Seafair Pirates CSG
8/6/2023
Ahoy mateys! I met up with Kyle for a pair of epic scale games, as we were Seafair Pirates for a day! Seattle Seafair is an annual tradition featuring hydroplanes and the Navy’s Blue Angels, and we figured it was a great event to showcase an outdoor game in the beautiful summer of the Pacific Northwest. We played at Aubrey Davis Park on Mercer Island, getting a good view of the jets on numerous occasions. It was also a great opportunity to get more attention on the game, and I handed out about 9 OE packs to about 5 interested parties throughout the afternoon.
When I play epic scale it’s usually a very casual game, so although we used a few of the usual house rules, they were mostly confined to the terrain changes. We did a draft to pick our pieces, with 80 points for the first game. Most of the past epic scale games have seen a crazy mishmash of factions for most of the fleets, so my goal with the draft was to have a bit more of a faction theme this time around. I rolled to go second, so I drafted first. I ended up with Revenant, Emerald Rose (a custom 3 master made by PDXYAR, the originators of the epic scale fleet), Grinder and A Fearsome Creature for a Cursed Pirate fleet. I was tempted to pick the 11 point Flying Dutchman as my final ship as the more pragmatic option, but couldn’t resist using a kraken in epic scale for the first time! That meant I had 23 points to spend on crew, so I got Emperor Blackheart for the Revenant, who would also have a captain. Emerald Rose had a captain and helmsman, with helmsman and explorer on the Grinder.
The Emerald Rose is a really nice looking ship! At some point I’ll have to repair her port quarter main deck area, but it works fine for now with the quarterdeck attached to hold the port side in place.
Kyle drafted HMS Interceptor, President, Nautilus and Proud Tortoise for a wide variety of ship types.
4 wild islands with 4 coins each; we placed 5 terrain each.
On the second turn, Emperor Blackheart got a 5 with All-Powerful! He sent A Fearsome Creature through a whirlpool, then used the second action to move away from the exit whirlpool to surround the Proud Tortoise!
So close to the gold! But the turtle ship is likely doomed.
Kyle flips Mercer to give HMS Interceptor a Sac action coming out of a different whirlpool!
Emerald Rose is dismasted and her captain killed in the ensuing boarding party!
Proud Tortoise scored a hit, but was no match for the kraken.
The turtle ship was ripped apart by the giant tentacle arms, with wreckage strewn about.
Grinder had picked up a couple coins from an island near my HI, but the whole island was only worth about 4 gold (I think the coins were 2,1,1,0). She hid in nearby fog on the way back home to avoid the dangerous President, but more action was brewing in the east!
Blackheart brings the Revenant through the whirlpool and uses his extra action to move and shoot, taking advantage of the ability to shoot through ships. However, she only goes 1 for 5! (even with some interested little kids providing their “newbie luck” and rolling some of the the dice for me heh – they rolled better when Kyle attacked lol)
I filmed the second action of the Interceptor’s counterattack:
Blam! Just like that, most of the Pirate fleet is decimated.
President sails out of the fog bank and sinks the Revenant!
Interceptor captured the Emerald Rose but dropped the tow to search for treasure. President and Nautilus began setting up a blockade of my home island, which in the past has sometimes signaled that I will win the game….
A Fearsome Creature guards the whirlpool to let Grinder collect more gold in peace.
The remainder of my fleet whirls home with 2 coins on the Grinder, who loses another mast to whirlpool travel.
However, the President sinks the Grinder and her coins!
With only the slow kraken left in play, my best hope was to surround the HMS Interceptor and sink her gold before she could unload it at home, or just end the game as soon as possible. Interceptor was moving L+S (rather than L+L+S) with a mast missing, which helped a bit.
Incredibly, on the first attempt to dash the poor kraken on the reef next to Kyle’s HI, I rolled a 2! This eliminated all of A Fearsome Creature’s remaining segments, killing the beast and ending the game!
- Cursed Pirates: 3 gold
- Mixed alliance: 0
It was a bit of an odd game and abrupt ending, so we decided to play another. This time we’d have 60 points to make a fleet using mostly only the stuff we had already drafted. The setup would have 3 wild islands instead of 4, and 4 terrain placed per player instead of 5. The kraken and submarine were removed from the fleets, with a few small crew edits as well. Kyle had a ton of room for crew so he took Lawrence and an oarsman (latter proxied by Fitzgerald as we were already using the rest) and put them on his HI.
This time I rolled to go first.
HMS Interceptor provided some deja vu on Kyle’s first turn, saccing to dismast the Emerald Rose! This second sacking of the cool custom made by PDXYAR angered the Cursed Pirates, who vowed revenge!
Indeed, retribution came swiftly. Blackheart whirled into action once again, with his Revenant much more accurate on the cannon volley this time around. Revenant moved to tow the Emerald Rose out of the way of Grinder’s aft gun, so I had all 8 available cannons in range between both of my shooting ships. Grinder hit 1/2 on the President.
Mercer threw the Interceptor’s captain overboard to propel the ship home via the whirlpool (Sac needed to reach the whirlpool with 2 actions at S+S speed). President followed, but Emperor Blackheart’s rage was not satisfied. He followed them back, determined to win a conclusive engagement. President survived, but Interceptor did not.
Carnage all over the park today!
President began repairing, Proud Tortoise headed home with gold, and Revenant headed away from danger and toward a new island.
Grinder was towing the Emerald Rose home for repair, with the Revenant whirling back to home waters.
Proud Tortoise raced northeast to try for more gold, but would be looking at facing the entire fleet of dangerous rank-2 cannons in the Cursed Pirate fleet on the return trip.
The game ended soon afterwards – Emperor Blackheart got a 6 to toss the President into harm’s way, where the Emerald Rose finally got some personal revenge, blasting her apart and sinking her with help from the Revenant. On the next turn he got a 5 for All-Powerful, allowing the Grinder to corner the Proud Tortoise and shoot away her shell panels. At this point Kyle conceded, with no way of getting the PT home alive. I knew I had 7 gold on my HI and Kyle couldn’t have more than 6 (he had one coin and I mentioned to him that PDXYAR didn’t make any 7 coins for epic scale), so I didn’t need to keep the PT alive and collect more gold to ensure victory.
- Cursed Pirates: 7 gold
- Mixed alliance: 5
The pictures don’t show it but there was quite a crowd by the time we left!
We also had a great view of the Blue Angels throughout the games – pictures don’t do it justice but we saw some really cool low flyovers as well.
