3 impromptu games were played between myself and xerecs! Since they were all rather lopsided and quick, the reports will be short as well. The three games only took about 3 hours, so the concern of VASSAL games taking longer than regular games continues to lose steam.
The first game featured a7xfanben’s Minimal Crew fleet against a Cursed fleet made by xerecs.
Cursed:
Revenant (custom Cursed version) + captain, helmsman, explorer
Fallen Angel
Lizard’s Sting
A great barrier reef stretched across the sea to cut off access to the wild islands.
The Revenant successfully navigated the reef, but the Stephens rolled a 1 to lose 4 of her 5 masts!
As ships began exploring, the Stephens tried to sail back home to repair, but was promptly wrecked!
The Revenant targeted the San Pedro before she could cross the reefs, but missed.
The San Pedro rammed and boarded to take a coin from the Revenant!
The Lizard’s Sting dismasted the Bon Marin with a ram while the Revenant sunk the San Pedro, and the Cursed were victorious 21-13!
The second game was a 60 point game, and featured a7xfanben’s Clones of the South China Sea fleet against an American fleet created by xerecs.
Americans:
Venture (custom ship) + Commander Steven Decatur, captain, helmsman, oarsman
Nene-nui + explorer
Jarvis + 1 crew
This time, the previous setup was “moved and rotated randomly” until a feasible setup was found. The wild island in between the two HI’s has 5 coins on it, with 3 apiece for the other two.
The Grand Wind sacced an oarsman to move S+S+S+S, and the fleets were off and sailing.
The Grand Path received a ludricrous amount of 6’s this game, as the dice luck from the previous game shifted completely in a7xfanben’s favor! Here the junk has rammed the Venture!
The Venture is dismasted!
The Venture ducks into the fog while the Grand Wind returns home. The Grand Path hunts the remaining American ships.
The Venture is sunk, and the Americans look to be doomed.
The Nene Nui tries to return home, but is set upon by the Grand Path, who receives yet another SAT from Warlord Cavendish.
The Nene Nui is captured while the Grand Wind explores the center island.
The captured Nene Nui docks at the same time as the Grand Wind, giving the Jade Rebellion a huge windfall.
The Grand Path sinks the Jarvis, and the Jade Rebellion claims a whopping 31-0 victory!
The final game was the most unique. It featured 50 point fleets, with one wild island holding all the gold, defended by an old Viking fort with six 3L cannons. The island was completely surrounded by reefs and fog.
Cursed: (xerecs)
Revenant (custom ship) + captain, explorer
Divine Dragon + Davy Jones
Pirates: (a7xfanben)
Deliverance + Calypso, Calico Cat, captain, exploding shot, oarsman
Eagle + Hammersmith, Gunner, oarsman
My strategy was to use Calypso’s whirlpool-creating ability to warp into the area around the wild island, but it failed miserably. Further serving this goal and furthering the similarities to the epic Economy Edition, I secretly placed three UT’s: Bad Maps, Turtles, and Whirlpool.
Davy Jones got a 6 on the second turn, but the Pirates were smart to split up their ships in his presence.
Unfortunately for Calypso, she wasn’t such a surprise, since the Pirates waited too long to reveal her. As a result, the Cursed found the Whirlpool and Bad Maps UT’s, and figured out what was going on. Shades of Economy Edition indeed, but it didn’t work nearly as well. Further making the game a complete failure, we forgot to have the fort fire!
Chaos reigns as the island is displaced from the fake “lagoon” of reefs while the turtles start scrambling.
In my frustration, the Deliverance rammed the Revenant and destroyed the fort.
As the island does an Economy and returns to it’s former station, the fleets are flabbergasted.
The Divine Dragon and Deliverance are locked in a pitched battle.
The Deliverance sinks the Divine Dragon, while the Eagle heads to cut off the Revenant.
The Revenant is wrecked while moving over a reef, just like the Stephens in the first game! This ended the game, with the Cursed having no available ships. Neither fleet had any gold on their HI, so xerecs was decided the winner since his fleet had gold “in the water” while a7xfanben had no gold on his ships.
The last game was a complete disaster, but as usual in Pirates, “everything that can go wrong will go wrong”. However, all three games were fun and will now be forever known as the first confrontations between the legendary Admirals A7XfanBen and Xerecs, players of Economy Edition and Century of the Empires!