Dubloons and Debauchery

I hijacked games day this week (which was on Wednesday not Tuesday for once) and felt a bit guilty about it. Crabro kindly indulged my whim though despite originally wanting to get back to Battlelore (and who can blame him). I, however, had set up Richard Berg's GMT re-boot of the old Avalon Hill Blackbeard a day or two before, in an attempt to get on top of the complex old fashioned rule book and justify buying the game which had remained unplayed for six months or more. Having got it set up and failed once again to really assimilate all the rules I realised that the only way I was really going to master it was by playing it with someone and enlisting their help in learning it by experience.

The project proved to be difficult but for the most part good fun, mainly thanks to Crabro embracing his inner pirate wholeheartedly and being pretty villainous from the outset.

In the end we had to call the game without it reaching a proper endgame trigger. It was clear though that Crabro, who had started with the eponymous pirate, aka Edward Teach, and played him with thorough wickedness was the top buccaneer. You don't want your merchant ship to be found and looted by this man!

I'm glad that Crabro was interested enough, not just to play, but to print out the whole "living rules" and player aids and try to really understand the gameplay. Hopefully we will return to this next week and perhaps play multiple pirates and have more involvement with Kings Commissioners and Warships as well as perhaps sacking the odd port.

The game is full of period flavour and theme and I think I'm going to love it. I only wish someone would take my other favourite genre, the "wild west", and do the same.