Here's a handy tip!

My friend would place the corner of the measuring card down at the tip of the ship's bow, from above, standing the card on it's corner ... and then, get this:

He'd "walk" the card, corner to corner, across the table! Using the short side repeatedly for S&S, or "rolling" the card to the long side for S&L moves. It *really* made movement quick and easy. It also takes a minimum of table space to implement, as you're not laying the card down on the table at all, only the corner, or the edge. It takes a helmsman'd S+S+S about five seconds to move.

(Ironically - (or even coincidentally ;)) it reminds me *very* much the way a navigator will walk a compass across a map to plot a sea voyage ... Got the picture now?)

Let me know, if ya need me to draw you a picture of this one, or I'll see if I can get a digicam at the next game.

Side Note:

Doing movement this way is SO cool, and SO efficient... We decided to slightly restrict movement, and House Ruled the following:

1) No turns of more than 90*
This is a MUST I'm afraid. Nothing make a Galleon feel like the lumbering bulk that it is, than to have to make these wide-sweeping turns. This makes the fast and manuverable ships, all the more class-defining. I *highly* recommend this rule. (COME ABOUT still works however, as per the rules.)

2) If the model can't fit the path, you can't move there. This *includes* the pivoting you do at the start of the heading change.
This makes docking and manuvering through groups of ships very interesting.
If a ship is forced to dock facing straight into the island, for whatever reason - the ONLY way to cast off is to perform a Come About. Even without the 90* rule, we play that you can't swing the butt end of the ship out over the island (or other ships) in order to leave. It's my impression that the rules call only for the PATH to be clear. We play, the whole MODEL must fit on the path, including pivots and swings for turns. It's tricky, and feels a bit like sailing. *grin*

Does ANYONE else play this way?



-ACE

If one wishes to over complicate this SIMPLE game and make restrictions like the above, then they are good places to start. My take on this SIMPLE game is that those rules are not necessary. If you waht to play Heart of Oak go do that! :)

No animosity intended. :)

While I like the idea of rolling the card for movement, it has to be done uniformly. Wizkids will have to actually define the exact use of the cards if it is to gain a large tournament scene like L5R or MtG. Wizkids has red and white stripes on the first card of each ship for a reason.

Someone using those would be at a disadvantage against the "compass" method described above. In the S+S+S example he'd be losing anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 inch per ship per turn.

Don't get me wrong here, I actually think the game should be kept simple. However, when people pay entry fees to play you lose that aspect of the game.

Of course, when playing tournies, the advantage of quick and easy play, is not what is desired. When playing there, calculated and concise movement would be the order of the day. *snore* My play group will not be haunting the tourny scene so much. MTG and MK has given us our fill of that.

I suspect however, that many here would benefit from hints on making the game more accessible to a wider audience. My group is mostly made of Boardgame and Cardgame geeks, with lotsa RPG backgrounds.

And ya know what? They LOVE this game. (Who wouldn't .... It *is* Pirates, after all.)

The point being - The alternate measuring method was able to shave quite a bit of time from movement. We found we could move and shoot, when measuring from EDGE to EDGE of the cards. This admittedly does lengthen both MOVE and SHOOT ranges by about a 1/4".

And it was partly because of this acceleration of MOVE and SHOOT, that we decided to complicate movement slightly, and restrict turns to 90* max.

In balance, we find that it still makes the game run a tad more smoothly. Folks are picking up their ships less during movement, and knocking around the other ships a bit less too.

For CASUAL PLAY - I recommend BOTH of these tweaks.


Also - We've all but decided to Crazy Glue our ships together permenantly.
I suspect that many of you will decide to do this too, eventually. We've broken 3 or 4 ships already, and lost 1 or 2 rear flags. (After only two weeks of play ... Out of 25-30 ships!)

We will be using small red or white rubber bands to mark the damaged masts!

The ships stay together better, and the rubber bands look like fouled rigging!
:cool:

Pictures of next weeks game will show this, along with pix of the Rolling Card Movement Technique.


Till then - I remain,


-ACE

I have cut and filed modle spru (That Stuff that holds the parts of your car in the box) to PRECISELY EXACT length of the red and white bars on the back of the deck plates. They are painted red and white, these take up MINIMAL room on the table and quicken play. They are a dream to measure gun ranges.(Just stand up, lean over so your head in directly over the ships and place the stick on the mast you wish to fire from.) They can be rotated from the bow of the ship in any direction and the ship is easilt set next to the stick at the end of its movement. The same thing could be done with foam project board available at Wal Mart. This way you can leave your deck Plate in place and not have to constantly be dumping your crew and treasure. :) Every one at my venue loves them and my sculpy clay islands. I taught my venue's children to play this weekend and they got the gist of it in minutes. :) :p

Thanks for the clarification. It looks solid, but it would never fly here. Too many are old school table top war gamers.

I look forawrd to the pics.