Pirate Battles Land and Sea

[Captain_Hook]

Has anybody tried using a combination of 28mm figures for land skirmishes, and 15mm figures/ships for the sea portion of battle, all in the same game?

[fastolfrus]

Not quite but nearly.

Peter Pig have a set of pirate rules using 15mm figures and 1/450th ships.

[richarDISNEY]

For 28mm games (land and sea) we use Flagship Games' Pirates!

[HerbyF]

I use Limeys & Slimeys for 15mm scale ship to ship on the high seas. And LOTHS for hand to hand & land skirmish in 28mm scale. But not in the same game.

[Mako]

I see no reason why you couldn't, since you could just chalk up the smaller size to a vessel further away from shore, for a forced perspective.  That'd also give you a bit more maneuvering room at sea, when cruising between different islands.

You could even put troops on board them, and conduct naval bombardments of the shore, port, or fort, etc., or vice versa.

Here's a nice 15mm scale Black Pearl model, which can double as a Man of War, well armed merchant, or Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge.  He and his crew were known to have burned a few ships anchored near shore, out in the Windward of Leeward Isles, and reportedly bombarded a seaside town as well for a bit.



Vessel is shown with 15mm scale Peter Pig pirates on deck:



A couple of vessels battling it out on the high seas.



You can see more pics here:

http://s43.photobucket.com/albums/e368/Top_Gun_Ace/15mm%20Pirate%20Ships/

And, just in case ye is in de market, so to speak:

http://theminiaturespage.com/market/msg.mv?id=59241

[Captain_Hook]

Very nice pictures. That what I was thinking when I asked the question. Impressive as it looks, due to the size of the 28mm ships, if you put more than 4 or 5 ships on the table, there isn't a whole lot of room for the land battle. If you could adapt a 15mm scale naval game, with a 28mm scale land game, there would be adequate room for the ships to maneuver.

[Mako]

Sailpower is a 15mm scale game, for ship vs. ship action.

They make 15mm scale vessels as well, and I just saw on their Facebook page that they may also be making some others in 1/250th scale, or 2.5x smaller than 1/100th (15mm), so you can use cms instead of inches for movement, and gunnery combat.

The little 8x gun sloop they'd made looked pretty nice, and I suspect more are to follow. 

They're updating the rules now, so the 2.0 release should be available before too long.

The propreitor runs lots of games at conventions and a local store, in Ohio, fairly regularly.

Prevailing Winds is another good naval set of rules, meant for the War of 1812 naval battles on the Great Lakes, but it can easily be adapted to naval battles during the pirate era.

These two rules sets are probably the best for ship to ship combat in the pirate era.

You can then add in your favorite set of land rules for actions ashore, or try to adapt the boarding action rules the two naval sets provide, for your use instead, if running larger forces.

I've yet to run across a set of pirate rules, other than the two mentioned above, that handle naval combat better.  Most don't even really try.

[Elbows]

I have a boatload (snicker snicker) of the old credit-card cut-out plastic ships from Pirates of the Spanish Main or whatever it was (the collectible card game bit).

As I started a 28mm Pirate project (on hiatus), I immediately started to consider how simple it would be to do a kind of campaign using my hex'ed water mat.  Let players set courses, or make plans, moving their ships on the map etc.  I'd toss in a bunch of islands and ports, some scenario generators etc.

I have some 28mm scale ships which would be used for sea-only battles, and then I have island terrain for 28mm land battles. It would be a fun way to do a bit of both.  This may be my next project after my Macross and Old West projects reach a reasonable point.

[FifteensAway]

As the "brains" behind a certain amount of pirate madness, see here:

http://carobbeansea.blogspot.com/

Allow me to weigh in.  I was recently looking at a back issue of a magazine and looking at Peter Pigs 1/450th scale ships and started thinking that is a way to go in the future.  Create a big sea for those little ships to sail around in and use my large collection of 15 mm pirate figures for land action.  Still pondering this and how to make it work.  But one thing I noted in running my game twice is that the players didn't seem to care much about the ship so much as they did about the action.  But it wouldn't have the visual impact that putting sixteen fully rigged ships on the table did.  And, man, that sure had an impact.  If I accomplish nothing else in gaming the rest of my life, I will always be proud of the way people responded to the visual impact of our giant pirate game.  And, by the way, Mako was one of the hoard of people who brought that game to reality.  It was he who tracked down and created the lovely flags we used in the games.

So, I'd say, yes, go forward with your idea to use 15 mm ships in a game with 28 mm pirates.  And check out Old Glory 25s range of ships and the Blue Moon's as well (on same site).  Here is the link to the 15 mm buccaneers ships: http://oldglory25s.com/index.php?cat_id=64&catname='Buccaneer%20-%20Napoleonic%20Wars%20'.  While there, check out the other ships they have.  Good people, great service, amazing variety of quality product.

[Captain_Hook]

I am a long way from finishing my pirate crew, but the photos from your blog are very inspirational. I agree, boardgames are fine, but nothing spurs interest like a full table of well painted figures, and detailed terrain.