29

Angus Konstam's Pirate Blog

A selection of pirate books by Angus Konstam:

Piracy: Frequently Asked Questions           Blackbeard: Ten Facts you mightn't know

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