I don't mean to impune the rules - plenty of people like them. But I felt it was important to share a different perspective. I often purchased rules based upon overwhelmingly positive responses in the past, and ended up disappointed. I try to find less positive views now, so that I can have a rough idea about what I might be in for as per weaknesses in the system.
I don't supose there is a nice actual play write-up with pictures anywhwere?
Skrap beat me to the punch on that, Grub, but those posts will at least give you a starting point.
"The rules as originally written were for fantasy naval gaming. They decided to add the historical stuff later on and it works just fine. You don't have to use the Mediterranean ship types and crews to play the game. You can just stick to the Carribean ship types and crews and have a fine game with that. The fact that they present a broad historical option is actually quite nice, since one hardly ever sees any game address Middle Eastern pirate games.
And since Grubman did write that realism and historical accuracy take a back seat to fun, I think he should check out these rules. They really are the only rules out there that have good "skirmish" ship to ship encounters."
I must have struck a personal never. Not sure why this seems to have been taken personally. Of course, I may have read the multiple responses from the same author out of context, and I apologize if this was the case.
As for the actual period covered - whether or not they actually cover the Middle Eastern stuff (and it's good that they did) that's beside the point. I don't recall mincing words over accuracy or lack thereof.
The problem is that the ships reflected are -not- the ships that you would see in a "Golden Age of Piracy" theme. They cover Armada era ships, which are not really appropriate if you're going for the "Errol Flynn" type pirate movie. The Caribbean type ships are fairly limited. There is a sloop and a gunboat, and one might be able to make the small galleon represented work. The others (the Hulk and Galley, for instance, I think there's at least one other, a Galleas, but it's been a few weeks since last I looked at them) aren't actually Caribbean designs. So it's about 50/50, truth be told.
As for the 10:1 scale, the rules don't explicitly state that anywhere, as far as I can tell. But I could have missed something in the fine print.
-Doc