10 Mast Nonsense

The Celtic Fury!

Originally published to Miniature Trading on May 31st, 2017

110 Points

This is a very gimmicky but potentially very nasty setup using two 10 masters, the Celtic Fury and Guichuan. Due to Black Mark’s silly 1 point increase, this fleet isn’t quite legal as it appears here.

It’s a bit complicated; the CF’s ability allows Snape to come aboard, and then he gets to Black Mark the ship and turn it Cursed. From Mercenary to French to Cursed, quite the transformation. We can pretend or house rule that BM doesn’t increase Snape’s cost by 1, or else the captain has to get tossed. It says a lot that the captain is the most expendable crew in this setup. Davy Jones copies the Treasure Ship keyword of the Guichuan, allowing the CF to once again have 7 free cargo spaces.

What should we do with all that free cargo? Why, fill it up with stolen loot of course!! Mr. Fantasma comes aboard to allow for home island raiding, with the helmsman speeding the ship up and allowing for multiple movement segments (though the latter shouldn’t matter (rhyme!) due to the “move S after loading cargo” part of the Treasure Ship keyword).

The Guichuan is pretty nasty; she doesn’t need the Black Mark keyword to get the right crew setup, but Cavendish comes aboard to let Grim the Savage join the party. This is where the combo starts to get evil, if it wasn’t already. Not only can Grim steal as many coins as he can possibly take, that number is increased to 9 by Sammy the Skull’s link to all Cursed ships! Throw in the admiral actions from the Headhunter, and the Guichuan could steal up to 18 coins in a single turn!! (if you had hoists and/or these to help you. The silver explorer and stinkpot specialist were added to fill out the ship’s point limit; after all, with so much ridiculousness on two ships, why not make it more wacky?!

The build total is somewhat random at 110 points, but here is the general strategy. Let your opponent gather lots of gold without ending the game. Keep the two 10’s together and amass 20-40 shots (40 if you copy the Headhunter’s AA ability and roll two 6’s; Snape could reroll one) to take out any enemy gunships. Due to the immense quantities of silver you’ve inserted into the treasure mix, your opponent will bring many of those coins back to their home island. Choose the right time to strike, and then begin furiously stealing gold from your opponent’s home island. When complete, turn both ships ghostly for the trip home to avoid being boarded, and use stinkpots to slow down enemies and prevent them from being able to use captains and double actions. Get back to your HI and unload the gold and silver, with the Guichuan getting an extra chunk of loot from the silver.

The nice thing about the illegality is that it’s on the Celtic Fury, so you could run this exact Guichuan setup at a 60 point limit.

Fleet page at Miniature Trading