The Hysterical Wargamer
28 July 2006, 20:00 HRS – Historicon Convention, Lancaster, PA
Yours truly traveled to Lancaster to participate in a Pirates’ Bar Room Brawl game run by the Gettysburg Wargamer’s member Mic and assisted by “Crazy Bill Moly.” For you folks who haven’t played this scenario, the object of the game is for your four-man crew to enter the bar and rack up points by stealing things (treasure map, sacks of gold, the tavernkeeper’s treasure, a magic sword, kegs of rum, the secret to the chef’s secret sauce), or by killing characters (most 5 points a piece) before the British press gang arrives to restore order. The Governor of Tortuga’s daughter, who had been kidnapped, is in the process of being sold at an auction. Stealing her racks up 15 points for the crew that takes her. However, she does not go anywhere willingly. Regardless of what the crews go after, the points do not count unless at least one of your crew figures gets out of the bar alive with the booty. Once the crewman leaves, however, he cannot return.
There are some other barroom characters, controlled by the gamemaster, who can do teams harm – Curly, the bouncer, who stands about seven feet tall and gets mean as hell when perturbed, and Ig and Og, twin henchmen who are rather unsavory characters and mentally unstable when provoked. There also are four ninjas who are trying to get their magical sword out of the tavern. Even some of the barmaids pack a punch. Oh, by the way, did I mention the small swivel gun behind the bar?
Having played Mic’s scenario several times before, I knew where the proverbial bodies were buried; I knew what to avoid.
Arrrgh, Cap’ian. She be a crowed tavern, where some ten salty crews - one led by a fairly attractive wrench who hailed from Port Royal, played a deadly scavenger hunt. For this game my crew was led by “Captain Jack.”
During the 3.5 hour game, early, the bar room was a bloody mess.
At least two, possibly three crews went after the Governor’s daughter. She’s worth 15 points alive. (In a previous game I tried to get her out of the bar by stuffing her through a window, but the Chinese Kung-Fu Boys killed her (I’ll get you yet, Pete!). One of my crew was a necrophiliac, so we took her dead corpse with us (worth 5 points).
In this game “Curly” was taken out relatively early, but to get the maximum points a crew member has to bludgeon him to death with his fists. (In this game he was shot.) The character that takes out Curly then becomes the toughest man in town. If the character that killed Curly gets killed, then that character who killed the guy that killed Curly gets the point. (Are you confused yet?) For “Ig and Og,” one was killed and the other went totally crazy, which many times spells doom for crew members.
Other crews just started slashing and blasting at anything that moved. Two figures, spent some time with some ladies of the evening. One team kept killing the bar maids (what a waste of good female flesh), but they, too, were worth 5 points.
Captain Jack had his eyes on the big prize of 25 points for stealing the tavern keeper’s secret treasure. Captain Jack stealthfully moved his mates behind the bar and into a room following 2 members of another team. They did the hard work of picking up the treasure from its secret hiding place, which was also froth with dangers. As the other team started to move the treasure out, Captain Jack bushwhacked them, and his team started to leave with the booty. The other team’s lone survivor, however, ran by Captain Jack and stole the treasure from his first mate. The thief ran out the back door with 25 points, as the press gang entered the bar and started blasting the remaining crews with musket fire followed by bayonet thrusts. That captain’s crew that stole the treasure from Captain Jack won the game by racking up some 60 points.
Though I prided myself that at the end of the game all four of my crew members remained alive, at least one of them without being hit, I only racked up 10 points.
Nonetheless, it was a good game. Hats off to Mic!