The fog came in low and fast, rolling across the water like a living thing. One moment the convoy’s escorts could see the full spread of ships ahead of them — the next, the world shrank to grey shapes and muffled sound.
Orders were shouted. Engines slowed. Lookouts leaned over rails, straining to see anything beyond a few ship-lengths.
That was when the first harpoon struck.
It slammed into the flank of the lead transport with a screech of tearing metal, followed by another… and another. Chains went taut. Deck guns fired blindly into the mist, their flashes swallowed almost instantly.
From within the fog came the hiss of venting steam and the low thump of engines pushed far beyond safe limits. Dark hulls emerged at close range — patched, armoured, and bristling with hooks and boarding ramps. Black flags snapped into view, already slick with spray.
Shock charges detonated against rudders and engine housings. One escort lost power and drifted helplessly as grappling lines bit deep. Boarding crews poured across in a wave of iron and fury, cutting down resistance with brutal efficiency.
It was over quickly.
By the time the fog began to thin, two ships were gone — taken intact — and another was burning low in the water. The convoy limped on, lighter than before, crews shaken and silent.
Somewhere beyond the horizon, the Iron Marauders were already dividing the spoils.
Well, I have spent the last few weeks working on a couple of new rule sets and a supplement or two and one of those is a new supplement for Ironclads of Ferrosia.
The new supplement I have been working on is for a new faction as the main rules only has two factions, I thought that it would be a good idea to bring in something new.
But I didn’t want to just bring in a big main power to the gain, even though I have a couple sitting in my note pad, I thought that I would bring in something different.
So, the new faction will the Iron Marauders, which are Ferrosia’s pirates, these are just a collection of deserters, smugglers, disgraced officers and scavengers that hit unprotected transports and they often attack the survivors of a battle, just when the wounded think the worst is over.
How They Fight, well they are mainly focused on Boarding combat, they prefer ship capture over destruction.
Iron Marauder ships typically feature captured or salvaged Imperium and Coalition ships; these have metal plates bolted onto hulls and decks covering battle damage.
The Marauders us many mismatched cannons and weapon systems with the majority being close range, also the ships have had many boarding ramps, hooks, harpoons, and grapples fitted.
Pirates don’t fight fair. They don’t fight clean, they fight smart — and they fight mean.
Their Approach to battle is ambush – They normally attack isolated targets or strike opportunistically mid-battle or even after the battle has ended.
They tend to disable a targets engines, rudders, and weapons using shock charges moments before they board.
They simply try and overwhelm the enemy with numbers and brutality looting and seizing cargo and if any are alive after the action, they may take prisoners these are often ransomed back to their faction.
And then their ships finally disappear as quickly as they appeared.
Iron Marauders rarely commit to battles they cannot win quickly.
The Marauder’s convert salvaged or captured ships into their own class of ships suited to their style of fighting, including raiders, boarding frigates salvage hulks and submersibles.
Unlike the main factions, the Iron Marauders are a loose confederation of pirate lords, each commanding their own flotilla. Alliances form and shatter constantly, but when the profit is great enough, several pirate captains will sail together.
Included in the new supplement are the rules for running your own fleet of Iron Marauders, with all their ships and upgrades and of course any special rules needed to play them.
They will be three new scenarios designed for using pirate fleets, and as always, all the datasheets and cards needed to play.
There will also be some new STL files for to go with the rules (a couple of sneak peeks bellow) but being pirates that use any ships they capture or salvage, you should be able to use almost any ships which you probably already have.
Watch out for some battle reports as the supplement gets closer to being released.
Come on over to the Little Wargaming Worlds Discord Server to see any updates about this supplement and all of my other games, you will find the link on this site under the Community Tab.
