I have now watched three out of the four series. I think they have been brilliant. Of course there are some faults, but let us not go down the traditional "i need to show how much/little i know" by nit picking. Did you enjoy the series and would you recommend it? Does it encourage you to play some pirate games?? Do you prefer shore actions or naval ones?
Sadly, this is the first I've heard of it.
How is the series available?
It's on Amazon Prime.
Thanks Leman.
I may have to wait for the DVD version then!
They are available quite cheaply from Amazon as DVD or from HMV. Good value i feel.
About £50.00 for all four seasons 10 episodes a season. So not bad value if you have a weeeeek to spend watching Black Sails.
Thanks, chaps, very helpful.
I haven't had even an hour to paint these last few weeks, so it might be some time before I find a week to watch them all, though :(
Quote from: Leslie BT on August 09, 2017, 06:50:56 PM
About £50.00 for all four seasons 10 episodes a season. So not bad value if you have a weeeeek to spend watching Black Sails.
Amazon released a box set of all 4 seasons at the end of August for £40 :):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Sails-Complete-Collection-Seasons/dp/B01N6UB63H/ref=sr_1_3?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1504518393&sr=1-3&keywords=black+sails
I have not seen the show but I do like the idea of 15mm naval boarding actions.
Pirates doing this would be good but also fancy the same but with ancient Greek/Roman/Persian era oared ships.
Duncan have not player Martins excellent Pieces of Eight game?
Watched the first episode last night. I'm fairly sure it's got it's problems with accuracy but I thought it was really rather good.
It made me want to play Les' Pirates game again! Are you bringing it over in November Les?
I also like Black sails very much.
The nature of pirate "warfare" is that the pirate ships operated along the coastal areas. they tended not to go far out to sea. this is because naval ships could find and destroy them. Most pirate ships were pretty small. Brigs, sloops etc. A naval frigate would blow it to pieces (as can be seen in one of the black sails episodes). In addition most pirate ships were very heavily crewed (about 70 on a smallish ship) because the aim was to capture ships and not sink them.
Now here is the problem part for gamers.
A ships fate was very rarely decided by the boarding action. it was decided by sailing/getting away or not sailing/getting away. If the merchant ship could sail away, then game over. if the merchant ship got caught up with ,game over. Merchant ships never had enough crew to stop a boarding action (probably about 20). So a pirate sea game should mainly consist of the pirate trying to get in contact. Pirates never boarded naval ships because there was no plunder and a well armed opposition.
Pirate v pirate is also very very rare due to the reasons stated above.
It must be remembered that pirates had a relatively short (5 year) life of action. See dates of action for all the leading pirate captains.
They were motivated by a want for plunder not a want to be killed and fight.
The same is true of modern day Somali pirates.
To this end black sails is good. Most current pirate games are based on pirates of the Caribbean.
This is because they have designed ships and figures that no table size can accommodate for realistic actions or in fact any realistic manoeuvre at all. Therefore they change the action to suit the table size and sell the models. These games are very much in the fantasy/lord of the rings camp, whilst black sails is in the plausible camp.
I am not intending to put damper on the pirate fun. Both can be fun, I am sure and it is up to players which direction they prefer.
Sean I have not seen Stewarts propsed games list yet. I was intending to do the Vietnam firebase game this year, have you played that yet?
I may have enough stuff for the Mountain tribes game.
It will be interesting to see how some of these ideas great inserted into the new edition of the POE in the next year or two.
Agreed Les....a future iteration of PoE is an exciting prospect.
I actually haven't played a Firebase game yet so would be happy to join in.
I similarly like the idea of a new version of Pieces of Eight.
Thanks to Martin for the historical background and game design conundrum clarifications. Even though they saddened me a little: I liked to believe the Hollywood image, and the pictures conjoured up by my Ladybird "Pirates" book when I was growing up!
The old game of PoE had all the elements outlined by Martin below. The game includes a bit of Pirates at sea against a regloratory ship and trying to carry out raids before the locl malitia is raised to see them off.
So I think the new version will be more about changing the rules to an updated fromat in line with how we play the other updated games.
I think this may have been the first PP square based game.
Yes Les, you're correct (i think). The land raid was the first squares game.
When the rules are re-done the ships will be on squares too. i suspect.
Excellent - so that's 2018 sorted, then?
Yes, it was strange that the squares were used for the land game in 15mm and not for the sailing ships game that is 4mm scale. It must have been at about this time that the first version of HI was published using a hex based system.
Just watched the first episode of Black Sails - a rollicking good yarn.
Very interested to see the different "factions" - both between the pirate groups based out of Nassau and even within a given ship's crew, with even block votes - under a more junior faction leader - being used in the election of the Captain [unionised pirates...?!].
Of course, this may not all be strictly historical, but it potentially leads to some interesting pre-game / in-game / post-game dynamics where a captain's hand may be forced by the need to keep his crew from un-electing him (and the somewhat unfortunate personal consequences that this might entail...).
Can we have some actual pirate/government/trader ship to ship fighting using 15mm figures and ships (even if only deck templates.) As this would be exciting and could take place in the same game as the land based, or not depending on what you want. Could still be grid based but may e not six inch ones for onboard. Then again u it's would be small as the ships were not massive were they?
Duncan
that sounds good. Someone here will probably furnish some ideas. It will probably not appear in the next POE rules because the templates are an extra tasks which players might not be wiling to make. Also POE will follow an historical direction rather than a Hollywood one. Mike in the workshop is playing the sort of game you are thinking off. It is blood and plunder(?) very popular at the moment. I saw it at Historicon. a 3 x 3foot abble with 28mm scale ships on it. It looked superb and is pictured on many Historicon review sites. Certainly not historical though!(opinions may vary I am sure)
Black sails sounds good, I have put it on my Christmas list
I have never played Martin's game, at least so far. Would be interested in doing so.
I also had the Ladybird book in mind, yes it conjured many exciting images.
For a ship game I had not considered much manoeuvring, more that it would start just as they were coming together. Did the pirate ships ever get boarded by navy ships crews and have to fight, I don't know much about it historically?
But I was also thinking of pirate ships being off shore or in harbour entrances using their guns to support a landing, or indeed naval ships if a pirate settlement. Did that happen?
At the very least they must have had ships off a harbour/shore to row in from and whilst I appreciate that both bombarding and rowing in could be accommodated by pre-game or simple off table diving in a similar way to assets in other games, I am sure it is visually more appealing and satisfying to actually have ship models to represent this? Just like using actual longships in Dark Ages games.
Combined operations sound interesting. But for this could we use smaller-scale ships on-table for aesthetics (i.e. in a similar way to which many use smaller-scale aircraft above more modern actions)?
I wonder too (as I chug through the Black Sails episodes) whether some kind of campaign-focused tabletop game might be feasible?
Finished season 3; I have come to realise that the pirates were misunderstood traders being victimised by the nasty imperialist British.
I think it was the dastardly upper-class British and their scheming navy that drove those poor innocents to piratical activities in the first place?
The next POE will be gridded I am sure! however a square does have 8 directions though.
Martin, hex would be better for the ships to turn through the wind and have the wind on the 1/4 for best speed
Just some background for those who have not played much POE.
Circa 1720
Pirate ships are small and often converted from merchant ships. Crews are large and ready to board. Merchant ships are also small but with small crews too. No real Q ships.
The government would often charge a lot to escort merchants, but accidentally give your route away if you did not want to pay for their "protection" Oh dear?
Each player has some merchant ships and some other warships. Thus both players are taking the two roles of trader and pirate. So player A tries to get his own merchant ships through but capture the merchant ships of player B. This is schizophrenic, but it has worked in the past.\\\
Atypical "action" would be a single merchant shop assailed by two small (sloop) warships. It either gets chased down and boarded or gets away. If a player's merchant ship groups get through with no engagements then he can gain a lot of victory points. Also a player might be able to avoid pirate ship groups by clever routes.
The skill in the game is about getting your warships onto the same table as the opponent merchant ships whilst keeping your own merchant ships out of the enemy routes.
There can be non"fundamental" randoms such as weather, mutiny, government, doldrums etc.
various templates for movement under different conditions etc. But the template must end you up in a square, facing one of the 8 directions?
Probably set off the coast of Carolina as per the previous POE. Thus we have islands, shallows. Pretty scenery option wold then be available. 1/450th is about 4mm height for figures. So buildings would be easy to fabricate.
POE runs (in its current form) as a a mini campaign in order to create one sided actions (chaser/runner) which are plausible rather than two equal fleets beating about each other. This wold allow about 4 little actions to constitute the larger/whole game.
With-in POE is a land based raid type game. One player hold the town with all the classic pirate destinations, Governor's residence with his daughter, the garrisons barracks for the army troops, the treasury for the gold, a shore battery, town with shops warehouses etc, a church, and the rough quarter.
So the defender has all the elements to help him defend the town from the raiders.
The attackers are the ships crews, who are attempting to loot the town without raising the army, governor's body guard or other defenders.
The game is for 15mm figures, great fun to play as an extension to the ships part of the game.
Excellent summaries chaps, thank you.
As I near the end of Series 2 of Black Sails, I'm seeing many of these game elements in the film.
Would we want to consider chucking in (perhaps as one of the "random factors") in the new version of POE an English warship, or perhaps a Spanish treasure galleon too?
Could we consider building into the design a multi-player option, to represent the shifting factions within the piratical community of gentlemen of fortune?
Santa Claus brought the first series of Black Sails. I'll get down to watching whilst painting my paras for the Ardennes day.
I've just started (the final) Series 4, and it's getting better and better.
Lots of inspiration for Pirate games :)
Finished watching series 4. the final series. All good stuff. The end is a little odd but a great series in most respects. recommended. It will be very cheap soon on Amazon I suspect.
I've just finished it (episode XXXVIII !) myself. I really enjoyed the whole series, and was quite happy with the conclusion.
I had bought mine on Amazon as a physical boxed set, and thought it was great value for 38 episodes of swashbuckling action!
Brought seasons 1-4, this week following a good report from Martin. Really enjoying it, as is Mrs Wardy.
Wardy
Careful - it gets darker and darker - but it seems very fitting too.
I ve started watching it on Amazon Prime. Like what i ve seen so far.
And of course it's all true - based on Treasure Island and historical characters :)
Aye JIm lad 😁
I rather like the Charles Vane (sp?)character. Good voice, good body, good hair, Australian(?) and almost impossible to kill, unless he allowed it. Most amusing character was Calico Jack?
Meanest character was the British infantry officer who was missing his family. Maybe Israel hands was equivalent?