*Blood & Plunder* solo on Tabletop Simulator. The scenario was the amphibious variant of “Breakthrough”, with the French attacking the Pirates. The French were led by Joseph “Saint-Ovide" de Monbeton, and the pirates were led by Jack Rackham, and included Mary Read and Anne Bonny. The pirates started the game drunk, and as the dice turned out, every single unit except Rackham’s command unit was, in fact, drunk. This gives a bonus to fight and resolve, and a penalty to everything else. As the French strategy was to anchor just off-shore and hammer the pirates with swivels and buccaneer guns, this would be entirely to the French advantage except for one thing: the resolve bonus. The pirates ended up being, for the most part, suicidally brave. Bonny and Read each were with a unit of elite Roundsmen, while every other unit was regular pirates. One such unit had a cook with them, for extra morale bonus. The prize was with the unit of pirates that had no characters or commanders. The French were on a corvette, with no cannons but swivels. On the main deck were a large unit of later flibustiers, as a boarding party, and a small unit of zeelieden, assigned to sheets and braces to handle the sailing needs as the ship came in. On the quarterdeck, a unit of marins were assigned to the swivels, and a unit of later flibustiers with Saint-Ovide and a sharpshooter were there to provide extra fire from the deck. A longboat was towed behind. ![[july_28-1.jpg]] --- Mon intendant, My corvette *Saint Esprit* began its final approach and the pirates frolicking on the beach saw us clear. Rackham’s personal circle advanced behind a wrecked ship and took some pot-shots, but the range was too far; they whizzed over the heads of my sailors, and they didn’t even flinch. Apparently, we learned later, this lot were the only pirates sober. ![[july_28-2.jpg]] Then Read’s drunken scoundrels saw what they took for fun and joined in, managing to fell two of my flibustiers on the main deck. The rest of these men threw themselves to the ground in sudden panic. ![[july_28-3.jpg]] The pirate cook’s men joined in, too, shooting and hooting from the beach, and managed to further terrify my flibustiers. I shouted at them and the worried-looking Dutch sailors tending our sheets and braces to remember the justice of our cause, and saw certainty and resolve spread across their faces. My personal flibustiers then fired on Read’s men, and the sharpshooter killed one. The villains with the prize moved forward to see what the commotion was, and my rallied flibustiers on the main deck rose, picked off two of Read’s group, and lay flat once again. ![[july_28-6.jpg]] As we approached, the exchange of fire became more intentional, and Read’s group took heavy casualties as they cavorted on the beach, thinking themselves safe. They suddenly saw the reality of the situation and fled back, as Bonny’s group managed to kill another of my flibustiers. Bonny’s men charged onto the pier, and the scoundrels with the lockbox did likewise. My Dutch sailors couldn’t lay aloft as they had wished with the amount of lead in the air, and were sadly delayed in dousing the sail. They eventually managed what they call a “fisherman’s reef”, an operation that could be performed from the deck, which, as we were sailing to windward, helped. They eventually won their anchor, as the sailors and flibustiers on the quarterdeck kept up their hail of fire on the pirates on the beach. The other unit of flibustiers, the dedicated landing party, pulled the ship’s boat alongside, jumped into it, and rowed for all they were worth, gaining the shore behind a rocky outcropping unopposed. ![[july_28-7.jpg]] ![[july_28-8.jpg]] The pirates were unshakable, firing as rapidly as they could but to very little effect. Mary Read was the last of her group left standing, and still she refused to run or hide, firing a lone shot over the heads of the flibustiers and spitting curses. ![[july_28-9.jpg]] The swivel guns were kept firing until they grew hot, but the flibustiers’ buccaneer guns were by far the more effective. And once the landing party had gotten out of their boat, they rounded the rock and opened fire on the pirates with the lockbox. At this point, the pirates fled, with whoops and jeers. Rackham and his gang are still at large, but the lockbox full of negotiable instruments is once more safely in French hands. Votre serviteur, Joseph de Monbeton de Brouillan, *dit* Saint-Ovide