April 1600 - Step by Step Part 6 - And a Bottle of Rum!

We last left Captain Pink  having  captured a French 2nd Rate Merchant and a local Government Official, now held for ransom.  Part 5 To collect the ransom of 6,000 Gold Pieces, Captain Pink would have to go to the nearest French Settlement with the highest Settlement Rating. But Billy has other ideas...

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The newly christened Billy's Revenge, with the old ship, now renamed the Eagle, slowly slid southeast. Few of the crew realized that Billy wasn't heading directly to the French Settlement to claim the ransom for the French official but O'Hara, the Pilot knew. O'Hara knew and chose to keep quiet. He knew they were heading towards Spanish waters but wasn't sure what Billy had in mind.

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"And a Bottle of Rum" covers four levels of combat. So far I've covered three of them and now it's time for the fourth. Here's the AARs.

RPGish Encounter with small number of figures Part Two

Big Sea Battles with 3 or more ships per side Big Sea Battle

Ship to ship but didn't get a chance to do a boarding action so look for one soon. 

And now Big Land Battles.

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I decided to try a Raid on a Settlement. Billy chose a Spanish SAL 2 which would have a Militia but no garrison of real soldiers. I set up terrain as a beach leading to a small village and town.

I divided the crew into 3 units of 8, a Rep 5 with Billy, and two Rep 4s.

After the terrain was set up and the Pirates made their first move onto the table PEFs were generated. I placed them in sections 1, 5, and 6. 

I then rolled for the size of the Militia and came up with 20 figures. I chose two units of 10 figures each, one was randomly generated as Rep 4 the other as Rep 3.

The Pirates activated first, here's a picture of what it looked like.

The pirates resolve two PEFs, both Militia units. As this is the full Militia the third PEF is automatically nothing.

The Militia retire after inflicting heavy casualties and receiving light ones.

 Billy orders a charge and fast moves towards the enemy. Captain Jones' men aren't so fast to follow.

The Militia flee and become captives.

 On the other side the 2nd Militia unit fires and retires.

The outnumbered Pirates charge home and melee ensues.

The Militia have had enough and melt away from the fight.

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Six of the Pirates suffered wounds but recovered. 8 Townsfolk (Militia) were captured. 

Now it's time to sack the settlement and see what we can get. Sacking settlements can be pretty good with any luck and the higher the SAL the more Gold Pieces. But also  more defenders. Anytime you try and attack a settlement it gets risky as you don't know the number of defenders until you've entered the table and made a move. Billy was lucky, only 20 defenders. Militias use the Townsfolk QRS so don't like to fight in Big Battles, which is the only way to sack the settlement.

Anyway, rolling for the loot came up with 11,000 Gold Pieces! For ease of play when sacking settlements you just get Gold Pieces. Too much bookkeeping required for tons of cargo, etc.

As the Pirate fleet sails away it's time to check Fame. This rises to 9 but drops by 4 for not turning the prisoner in for ransom. So Fame is now 5. But the raid was successful! Yes, but it put the crew at risk whereas gaining a ransom poses no danger!

Loyalty starts as 5. Up 1 for the raid, down 1 for not ransoming off the prisoner.

The Personal Loyalty and Captain's Loyalty tests resulted in morale being very high.

But Billy learned a good lesson, ransom off your prisoners as soon as you can!

Now that Captain Pink had plunder the crew will be counting the days before they get paid. If they reach July and the plunder hasn't been divided their loyalty will go down.

Watch for May 1600 - Part 7.