Shot To Pieces – What Lurks Below Challenge Entry

Originally published to Miniature Trading on October 10th, 2015

This is my entry into notalwaysyou’s What Lurks Below (WLB) Fleet Challenge.

After going with numerous gimmicky entries for past challenges, including the most recent Small Fry challenge, I decided to go with a more practical approach for this one. This may be surprising to some, since sea monsters are some of the most gimmicky pieces in the game. I’m full of surprises! 

However, to make this a practical fleet at just 45 points and still include a sea monster, I had to think cheaper. Ophidious is considered to be one of the best (if not the best) sea monsters in the entire game. With L+S speed, a cheap point cost, and fantastic offensive capabilities, Ophidious will be a nasty attacker. Ophidious is cheap because of that strange ability, but between the high number of sea monsters in this game and the fact that having a pricey sea monster limits the number of large boarding ships, it shouldn’t be too much of an issue. Ophidious also has Eternal, so opponents may want to think twice about attacking it or stealing its body parts!

I wanted to make a faction-pure fleet if possible, and the Pirates are a good option with their variety of creatures available. The second ship is absolutely perfect for this fleet and challenge: the Prussian Crown. A little-known 5 master from MI, the Prussian Crown is average in every way except for her submersible-hunting ability. The Prussian Crown is the main gunship in this fleet, capable of hunting down enemy sea monsters that lurk below the waves.

For crew, I originally only had Hammersmith and the explorer. However, seeing that the fleet was at exactly 45 points, and seeing that the Crown still had plenty of cargo space available, I decided to make the Crown even more deadly and add canceller Tia Dalma with Cannonball Gallows (for those purists who like to see the original versions of crew, I counter that Gallows is from the same set as the Crown, making it more fitting, not to mention that Hammersmith was also introduced in MI). I still like the original crew setup, since it allows for 3 total cargo spaces on the Crown, making her a surprisingly good hybrid, capable of getting gold, fending off attacks, and hunting down enemy sea monsters. Although I like the gold-oriented approach, I feel that Dalma makes this fleet even more practical, since it almost guarantees a victory for the Crown against most opponents in this particular challenge. If the opponent has two sea monsters, the Crown could cancel one to the surface to shoot at it and shoot at the other one with “torpedoes”! Also, I kept the explorer, for the Crown still has a cargo space open. That could actually come in very handy, since if the Crown explores an island and takes the highest value coin, that could be enough to make the difference. Lastly, although I like the Crown running gold and fighting, my final ship makes it more reasonable to use Dalma and decrease the total cargo space available.

The Raven has always been a classic. For my main treasure runner, I wanted a ship that was relatively cheap that could make good speed. The Raven doesn’t really need a helmsman, so an explorer bumps her total cost to 11 points. With a nice ability and good guns, she should be one of the better treasure runners in this challenge. It’s entirely possible that Ophidious would escort the Raven while the big bad Prussian Crown went after the opponent’s ships and monsters with submersible hunting and cancelling. However, Ophidious is also a potent offensive threat, and could get tangled up with an opposing sea monster. Lastly, if Ophidious directly teams up with the Crown, there may not be a lot of things in other fleets for this challenge that could stop such an onslaught.

I added the Cursed Conch, which is a nostalgic UT for me. There were a few others that I considered, but they would probably hold more potential benefits to other fleets than to mine. The forts were added since the Raven could get gold home quickly, and the Crown may want a place to repair.

This fleet’s biggest weaknesses are a lack of extra actions, and the potential vulnerability of the gold game. The fleet won’t be receiving extra actions other than through the Conch, and the Crown can still be hit easily by enemy gunships with L-range guns. If a Sea Dragon preys on the Raven, this fleet could have trouble winning. However, that’s part of the reason I added Dalma – she could come in handy cancelling some of the more annoying sea creature keywords, such as Kraken. However, I think this fleet is pretty well off in terms of guns and gold, so hopefully it can win the day!

Thanks to notalwaysyou for running the challenge, and thanks to you for commenting and voting! 

Fleet page at Miniature Trading