Played a quick little game on VASSAL with Tyraziel, who is back into Pirates after many years! He was a member of Flightleader’s old site, I think called Pirates Pocketmodels World.
I made a new fleet I hadn’t used before and rolled to go first. Game pieces can be found in the Master Spreadsheet.
A7XfanBen’s Pirates
La Victoire + The Hag of Tortuga, captain, helmsman, firepot specialist, exploding shot, fire shot
White Rose + Hammersmith (F&S)
Tyraziel
Le Dauphin Royal + Capitaine Arathiel, Gaston de St. Croix, Phillipe du Brissac, Vicomte Jules de Cissey, Claude Perier, oarsman
L’Artesien + explorer
Le Bon Marin
(Xerecs made the English fleet at the top but wasn’t able to play)
The Royal got Gaston’s SAT, but without a helmsman she couldn’t reach the Victoire. The Pirates took full advantage, moving L+S to rake the Royal’s bow with a lethal barrage of flaming weaponry. One after another each fire weapon was revealed, with the Victoire missing on the 2S firepot but hitting with all three 3L’s in range, setting the Royal ablaze and putting the French sloops on notice. De Cissey was killed by the exploding shot, giving the Pirates 1 gold via Ransom.
The Dauphin returned fire aggressively, hitting twice in her first action while keeping the fires at bay. However, things quickly unraveled from there, with fire spreading and engulfing the foremast. Perhaps blinded by the smoke and heat, the Royal’s gunners then shot her final cannon out the starboard side of the ship, with no chance at hitting the Victoire.
From there it was a relatively easy and predictable takeover by the Pirates, with the Victoire continuing her fiery success by dooming both the Royal and Artesien via flaming shots! My cannon luck was better than usual today. Fire is a very satisfying aesthetic when it works right.
The White Rose had explored the southern island and returned home with its 3 coins, then whirled to the north to help intimidate the Bon Marin. However, this game was nearly all La Victoire, with yet another exploding shot connecting to end the game!
With my preferred house rule of “sunken gold is gone”, I won 10-0 (three 3’s from the White Rose + 1 from Ransom). With the regular 2 player rules of splitting treasure, I won 14-3 (splitting the gold from the Artesien). The Victoire setup was rewarding to use, with that ship laying down 5 fire hits out of 7 masts in the enemy fleet, and two crew eliminated via exploding shot!
Welcome Tyraziel aboard and huzzah for another game! 😀
Wow, sounds like quite a contest. Maybe next time I’ll be able to get in on the action.
@Xerecs: It turned out pretty lopsided, kind of just a raging inferno.
I hope you can play next time!