Plunder and Fighting! 2025

“That was rough! The ship sank so fast all we could save was our personal weapons, and after the sharks had their fill we were down to just the four of us. Thankfully we washed ashore on an uninhabited island that had freshwater and enough materials to start building a base. A few months later a small merchant sloop made the mistake of anchoring in the bay and we snuck onboard during the night. Now we have a ship, six more crew who were quick to declare their desire to join us, and we are ready to start plundering the seven seas again!”

This is a solo tabletop adventure wargame where your main character is a Pirate Captain during the golden age of piracy between the 1650s and 1730s. They will lead their Crew on daring raids for treasure and glory while also trying to keep at bay the authorities and rival crews out to do them in. Each game takes the form of a battle between the crew and another group, but likely includes some additional tasks or conditions to fulfill to keep your adventure progressing.

This is not to be taken as historical gaming though, the rules definitely lean much more towards the adventures of literature and the cinema than any attempt to be historically accurate. Indeed a typical pirate ship would be crewed by 50-200 scurvy dogs, and we’ll be playing with a fraction of that number! So, not just a wargame set in the Caribbean, these are swashbuckling, rum drinking, heroic types, swinging from rigging, jumping across rooftops and generally being a bit over the top.

While there are many games that can be played solo, these have been specifically designed to be played that way. You completely control your team, but the adversaries start as randomly moving markers until you spot them and then their reactions are driven by rolls of the dice.

So, what you have here is a set of 8 Story Arcs. Each consists of 15 games that revolve around a specific story. Your crew will improve and may get additional equipment which will be needed to take on the steadily more challenging battles. The whole thing becomes a narrative that will differ from campaign to campaign, enabling you to play it through multiple times without being the same.

You’ll need your own figures for the crew of 10, a minimum of 12 adversaries, and around 10 bystanders. A 2 foot square or 3 foot square playing area, ideally with suitable terrain. Also 2D10 and 15 things you can use as markers while the exact positions of your adversaries are still unknown.

—description from the publisher