Pirates were the hot new thing at Cold Wars. It isn't difficult to see why. Anyone tired of painting the same old uniforms would jump at the chance paint up some pirates. Colorful uniforms and a lot of personality make Pirate skirmishes a lot of fun. At Cold Wars I had the opportunity to try out Buck Surdu and Scott Palmer's Blood & Swash rules. Each player was given a team of four pirates. The objective was to steal the treasure chest from the tavern.

The figures were mostly from Old Glory's new pirate line and they looked great. The Tavern was a combination of scratch built and some toy and doll house furniture. The rules turned out to be fast and fun to play. Basically each pirate was rated in several categories like s h o o t i n g , sword fighting, etc. To score a hit a player had to roll less than the rating on a D20. The intended victim was allowed a saving throw to avoid taking a hit.

Each hit inflicted a number of damage points, depending on the weapon. Gun shots that missed had the possibility of hitting someone else in the line of fire. Provision was made for doing almost anything imaginable such as swinging on chandeliers, throwing mugs of beer, and pulling the rug out from under an opponent.

The turn sequence was based on the turn of the cards. When your card came up you could give one of your players an action. My only complaint is that everyone gets saving throws to avoid damage. This slows things down a bit, and can be frustrating. Some suggestions are included for using the basic skirmish system for other time periods, and I’m eager to try it out with my Wild West figures. The back of the rule book is a set of rules for larger pirate fights. Overall Blood & Swash is an excellent system for a fast and loose skirmish fight with a mix of guns and melee weapons. It won’t be long before we’re battling it out in my own version of the Ruptured Sword-fish Tavern at one of our game days.