Recruits 2013: Rum Luck

So I've never been to Recruits before, and in fact haven't been to a wargaming convention in ages, but Bill over at Wargaming from an Armchair talked me into going despite the fact that he couldn't be there himself.  Recruits is located in a high school gymnasium in Lees Summit, MO, just about an hour from where I live.  Because of some schedule issues I knew I'd be able to get there in time for the 9-12 session Saturday, bum around the sellers' booths for a bit, then head back home.

After meeting the Baron for the first time (and learning that his game was already full) I wandered over to a guy putting together a pirate game with some truly outstanding looking ships.  Apparently the game, using the Warhammer Historical pirate rules Legend of the High Seas, was a bit of a demo for the company, Laser Dream Works.  Like I said, the ships looked great and the pirate miniatures were very well painted.  The rules were pretty easy to learn, being derivative of the Lord of the Rings rules.

The scenario was a large British ship and a small on-shore contingent of marines were being attacked by three small pirate ships in hopes of overtaking her.  Where the game fell apart was that the large ship had been given large cannons, which were capable of blasting apart a small ship in two shots easily, while the small ships had small cannons that couldn't sink the ship even after it had been hit a dozen times.

Unfortunately my crew, in an attempt to quickly close with the ship and get into melee combat took an early cannon ball, lost half its hull points, and then my captain failed a courage check and the crew dove into the sea.  By the end of the game the pirate crew (short a few members who couldn't swim) made their way to an island, where they fought and lost to the on-shore contingent of marines.

Here's my collection of pics from the game.

That would be my crew, abandoning ship despite not a single person being killed.

There was a lot of good humor and gentlemen at the game, so I had a great time.  I cruised the vendors but didn't see anything that demanded my attention except a couple of cheap used AD&D sourcebooks.  I may have to order a viking ship from Laser Dream Works, though.