Lego Pirate Game questions

[Warhorse47]

Okay, I've been reading the rules from Steve Jackson and am building a couple of ships for the wars that are coming up here. But there are some things I need help with.

1. One ship is a Class 3, so carries 3 cannon. Is there an advantage/disadvantage to having them swivel mounted? IE: say one mounted fore, one aft and amidships so that they could all be brought to bear in a broadside, or is it just the same in game play to have them in the midships section with the traditional gunposts/flap system?

2. I couldn't find a hard rule on how many masts there are supposed to be on any given class of ship. Is there one, or is it just what is aesthetically pleasing?

3. Do the gun crews need to be close to their gun or are any of the crew allowed to use their actions to fire them. I know it will look better, if they are right there.

Thanks in advance!

[Cherno]

This section answers a a couple of your questions:

Measuring Distance

Measure the closest distance between the hulls of the attacker and its target. This will be the distance used for all cannon and smallarms fire (in either direction) between those two ships for that turn. (Note that during boarding actions, each smallarms shot fired at a target on the same ship is figured individually. A desperate captain may also turn a turreted cannon to sweep his own decks when he's boarded.)

If you fire at a target on land or in the water, measure the actual distance.

Aiming

A cannon must be able to point at its chosen target. Crew may be moved up to 1" away to get them out of the way of a turning cannon. However, a cannon may not fire through parts of its own ship! Exception: it MAY fire through its own rigging, doing one rigging hit to its own ship.

A cannon in a ship's broadside only fires straight ahead. However, if one cannon in a broadside can point at the target, they all can hit it.

A cannon on a rotating turret can hit anything that it can point at, except where blocked by its own ship.

Figures don't need to stand directly next to a cannon to fire it; crew actions are pretty much abstracted, so it doesn't matter exactly where each sailor is located on a ship. I agree, however, that it's much more realistic to have them man the cannons

As for the number of masts, a ship with two or three masts will survive critical rigging hits much longer. There is in fact no hard rule on how many masts to fit on a specific ship class, so just do what looks right. As a rough suggestion, I'd say Class 3 and below has 1 masts, Class 4-6 has two and Class 7 and above has three.

[Warhorse47]

Thanks for the update and answer. Having read those rules was what raised my questions about the rotating mount. Also, I like your interpretation of the mast idea. Thanks again!