Pirates! at Kublacon 2003

Presents...

PIRATES! AT KUBLACON '03!

Avast! There be undead sailors afloat!

Thomas Foss, original author of our infamous Pirates! rules put on yet another sea-borne spectacle for the gaming masses, this time at Kublacon 2003. The basic concept behind the game was that the Imperial Human Fleet, escorting the princess, ran afoul of the weather and had to take a "short cut" through the Dead Seas. Enter the Undead Fleet. Combat ensues with much carnage on both sides.

As always, Thomas did an exceptional job. Unfortunately, I had the camera, and was running the trade booth. That was only a minor problem. The major problem is that I had a temperature to go with my sinus and throat infection. In the end, I only snapped the photos you see below, and didn't get to follow the story too closely. Still, the ships and figures are beautiful. The Undead ships are conversions of our regular ship line, many of them being made from off-cast ship models, appropriately roughed up to appear well used and abused.

A Dwarven ship (allies to the Humans), gets in close to attempt and board a Large Galleon crewed by the Undead.

An Undead Captain. Thomas has converted many of his Undead models to make them "sea friendly". Hats can be made out of sculpting clay, and quite easily (heck, even I've done it, and I've got no sculpting talent at all), and other bits can be garnished from other models. Some of the GW arms from their Empire line are quite useful, especially from the militia box set.

This is one of those photos I wouldn't use but for the fact that I took so few because of all the "stuff" in the background. Still, it's a good action shot, with an Undead Hulk ramming a Human one. The Human ship in the foreground has lost a mast, probably due to a previous shot. The crew prepare to repel boarders.

This is a closer up view of the previous shot. You can just make out how Thomas converted the bow of the Undead ship by adding rows of skulls to the prow.

An Undead Hulk sails splits off from its Sloop escort. The "splash" in the water is actually one of our splash markers, an unnecessary but fun bit of game paraphernalia Thomas invented.

Close-up of the deck of an Undead Large Galleon. The gun in the bow is a Falconet (or "Man Killer"), and the rest of the guns on deck are Culverins. The Zombies are from GW's box set, appropriately modified for piratey action!

A close up of a scratch-built flying carpet. Unfortunately, I had the wrong tripod with me, as I should have taken this from the top down so you could see the amazing pattern Thomas painted on the rug itself. This flying carpet is just one example of the many zany things you can do with the Construct Rules found in the Pirates! rules. This particular construct is piloted by an evil necromancer who has summoned a couple of helpers!

That poor Human ship with the blown mast is in a pretty bad position. The only thing worse than captaining a ship that is adrift is captaining one that is sinking. It is my understanding that this poor guy graduated to the later condition shortly after this photo was taken...

Pirates! isn't all about big ships - we've got small and medium ones too! The Undead ship on the left is a sloop, preparing to rake the Human Galleon with cannon fire as it crosses it's "T". Human marines in the fore of the ship lob small arms fire into the Undead, but, to be honest, it doesn't look good for them.

I'm not sure who the winner of this conflict was. In the end, as with most Pirates! games, it wasn't important. What was is that everyone had a great time, even those visiting Davy Jones' Locker!