Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Letter of Marque and Reprisal

I recently came across this set of rules.  Letter of Marque and Reprisal is intended for small ship actions with miniatures.

Banner Kaperbrief.net

http://www.kaperbrief.net/index.php

They don't seem to have too much done to them lately, but they look like a really good rule system for pirate battles, smaller naval sailing ships, etc.  The movement system is run by card decks you construct each turn based on the speed you are going.  You get a certain number of sailing cards based on your speed.  You intersperse these with various special command cards. 

Once you decide an order of initiative in the turn, then each player in turn plays a card.  If its a plain sailing card, you move a specified distance, and you must move that distance.  If its a command card, you attempt to do the command.  You have to roll against officer abilities to do the command.  All turns, for example, are handled this way.  It requires some thought and planning to construct the deck so you can perform actions when you need to.

Firing is done whenever you bear.  The reloading sequence is pretty interesting.  You have a reloading track on your battery.  When you fire, you reset the reloading track to zero.  Each time ANYONE play a sailing card, you advance on your loading track.  Smaller guns have a shorter track, but use smaller dice in combat. 

I have some 1/450th ship from Peter Pig I bought years ago.  I am planning on finishing them and trying these out.

These rules deserve playing.  The earliest entry in the guestbook is 2006.  Aside from what is clearly some kind of spam this year, no comments have been made since 2010.