Alright, I’ve teased this game long enough! June has been a busy month work-wise. Too many reports to write, chasing after accurate data etc. took up a lot of time, while writing the reports were simple enough.
Anyway, I finally got to play a game of Port Royal (or to give it it's full name: Port Royal: A Miniature Skirmish Game set in the Searover's Caribbean). Solo. Forces of the Crown (English) vs Jamaican Pirates.
The objective is pretty simple: grab as much loot as you can and get off the table so you can build up your crew (you initially start with 30 points which, depending on how you configure your forces) can get you a starting crew of 6 models. You can only take a maximum of 10 models at any one time. If you want to bring on someone new, you might have to make the old crew member walk the plank to make room for a new guy 😉
The game's an IGO-UGO system which (if you all know me by now) I'm NOT a fan of... except the non-active player gets to attempt a reaction to the active model (much like the AROs in Infinity) except it's not automatic. You need to pass a reaction check first which I feel Infinity also needs after that first ARO.
Round One and the Forces of the Crown (the AI faction) went first. I attempted to react with my Jamaican Pirates. Some failed and those that succeeded... well, the black powder weapons of the 17th century are pretty unforgiving. You only get to shoot at Short Range (4" for muskets, 2” for pistols) without penalty. Anything else and you get anything from a +1 to a +4 penalty to shoot. And once you shoot of course you need to spend an action to reload and with an action economy of between 1-3 actions per model, that's not a lot.
The dirty English colonisers managed to grab 2 loot chests during their activation and then it was my turn. And here's where the system really shines for solo (and also doesn't as I'll explain later). My brawler pirate charged an English soldier and took him down in melee combat with his first action. (If you charge and get into 1” Threat Range, melee is a free action).
All well and good but after I completed that first action (out of 2), that gave an opportunity for the English soldier to react and he passed his activation roll and shot my pirate dead! 🤣
Anyway, the upshot of the end of Round 1 was the English grabbed 2 loot chests and were going to grab a 3rd. My pirates were close to one loot chest and had taken down an English soldier who had one of the two loot tokens but didn’t hold any loots tokens myself.
Now at the end of the activations, comes the End Phase and Strike Points need to be calculated. (How many casualties taken, how many loot chest grabbed etc.) This will affect the AI responses later on as well as determine if a faction has to take what would otherwise be normally called a Morale Check to see if they break and run.
And the Forces of the Crown go first again! This time they grabbed another loot token and tried to shoot my pirates. Being smarter, I ran them into cover, making it harder for them to shoot. I escaped the AI turn unscathed but I didn’t manage to inflict any damage on the Crown Forces either. Although I did succeed in luring a soldier (according to the AI) behind a wall and away from his commander. We fought to a standstill, thank goodness. (The red token in the photo below is when I realised a prone model can still shoot with no penalty, but gains a bonus to cover when being shot at. Win-win!)
Melee combat is interesting. If you don’t outright kill your foe (everyone only has 1 HP) they take 1 Fatigue. Fatigue accumulates and leads to bad things happening like you losing an action if you have too much Fatigue, or you become more vulnerable to taking damage when you are attacked or shot at to downright becoming a casualty if you accumulate 6 Fatigue. You can get rid of it by Rallying but you need to take a test to do so. Nothing’s automatic so combat is pretty deadly. (You can spot the accumulated Fatigue tokens in the photo below).
Anyway on my turn, I managed to grab a loot chest with my Captain, and also made the Crown Force captain a casualty with an attack from my brawler pirate. Then I managed to gang up on the Soldier and took him down as well! (This was all on turn 3 though, as Turn 2 was indecisive on both sides). Another Pirate ran up to the 5th and final loot chest. Another pirate picked up a dropped loot token from a dead British Marine. The Brawler picked up the loot token from the downed Marine Captain… Then all pirates (including my captain) ran into cover.
That left only 2 more Royal Marine from the Crown Forces: an NCO and a Militia (I need to replace that mini).
At the end of Round 3, the Crown Forces had to take a Strike (Morale) Test since the Strike Point difference was double (Pirates had 11 to the Crown’s 5). I made a mistake here and misread this part. I took it to mean if the commander was down, the test failed automatically and the faction will rout! Turns out that’s why you have subordinates to ensure this doesn’t happen happen too quickly. So the Crown forces could’ve rolled the test using the NCO’s stats.
That said, thematically, the Crown Forces lost 4 models out of 6 and the Captain was down as well… right in front of the mIlitia! So thematically, it made sense for the militiaman to run away, and the NCO, seeing he was all alone, would follow suit.
Result: Jamaican Pirate victory with me holding 4 loot tokens to the Crown's one. If I was playing a campaign (and you can totally do so playing solo) that would be a significant advantage.
NOTE: I now realise I didn’t play the Crown Forces correctly. I need to pair up the troopers to gain advantage of their Disciplined fire that gives them a better chance of hitting the target. So what to do? Easy! Play again! 🤣
+++
So now I have a game under my belt…
The test resolutions are fun, though and intuitive once you get the hang of it. You have a target number you need to beat and the TN can go up or down depending on several factors. Then you roll d10s (always a plus in my book). Standard tests roll 1d10. Opposed tests, roll 3d10s (2 the same colour and the 3rd a different one). That third d10 is the called the primary die and critical failures and successes (1's or 10's) are only counted on that die, not the other two. Then if it's a success (equal or beat the TN) you get to do what you want. If shooting, the target gets a chance to roll a defence against the attack... if failed, you need to roll to damage. The TN starts at 10 on those d10 dice! But depending on weapons used, you do get modifiers that make it more likely to succeed on the damage roll. Remember all models only get 1 HP. So they either die… or they don’t. Fatigue is the condition that is a simple way to keep track of light wounds, scratches, tiredness, individual morale etc. (In the photo below I was in Medium range with only a +1 penalty to shoot... and missed!)
Proof of the pudding about the game’s deadliness: even with all those little things I mentioned above, at the end of Round 1, 3 models out of 12 were already dead! Because each model only has 1 HP. So the game is fast and furious and even in a IGO-UGO system, I can see that both players will be absorbed all the time. The game caters for multi-player or even multi-faction games. Just play on a larger mat as long as there's lots of terrain and cover.
NEXT: I need to paint up my French Buccaneers and maybe even assemble some of the actual plastic minis from Port Royal to supplement my 3D printed models.
I think (or HOPE) there will be some sort of narrative campaign forthcoming to supplement the basic campaign system in the core rules. Or maybe a complete scenario-based campaign. Because the current scenarios are just premised on the historical aftermath of the earthquake that hit Jamaica in 1692 and all the factions are out to grab as much loot as they can. So the core scenario-winning condition is grab as much loot as you can (unless I've missed something). While there are charts and optional rules to change the CONDITIONS on the table, the basic premise remains.
Don't get me wrong, I like the game system and the minis are so much fun to paint! (Very few details unlike modern SF/fantasy minis). I can complete a 6 model crew in half a day using Speed/Contrast paints.
Still, if piracy has always fascinated you, and you like historical skirmish games with low model counts... Port Royal seems to be one of the few games that fill that niche.
(Note: while I take for the physical pledge for Port Royal, I now regret my decision because the international postage cost as much as my pledge!!!!! I should've gone for the all digital pledge, then either bought period-appropriate STLs off MyMiniFactory... or complete pirate crews from North Star Minis. I would've saved a whole lotta $$$ that way. Of course, those fortunate to be living the the USA won't face this issue, but it's something to take note of.)
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