Armed Pirate Merchants
Originally published to Miniature Trading on June 21st, 2017
50 Points
Trying to come up with an optimal fleet of “armed merchants”, but the Hostile keywords of a few named crew are getting in the way. Here’s the Pirate-only version. The Foresight is the epitome of a merchant ship in pirate hands, while the Pandora is criminally underrated mostly because of the third ship. (I wanted to use the Raven’s Neck but using the DH II made the fleet work perfectly at 50 points.)
Strategy is simple – get as much gold as possible and strike when necessary to protect your trading interests! 
Let me know what you think of this fleet of Armed Pirate Merchants!
| Section: Ship #1 (2 miniatures) | ||||||
| Miniature | Set | Number | Type | Rarity | ||
| 1 | x | Foresight | F&S | 001 | Ship | R |
| 1 | x | Hammersmith | F&S | 022 | Crew | R |
| Section: Ship #2 (3 miniatures) | ||||||
| Miniature | Set | Number | Type | Rarity | ||
| 1 | x | Captain | PofSMU | 104 | Crew | U |
| 1 | x | Helmsman | PofSMU | 108 | Crew | U |
| 1 | x | Pandora | PofSMU | 006 | Ship | U |
| Section: Ship #3 (3 miniatures) | ||||||
| Miniature | Set | Number | Type | Rarity | ||
| 1 | x | Captain | PofSMU | 104 | Crew | U |
| 1 | x | Darkhawk II | PofSMU | 011 | Ship | U |
| 1 | x | Helmsman | PofSMU | 108 | Crew | U |
Darkhawk II and Pandora
Fleet page at Miniature Trading
This fleet looks awesome, I’d really love to see it in action.
Due to my limited supply, I only own the Pandora which I of course, love. She is my best Pirate treasure ship and I typically toss Gentleman Jocard (PotC) on her deck to offset the standard Helmsman or Explorer. I can only do magic with to which I own, ya know.
Hands down though, and all credit to you and the community, Darkhawk II is a gem to behold, and top of my wish list. I always use her Spanish sister, La Joya Del Sol because you can’t go wrong with a deep pocket to store your keys, gunpowder, gold doubloons, tricorn, barrels of rum, etc etc.
@El Tiburón: Thanks, I think it could perform well.
The Pandora is excellent, and underrated precisely because of the Darkhawk II. Since the Pandora is 1 point more for 1 less mast and less firepower, she’s kind of like “the poor man’s Darkhawk II”. But I like her about as much because the Darkhawk II is overpowered. 🙂 I actually stand by my philosophy that putting +1 cargo crew on extremely high-cargo ships can be overkill. Even with 2-3 crew, you’ve got a lot of cargo for gold. I’d rather put that crew on a different ship to make her a hybrid or make a crew setup work. Although I also happen to think those crew are a bit overrated and probably only worth 2 points, though there are some cool things you can do with them. (such as with flotillas)
Indeed, the Joya is simply incredible. Though also OP in my opinion, so I try not to use her too much outside of competitive play nowadays. When you’ve played a LOT, you tend to get a little tired of people using the same great ships over and over again.
Thanks for commenting!
Ben