A Fistful of Pirates

A Festive Diversion

Recently I was introduced to the skirmish rules 'A Fistful of Lead'. I'd seen several battle reports on the internet, which looked fun, but a multi-player-game with border reivers was my first game. My first thought was that these would work well with my pirates and I was impressed enough to buy the rules. Having received my hard copy yesterday I was keen to give them a go.
The author claims that they will work with virtually any figure scale so, in the spirit of Christmas, I thought I'd stretch the boundaries a bit. Now, for some unknown reason, I have pirates in several scales (come off it I'm a gamer - that's reason enough!). I have been running a solo Blood and Plunder campaign with my 15 mm collection as a stop gap until I paint up my 28 mm miniatures. I also have a handful of unpainted 54 mm plastic pirates that I had earmarked for an 'En Garde' game. However, for this game I decided to raid the boy's toy-box and use 90 mm plastic toy soldiers.
Typically, 'teams' consist of about five figures and the toy-box yielded enough for two teams of four.

So meet the rival pirate crews:

Crew one
Captain Jersey Al: leader, slow,  lucky, concealed weapon, pistol and knife.
Master Foo Yung: knife thrower, fancy footwork, axe and knife
Seaman Kato: ferocious, axe
Seaman Won Hung Lo: brute, boarding pike

Captain Jersey Al

Won Hung Lo, Foo Yung and Kato

Crew two
Captain Blessed Brian: leader, slow,  impervious, swordsman, cutlass
Quarter-Master Stinky Pete: drunkard, pet, determined, hook and pistol
Seaman One-eyed Jacques: flurry of blows, knives
Seaman Inigo Montaya : lunge, cutlass

Captain Blessed Brian

Inigo Montoya, Stinky Pete, One -Eyed Jacques

To add flavour the rules allow you to assign various character traits to the figures. I didn't follow the rules too closely in this and just assigned traits based on what the figure looked like. For instance both Captains had the slow trait - seemed appropriate as they both have peg legs. Similarly, the figure for Stinky Pete wouldn't stand up easily - hence drunkard. He also has a parrot on his shoulder so the pet trait is a given  really. Unfortunately, I never got to use this in the game but I found the idea quite amusing as the pet (monkey, parrot or whatever) has the ability to distract an opponent in close combat.
I only intended to play a couple of moves; which I reckoned would be enough as with mostly hand weapons it was always going to be quick. In the spirit of Christmas games and playing with toy soldiers, I eschewed any fancy terrain (truth be told I don't have any anyway) and just put down a board on one of the chairs in the lounge. With the addition of a couple of cannon this became my quarterdeck on which the rival crews would fight a boarding action.
The game is regulated by a standard card deck which drives a clever initiative system. Figures are activated one at a time depending upon the card draw. In general the higher value cards are played first.
First off was Foo Yung who stepped forward and threw a knife at Stinky Pete. The drunken Pete was obviously swaying about as the knife missed. Next Stinky Pete activated, with a one-eyed Jack which gave him a bonus in shooting. Firing off his pistol at Foo Yung he completely missed his would be assailant.

Rival crews face off on the quarterdeck

The initiative was still with Al's crew as Won Hung Low stepped forward, with his boarding pike, to poke at One-Eyed Jacques from a distance. Most tests use a D10 but Hung Low had the 'brute' trait which allowed him to use a D12. Some good rolling on his part saw One-Eyed Jacques put out of action.

One Eyed Jacques meets his end

Initiative would normally have passed to Blessed Brian's crew, on a three, but with a man down one card would go unused. Wanting to keep the better cards Brian passed on the three.
Next up were twos. Brian had the 2 of diamonds and the 2 of spades. However, Al still had an ace which is a wild card. Al declared it would be the two of spades but as Brian had the real two of spades he would go first.
Stepping forward Blessed Brian attacked Foo Yung with his cutlass. Activating on a two allows 2 dice to be rolled and the highest selected. With this advantage, Blessed Brian easily put Foo Young out of action.

With a step and a hop, Blessed Brian smites Foo Yung

Now it was Al's turn to activate on his two (Ace) and shoot his pistol at Brian. Again two dice were thrown and Blessed Brian was down and wounded.

Blessed Brian shot by rival captain

 Last to activate was Inigo Montoya who used his lunge ability to strike at Kato who was driven back a shaken.

Turn two and Kato activated first on a Queen of Spades, which removes shock, stepping back in and attacking Inigo. This time it was a draw and both were locked in combat.

Not now Kato

Next to activate was Blessed Brian whose only option was to try and recover from his wound and stand up. However, a roll of one is never good and Brian was out of action.

Won Hung Lo now attacked precipitating the first multiple combat of the game. For this combat each protagonist would roll a die - and in this case everyone rolled a 10!

How likely was that?

However, once I recovered from the surprise, I realised that Hung Lo should have been rolling a D12 due to his 'brute'trait. On the re-roll he only rolled 6 which resulted in Hung Lo out of action and Kato pushed back shaken.
Now Stinky Pete activated on a 6, which allows an automatic reload, and stepped forward firing his pistol at Al - and missing.
To end turn two Inigo Montoya used his lunge trait to attack Kato and also missed.

A bloody quarterdeck

I ended the game there after a very bloody fight. Both crews down to 2 men but with his rival Captain out of action the day obviously went to Jersey Al.

All in all great fun with some pretty simple mechanisms - I'm impressed.
I think this will be replacing En Garde as my game of choice for this level action. I now want to test it with my Samurai and see if it will also supplant Ronin.