It’s the final week of the Summer of Plunder and it’s going to be (wait for it)
The final objective in week 9 is to include a Legendary commander (30pts or above) or to include a Level 3 Historic Admiral if you play O&I. My group decided to play a multiplayer game using the optional Leaders of Men scenario rule from ‘Raise the Black’, which allows forces to include any legal commander for free.
My group prefers to fight large, multiplayer sea games. Sometimes, this can cause scheduling conflicts and this time, we ended up with an odd number of players. So we had a 400pt Light Frigate captained by Jean Hamelyn, and then a bevy of 200pt ships. We diced off to see who’s list would end up on the side of the Light Frigate, and that’s when things started to get interesting.
The Lists
I don’t have exact lists, but I can give a sense of what each player brought to the table:
- Jean Hamelyn: 17c Pirates – in a Light Frigate loaded with 6 pair of Medium Guns. The list was packed with Zeelieden and Flibustiers
- William Kidd: Brethren of the Coast – crewing a fast Bermuda Sloop packing 6 swivels, 18 Inexperienced Freebooters, and 17 Zeelieden, with Bartholomew Sharp.
Sides were chosen randomly, and so those two faced off against:
- Blackbeard: Blackbeard’s Men – sailing a Sloop with medium guns, more Pirates than you can shake a stick at, and Black Caesar
- Robert Maynard: Maynard’s Pirate Hunters – aboard a Heavy Bark with medium guns
- Jeremias van Collen: Caribbean Militia – manning a Sloop of War with bow swivels, and units of Vrij Companieen
The Battle
The scenario we rolled was Chase’s End from ‘Raise the Black’, so our forces began by rolling plenty of Resolve tests.
Blackbeard’s fleet won the first Initiative, and opened the battle with Maynard shooting at volley across the waves at Kidd’s bermuda sloop, scoring a lucky hit that blasted a swivel gun from its post. Maneuvering to bring his guns to bear caused Maynard to sail towards the pirate line at an angle, and Hamelyn was very quick to notice it:
Boom! A 4-gun broadside slammed into the bow of Maynard’s ship. Hamelyn spent fortune like pocket-change, until the stricken Bark suffered 9 hits, doubled to 18. The air was filled with howling lead, splinters, and the cries of wounded men.
9 Critical and 1 Lucky hit later, and the ship was in truly dire straits. It suffered 2 Fires, 2 Leaks, a Rudder hit, Mast Destroyed, and a gun destroyed. Among the crew, 10 men were either dead or wounded, and resolve left most of the survivors Shaken and Prone.
The attack also left Hamelyn’s ship In the Wind’s Eye and at risk of being raked in return by Blackbeard. Hamelyn used some fancy sailing to box haul out of the wind; effectively returning to the position he had occupied before raking Maynard. This may have been a mistake, as it meant that Kidd had to veer either onto Blackbeard’s guns or away from the fight to avoid a collision. Finding discretion to be the better part of valor, and hoping to “head them off at the pass” as they rounded Hamelyn, Kidd veered behind the larger ship.
As Maynard’s devastated Sloop took its final leak marker and began to slip beneath the waves, we drew into a pair of Event cards! When rolled, we got Wind & Weather twice. The wind moved counter-clockwise and immediately set Hamelyn and Kidd in the Eye. The second even dropped wind speed by -1″. At least the weather results cancelled each other out (+1/-1 on the chart)
Blackbeard and van Collen won initiative and started pouring close-range shots into Hamelyn’s crew. The Vrij Companieen are very good, with an excellent Shoot Skill combined with Ruthless and Tough. Hamelyn’s men suffered 9 casualties across all the shooting, but more worryingly – both of his unassigned units became Shaken, leaving him nobody to perform the critical Advanced Maneuver required to avoid drifting in the wind.
With Hamelyn unable to perform a Maneuver and now Drifting, it was critical that Kidd manage to succeed. Even with Expert Sailors and a Fortune, Kidd’s unit failed and the ship began to drift in the wind. Except…
Drifting in B&P, as described on pg.84 of the B&P Core Rules, is a move equal to the current Wind Speed +1 inch. With the wind at -1, that means a speed of 0 for Hamelyn and Kidd. The rules for the Wind’s Eye on pg.83 stipulates that ships continue to drift until they are no longer in the Eye. For Hamelyn and Kidd; this meant that they were stuck unless they had Sweeps (and neither of them did)
With the two ships stuck in place, Blackbeard closed in to board, while van Collen provided covering fire as he crossed Hamelyn’s bow.
The fighting was thick and furious, but Hamelyn’s men managed to slay the bushy-bearded rival and drive his crew from their deck. Shockingly, the Pirates did not relent, and a second crew leapt onto the bow of Hamelyn’s ship, lead from the front by Black Caesar.
As more pirates fight to hold the main deck of the Light Frigate, Caesar retires to the powder magazine with grim determination. The clash of cutlasses ring out from Hamelyn’s desperate defenders, interspersed with the crackle of musket fire as Kidd tries to keep van Collen at bay, until…
BOOM! With a deafening blast, the powder magazine of Hamelyn’s ship suddenly explodes. Caesar, Hamelyn, and both crews aboard Hamelyn’s ship are destroyed by the blast. The rigging at the bow of Blackbeard’s ship is set alight.
With no chance of escape in the adverse wind, and caught by the full weight of van Collen’s shooting with only his own bow to reply – Kidd is forced to strike his colors.
The End
And so ends the 2023 Summer of Plunder for me. Someone finally managed to succeed in the dreaded “Caesar bomb” tactic, and used it to destroy a ship twice their own value, no less!
When factoring casualties, captains and fighting men slain, and damage to the various hulls – Kidd and Hamelyn didn’t lose by much. The wind shift really ruined their day, and if it weren’t for Blackbeard successfully managing to complete the Caesar-Bomb, it would have been rollicking game ended with a whimper. But TS Eliot be damned, the world ended with a thunderous bang indeed.
Check out Blood & Pigment for final announcements and prizes from SoP ’23. With entries wrapped, I’ll be tabulating entries and drawing a winner for the gigantic DMC giveaway. I hope that everyone enjoyed participating in the SoP as much as we did here at DMC, and oh – Viva la France!