The Marshal Petain Gentlemen's Club: Pea's First Cruise

Quilp's Journal

Week 1

Left Jamaica and passed through the Windward Passage, between Cuba and Hispaniola. It seems Captain Pea means to cruise the exit to the Passage and patrol the trade routes east. Wind strengthening and ship horribly knocked about. Mainmast lost and the old privateer Adams swept overboard. Several crew with crushed limbs.

Week 2

The ship jury rigged and limped into Tortuga. Chippy Woodes, the carpenter, made an extraordinary effort and a new mast was soon fitted.

Week 3

Once again off the Windward Passage. Sail sighted and gave chase. Put a shot across the chase's bow and she hove-to. The Captain took a boarding party across and inspected the chase's cargo and papers. Identified the chase as the Black Tulip merchant, Captain Van Winckle out of Amsterdam. The captain spent some time with Van Winckle and came back with intelligence of pyrate crews operating out of the Bahamas.

Week 4

Sail sighted and gave chase. On nearing the chase, she hoisted the black and subjected us to heavy musket fire. Three crew were hit immediately but Pea manoeuvred the Fancy to let loose a broadside, from the larboard guns, that smashed the chase's hull. The pyrate proved a slippery fellow constantly changing course to avoid our broadside but eventually Pea steered the Fancy to present her unused starboard guns and unleashed a second broadside. The damage was horrendous and the pyrate struck his colours. The captain then boarded the chase, the Sea Horse sloop, captain Phineas Bunce. The pyrate sloop was badly smashed up with a severely weakened hull, two serious leaks and damaged rigging, Sixteen dead pyrates were buried at sea with little ceremony. A prize crew was put aboard, under the carpenter Chippy Woodes, and our little convoy limped back to Jamaica. Bunce and his crew were handed over to the Governor and the sloop commended to the prize court.

For the first actual tabletop game, of the campaign, I gave the pirates a smaller sloop, which made sense for the campaign narrative and a reason for the chase (I also haven't assembled and painted my remaining sloops yet). This is a non-Firelock model so I had to create my own ship stats. I used the Balandra ship card but reduced the fortitude by one and amended the gun ports to reflect the model. The sloop has a crew capacity of 25 (17 on the foredeck and 8 on the poop) without guns.

I diced for the crew characteristics with the choice being between gun based, boarding based, small arms based, swivels based or a balanced all arms crew. I rolled for a small arms based crew and used the Force Builder to crew the sloop accordingly.

Thus the Seahorse was to be crewed by 4 Sea Dogs (no upgrades), and 4 Pirates (no upgrades) on the poop deck. 12 Roundsmen (Buccaneer guns and 3 Blunderbusses), and 12 Jamaican Privateers (Buccaneer guns and 3 Blunderbusses) on the main deck.

The Seahorse sloop

By contrast, the Fancy was a larger sloop with reinforced bulkheads and carrying 6 guns, on the main deck, and 4 swivels on the poop deck. 7 Sea Dogs (including the Bosun) were assigned to the guns on the main deck, along with 7 musket armed Jamaican Privateers (including the Quartermaster). 6 Pirates ( including the Sailing Master) were assigned to the swivels on the poop deck, whilst the Captain led a group of 5 Jamaican Privateers (including the Carpenter) assigned to the sheets and Braces. This is not the optimal way to crew the sloop as many unit traits overlap with those of the officers but I wanted all the characters for campaign narrative purposes.

The Fancy sloop

As this was a chase situation, I used the 'Hold the Ground' scenario from the main rulebook. Both ships start sailing with the wind astern and sailing parallel and the objective is to capture the opposing vessel.

I ran the Seahorse sloop using the Firelock solo rules. Whilst these work well for land based games, I'm less convinced for sea based games. It did however mean that the Seahorses course was completely unpredictable.