Them As Dies Is The Lucky Ones

Pirate Rules

review by Tom Desmond

By Bill Johnson and David Ratcliff

Them As Dies are skirmish rules for fighting actions with pirates, buccaneers and the like. Designed for 25mm figures, there are four classes ranging from Poor/raw to Expert. It is an initiative based sequence in that player with initiative moves and fires first. The non-moving player can only fire figures if they are being charged. Melees are then fought using an order of strike system. Movement is chart based with a figure walking 10 centimeters and charging 20 for example. Bad going reduces movement by half. A figure can do a single action per turn; thus, for a figure to load, aim and fire would take three full turns.

Firing is based on a percentage chance to hit, modified by range, target and shooter actions and tactical considerations such as unaimed shot or wounds received. This score, if it produces a hit, is then used for wound effect calculation on another table, then wound location on yet another. This means that for each figure firing, you have to figure the firing through on three different tables before moving on to your next shot. This could get complicated if a player is running the 20 figures the author recommends a player can handle.

Melee occurs when figures come into base to base contact. The figure being charged, if loaded, can fire before melee. Melee is based on the concept of first strike. Each figure starts at zero and add/subtracts modifiers. Modifiers include quality of troops (+/-), wounds (-), long weapons (+) or improvised weapons (-). The figure with the higher result gets the first strike. The melee procedure involves a number of steps. You start at 50% and add/subtract modifiers to produce a percentage chance to hit. If a hit is made, the percentage die roll is compared to a wound table to produce a result ranging from light wound to kill. If a light or serious wound is caused, a roll is made on a wound location table. If the first strike produces a kill, serious wound or head wound, the defender does not get a reply. Once again, this process could be cumbersome if using large numbers of figures.

Morale checks are made in the following circumstances: to receive charges or to rally routing troops, when casualties reach 50% or if the Captain or leader is incapacitated.

Although the authors indicate the rules are primarily for man to man combat, they have also included 5 pages of ship to ship rules that are somewhat simpler and would allow quick battles. Topics covered include wind direction, changing speed and direction of ships, firing round shot and grape, collisions and grappling. There are four scenarios included as well as reproducible figure record and quick reference sheets.

Admittedly, I did not have an opportunity to play the rules. However, given the procedures involved in firing and determining wounds followed by a four step melee procedure, it appears to me that trying to run 20-25 figures (as recommended by the author) would produce a slow, cumbersome game. 5-10 figures might seem more reasonable. The rules do introduce some interesting concepts such as hand grenades, blunderbusses and fighting “hated enemies”. The rules are available from Redoubt and are worth a look if you are interested in this period. Given the large number of pirate figures currently on the market, there does seem to be a lot of interest. -

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