John Camarone invited several people to sample a swash-buckling pirates versus non-pirates game, and the rules he chose were Buck Surdu’s BLOOD AND SWASH, published in 1999. I’ve seen ol’ Buck’s rules before… he occasionally sends in a set to MWAN, and regardless of the era, they’re all alike. “One size fits all”, says ol’ Buck.

Bob and Cleo Liebl gave me a lift to John’s house, and we arrived at 7 PM.

Our scenario used 25mm figures, nicely painted, and four men were defined to be a squad or group or company or impi or whatever. I commanded one group of 4 pirates, and on the first turn, my boys landed on the beach. All men moved 6 inches when they were active.

The beach was composed of “real beach sand”… imported from somebody’s beach… fine stuff… so fine that around the second turn, it began to get on my shirt, my pants and all over my arms. The rest of the terrain depicted a hilly, small island… the pirates landed to replenish their supplies, and a British force appeared to un-replenish them.

It first appeared that all procedures used 20-sided dice… the melee system and the firing system used them. On the very first turn, my fellow pirate commander Dewey, also commanding 4 pirates, had one of his men targeted by a defender. The procedure was

a The firer tossed a 20-sided die, looking for a number less than his marksmanship factor, which ranged from 13 down to 10. He was successful, tossing low, indicating a potential hit.

b Now Dewey tossed his own 20-sided die, as a savings throw, looking for a result under his man's savings factor, ranging from 10 to 12. He wasn’t successful, so his man was really, really, truly hit.

c Having been really, really hit, the firer tossed 3 6-sided dice, and the total was the number of damage points inflicted on the target. In this case, the 3 dice totaled 14 points, and the poor target fell down, having been really, really killed. In most instances, the men on the field could absorb around 13 damage points, and it took 3 or 4 shots to knock ‘em off.

My first question… why did ol’ Buck switch to 6-sided dice for the damage points? The average 6-sided die roll is 3.5, the average 20-sided roll is 10.5. The ratio of these is 10.5/3.5, exactly equal to 3. Which means that ol’ Buck could have used a 20-sider for damage, but increased the number of damage points that a man could absorb to around 3x13, or 39, say 40. This could have eliminated the switch to the 6-siders.

Secondly, this first shot of the game instantly transformed the scenario into a Class AAA Abomination. When Dewey’s man was hit and killed, the figure was tossed on its side, and the 1-inch diameter washer on the base stuck up high in the air, being as big as the figure itself. I would have thought better of John Camarone, but I can partially excuse him by saying that this was only the first outing of the rules. Perhaps when next he uses the rules (and I have no idea why he or anyone else would do so), he’ll have an assortment of prone casualty figures available.

I should note that, on a par with a Class AAA Abomination presentation, is a Class AA presentation, which employs casualty caps to indicate losses. And, of course, there are other such Abominations, but I’ll drop the subject now.

The gaming sequence employed a single deck of 4 cards, 2 for the pirates, and 2 for the non-pirates. When a card was drawn for our side, for example, Dewey and I each selected one of our four men, and the man could fire or move or swipe at an enemy with whom he was in contact, or, if his weapon was unloaded, complete one loading action (it required 4 loading actions to reload a musket).

There was one interesting procedure concerned with the firing techniques. When a man fired at a target “near” another figure (about an inch away), and he missed (didn’t toss his hit die low enough), there was still a chance that the bullet hit the nearby guy. Note that the “nearby guy” could have been friend or enemy, so firing into a group of men was a chancy thing. The same result held if the firing player actually tossed low, hit the target, but the target’s savings throw rescued it. Here, too, we checked to see if another man had been hit. And the moral, of course, was, don’t fire into a crowd.

John was acting as host and umpire, and since, on any given card, only 2 men on a side were activated, this eased his umpiring duties. After several bounds, however, all at table-side expressed a dislike for the sequence, and we tried a sequence set forth by Bob Liebl. Here, the deck contained 4 cards, and each card designated one particular man in each squad on the field to function. Thus if Number 4 card appeared, all the Number 4 men in each squad would function. In this case, therefore, we had 4 men activated on each card draw.

Again we tried this for a couple of turns, and John’s comment was that, from his view as an umpire, this was more chaotic than the previous sequence. The umpire had to deal with the simultaneous actions of men on both sides…and if more players appeared table-side, the poor umpire would be swamped. John hoped to expand the game to include several other players, and didn’t want it to get out of hand.

Back to yet another card sequence…

4 cards, 2 for each side, and this time, 2 specific men from only one side would be activated. Unhappiness still reigned. All card-governed sequences that designate particular men or units, give rise to an inherently “lurchy” system, in that first one man or unit moves, and then another man or unit moves and so on. I stay away from ‘em. But this was ol’ Buck’s game, and we plowed on.

The game started around 7:30 in the evening, and after an hour and a half (9 PM), one of my four men was dead, and 2 others pretty much beat up (they had lost half of their 13 damage points). So was I. But then there appeared on the beach, another group of 4 pirates! Reinforcements!

Criminetlies! We had been playing for one and a half hours… wasn’t the game going to end? And, evidently, there were more British troops due on the field, for at 9:30 PM, another 4 Brits appeared.

Another couple of minutes, and I had only one poor soul left on his feet… the rest were on their sides, bases sticking way up in the air.

I should note that the table measured around 8 feet by 8 feet, and all the action occurred some 4 feet in the middle of the field, just out of my reach. And whenever I did try to reach in to a grab one of my figures, I got an armful of “real beach sand”. In truth, John could have set out a small area, some 3 feet by 3 feet, easily sufficient to hold all the figures engaged.

At one point, thinking that my buddy Dewey couldn’t quite reach his own man, I extended my arm, trying to push his man up the field. This elicited a loud, piercing screech… “You’re touching my guy!”… Dewey proved quite possessive about his people, and I didn’t dare repeat my faux pas again. I was not nearly so possessive… most of my men were too far from me to reach, and every time I tried to do so, I came up with an armful of “real beach sand”… Bob Liebl was kind enough to move my men for me.

I thought that John ran a smooth game, as we sought to iron out ol’ Buck’s procedures. For example, as a man collected damage points (13 such points and he keeled over), then despite the fact that he was purportedly getting weaker, his marksmanship and melee capabilities did not decrease. But I must admit that, in truth, by using constant values for both marksmanship and melee, the game ran faster and flowed more quickly.

Around 9:30, the last of my men keeled over, and I had had enough exposure to lurchy sequences, more than enough sand had gotten on my clothes, and I had seen enough 1-inch diameter bases raised high in the air… so that when Cleo said it might be time to go home, I solidly agreed.