Guest Post by Ted McCarty
Greeting and blessing captains and crew, I hope you have enjoyed the campaign season thus far.
For those of you who don’t know, us pirates have established the future traditions this summer, and one of them has been a weekly movie night. While the majority of these nights have been filled with classics like Muppet Treasure Island or the good version of Hook, we took a slight break from these classic pieces of cinema and watched a movie that could, very generously, be described as a cult classic, Yellowbeard.
If you have not heard of the historical figure of yellow beard or his fantastic 1983 film, well there are good reasons for that. Obviously there was no actual pirate called Yellowbeard, or if there was, they were minor enough that their name has been forgotten by history. As for the film, it can best be described as a film so bad that the crew documented its production and made a documentary about it titled Group Madness! This behind the scenes documentary has a significantly higher rating than the film it examines and will likely be something I subject, I mean show, my fellow pirates in the near future.
Despite this film’s complete lack of redeeming qualities, it has quickly become a cornerstone of our team and has inspired the painting of at least one mini.
With this artistic masterpiece now existing, and likely being the greatest tribute to Yellowbeard that has or will ever exist, it is only just and proper that it is playable, at least in some capacity. So without further ado, I present Yellowbeard!
So lets break this down, first, what factions can you use this ferocious captain in? Well to keep things simple, he can be used as a replacement Blackbeard in any faction where he can be a captain, and he costs as many points as Blackbeard. Yes, this does mean you can have a fighting man Edward Teach learning the craft from Yellowbeard.
Yellowbeard is a Experienced Commander, but controls through fear rather than any sort of skill. As a result while he has 2 Command Points, but only a 4″ Command Range. If you can see the look on his face, you’re probably not going to do what he says
I WOULD OOZE A LOT, HEADS DO – Yellowbeard is not a stable individual, so I added a bit of chance to his activations. When you activate his unit, roll a d10. On a 1 something must have angered him and he takes a Dedicated Action to Charge or Fight the nearest enemy unit. If that is not possible, his unit gains a Fatigue point and must use an action to move towards the closest enemy unit. If the result is a 10 though, Yellowbeard has a rare moment of true competence and his unit has a -1 bonus to all actions for the rest of the turn!
US YELLOWBEARDS ARE NEVER MORE DANGEROUS THAN WHEN WE’RE DEAD – If Yellowbeard would be killed, instead remove him from the game until you activate your first unit next turn, Yellowbeard joins that unit. Note this does mean if you would take a Strike Test after he is removed but before he comes back, you would automatically fail
As for the generic rules, Yellowbeard has Cold Blooded and Brawlers, representing love of violence and overall disregard for life. To put it in perspective, this is a man who is proud of his son for trying to kill him.
So what list should you put together to maximize Yellowbeard’s utility? Well personally I believe the only appropriate list would be Yellowbeard and as many Blunder Monkeys as points permit, but for a more classic list, that matches the movie, use a light frigate with as many colorful characters as you can fit. If you are bold enough to use Yellowbeard in a game, please let us know! I would love to see someone, somehow optimize this captain.