Whirlpool Ride to Victory
2×40 at Dice Tower West 2024
3/9/2024
Day 2 of DTW kicked off with a 2 player, 40 point game between myself and my friend Captain Randy (twayne1047). This day was a bit of a wild west, as originally there was supposed to be at least one more player attending (who may not have had a fleet, or possibly never have played), but it turned out to be just us. I was also originally anticipating at least one other additional player at the event that is pretty knowledgeable about the game, so my fleets were a bit overkill for this Saturday of gaming. However, I had been really looking forward to testing them out and this was a somewhat rare opportunity to do so in non-solo play. I had also been itching to play some more complicated fleet ideas and whatnot.
We used the Las Vegas house rules (through the “RtSS legal” part) and placed 3 terrain per player – almost all fog.
I went first with The Grim Express.
Captain Randy followed with the Spanish:
La Santa Isabel + RotF Luis Zuan, tribal chieftain, helmsman
Bonnie Liz + Genny Gallows, Powder Pete, 1 crew
Spanish native canoes
I chose the Spanish home island (HI) to be west of mine, as I anticipated whirlpooling into the east. However, I forgot about round earth, partly since it wasn’t used the day before and I haven’t been using it in T3.
I did a quick overview after my first turn:
It felt as though the game would end almost as soon as it had started. Banshee’s Cry loaded a 5 from the first island she explored (Mycron for two actions on the first turn), then she explored the adjacent island in the east so she could soak up any potential negative UT’s before Cassandra went in for some loot. She found the Pirate Globe, which flipped all coins on wild islands face up for the rest of the game. She didn’t load the 5,3,3 on the island, leaving Cassandra to dock and load those three coins. Cassandra then got an action from Mycron/Patagonia to go back home through the whirlpool, not taking any damage. The Spanish explored, triggering the Pirata Codex and wiping out all the remaining UT’s. However, neither La Santa Isabel nor Bonnie Liz would be able to catch Cassandra or the BC to stop them from getting home.
Round 3 saw Cassandra and Banshee’s Cry dock home their 16 gold for a shutout win!
- The Grim Express: 16 gold
- Spanish: 0
Many times in the past when using Calypso, I don’t get her roll to work on the first turn. Here it was a boon when combined with going first. In addition, I found 16/30 gold on the islands I whirled towards, making it easy to win without having to steal any gold with Grim or deal with the Santa Isabel.
The good news about it being a quick “whirlpool ride” of a game meant that we would easily be able to fit two more games in that day!
