The first game since the summer was a quick two player 40 point game, Pirates vs. Americans. I built some of the newer ships in my collection on Saturday, and I’m going to try to use mostly (or possibly exclusively) game pieces that I’ve never used before. The Americans and Pirates are the two factions with the strongest additions (or you could call them reinforcements), so it felt natural to pit them against each other. They don’t have a huge history in terms of my games, but historically it makes more sense.
The Frontier and the USS Mercury (LE sub from MI) faced the Minerva, Amity (F&S version), and Swift. The Minerva and Amity are ships from the F&S historical pack, while the Swift is a two-masted galley from POTC with a built-in explorer ability.
Minerva from Fire and Steel, courtesy of Riz
The Americans went first, and this gave them the advantage. The Frontier quickly explored the nearest two islands, gathering a total of 16 gold, enough to win the game with one cargo haul’s worth of coins! The Mercury started the game submerged, heading towards the Pirate fleet. The Swift and Amity headed for wild islands, while the Minerva (with crew-killing Christopher Moody aboard) headed for the Frontier. The Mercury surfaced and shot away two of the Minerva’s three masts. The Minerva then desperately shot and rammed the Frontier, resulting in a bloody mess. Both the shot and the ram rolled true, and the Minerva’s built-in crew-killing ability took out the helmsman on the Frontier. The boarding roll went against the Pirates however, taking out the helmsman on the Minerva.
At this point, both the Frontier and the Minerva had one mast remaining. The Mercury then took out the final mast on the Minerva, ending the threat against the Frontier (or so the Americans hoped). Instead, the Pirates saw that there was only a total of 13 gold on the two island that they had explored, and knowing that the Frontier had gotten to the other two islands, they knew they had to sink the Frontier, limping home with one mast. The Amity was only moving L at this point (she moves L+S when her cargo hold is empty), but the Swift (as her name implies) was quick enough to catch the Frontier (now moving at S+S after the death of her helmsman). Alas, the Mercury was still in the fight, and just when the Swift was coming in range of the Frontier, she promptly sunk the Swift with her 2L guns with help from 0LR reroller Wayne Nolan, allowing the Frontier to safely sail into harbour! After the sinking of the Swift, the final treasure count came to 19 to 9 in favour of the Americans.
I intend to play more games with similar fleets, and I think I will keep it Pirates vs. Americans for the time being. I think I’ll gradually increase the point limit until all of the new additions to said factions are on the water, and see who can win the war!