Sailpower Ahoy!

As long time followers of this blog may remember, I've had an on-again/off-again 15mm Age of Sail project going on. I would really like to be able to do some of the Barbary Pirate actions and small gunboat actions from the War of 1812, but I've had a hard time finding rules I like along with kits and motivating myself to paint things up.

When I saw that the group that does the Sailpower rules was doing a Kickstarter project for version 2.0 of their rules and for getting some new ships, I decided to back the project. I've never played the game and I wasn't really sure the rules would be what I was looking for, but I think some of the ships they make would be worth getting (I really like the look of their armed pinnaces for gunboats).

The Kickstarter project turned out to be successful and I recently received my gear for pledging at the Captain level.

The pledge level included a Starter Rulebook, two quick reference packs (which each have 7 pages front and back and a lot of rule information, I have to admit I was expecting something a little different for the reference sheets, but this works), a Bermuda sloop kit, a flush deck sloop kit, two launches, and eight treasure chests.

Here is the whole Captain's Level reward

I will write out my thoughts on the rules in a separate post (once I've had a chance to read through them), but I thought I would show off the miniatures.  

Sailpower Bermuda Sloop kit

First up is the Bermuda sloop kit. In addition to the hull, it comes with six guns, a fighting top, a couple brackets (all made from the same resin material as the hull) and the dowels for the mast. The hull is around 7 inches long and is not as finely detailed as the Thoroughbred kits I have, but it should be fine on the gaming table once it is painted.

Sailpower Flush Deck Warship kit

Next is the Flush Deck Sloop kit. The hull is a little shorter that the Bermuda sloop, but it is wider, and comes with eight guns, a fighting top, a couple brackets and the mast dowels. As with the Bermuda sloop, there isn't a lot of detail, but it should be a good gaming piece.

Launches

One of the things that sold me on the project was the launches. You don't see too many of these for sale and I was looking forward to seeing how they turned out. Overall, they are a little rough and will need some cleaning up, but I am happy with the way they look.

A shot of the treasure chests

Finally, there are treasure chests. I think these are more for pirate games than for what I'm thinking about, but I could end up doing some pirate games and they could be handy. The chests look nice and certainly evoke a pirate feel with six of my eight chests having a skull and crossbones on top.

A closer view of the top of the chest.

Like the other items, the chests need a little cleaning up to get rid of some of the excess resin (at least I think it is resin), but they could provide some color to games.

Overall, I'm happy with what I got. I'm not sure if I will play many games with the rules, but it was a worthwhile investment.Now I just have to get back to work on my Age of Sail project.