Cutlass vs. Legends of the High Seas

[Captain_Hook]

I have the LotHS rules (yet to play them), and I was wondering if anyone had a chance to compare them to Black Scorpion's Cutlass rules? The Legends rules look to be a fairly straight forward set of rules, but they look to be very generic. Thank in advance for your response.

[matakishi]

I had a game of LotHS and it was alright if somewhat lacking in dynamism and some odd things reared their head such as the musket troops finding it easier to harm stuff by clubbing their opponents rather than shooting them which the chap with the musket armed crew was a little peeved about. He damaged nothing at all at range.
Like all GW games it involves a lot of dice rolling with not much happening as every success seems to be countered by another roll. None the less we struggled to a result (I won) eventually but, given a choice I wouldn't play these rules again.

The Black Scorpion rules I haven't tried but I did watch the video on Beasts of War where the designer explained them with examples of play. I wouldn't touch these unless I was paid, and it had better be a decent amount too. Every single rule seemed designed to prevent you doing anything, even moving (see as everyone trips and falls...). There's no ship rules and no swimming rules either, bit shit for a game of pirate rules.
The cover's nice.

That wasn't a help was it? Well, it might help you to not waste money.
For pirate games I suggest the old free Wargames Foundry black powder rules (I have a set I can mail you if you can't find them on the web) or a quick adaption of some of the wonderful FIW rules currently available, This Very Ground or Muskets and Tomohawks are both very good, or really any number of other rules that cope with hand to hand and black powder weapons.
LIMEYS AND SLIMEYS By Bill Abrams is an excellent set of ship to ship rules which you can tack on to anything really.

[katie]

I quite like LotOW (which is basically LotHS with a different hat on), but I do have to say that it IS rather hard to shoot things sometimes...

[Eric the Shed]

I shall be using the Muskets and Tomhawk rules with a new set of playing cards for different Pirate/Sailor types.



Eric

[Malamute]

I had a game of LotHS and it was alright if somewhat lacking in dynamism and some odd things reared their head such as the musket troops finding it easier to harm stuff by clubbing their opponents rather than shooting them which the chap with the musket armed crew was a little peeved about. He damaged nothing at all at range.
Like all GW games it involves a lot of dice rolling with not much happening as every success seems to be countered by another roll. None the less we struggled to a result (I won) eventually but, given a choice I wouldn't play these rules again.

That just about sums them up perfectly. The fun with these rules is the campaign system allowing your pirates to improve and amass riches etc through  linked scenarios.

[emperorpenguin]

The cover's nice..

That it is!   

[Van-Helsing]

I agree about LotHS - it's good, don't get me wrong - but it lacks "something" . . . . .

Cutlass is clunky at best, and awkward to play - plus it get's really overbalanced quickly. If one player wins a few games, his "gang" improves - and then he generally keeps winning . . . . .

On a tangent note - Freebooter's Fate is the best set of rules I've yet to play/read - albeit with a narrow focus.

[gnomehome]

The Black Scorpion rules I haven't tried but I did watch the video on Beasts of War where the designer explained them with examples of play. I wouldn't touch these unless I was paid, and it had better be a decent amount too. Every single rule seemed designed to prevent you doing anything, even moving (see as everyone trips and falls...). There's no ship rules and no swimming rules either, bit shit for a game of pirate rules.
The cover's nice.

I did try them, and though the system looks nice when reading it and there are some ideas in it I like, the gameplay is frustrating and you'll probably end up making a lot of houserules to try to salvage something of the game.

Things we will modify
- range of fire weapons. Tha range is partly dependent on the skill level (this I like), but the ranges are just too long, even at low skill levels. Pistols fire up to 16" (low skill level) which is plain silly when you take the base move range of 4" into account.

- the 'stunned' rule. You stun when failing to sprint, inducing penalties. All penalties stack, so stunned + injured characters are severely penalised. Of course being stunned, you are worse at tests so you injure more easily. You have to roll to remove stun at the end of the turn (which can be up to 16 rounds !), with a 50% chance to remain stunned. It's not so much a 'stunned' as a 'crippled' rule. We'll probably make it a special action to auto-remove stun. My opponent had half of his models stunned in the first turn (due to some awful die rolls when sprinting) and only one model was able to become 'unstunned' for the entire game.

- the reaction system will need some tweaking. You can try to take over the iniatiative of the other player on certain events. To be able to do this you need to roll (losing an action in the process, even when failing to gain initiative). When failing the model is 'surprised' and can no longer react. So you can have a model that's being shot at (but the attacker misses his shot). The target can now try to react to gain initiative. If it fails to react, it's surprised and loses the ability to react, meaning that the model is now effectively a sitting duck. As long as you keep shooting at the same 'surprised' model (or rather, shellshocked it would seem), there's no way to take over initiative.



We didn't get to the campaign rules, they look ok, but so did the rest of the rules so no real reference.

To be honest, I had the impression this game wasn't properly playtested. It's also entirely possible that we interpreted some things wrong, but I really don't think so.

Next up will be LotHS or else Gloire with the pirate supplement.

[Captain_Hook]

I did pick up a copy of Muskets and Tomahawks as a whim, but didn't consider using them for a pirate game (hmmm). It does seem as though LotHS may be a good set of rules at a games day convention. I've got a bunch of figures to paint, so I doubt I'll need to make a decision on what rules to use any time soon. Thank you for the quick responses.

[Eric the Shed]

Captain Hook
Have you played M&T IF ,NOT try it...we have fount the rules quick, furious and fun. It was made for pirates... If studio tomahawk are reading this please think about a subset..ideas will follow on my blog...

Eric ....just starting out on the pirate adventure

[Captain_Hook]

Using M&T for pirate gaming is very intriguing. How would you adapt M&T for using with pirates? I haven't played the rules, but it seems like there is a lot of emphasis on troop types: regulars, irregulars, militia and Indians. How would you break that down among a pirate group?

[Eric the Shed]

Hi Captain Hook

As you say the basis for the M&T rules are the troop types - these drive movement, morale, number of troops in unit etc...

I would look at creating a range of new classes for the Pirates - Boarders, Shore Parties, Sailors and Gunners.

The M&T rules allow you to create variations in troops eg Indians can be standard, or braves or savages - I would do much the same for pirates. Some units can be better in melee versus others etc.

More leaders/heroes can be used and if necessary I will give them their own Forward boys cards.

Combat would remain the same - hard to hit, lethal and brutish

Eric

[richarDISNEY]

Weird...
I had no problems with Cutlass.  In fact, I liked it a load better than the GW LotHS game.
While no ship on ship fighting, I thought the rules were much better.
THAT being said, I like Freebooter's Fates a bit better than Cutlass.
*beer*

[Thargor]

Okay, time for a feline to be chucked amongst the feathered vermin..... Have you tried Freebooter's Fate?  Designed for skirmish games (6-10 figures per side) on a 4x4 table.  Not many scenarios in the book, but you can make them up.  Don't want to use their beautiful miniatures?...proxy your own.

I really love this game and have demo'ed it at 3 shows now (including Salute this year with the guys from Freebooter Miniatures).

They have released one expansion, with a new faction (Amazons)and new characters for the original factions (Navy, Pirates, Assassins, Goblins), and are currently Beta testing a new faction (Voodoo Cultists).

As yet there are no rules for ships, however .... it's possible that this is somewhere in the pipline (if not, some fans have used the card based combat system to make their own).

[Captain_Hook]

I watched the You-tube video on Freebooter's Fate, and the card based system has me interested. I play Sharp Practice rules by TFL, and I like the cards, versus the you go/ I go format. How would Freebooter's Fate work with multiple players on a side, say 4 to 6 bands of pirates playing against each other?