New STL Files - Swivel guns for Age of sail or Pirate gaming

This is the next installment of my 3D STL files series. These are swivel guns for 28mm age of sail or pirate games. There are many makers of deck guns, but to my knowledge, nobody makes swivel guns. Now someone does - me! You can find these on my Wargaming3D store here: https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/ajswargaming_28mm_pirate_swivel_gun_pack_age_of_sail_swivel_gun_pack

There are two variants, with and without the aiming 'handle' or whatever the protrusion is called. 

 

28mm Old Glory pirate for scale, although you can scale these up and down when you print them as needed. They come with the socket mount, should your ship not have enough thickness to drill a hole and mount them directly.

If you choose to not glue them into the mount, they will still swivel if your game requires it.

 

 

 

 

 

And if you need deck guns, I also have STL files for those as well on my Wargaming 3D store here: https://www.wargaming3d.com/product/ajswargaming_28mm_pirate_cannon_ships_cannon_pack.  Also if you're interested in both, there's a combo pack with both at a discount. 

Apologies for the commercial nature of this post, but I'm really excited about this new venture into making 3D STL files.

Pirate Game Day 2014

Today the Northern Conspiracy got together for our annual Pirate game day. This year our host was Michael with his adaptation of the venerable Limeys and Slimeys rules aptly named Penguins and Pirates. We had a great turn out of 12 pirates, three of which were guests, two players running the government ships as well as two game masters: Michael as head GM and Paul as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. 

The day was fast paced, fun and exciting. We had plenty of ships sunk, scuttled and captured. I did well early fighting off a wolf pack of four pirates with my small merchantman sloop, but later on got run down by another wolf pack of pirates sending my boat to the bottom and leaving me penniless. Still a great day of gaming and my thanks go to Michael, Paul, and everyone who brought terrain, boats and a fun attitude. This was the last gaming event of my tenure as president of the club and I cannot think of any way to go out on a better note.  I hope my successor as president decides to bring pirate day back for a return next year.

Pirate Rules Play Test #2

Yesterday we got together to do a full scale test for our Pirate Game that we'll be having at the club in October. Michael and I did a test earlier using tabletop miniatures, but we wanted to make sure the movement and shooting ranges would work with the full size models in a room so we got a group of Northern Conspirators together to do a play test in my garage.

Since we only had seven testers plus Michael as the GM we scaled down to only three Islands and had a column in the middle of the garage take the place of the government ship. The play test went well and we were able to iron out the last of the small details for the game in October. The October game looks like it's going to be a great one.

Thanks to Michael for running the play test, Ross's wife for the delicious apple bread and everyone for helping testing.  My friend and fellow blogger Mark D was at the play test and has posted even more photos and a write up over on his blog.

Pirate Rules Play Test

Tonight my friend Michael and I got together to work on his house rules for our upcoming pirate game day which will take place this October. Michael is adapting Limeys and Slimies for use with the club's large selection of 28mm pirate ships that we used last year.  

Michael has put a lot of work into his modifications to the rules to make them fit both the scale of our ships but also the club's play style. After doing some test runs of each of the different sections of the rules (ranged fire, grappling, boarding, morale) I can honestly say I think these are going to be a lot of fun to play. Michael and I have some additional work to do. Michael is going to make up a QRS for the rules and finalize some minor changes we came up with and I'm going to get working on some play aids on my laser as well as making up some additional ship kits for new members and some guests that will be coming this year.

If all goes well we hope to have a final play test in my garage this September.

A Swarthy Crew (2)

This is another thirteen man pirate crew to hopefully allow me to man a second boat in our club's pirate games. This will allow me to bring a guest to the next game once I finish painting and rigging my second boat. These are old glory figures that I painted myself. These are the first figures I've shaded with the Army Painter quick shade. I hedged my bets and thinned the quick shade 50/50 with mineral spirits in fear that the shading would be too dark. Next time I think I'll go with two parts quick shade and one part thinner. Still the effect was controllable and produced the desired results.

Bay Pirates

I know you're asking yourself, "what the heck is a bay pirate?". Well one you buy off of Ebay of course! This is a mix of Old Glory and Foundry pirates I purchased from a private seller on two separate Ebay auctions. They appear as if they were painted using the Army Painter dip method. The painter used nice light base colors which worked quite well with the Army Painter quick shade. All I did was to re-base them all to match my other pirates.

Next up is another unit of pirates. The next unit is one that I've painted up myself. Between these and the one I've just finished I think I have plenty of crews for our next big pirate game.

First Pirate Game

Last Saturday our club got together to play the first of what we hope will be many future pirate games. All I can say is WOW! the whole club really came together to put on a great game. Every player was responsible for their own boat and pirate crews, several players provided custom made Islands, several players got together to write and run the rules and I provided laser-cut boat kits for several of the players.

The only way to describe this game is 'epic'. It was loud, raucous, chaotic, interesting and most of all good fun all day long. The top pirate award went to Ross, but there were several pirates in the running. I was in the middle tier after peeking at first place for a short while. Tangling with the local militia on one last island left me with a short crew and I limped into port looking for more crew while my competitors were looting and stealing their way to victory.

 Here are a few short videos I took at the game. They give a flavor of the game even better than the photos above.

If you're a member of the Black Poweder New England Yahoo group (or would like to Join) you can view more photos of the game by following this link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BlackpowderNE/photos/album/401298881/pic/list?mode=slide&order=ordinal&start=1&count=20&dir=asc

Finished Pirate Sloop

Tomorrow is our club's first pirate game. A large number of people in the club are building pirate boats that fit on rolling stands that allow us to use the whole room, without having to crawl on the floor. The stands keep the boats three feet off the floor, and with islands and ports also being the same height, the illusion of sea level being about waist high is complete.

Since the game is tomorrow of course I just finished my boat tonight. My masts and rigging are removable for storage and my sloop comfortably accommodates a full crew of ten smelly scurvy-ridden privateers. The game is shaping up to look like a lot of good beer & pretzels fun.