If anyone wants to join the Legends of the High Seas Yahoo Group it can be found here:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/LotHighSeas/
Good place to discuss rules and plenty of photos & ideas.

I think that the Legends of the High Seas rules are a good set with great campaign rules. They allow you to "buy" crews with dubloons, which is a points system of sorts. After completing a game you gain more dubloons, infamy, skills etc. and your pirate band advances.

The problem is balancing up the sides, (at the start). As far as crew goes, I wouldn't worry about limiting any numbers. 200 dubloons doesn't go that far, especially when you you arm your forces. Yor Captain will cost you 40d, an additional hero grade character 25-30d, skilled fighters 15d and ordinary crew 8-12d.

We should really discuss this down the pub one evening ... over some grog :)

Viking Hero: I have the master file for the Roster Sheet so it's easy to alter as required.

Viking Hero - yes the ship-to-ship rules might be worth a try out. I notice on at least one post in the LOTHS Yahoo group they used a larger crew (for a sense of realism) but only their smaller pirate crew fought in boarding actions. The reasoning that they gave was that the outcome of the fight would be determined by the few better fighters in each crew. It's one approach that might work. A 5 or 6 man crew on a large ship would be unrealistic otherwise.

hi .all thanks ssendan for the roster sheet all looks fine. printed ok  .mike you will see that their is ship to ship rules in w/h  rules  but no ship roster hence justin printing up a copy. as for the rules they seem fine if we keep to small crews and limited ships for the jan 7th game. wishing every one a merry xmas  v/h

Legends of the High Seas is winging its way to me as we speak. Half price and other Warhammer Historical publications on their site at half price or less. Got to be good value.

Try these, look good and half price at the moment. Ship to ship rules lookk good so to the combat rules.

Legends of the High Seas

Games of War is a good range. My ship's equipment comes from here + other sources. They used to do a Man o' War and have always promised to remould it, but no joy so far.
The roster sheet looks interesting. Have we found a set of ship to ship rules yet?

This looks like a nice site :)

Games of War

Mike (Viking Hero) ... Is this the sort of thing you wanted?

Ship Roster Sheet

Any problems reading it just drop me your email and I'll send the file.

... I should mention that I can do you a B&W version for ease of printing.

... Also I think that the Roster Sheet might be more useful if I add the Captain and overall "band" details to it?

Since when has price held us back. Remember the old adage; Hobbies first and always. BTW that Man of War looks under gunned to me.

Just spotted this:

http://ainstycastings.co.uk/index.php/cPath/63

(Although I think you guys have seen Ainsty stuff already)

Pricey though!

Just seen Ssendam's blog with his ship and the quayside. Well worth a look. Check the link to his site on the main club website. I need to finish my ship(s) off during Xmas holidays.

just looked at justins pirate ship on his blog looks nice. as for rules ive got the warhammer set which are ok. but very dice heavy as well as the dropwing  privater set which are playable.  their is all so a set called flashing steel from anstiy which look ok  might be worth geting.if any one have any other sets for ship to ship as we should have simons/ roberts vessel in the new year as well as your mike and justins.v/h

Viking Hero has suggested we produce quality terrain such as that on the Fistful of Seamen blog. There is also another great townscape here:
http://www.mini-universe.de/ Tactica%20Hamburg%202007/ Tortuga%20Pirate%20Island/index.html
(you need to copy & paste then remove the spaces before Tactica and Tortuga)

I think we have plenty of European/Medieval type buildings as well as a large number of Spanish ones. We possibly need larger structures such as fortifications or towers and Governor's palaces. Also I think  we should be working on harbour fronts and piers. Suitable cliffs, islands/reefs & hills are in short supply too.
Any volunteers to produce some of these features?

As there is still a shortage of ships, the next game may be set ashore with the various crews fighting over the treasures of the port. As for rules I am still unsure whether or not Bilge Rats works - any suggestions for alternatives? Size of each players crew should be about the same as last time (10-12?) or may be a little less to speed things up.

I notice on August 6th we have a Pirates + Ships game organised.

Can we get some guidance on what to bring so as to keep sides fair. Also will it be the same rules?

This is a game report from a Legends of the High Seas Yahoo Group member. Really good looking terrain and report. You may need to paste the two pieces together for the full web address.
http://scottswargaming.blogspot.com/2011/06/
legends-of-high-seas-clash-of-swords.html

Thanks, Ssendam. I don't need a printoutas I have 3 ships already in the yard. However I'm sure other members might like copies.

I have a "contact" in a printing firm and they have A3 printers so I'm going to ask them to print it on to card. Does anyone else want a copy?

Just a word of warning but the document called GARRYSHIP2.pdf is an A3 document not an A4.

I'm working out how to print it on 2 pages ...

Thanks for the links,Ssendam. I've got some of the article already saved but as you say the plans disappeared from Gary Chalk's & Foundry's pages some time back.

You can find Pirate Ship plans HERE:

http://www.madponies.net/pub/FoundryShips/

Get 'em quick as I think they did disappear a while ago and these might do the same.

Thanks for the positive responses to the game last month. I think next time (?) we need less players per game to keep the thing flowing. The Bilge Rats rules have enough good points and a simple system to at least give them another go.
Any of you pirate scum got a sea-worthy ship yet?

Thanks for putting the game on Saturday night, I really enjoyed it. By way of a de-brief I thought I would write some of my thoughts down ...

I liked the clues, even though I didn't really get it at first! The hostile natives were a nice touch, good to have some 3rd party things to give us grief and shoot at.

Perhaps 6 groups in 3 teams would have fared a little better on the time front, and the Mexican stand off at the end was ... interesting. In true Pirate fashion I was about to send a scallywag off to Simon under a white flag to suggest we team up. Of course I would have turned on Simon later after we had dealt with the enemy and his guard was down ... I'm sure that's mandatory in the rules!

I like the rules but with so many figures on the table maybe we could have simplified a few things like wounds and death system? Once you start having to track each one of your troops you have to role individually to do things. With 5 different types of figure (4 if you have no Pups), and various wounds it gets complex!

a vast behind to all the landluders who failed to sail your sloops to the first pirate game last night .alot of  captains managed talk their crews in to looking for  treasure  on a try out of the bilge longtails rules  .  as a set of rules they work well. after a couple of games acouple of the slower side of rules will be over come .so sharpe those cutless and set sail for more adventure on the high seas in the near future v/h

ssendam  no the coding  was not the same it was just a ramdom mix from the foundry hord range sixty fig. which simon took 30 of the more oriental looking crews . my 30are amix bag of the foundry range . but ive added another 25 too that since. same again a mix of all the range from e bay.looking to have them ready for mikes 5th of fed game

Crikey, not ordered anything yet!

Viking_Hero ... was it this:

BHCUT001 - Cutthroats Rampaging Mob (Pirates And Swashbucklers Miniatures : Horde)

That you guys ordered?

(I'll get figures for a different set, i thought maybe some oriental pirates would do well :))

My figures are on 20mm square bases. I haven't decided on the base detail but I suspect I'll end up with just a rough sand finish which will look OK for land and shipboard.
We haven't decided on a set of rules yet but I suspect we will have crew rosters so each figure will need an ID.

mike two questions  how you basing your figs deck or land  flock . will we need record sheets for crews .ie names / weapons etc v/h

Well, I'm amazed at the response so far.
So, since it was my suggestion, I'm putting on the first game on February 5th. This will be a land-based game, so no need to finish all the ships currently in dock.
Players will need a small crew of 12-15 figures including a Captain and a First Mate.
If you want any more info let me know.

Just to give Ssendam an idea of the forces needed. I think we'd be looking at no more than 20 figures per player. No doubt there will be more than one group of figures to some of the larger ships. Other groups will be in smaller boats. The more variety we have between us the more different scenarios we can play.
I just bought a row boat from Fenryl which looks the right size for anyone needing to be cast-a-drift.
I saw the Minimi ships at Triples last year and they are more than adequate for wargames purposes.

justin .so far its  the treasure island hord pack that simon is ordering ever( bhcut 001 or 002 )cost £68 if that helps .as for vessels  as mike said loads of e bay ones but the minimi or  games of war  might work out a better buy save having to re design a megablock or playmobile one v/h

What have you ordered Mike? I might go for some Foundry but don't want to order the same minis if I can help it.

I was thinking maybe an oriental warband for me :)

just to let  you know have started the (cannon)ball rolling with an order of pirates from foundry with simon .so that should cover our motly crews to the number of 30 figs each  some time around xmas  .looking on e-bay for ships lots of  kidies ones available might get abargin that can be converted  v/h

I Just think we should decide a guideline like ...

You need 10 Pirates to start with. And then you can add a ship which is a 6 gun Brig.

Something like that?

Well, Viking Hero. You'll be surprised to hear that we are discussing the 28mm high shiny metal toy soldiers and ships in the same scale.
However, we could always fight sea actions with your collection of 1/1200 scale brigs, sloops and zebecs. But for the moment lets imagine we have (or might have) big 28mm scale ships and pirates plied with rum and willing to board another ship.
I already have interest from myself, David, Kevin and Justin. Not bad for a start and at least half of the above named have pirates and a ship or two even if they are not painted yet.
I'm thinking we could have a game ready for early in the New Year.
Pieces of eight, pieces of eight.

HI ALL  sounds like a club project that could be a winner. what sort of numbers of ships were you looking at  10 aside ?. and build up to a  nile sort of fleet ? we are talking in 1/1200. i take it so we can add them to our fleets all ready owned v/h

In case anyone reads this with interest, here is an article dealing with pirate ships availability and suitability. there have been a few additions since this was written but not much.
http://cianty-tabletop.blogspot.com /2008/10/setting-sail-collecting-ships-for.html

Well Ssendam, methinks ye cud be right.
If we look at a crew of 10-20 figures then the large sloop from Minimi Miniatures should be suitable. It mounts 6 cannon and costs £20 + £1/cannon. The larger Brig is £35.
Games of War has a Small Ship which mounts 4 cannon at £15. Their larger Medium ship looks rather fetching but is £55.
Minimi has two smaller vessels which would be suitable for smaller pirate crews.
There are other alternatives; Playmobil pirate ships and Mega Blocks ones can easily be converted into suitable vessels. Games of War can supply anchors, ships wheels, gun ports etc. for such conversions. These toy ships often appear cheaply on ebay.
Do you think we should have some limits or balance sides when we see what anyone wants to collect?

10-20 Pirates I can cope with.

A ship however is a slightly taller order but achievable.

My only concern would be to have some guidelines prior to playing about how big the ships need to be. We should try to put some guidelines down methinks.