American Garbage

Originally published to Miniature Trading on December 2nd, 2015

This is my entry into volt’s rather amusing Garbage Fleet Challenge.

I came up with a few preliminary ideas, including the Pirates, the Cursed, and the Americans. The Pirate ships generally had way more cargo than I was willing to have, and their selection of pricey named crew was too useful. The Cursed were a bit too easy, so I decided on the Americans.

At one point after reviewing volt’s rules for the challenge, I realized: why not make it even more difficult and try to force myself to use the absolute minimums? This would prove to be a great starting point in limiting how effective my fleets could be.

The next section details my thought process as I went through each rule.

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Rules: 1) Your fleet must consist of more than 1 ship

So, ideally to make the crappiest fleet out there, we’d want a maximum of 2 ships.

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2) Your fleet must contain a minimum of 3 total masts.

On those 2 ships, one has to have 1 mast and one has to have 2 masts. Or, have a fleet of three 1 masters.

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3) Each ship must have at least one crew that is usable on that ship. (I said usable, not useful heh)

The one crew should be as useless as possible. Anything that grants abilities like helmsman, captain, Eternal, or any action generating abilities is completely out of the question. Only utterly horrible abilities (preferably expensive ones) can be used in the fleets I make. Even crew like Tariq the Black are extremely useful in a challenge like this because that captain ability is simply too good, even at a 2 point premium. The standards need to be lowered beneath the floor. As a result, compared to what I would expect to see in this challenge, any fleet with a captain ability is going to be a “good” fleet.

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4) At least one of the ships in your fleet must be able to dock at your home island. (Sorry no Merc fleets, heh)

Not a big deal. Definitely a good restriction!

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5) There must be at least one free cargo spot in your fleet.

Okay, so we’re aiming to have ONLY ONE open cargo space in the entire fleet.  Anything else is too good!

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6) All tournament legal cards can be used in this challenge, as well as the RtSS set. 7) You must use all of your 40 points in your fleet.

Alright, now onto the fleet!

Some of these choices may look exceedingly random, but there was actually a bunch of strategy that went into figuring out this fleet.

Assumption: All the fleets that this fleet faces will also be Garbage fleets. Therefore, I’m just going to assume that the other fleets also tried to go with the minimums described in the rules.

What does this result in? A bunch of fleets with exactly one open cargo space in the fleet. That ship tries to run gold, while the other ones can’t. All they can do is fight. However, when fighting, I want my ships to have the absolute lowest possible chances of winning. Therefore, the Burning Man is the perfect flagship. The Burning Man is slow, expensive, and weak. The Ghost Ship keyword is huge: if the ship is ghostly, opponents can’t kill the one crew (Pierce Hollow, LOL) on board the ship via boarding. Why don’t we want opponents to board? If they do, they’ll eliminate Pierce and open up a cargo space! What?! An open cargo space! What a nightmare! We can’t afford to have any cargo space open for gold, since then we would have a chance at winning the game, and we don’t want that!

Not only is Pierce Hollow’s ability completely useless on a ship with only two cargo spaces, but she’s also the only crew on the ship in the first place, so there’s not even any other crew to reduce values on!

I originally had some grape shot, grapple shot, and Letters of Marque on the different ships, but since they can easily be eliminated from the game (freeing up cargo spaces), I went with Stinkpot Shot instead.

Next up is USS Seminole. It doesn’t get much worse right here: 13 points for a 1 master with a 5S cannon and only one cargo space. The Seminole is incapable of doing just about anything: she’s just here to provide that single open cargo space. She was originally empty, but I had to add an oarsman to fulfill the rule that each ship must have a crew on it.

The last ship is the Plymouth Rock, owner of one of the most hated abilities in the entire game. Half the time she moves L, half the time she moves L+L. This is quite fantastic for a garbage fleet, which is why I was hesitant to include her. I originally had the Plymouth Rock with the only open cargo space, but then I realized that she would be one of the better gold runners out there. As a result, I switched the equipment and crew so that the Seminole was the “gold runner”. Now the Plymouth Rock can sail around aimlessly, although she can use her L+L speed and explorer ability to find a UT that you may have already seen. Hopefully a ram will take her out of the game to speed the game up so this fleet can lose more quickly. Also, to my knowledge Perry’s ability is completely optional, and you could bring in 3 extra points rather than 5 if you wanted to. Instead, he’s not bringing anything in. He’s just a crew waiting to be eliminated or captured to give your opponent more gold!

The Burning Man is just about useless. With no captain and only L speed, she’ll have a hard time using her Stinkpot Shot. If it hits, the useless crew on the opponent’s ships probably won’t be worth cancelling, especially since it’s only on their turn. The Seminole is a treasure runner with L speed, 1 cargo space, and extreme fragility. Lastly, the Plymouth Rock is a ship that can’t run gold or fight, and is easily eliminated from the game.

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Now, for the ace in the hole:

Odin’s Revenge!

    

And with that, all of the ships are derelict and the Burning Man and Seminole are stuck moving S with no guns to use. 

Thanks for reading; comment and vote!

Section: Ship #1 (3 miniatures)
		Miniature	Set	Number	Type	Rarity
1	x	Burning Man	PofDJC	210	Ship	LE
1	x	Pierce Hollow	PofSCS	097B	Crew	C
1	x	Stinkpot Shot	F&S	108	Equipment	U
Section: Ship #2 (2 miniatures)
		Miniature	Set	Number	Type	Rarity
1	x	Oarsman	F&S	128	Crew	C
1	x	USS Seminole	PofFN	085	Ship	R
Section: Ship #3 (3 miniatures)
		Miniature	Set	Number	Type	Rarity
1	x	Commodore Matthew Perry	PofSCS	096	Crew	R
1	x	Explorer	PofR	136	Crew	C
1	x	USS Plymouth Rock	PatOE	095	Ship	R
Section: Unique Treasures (1 miniatures)
		Miniature	Set	Number	Type	Rarity
1	x	Odin’s Revenge	PofFN	303	Unique Treasure	PR