Kickstarter Quick Picks: Piracy in the Caribbean With ‘Port Royal’

While Firelock Games has several titles in their catalogue, they are probably best known for Blood and Plunder, a 28 mm historical tabletop game set in the 17th Century Caribbean. Recently, they launched a Kickstarter Campaign for Port Royal, a miniatures skirmish tabletop game sharing the same setting. The game is loosely based on the historical events following the 1692 earthquake that devastated the island of Jamaica.

What Are Kickstarter Quick Picks?

Kickstarter Quick Picks are short looks at projects currently on Kickstarter that are of interest to me, and by extension, many of our GeekDad readers. A Quick Pick is not an endorsement of the Kickstarter campaign, nor have I (as yet) received any product copies to review. If you like what you see here, go check out the campaign and decide for yourself if you’d like to back it, or wait until GeekDad has had a chance to go hands-on. As always, caveat emptor- let the buyer beware.

New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer.

What Is Port Royal?

Port Royal is a campaign based, tactical, small-scale warband-sized skirmish tabletop wargame for 2 players. The miniatures and terrain are 28mm scale. It’s currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of $79 for a Core Box, which includes everything you need to start playing. As this is a miniatures game, there are multiple pledge levels available. If you already play Blood and Plunder, those miniatures are also compatible with Port Royal.

The campaign is roughly at the halfway mark, with over $96,000 pledged as of this writing. The Port Royal Kickstarter campaign ends on Friday, July 5th, and Firelock Games is estimating a ship date of the game this December, 2024.

Port Royal Core Box Components

The Core Box for Port Royal contains the following:

• Rulebook
• (6) d10 dice
• 15 Character models on hard plastic sprues
• Additional accessories and plunder on hard plastic sprues
• Punchboard tokens
• Rulers
• 26 Punchboard terrain pieces
• Paper terrain mat

Click to view slideshow.

How to Play Port Royal

In Port Royal, players take control of small companies of pirates, privateers, Native Americans, African Maroons, or local government forces as they battle against opponents for their share of the plunder that litters the ruins of the place. Players will gain loot and experience between games while building infamy and growing in their piratical expertise.

Create a Company

To play, you will first create a company. You can choose from a number of different companies including Jamaican Pirates, French buccaneers, Spanish Corsairs, Dutch Kapers, Maroons, Carib Raiders, or Forces of the Crown. Once you’ve chosen a company, you then build it out with the various units, weapons, and equipment.

This is not a large-scale wargame, but rather a skirmish-sized game, where each player controls a warband similar to games like Necromunda.

Play a Game

Each game will have companies battling it out for plunder in the ruins, jungles, and plantations of Jamaica. Gameplay is objective-based, and features a system where activations alternate between the two players. In other words, a player takes his actions with one of his miniatures, and then his opponent gets his turn to do the same with one of his. However, there is also a reaction system, where the opposing player can attempt to interrupt the actions of the active player.

At the start of each turn, players generate Fortune Points, which can be used to bid on their  initiative, re-roll their dice, and give extra actions to characters.

The Aftermath

There’s an integrated campaign system where the players record the fate of their models, see how much booty they collected, and explore the area to discover treasures. Characters gain experience to improve their skills, but can also suffer injuries that can have negative effects. At the end of a campaign, whichever player gained the most infamy is declared the winner.

Here’s a brief demo of gameplay from Adepticon 2024:

Why You Should Back Port Royal

As we get older, free time becomes more and more at a premium. Playing a large-scale tabletop miniatures wargame is appealing in the abstract, but realistically it’s a huge time commitment. There’s the assembly and painting of your forces, the creation (or acquisition) of enough terrain to fill a 6′ x 4′ table, and then there’s the many hours you’ll spend just in the setup, playing, and teardown of each game session.

A skirmish-level game is much more manageable, with only ten or so models to a side, and only enough terrain to fill (in the case of Port Royal) a 2′ x 2′ playmat. While I haven’t played Port Royal myself yet, it’s a safe assumption that the length of each play session will also be significantly shorter than an army-sized game, if other skirmish miniature games are any indication.

Firelock Games produces good-looking, easy to assemble miniatures. They have a lot of experience in historical tabletop wargames, with several ongoing titles under their belts. And you can have some confidence in backing Port Royal as Firelock Games has previously delivered on 5 other Kickstarter campaigns.

Port Royal looks to have a solid, fun ruleset. And, of course…there’s pirates! There’s also a lot of value in that Core Box pledge, with everything you need to get started playing the game, except for some model glue and paints.

For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Port Royal Kickstarter page!

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