On Saturday, February 3, FlintCon 2018 was held at St. Paul Lutheran Church on S. Ballenger Highway in Flint, Michigan. It was mostly miniatures gaming, with some role-playing activities taking place in a different room. I ran a race of Championship Formula Racing, followed by a game of Gutshot.
But for the early session, I didn’t run a game, but instead played in a “pirate” game where there were two large scale pirate ships fighting each other. That game was run by “Captain Curtis,” and it was a lot of fun.
Captain Curtis’ large-scale pirate ships.
Each ship had 30 pirates on deck, divided into the foredeck, midships, and the afterdeck areas, with 10 pirates in each section. Each ship also had three sets of reinforcements below decks, with 10 more pirates in each section. The pirates were 54mm plastic minis, like the size of the plastic “army men” that many of us used to play with when we were kids. The object of the game was to either sink the enemy ship by cannon fire (each ship had six cannon that could fire at the other, and each cannon had to be manned by at least two crew in order to fire), or to board and capture the enemy ship. You could also win by boarding the enemy ship and bringing back two of its treasure chests to your own ship.
Pirate ship close-up.
As it was, my ship was able to call up its reserves before the other ship, then we boarded the opponent’s ship, and in hand-to-hand combat, my ship’s pirates were able to overwhelm the enemy pirates and capture their ship. It was a lot of fun. Not a lot of strategy, mostly just rolling dice, but the visuals made it a lot of fun.
Some of the “dead” pirates during the battle for the enemy ship.
When a pirate was “killed” it was simply removed from the ship, else there would have been a pile of dead plastic pirate bodies three or four deep across the entire deck of the ship.
Meanwhile, my buddy Greg was playing in a minis game from the age of Napoleon.
Napoleonic miniatures.
Napoleonic minis—the Redcoats advance across the bridge.
There were also some other minis games going on.
Battle in the desert, I believe it was from the Crusades.
So then after the first session games were finished, I ran Championship Formula Racing (CFR) starting at 1:00 pm. We raced on the Detroit Belle Isle track. We had nine drivers, and a rookie, “young” Jack, won the race.
Belle Isle track at FlintCon.
Then for the final session of the day, I ran Gutshot starting at 7:00 pm.
Whitewash City at FlintCon. This is the pre-game setup where players could choose from the minis at the front of the table.
Nine hombres played the Gutshot adventure “Love & Bullets.” In that adventure, Missy Picket has fallen in love with Billy Barnes, except Billy is the leader of a small cattle-rustling outfit, and Missy’s father, the stern Colonel Beauregard Jackson Picket III forbids his daughter to have anything to do with Billy. Well, so Billy’s gang is in town, and they are going to help Billy get Missy out of town. The Colonel also has some hired guns in town, and they mean to prevent Missy leaving with Billy. There is a major complication, of course, in that none of the Colonel’s men can cause any harm to come to Missy!
So Billy and Missy and the rest of Billy’s gang made it from the Grand Hotel to the livery stable before the Colonel’s men showed up. But then bullets started flying. Just as Missy was about to mount her horse in the corral, it spooked from the gunfire and bucked her off. Then Missy mounted Billy’s horse, and Billy got on the horse behind Missy. Then they rode off, with none of the Colonel’s men daring to shoot at Billy for fear of shooting Missy by accident.
Everyone at FlintCon seemed to have a good time, no matter what game they played. I reckon I’ll have to run some more games there next year.
Tags: Belle Isle, Billy Barnes, Captain Curtis, CFR, Championship Formula Racing, Colonel Beauregard Jackson Picket III, Detroit, Flint, FlintCon, Gutshot, Love & Bullets, Michigan, miniatures, Missy Picket, Napoleon, pirates, role-playing, S. Ballenger Highway, St. Paul Lutheran Church