Today I played a four player, 100 point game. The idea was that each player brought their favourite ‘gimmick’ fleet, or a fleet that tried to win using an unorthodox strategy. Every player was trying to win, but the fleets were created more for fun than for competition. Each player was allowed to use 70 points for the gimmick fleet, and 30 for treasure runners.

A short description of the four fleets, in the order of gameplay:

1. A fleet based on controlling the opponent. This fleet used crew like Davy Jones and George Washington LeBeaux, as well as UT’s and mysterious islands, to control the enemy ships and mess up opposing strategies.

2. A fleet based on home island raiders. Of the four ships in the fleet with the HI raider ability, all of them had solid firepower, and two had captains, so the fleet looked formidable.

3. A fleet based on recycling crew. The main game pieces in this fleet were Captain Davy Jones (POTC) and Captain Blackheart. The Deliverance, with these two crew onboard (along with Lady Baptiste to reroll Jones’ ability), was supported by ships that are effective crew killers, such as the Asesino de la Nave, the USS Quigley, and El Villalobos. The eliminated crew are supposed to then be recycled by Jones, and then sacced by Blackheart for extra actions that would let the Deliverance dominate the battle.

4. A fleet based on using three sea monsters. The Raninoidea was equipped with OE Calico Cat and OE Griffin, and she was towing the Pirate flotilla Doombox. Also in the build were the Seleucis, who would use her unique ability to essentially give the Leviathan the move-and-shoot.

The game got underway, and the Raninoidea and Seleucis were quickly killed, leaving the (mostly) Pirate sea monster fleet in bad shape.

The HI raiders didn’t actually get to raid any home islands, as they were preoccupied fighting Raninoidea, and then repairing from that fight. Also, the Doombox was left behind close to the fleet’s island, so the flotilla kept harassing the HI raiders as their runners brought home a good amount of gold.

The crew-recycling fleet struggled mightily to get into action, as there was an obstacle course of terrain around their HI (two of them created by the UT Lost). When they finally started shooting (desperately trying to feed their big gunship), they killed some crew, but weren’t able to get the 6’s required to link them to Davy Jones. Their strategy failed miserably, but they were able to keep themselves out of last place with their treasure runners, the Alquimista and Joya del Sol.

The ‘mind control’ fleet had solid luck with the dice, and they were able to create chaos around the sea with LeBeaux, good MI rolls that were aided by Nemo’s Charts, and essentially two of OE Davy Jones. The first one was the real one onboard the Divine Dragon, and the second (temporary) one came from the Eye of Insanity UT, which lets the owner of the ship it is on choose any Cursed crew in play and substitute their ability in for a crew aboard the ship that the Eye is on. In this way, this fleet had four abilities that let them control their opponents, which would prove to be somewhat valuable.

In the end, one ship proved her worth: HMS Lady Provost. She made a daring raid on the HI of the crew-killer fleet, taking a 7 and a 2 on consecutive turns. She was not actually part of the HI raiding fleet, but a regular treasure runner in the ‘mind control’ fleet. In the end, that fleet tied with the HI raider fleet for first with 15 gold each. Coming in third was the crew-killer fleet, with 5 gold (therefore, they still would not have won if the Provost didn’t take their gold; in that case, the HI raiders would have had sole possession of first place). Bringing up the rear was the sea monster fleet, with 0 gold. They will have another chance tomorrow, however, as I am going to play at least one more game with these fleets.

More small games have been played, with the Pirates and Spanish duking it out yesterday. The Asesino de la Nave proved devastating.

After that, I wanted to give some of the lesser factions (at least in terms of my collection) a chance to win, and the Cursed faced the Americans. The fleets were a bit odd, with the Titan Brachyura towing the flotilla Death’s Anchor while the Sea Rat (a two-masted junk) ran treasure. The Americans, with the Mohican and Louisiana, won two out of three.

Next came a larger game built around El Acorazado. The name of the game is ‘Sink the Battleship’. The attackers have to sink El Acorazado before she docks at the attackers’ home island, about 6L or so away. Two 120 point deathmatch fleets were constructed, and the Acorazado was decked out with her usual complement, while surrounding herself with more defences with the remaining points: an escort of smaller ships that either have cancellers built-in (Guinee and Mobilis) or have cancellers on board (Lache de Calvados, Black Arrow, and Bosun’s Bane, with Lenoir, Tia Dalma, and Christian Fiore). These ships also had the ‘this ship cannot be shot at by ships within S of her’ ability, making them even harder to hit. Since the odds were heavily stacked against whatever fleet attacked this fleet, I let the attackers see all of the ships and crew of the enemy beforehand. They went with powerful ships with plenty of long-range firepower: HMS Grand Temple, HMS Victoria, HMS Bretwalda (with Broadsides Attack to try to cut through the Acorazado’s defences), the Blackwatch, and El Monte Cristo.

The defending ‘Battleship’ fleet tried to do some fancy maneuvering in the first game, but El Acorazado was sunk by the long-range guns. Although all of the defenders except for the tiny Bosun’s Bane moved at S+S, El Acorazado broke from the formation with the help of Capitan Alarico Castro’s SAT with reroll from Duque Marcus Vaccaro. They learned from their mistakes, however, and won both of the next two games by heading straight for the attackers’ HI. While the smaller ships cancelled abilities aboard the three big five masters, HMS Bretwalda tried to get in a Broadsides Attack, but she was repeatedly foiled by the Spanish canceller Nemesio Diaz. If this was to be played again the islands should probably be placed a greater distance apart.

The two factions who haven’t really won any games by themselves faced off in a series of 100 point games. The Cursed faced the Mercenaries, with the Cursed winning two out of three. However, the Mercenaries had only one treasure runner, the Shui Xian, and four ships overall, since their captains cost so much. I have to use Luc Savard (6 points) for captains since I don’t own any generic Mercenary captains. The Cursed used two large gunships, the Divine Dragon and Executioner, with the Death’s Anchor in tow. They used the Sea Rat and Fallen Angel as their treasure runners, while using the Clear Wind as a backup gunship. In both of the first two games, the Cursed sunk the Shui Xian (essentially ending the game) before she could return with any treasure. In the third game, the Mercenaries got the first shot, and went straight for the kill. The Clear Wind and Executioner were quickly dismasted, and the Mercenaries finally won! 

I played 12 games today, 4 sets of three games each. El Acorazado won 11 times (11-1, a .917 winning percentage). First she took on HMS Dreadnought, whose stinkpot shot and long-range guns were no match for ‘The Battleship’ (3-0). Then she dominated the Baochuan (3-0). Next she took on the Shui Xian, who managed to win one game out of three because she was carrying both Christian Fiore (the Mercenary canceler) and MI Hermione Gold (2-1). The final matchup was not so fair, but the DJC Le Bonaparte managed to frustrate the Acorazado for a little while. However, the Acorazado had a ten-point advantage over her, since the Bonaparte costs 16 points and can only come to a total of 32, since I was doing one-on-one battles (3-0). I’m still not sure if she is the best gunship in the game, but I can honestly say that she is a must-have ship, especially if you are combat-oriented like I am.

I also set up for the Defence of St. Helen’s scenario. I used the dimensions given (the table in the link is too small for what they have listed, probably because they don’t play huge games ), and tried to set up the islands and icebergs the same way.

There will be five fleets, five 500 point deathmatch fleets (so a total of over 2500 points in play, just like the regular 500 point games). The fleets of the Spanish and the French-Americans are the defenders, and have worked out a sort of strategy before the game’s start. Their biggest and best ships are concentrated in the rear, while they send their other ships out first to annoy the attackers while the forts do some damage. Since I only have one Spanish fort (El Puerto Blanco) and two French forts (St. Pierre and Paradis de la Mer), and four are required for the game, I have let the defenders use the Pirate fort Dead Man’s Point. The English, Pirates, and MercCursedRebels (I may refer to them as the MCRs, not to be confused with My Chemical Romance) are the attackers, and have similarly positioned their uncrewed/weaker ships at the front of their formation (one of those awesome sights, a ‘forest of masts’). The ratio is 3:2 in favour of the attackers, with 1500 points and 1000 points. The attackers command 81 ships, and the defenders, 56, for a total of 137 (not quite 200 , but I am using crew).

Edit: Finally it stopped automerging my posts-that last mammoth chain had 6,282 words!