In the second phase of a Boarding undertaken actions are more complicated and we highly recommend you, dear friend Game Master, to let loose the imaginative powers of your Players. You should yourself think fast and proove inventive to be faster than them or be able to counter their attempts! From a gaming system perspective though, remain the principles of Boarding basically the same as what we already discussed about Approach and Broadside Firing: we deal here with Lead or Coordinated Actions, maybe even Strategic ones in the case of the best trained Crews.

Simulation system

In the case of a Lead Action, either the opposing Leaders must roll versus their respective (Command + Boarding & Looting Tactics) or the Crews roll for a Coordinated Action versus (Cleverness – Got a Nerve! + Boarding & Looting Tactics) to determine the subsequent Mali or Boni of the Crew Members. Actually, nothing changes and everything is so simple, isn't it! Respective Successes or Failures are applied to the Boarding Sequence which then comes, a Sequence which usually precedes an all-on brawl almost impossible to describe unless, like in movies or extremely rare cases, each of the Crews happens to have reached the Opponent's Deck (almost!) without any problem!

To make a long story short because it is certainly impossible to go into each detail of what happens then - moreover it is a lot funnier fun like that and everything can actually happen: Broadside Firings go on (by the way, note that it takes on average such a long time to load a Cannon that it can only shoot every two Fighting Sequences for the Characters…), hidden Snipers or Grenadiers shoot as long as they can; there are also the more or less acrobatic arabesques of the attacking Crew Members who fly through the air, which sometimes turns out badly for them even before they can reach back to the ground, some others miss the next Deck and fall off into the sea; everything, imaginable or not, can happen, even re-encounters of old ennemies who would organise in the middle of the ambient chaos a formally correct Duel, while a circle of supporters could form as long as it lasts to be then dissolved again in the turmoil of the general brawl!

One understands if one can. Anyway, at the end of each Fighting Sequence, it must be rolled again versus either (Command + Boarding & Looting Tactics) or (Cleverness – Got a Nerve! + Boarding & Looting Tactics) according to the situation (Captain still living and / or?! in reach to shout orders, fighting not yet completely generalised, etc.) and that defines the new Boni / Mali conditions for the Sequence which begins. Et cetera ad nauseam or until Looting or / and?! Wreckage…

Jumble on the Deck and the follow-up

All that may - has to? - degenerate to a generalised Brawl, then in difficult fightings in narrow corners in the Ship's corridors and in the shadows of the Holds, meaning many many possible actions, which we let you, dear Friend Game Master, organise and manage by applying the general rules already given, without anymore limiting the possibilities of your imagination. We are moreover convinced that the Players will happily also bring their input also!

What about the follow-up and end of the story? Well Surrender in some, Looting and Walkin'the Planck in almost all cases! (Whether there is, by the way, anything to loot, respectively any shark to feed…)

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