While this doesn't involve a ship (directly), you could try , the free skirmish rules from Savage Worlds with a free 50 Fathoms-based skirmish scenario (complete with figure flats for the minis on the site.

If you want to try the Savage Worlds RPG, there's the free rules. It doesn't have everything the main book does, but it'll give you a taste of what SW is like.

OK, I think that's fair. I pimp WWG all the time on the SW boards, so that enough pimping of SW on the WWG boards for now.

I have to confess to doing cross forum touting as well... and the Maiden is so nice for so many games. (Much as I like Castle Works Ultimate The Maiden is still my favorite - I just ordered the Boiler and Steam Engine from Reviresco, and will finish my Steam powered Maiden as soon as it gets here and I can paint it. Mind you I have already run the scenario I was planning to use it with (ended up putting in a temporary 'boiler room' that neatly hid the fact that there was no boiler) but it just felt incomplete.

Now to tackle the full scale ship. I have some pieces cut and ready for tomorrow.

The Auld Grump

Sadly, receiving a free supplement has me planning out an adventure/short campaign for Skull & Bones, tentatively entitled 'On Twilight Seas'.

Planned WW terrain for the adventure: The Maiden (x2), some Skull Cove terrain, mostly the docks, and a powderhouse, built using Village Works and/or Interior Works: Castles & Keeps... (*BOOM!* I will admit that the building is doomed.)

Now if only there was a New England Works... About a third of the planned adventure takes place in Portsmouth N.H., a third in Salem Village, and a third in the Caribean.) And the year is 1692... Salem Village by the way is not the current Salem, but closer to Danvers.

A note about powderhouses, until the 20th century the buildings built to house gunpowder were very sturdily built... without a planned in weak point to direct the blast in a safe direction, the result when one blew was massive destruction to the surrounding area.

This is completely seperate from my other planned pirate adventure, except for the Maidens, which will serve duty in both (and more to come).

I kind of want to babble about the plot that I have come up with, but will contain myself for now.

The Auld Grump

I just came accross a relatively newcomer - a fantasy skirmish miniatures game more than an RPG, but with possible RPG style for the key characters - Wessex games Strange Grogg. If you have any knowledge of Flintloque, this is a pirate game set in the same style, that the different races of Valon represent the different countries of the period. While Wessex doesnt make figures for it yet, several others have some good orc, goblin, dwarf and elf pirate/sailor related figures that would go well with it. The distributor in the US is Brigade Games, and he also carries many of the figures that would go well with it. Now I just have to get rolling and build my ship! This game and figures would also do well with the Skull Cove set.

Yup, read alot of Lovecraft and some of it sounded familar after i moved to NH, so found out more afterwords

Pretty similar to me - I was living in Portsmouth in the 70s while going to St. Thomas Aquinas in Dover. (The thing I remember best about Dover? All the little tiny graveyards, it looked like avery fourth house had a family plot.)

Dunwhich on the otherhand was Wlbraham Mass.

When a traveller in north central Massachusetts takes the wrong fork at the junction of Aylesbury pike just beyond Dean's Corners he comes upon a lonely and curious country.

The ground gets higher, and the brier-bordered stone walls press closer and closer against the ruts of the dusty, curving road. The trees of the frequent forest belts seem too large, and the wild weeds, brambles and grasses attain a luxuriance not often found in settled regions. At the same time the planted fields appear singularly few and barren; while the sparsely scattered houses wear a surprisingly uniform aspect of age, squalor, and dilapidation.

Without knowing why, one hesitates to ask directions from the gnarled solitary figures spied now and then on crumbling doorsteps or on the sloping, rock-strewn meadows. Those figures are so silent and furtive that one feels somehow confronted by forbidden things, with which it would be better to have nothing to do. When a rise in the road brings the mountains in view above the deep woods, the feeling of strange uneasiness is increased. The summits are too rounded and symmetrical to give a sense of comfort and naturalness, and sometimes the sky silhouettes with especial clearness the queer circles of tall stone pillars with which most of them are crowned.

Gorges and ravines of problematical depth intersect the way, and the crude wooden bridges always seem of dubious safety. When the road dips again there are stretches of marshland that one instinctively dislikes, and indeed almost fears at evening when unseen whippoorwills chatter and the fireflies come out in abnormal profusion to dance to the raucous, creepily insistent rhythms of stridently piping bull-frogs. The thin, shining line of the Miskatonic's upper reaches has an oddly serpent-like suggestion as it winds close to the feet of the domed hills among which it rises.

As the hills draw nearer, one heeds their wooded sides more than their stone-crowned tops. Those sides loom up so darkly and precipitously that one wishes they would keep their distance, but there is no road by which to escape them. Across a covered bridge one sees a small village huddled between the stream and the vertical slope of Round Mountain, and wonders at the cluster of rotting gambrel roofs bespeaking an earlier architectural period than that of the neighbouring region. It is not reassuring to see, on a closer glance, that most of the houses are deserted and falling to ruin, and that the broken-steepled church now harbours the one slovenly mercantile establishment of the hamlet. One dreads to trust the tenebrous tunnel of the bridge, yet there is no way to avoid it. Once across, it is hard to prevent the impression of a faint, malign odour about the village street, as of the massed mould and decay of centuries. It is always a relief to get clear of the place, and to follow the narrow road around the base of the hills and across the level country beyond till it rejoins the Aylesbury pike. Afterwards one sometimes learns that one has been through Dunwich.
H.P. Lovecraft - The Dunwhich Horror

I intend to use the mythos with Skull & Bones... Kingsport to be specific...

The Auld Grump

And for Christmas, a Lovecraftian Christmas Carol... http://www.cthulhulives.org/solsticecarol.html

The (Great) Auld Grump

I finally tried out Corsair.

You know, there is something soul satisfying about rolling 28 D20s all at once! We didn't use the Maiden, someone brought a few of those WizKid HappyMeal ships. (Pirates of the Spanish Main) and we converted from inches to centimeters for movement.

I am now the Master o' the 7 Seas, yarr, harr, harr! I managed to destroy all three enemy ships, without losing a single ship of my fleet. Since they were gone, and I wasn't I managed to be the one who captured the treasure. (Yes, we were playing 'Capture the Flag' with sailing vessels, I was just able to judge the angles of the wind bettter, while they ended up hung in irons twice. (This put paid to two of their ships.)

The Auld Grump, Yo, ho! Yo ho! A pirate's life for me... We pillage, we plunder, we rifle, we loot. Drink up me hearties, yo ho!

*EDIT* Corsair is intended for RPGs, not wargaming, but it was fun. I had the unfair advantage of being the only player on my side, the others were a commitee, with each controling 1 ship. Mostly we were seeing how the rules worked for the Skull & Bones adventure. After some thought I have replaced Salem Village with Kingsport, and Portsmouth with Innsmouth. I want to put in some Cthulhoid elements.

And given the barrages a ship of the line can lay down, ships don't last long... About 2 broadsides did for each of the larger ships, while a single broadside stove in the Brigantine. They never got a full broadside in on my ships, while I got them hung in irons and raked their prows, generally with at least two ships at a time, taking them out one ship at a time, going from line abreast to line astern, then slowly sailing past while we poured fire on 'em.

Later we will have to try boarding actions.

I got accused of 'Sardonic Intimidation'. A phrase I will have to hang on to for later use.

Incidentally - Corsair is being discontinued with the termination of the D20 license. Currently it can be picked up for a buck at . I have never regretted my purchase, and have used it ever since it came out - over the course of multiple campaigns. (One of the universal things in my games are naval battles, right along with war. )

Also worth getting, if you use D20, is Hot Pursuit! and On Foot - decent chase rules for D20/D&D.

If you play D20 Modern I can also recommend Foe Factory - a reprisal of the NPC system from Spycraft 2.0, allowing a single NPC/Monster stat block to be used across levels. It was something I did not think I would be using when I bought Spycraft, but which has become one of my favorite parts of the system. Very quick and simple to use.

All are currently $1 each. I have my differences with Mr. Skarka, but he does make some really good supplements.

The Auld Grump