Pushing figures around

It was a good quick fun game.  For this we decided that any vehicle that rolled were considered to be out of action.  The rules do allow for you to re-right rolled cars and in future hopefully will also include rules for crews to run around on foot.

I am already considering having a house rule for smoke dispensers as an alternative type of passive weapon.  If nothing else, it will add an extra element of ‘Scenery’ to the table to have smoke clouds around.

Thanks for reading and roll on the next race.

Emerging from the heat shimmer they come in a roar of sound and fury, the nomad brigands and road pilots. Chrome, dust, and rust in your rear-view mirror are the first harbingers of impending doom. Then the incessant chatter of twin Vickers fills your ears, and your automobile begins to disintegrate around you.

It’s the Dirty Thirties and racing just got a whole lot more dangerous.

For this race we decided to have it based in Outback Australia.  Cars were built to a value of $800 and we decided that we would not use any passive style weapons (oils, caltrops etc)

We decided upon scenario 2 Death Race.   In this scenario the cars have to race around four checkpoints in a specific order.  Each checkpoint is positioned near one corner of the table and can be negotiated in either direction, as long as each is done in order.

The winner would either be the first car to exit the table by the short edge opposite the starting line after having passed each checkpoint, or the last car standing in the case of vehicles being immobilised.

Fiona Fuelstop 

in her pink love bug #5.

Equipped with Twin Machine Guns in a fixed forward position.

Fiona has expert Driver Skill, this combined with her car being the fasted in the race should enable her to take an early lead.  The question is, with weaker armour than the rest will she be able to go the distance.

Baron Munchausen

in the Mean Machine #2.  This beast of a car comes with Additional Armour to both sides, an Armoured Engine and Armoured Crew Compartment.  With its Twin Linked Machine Guns in a fixed forward arc this could be a good bet to take the trophy, providing the Barons basic driving and gunnery skills can keep up with the others.

Rosie and Jim

in the Blue Marloo #9.  This car just bristles with firepower.  Twin Linked Machine Guns in a rear facing Swing Mount should deter any would-be tail gaiters whilst a fixed forward firing Machine Gun can help clear a path to victory.

Peter Perfect

in his Turbo Terrific #57.  Peter a long-time fan favourite has improved Driving and Gunnery Skills, all the better for getting that fixed forward firing Light Cannon to make its mark.  An Armoured Engine should help as Peter just loves to go ‘Fanging it’.

Civilians – Vigilantes

The citizens are shown to be a mixed bag. 98% are unemployed (due to advances in robotics) and range from lazy and sloth-like to highly rebellious violent criminals, bent on destroying and killing as much as they can for whatever reason they can think of at that time, if any. Most of the Judges seem to view them like a well-loved dim cat, stupid, greedy but with an unseen value that’s worth protecting with everything they have. Although at times they’ve shown a huge lack of empathy towards them, such as when Chief Judge Francisco asked them if a large number that were on welfare could commit suicide in his Christmas message to help balance the budget for the following year.  Some Judges openly view them as a nuisance to be removed, or like Judge Manners, as a sub-human race to be used and abused as the Judges see fit.

The citizens occupy their time with many strange and outright bizarre hobbies, such as simping (recreational stupidity), bat gliding, sky surfing and peeping (spying on people at home and in public), which is illegal when done for sexual purposes, but legal when done under the authority of a Judge. If any of these ever get out of hand, and there is no legal justification for banning, the Judges simply impose a heavy tax on them, restricting them to only the few very wealthy citizens.

Most are poorly educated, and many can barely read or write, some sectors are said to be entirely illiterate, but Judges aren’t that concerned, as it makes it easier for them to control and they can weed out the more intelligent simply when major crimes occur.  Those that can read though are not much better, for example, when a book that detailed how to commit suicide was released, thousands of previously non suicidal citizens (including the book’s author) killed themselves since they had read how to do it in the book.  At one point in some of the more dangerous blocks, the Judges took to putting sedative drugs into the air systems to help keep the citizens more docile and easier to control.

Some though do show huge promise, intelligence, and have extremely useful skills, many top scientists and engineers are not Judges. Most of the city’s biggest advancements in areas such as food, new materials, non-weapon or military technology, medicine and architecture and construction design (including the Halls of Justice) came from ordinary citizens. All the major businesses and entertainment (apart from Justice Department propaganda channels) figures are citizens as are a lot of the city’s diplomats, but they always report to a Judge before making any decisions. But not all valued skills are the same as the real-world ones, examples of this are human taxidermy and professional gluttony. Most of the highly intelligent citizens end up in crime such as PJ Maybe, and Nero Narcos, as they are very limited in the wealth or power they can attain (the amount of real power a citizen can gain though is very limited) legally.

A Brief History

The late 17th and early 18th centuries are often considered the “Golden Age of Piracy” in the Caribbean, and pirate ports experienced rapid growth.

The military power of the Spanish Empire in the New World started to decline when King Philip IV of Spain was succeeded by King Charles II.

While Spanish America in the late 17th century had little military protection as Spain entered a phase of decline as a Great Power, it also suffered less from the Spanish Crown’s mercantilist policies with its economy. This lack of interference, combined with a surge in output from the silver mines due to increased availability of slave labour began a resurgence in the fortunes of Spanish America.

England, France, and the Dutch Netherlands had all become New World colonial powerhouses in their own right.

Worried by the Dutch Republic’s intense commercial success since the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia, England launched a trade war with the Dutch. The English Parliament passed the first of its own mercantilist Navigation Acts and the Staple Act that required that English colonial goods be carried only in English ships and legislated limits on trade between the English colonies and foreigners. These laws were aimed at ruining the Dutch merchants whose livelihoods depended on free trade. This trade war would lead to three outright Anglo-Dutch Wars over the course of the next twenty-five years.

Meanwhile, King Louis of France had finally assumed his majority with the death of his regent mother Queen Anne of Austria’s chief minister, Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661. The “Sun King’s” aggressive foreign policy was aimed at expanding France’s eastern border with the Holy Roman Empire and led to constant warfare against shifting alliances that included England, the Dutch Republic, the various German states and Spain. In short, Europe was consumed in the final decades of the 17th century by nearly constant dynastic intrigue and warfare, an opportune time for pirates and privateers to engage in their bloody trade.

In the Caribbean, this political environment created many new threats for colonial governors. The sugar island of Sint Eustatius changed ownership ten times between 1664 and 1674 as the English and Dutch duelled for supremacy there.

Consumed with the various wars in Europe, the mother countries provided few military reinforcements to their colonies, so the governors of the Caribbean increasingly made use of buccaneers as mercenaries and privateers to protect their territories or carry the fight to their country’s enemies. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these undisciplined and greedy dogs of war often proved difficult for their sponsors to control.

By the late 17th century, the great Spanish towns of the Caribbean had begun to prosper, and Spain also began to make a slow, fitful recovery, but remained poorly defended militarily because of Spain’s problems and so were sometimes easy prey for pirates and privateers. The English presence continued to expand in the Caribbean as England itself was rising toward great power status in Europe. Captured from Spain in 1655, the island of Jamaica had been taken over by England and its chief settlement of Port Royal had become a new English buccaneer haven in the midst of the Spanish Empire. Jamaica was slowly transformed, along with Saint Kitts, into the heart of the English presence in the Caribbean.

At the same time the French Lesser Antilles colonies of Guadeloupe and Martinique remained the main centres of French power in the Caribbean, as well as among the richest French possessions because of their increasingly profitable sugar plantations. The French also maintained privateering strongholds around western Hispaniola, at their traditional pirate port of Tortuga, and their Hispaniola capital of Petit-Goave.

This is only the second game I have ever played of Blood and Plunder, my first game being a few years ago now, it was also my opponents first game, so I decided to keep things relatively simple.  Not only would I need to remember the rules, but I would also need to teach them as I went along.

To learn the rules, I adopted my usual tactic of playing learn to play videos on YouTube when going to bed, and falling asleep 5 minutes into them, and then letting my wife explain to me what I missed the following day after she was kept awake half the night.

This little Battle would pitch a band of Dutch Privateers attacking a French Caribbean Militia as it defended its small settlement.

The Dutch have made shore some distance from the settlement and advanced upon it on foot.  The French have only just been warned of the imminent attack and have ushered all the civilians into the church for safety.

The Forces

French Militia

1 x Untested French Militia Commander

8 x Trained Milices des Caraibes

5 x Trained Milices des Caraibes

8 x Inexperienced Miliciens

4 x Trained Marins

Dutch Privateers

1 x Untested Dutch Sea Commander

4 x Trained Zeelieden

8 x Trained Kapers

4 x Veteran Entr Ploeg

8 x Inexperienced Militie

The French deployment was in the table quarter containing the church, the Dutch could enter from any other table edge.  (The raid scenario from the Blood and Plunder rule book)

The objective for the Dutch was to get a unit into the Church and then spend one whole turn in the church, ransacking it and the like.  The French objective was to stop that from happening.

Unfortunately, the French were no match for the vicious Dutch who managed, despite losing two whole units, corner the French commander and put a swift end to his defiance.

With the French commander gone, the Milita took to their heels leaving the church and all those inside it at the hands of the invaders.

The Congo River and mysterious jungle that surrounds it still has as many secrets to reveal!

Mr Rossignol, well known to our regular readers, and who has just returned from the Dark Continent, reports the story of a lost tribe that worships what might be the largest ape ever seen.

This story would have remained a legend if the famous explorer had not sworn to have crossed the path of the beast during his journey.

being both well known, and a proper gentleman, his word was not doubted by the authorities of the Kembele trading post.  They sent a scientific expedition to capture and bring back the beast.  If it exists…

The Worshipers

Pygmy King

Witchdoctor

5 x Pygmy warriors

2×3 Pygmy Archers

5 x Young Warriors

5 x Young Warriors

6 x Archers

Kong, the Giant Ape

The Hunters

Explorer

Reporter

Bearer

4 x Soldiers

4 x Trained Askaris

4 x Trained Askaris

3 x Adventurers

5 x Askaris

5 x Askaris

3 x Scouts

In this scenario the Hunters are trying to capture Kong.  To do this the Hunters must take his last life point in melee combat.  If Kong loses his last life point for any other reason, he dies.

The Hunters will win automatically if they capture Kong, they will also gain 1 victory point for each life lost by Kong.

The worshipers will automatically win if Kong is killed.  (His spirit will reside in the forest forever) They will also gain 3 victory points for each enemy group eliminated.