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! 