I’ve been writing Battle Reports since late July 2011. I played at least a dozen games (probably more) in 2005-2006 when I first got into Pirates CSG, but since getting back into it in 2011 I’ve recorded almost every game I’ve played in some way. In this blog I will be posting battle reports of my adventures. Check out my best battle reports in the Compendium and my biggest games in Huge Game Legacy.
5 new players were taught at a game night! Due to the sheer number of questions and game pieces, it was a bit chaotic, but the game was played to completion. The circumstances also led to an interesting setup, but each fleet did have about 40 points.
I went first to demonstrate taking a turn, and the race was on! There were 4 wild islands with 3 coins on each of them. As you can see here, the rares pulled from the OE packs included HMS Grand Temple, USS Constitution, and Maxehebel. In addition, I believe 3 of USS Sea Tiger made it out of the 10 packs given away. The small table required a small ocean, which would naturally decrease the importance of speed and increase the excitement at the islands.
A handful of conflicts broke out; the Gold Eagle dismasted the Afrique, but was soon sunk by the Afrique’s fleet mate the Grand Temple. The Georgetown damaged the Atlanta, but she was able to return home with gold. In the east, Maxehebel picked on the Clear Wind, but was eliminated by the Constitution before he could sink anything. One of the players had to leave during the game, taking their islands with them.
The last third of the game saw the two gunships dominate the sea. HMS Grand Temple crushed all opposition in the west, while the east saw the Constitution kill Maxehebel and dismast the Lady Newport.
The Constitution chased the tiny Colibri away, missing with both of her S-range guns. I suddenly realized that the Colibri had gold on her, so she sailed back, lucky to escape. In the meantime, the Atlanta repaired and the Georgetown was towed back.
After a Sea Tiger and the Lady Newport were towed back, the game ended in a tie! (looks like the HMS Grand Temple fleet would win the tiebreakers of both points in play and most masts standing)
Two games were played: one at 60 points and another at just 20. The first game featured an English fleet taking on a Mixed fleet.
HMS Lord Kettering and HMS Bath set out:
How gorgeous:
The Dunlap ambushes the Bath, and it’s English civil war!
The Lord Kettering takes care of some Pirate scum.
The Bath survived the attack, and the English have brought back a bunch of gold.
The civil war continues as the Empress takes on the Dunlap!
As the 1v1 battle rages, the Pequod loses a mast to the Lord Kettering but gets home with a Homing Beacon.
The Lord Kettering sank the Black Mongoose on her way to the Pequod:
The Lord Kettering round earthed her way to the west, dismasting the Moulin Rouge. The Empress was victorious against the Dunlap, and the Bath had the final treasure coin.
Total carnage! The fleets wage war with ferocity, with masts and spars falling everywhere.
In the end, the English were victorious 36-22!
The second game featured 4 20 point fleets, with each person controlling 2 fleets. The stipulation was that similar to CG1, each person had to play their fleets independently.
The Selkie started the action, going 1/3 on a sniping run against the Santo Columba.
The Sea Nymph and Pequod became locked in a fierce engagement, with the captained Pequod predictably getting the better of it.
The Selkie also took damage from the Pequod, who dropped her explorer at the island for more gold. I controlled the Spanish, so it was no surprise that I played them aggressively because of CG1.
After some more cannon fire and round earth shenanigans, the Pirates appeared to be the only fleet not in the running.
The Santo Columba used her S-boarding ability to rob the Black Mongoose, and after losing two more masts she was able to get it home. However, the Henry VIII was home with more gold for the English Pirates.
In the end, the Spanish were too shortsighted, going after the Pequod as the biggest threat but not paying enough attention to the English Pirates!
What a great pair of games! The second one was especially intriguing for me, and the fun of playing tiny games with lots of fleets cannot be understated.
Another player introduced to Pirates! They were given a few spare OE ships, 1 pack of BC, 1 pack of OE, and of course the MI Convention Pack. Two 40 point games were played.
Game 1
Mixed:
HMS Dunlap + captain, helmsman
Jackal’s Teeth + explorer
Black Mongoose
Pirates:
Sea Fox + captain, helmsman
Proud Tortoise + captain
Barnacle + explorer
The setup featured three wild islands with 6 coins each.
The Jackal’s Teeth reached an island on the first turn, and both fleets split their ships up.
The Proud Tortoise engages the Black Mongoose! Naturally, she misses with her lone cannon. The Sea Fox knows the Dunlap is hunting the Barnacle, but the Pirates have to get gold somehow!
Fighting on both sides of the sea! The Black Mongoose has rammed the Proud Tortoise derelict, while the Sea Fox connected once on the Dunlap. Things aren’t looking good for the Pirates, as the Dunlap has sunk the Barnacle.
The Dunlap sank the Sea Fox as well! The Mixed fleet seemed content to let the Proud Tortoise get away, though she had some trouble between her slow oar power and a big wave. Her captain was abandoned for a coin, as the Pirates hoped to avoid a total shutout.
The Mixed fleet played the game out to the end and they got almost all the gold for a whopping 44-3 victory!
Game 2
Franco-Spanish:(This game is in a different universe from CG1)
La Charlemange + captain, helmsman
La Espada de Dios + Bianco’s Haulers, helmsman (A little taste of my fleet challenge entry!)
(vs. the same Mixed fleet)
The second game featured a much different setup, with the huge 5-beach island in the center. Flat earth rules were once again used, and some terrain was placed to mix things up. The outer beaches had 3 coins each while the middle ones had 4, to incentivize potential conflict. A southern beach could only be accessed through a fog bank.
The Jackal’s Teeth is already headed back with gold, while the Espada has to wait to explore.
The Charlemagne grew frustrated trying to dock through the fog, so she came out and went after the Mixed fleet. She caught up with them on the northern side of the island, sending two masts over the side of the Jackal’s Teeth. The Black Mongoose had lost a mast to a whirlpool and also looked like a potential target. In the meantime, Bianco’s Haulers were preparing for a raid.
The French have sunk the Jackal’s Teeth and dismasted the Black Mongoose, while the Spanish rob their enemies! The Mixed fleet doesn’t have any ships to counter the Espada with, though she can’t be shot at while docked regardless.
The French captain aboard the Charlemagne didn’t want to steal the BM’s gold and sulk away; instead he set full sail towards the Dunlap!
The Dunlap shot first, but the Franco-Spanish were eventually victorious!
The final score was 9-0. Look for another CG1 report soon!
A ninth game has been played between myself and xerecs. The game featured a Portal, one of the hallmarks of xerecs’ Economy Edition game.
The Portal game featured a return to the 30 point format, with both fleets being comprised coincidentally of SM-only game pieces.
Spanish: (xerecs)
Asesino de la Nave + captain, helmsman
La Joya del Sol + explorer
Pirates: (a7xfanben)
Longshanks + captain
Silver Dagger
El Chico
Treachery
The Portal is represented by the formation in the middle, while the numbers at the wild islands tell you which island you dock at after going through the Portal.
The Pirates sent most of their ships through the Portal, and were very lucky to have a different ship dock at each of the wild islands!
The Pirates come out to meet the Spanish:
The Asesino de la Nave dismasted the Chico, but two other Pirate ships were racing home with gold.
The Silver Dagger also fell to the Asesino. We experienced some strange cloning issues in this game; I’d advise not hitting “sychronize” after the game starts when right-clicking a person’s name, but I’m not sure if that’s what caused the problems.
The Pirates went back through the Portal, but the Longshanks wasn’t close to the Asesino. However, she had lost her helmsman in a boarding party to the Silver Dagger.
The Longshanks catches the Asesino!
They battled it out a bit, but by that point the Pirates already had the game well in the bag. The Pirates won 28-10.
The Lady Provost couldn’t quite make it to an island, and the Cursed had the advantage of going first.
The Victor got an SAT from Chads and missed twice on the Dutchman and failed the ram and board to lose her captain. Then the Lord Walpole went 0/3!
Then Davy Jones rolled a 6 and the Lord Walpole sunk the Victor! The Mourning Star finished off the Lord Walpole while the Flying Dutchman sank the Lady Provost! The game ended with ownage98 winning by eliminating the entire English fleet, with no gold unloaded to home islands!
This game was played on 2/6/2016. It was a 60 point game, notable for being possibly the last physical game I’ll play with the first person I ever taught Pirates to (but maybe not the last!). Also, as part of the upcoming 10th anniversary of South China Seas, I’ve got quite a lot of South China Seas in my current traveling collection.
Jade Rebellion:
Grand Mountain + Dragon Eyes, helmsman, oarsman
Sea Wind + captain
Hansan Island + captain, helmsman, fire shot
Mixed:
HMS Victor + captain, oarsman
Templar + helmsman
HMS Clear Wind + helmsman
Scorpion + explorer
El Duque + helmsman, explorer
The setup featured the shipwreck cove, as well as three places to get gold. There were two coins placed on a beach on the same island where the home beaches were located. A few more coins were on an island near the main wild island, which lay in the cove.
Almost 10 years since the release of South China Seas, and the junks look as good as ever!
After the relative monotony of VASSAL pictures, it was refreshing and almost stunning to see this quality return!
The Duque grabs the nearby gold, while all the other ships make for the far islands.
Here the Sea Wind’s colors actually blend in well with the ocean.
The fleets converge on the main wild island:
The Sea Wind explores as the Hansan Island and Grand Mountain split up. All three Jade ships have captains.
The Jade Rebellion declares war! The Hansan Island sets the Victor ablaze, while the Sea Wind sprints for home and hits 2/2 on the Duque in passing.
The Victor repaired at sea, only to have the Hansan Island connect again with another fire shot! The Grand Mountain dismasted the Templar, and the Jades were doing well.
Dragon Eyes got busy capturing crew, but the Clear Wind rammed the Hansan Island derelict, ending that threat.
The Sea Wind returns for more gold, but loses a mast trying to go the shorter way over the treacherous reefs.
The Clear Wind has captured the Hansan Island!
The Victor hits the Grand Mountain, and the momentum is shifting!
The Grand Mountain fights back and captures the Victor’s captain!
As the Hansan Island is towed away, the Jade Rebellion is becoming surrounded.
The Sea Wind re-engages the Duque but fails to inflict damage and loses another mast to the reef! The Grand Mountain and Victor are locked in battle.
A great shot of the failed ram and board, and a good shot of the wrecked Flying Dutchman with her stern in the air.
As the battle rages, the Grand Mountain loses her oarsman.
The Duque rams the Sea Wind derelict! The Scorpion tries to sink the junk but misses.
The Duque captures the Sea Wind, while the Clear Wind drops the Hansan Island to help the Victor against the Grand Mountain.
The Jade Rebellion has only one ship left, and it’s doubtful that she’ll make it home safely. However, at this point she has 8 points of captured crew aboard in addition to 2 gold!
The Victor has fully repaired while the Grand Mountain slowly sails home.
As expected, the Grand Mountain has been cornered by the Mixed fleet. Note the unintentional (weak) line of battle sailing to the Mixed HI! They now control 7 of the 8 ships in the game.
Just a turn from her HI, the Grand Mountain is rammed and blocked!
The Grand Mountain shot a mast off the Scorpion, but the galley’s block meant she couldn’t get home…
After all that carnage, the Mixed fleet rammed the Grand Mountain derelict to end the game!
1. Mixed fleet: 19 gold
2. Jade Rebellion: 13
(If the Grand Mountain had just an extra turn to return home, it would have been 23-13 in favor of the Rebellion! Another great game!)
2 more games on VASSAL have already been played! I was about to edit my fansite when I hopped on reddit and got ownage99988 to join me on VASSAL! It was their first game in about 11 years!
a7xfanben: Sealing the Deal (My fleet for the Sealed Pack fleet challenge)
Though it turned out to be a very good thing, there was so much going on in the VASSAL chat during this game that I almost forgot to take pictures and only got 2! VASSAL is truly taking over! ownage and I got started and then xerecs joined the chat soon afterwards once the game had commenced.
In an abnormal twist, the game featured fighting at the start and gold running thereafter. The Overton and Stephens were engaged in battle, but the Stephens won because of the help of the Bon Marin (no kidding!) and the San Pedro. The Minimal Crew fleet towed the Overton home and got the +5 gold bonus from Nolan’s Ransom keyword. The Belle Etoile took some damage from the Stephens, but managed to return home before going out on a gold run. If she had a captain, she could have sunk the Overton before Nolan was unloaded, but it was not to be (if only I had pulled another captain for that fleet challenge!). The Martillo de Dios made a successful treasure run before being sunk by the Stephens on her second trip. That’s when she carried the final gold coin, and the game ended! Incredibly, it was a 17-17 tie!! ownage was awarded the victory since he had more masts and points afloat than I did. What a great return to Pirates for ownage! This was possibly the best VASSAL game yet.
ownage left, leaving xerecs and I to play a second game.
Game 7 xerecs:
Blackwatch + Commodore Peregrine Stern, Commodore Matthew Perry, helmsman, oarsman
Nene-nui + Ralph David, explorer
The Blackwatch hunted the Jewels fleet, who headed for the outer islands. The Tiger’s Eye was immune to the Blackwatch’s guns, and therefore she turned south. However, the Emerald was waiting for her, and she pounced first, dealing damage.
At this point it got strange. The Blackwatch rammed and boarded the Emerald with two of her remaining three guns in range. Then the impossible happened: the Blackwatch, one of the most feared gunships in history, rolled FOUR 1’s in a row!! This left the door wide open for the Emerald, and the Blackwatch was toast. The Emerald then went after the Nene Nui to try and end the game.
And thus it was ended! The Jewels fleet finished with 22 gold (with +1 from eliminating Perry), while the Americans finished with 10 (+2 from Ralph David).
ownage and I might be back on VASSAL tomorrow. The campaign game is coming…
Xerecs’ Pirates:
Darkhawk II + captain, helmsman, explorer
Eagle + Calico Cat, Hammersmith, The Hag of Tortuga
Bloody Jewel + explorer
Vendari’s Frenchmen:
Le Lyon + Guy LaPlante
Le Descharges + Lenoir, captain
Le Coeur du Lion + Vicomte Jules de Cissey, navigator
JR’s in the south, Pirates in the east, French in the west.
The Tiger’s Breath sprang out and gave Ben 3 coins early. The Sea Phoenix was picking up the scraps at the same island when the Darkhawk II initiated combat and dismasted the small junk. The Jade turtle ships turned around and attacked the Lyon! In the far north, the Descharges took out two of the Eagle’s masts.
The Lyon shot off one of the Proud Tortoise’s shell panels and rammed off her mast.
With a shoot and ram, the Noble Swan dismasted the Lyon. The Tiger’s Breath decided to forsake the gold in the southwest in an attempt to save the Sea Phoenix. She won the boarding party but couldn’t dent the Darkhawk, and she would pay for it on the next turn when the DHII dismasted her. In the meantime, the Eagle had rammed the Descharges. At this point it was noticed that the Bloody Jewel had inconspicuously gone missing!
The Tiger’s Breath and the Proud Tortoise rowed home to repair, while the Noble Swan captured the Lyon. At this point this 3 Player Game on VASSAL was called because xerecs couldn’t continue. The Jade Rebellion won 14-0-0.
3 impromptu games were played between myself and xerecs! Since they were all rather lopsided and quick, the reports will be short as well. The three games only took about 3 hours, so the concern of VASSAL games taking longer than regular games continues to lose steam.
The first game featured a7xfanben’s Minimal Crew fleet against a Cursed fleet made by xerecs.
A great barrier reef stretched across the sea to cut off access to the wild islands.
The Revenant successfully navigated the reef, but the Stephens rolled a 1 to lose 4 of her 5 masts!
As ships began exploring, the Stephens tried to sail back home to repair, but was promptly wrecked!
The Revenant targeted the San Pedro before she could cross the reefs, but missed.
The San Pedro rammed and boarded to take a coin from the Revenant!
The Lizard’s Sting dismasted the Bon Marin with a ram while the Revenant sunk the San Pedro, and the Cursed were victorious 21-13!
The second game was a 60 point game, and featured a7xfanben’s Clones of the South China Sea fleet against an American fleet created by xerecs.
Americans:
Venture (custom ship) + Commander Steven Decatur, captain, helmsman, oarsman
Nene-nui + explorer
Jarvis + 1 crew
This time, the previous setup was “moved and rotated randomly” until a feasible setup was found. The wild island in between the two HI’s has 5 coins on it, with 3 apiece for the other two.
The Grand Wind sacced an oarsman to move S+S+S+S, and the fleets were off and sailing.
The Grand Path received a ludricrous amount of 6’s this game, as the dice luck from the previous game shifted completely in a7xfanben’s favor! Here the junk has rammed the Venture!
The Venture is dismasted!
The Venture ducks into the fog while the Grand Wind returns home. The Grand Path hunts the remaining American ships.
The Venture is sunk, and the Americans look to be doomed.
The Nene Nui tries to return home, but is set upon by the Grand Path, who receives yet another SAT from Warlord Cavendish.
The Nene Nui is captured while the Grand Wind explores the center island.
The captured Nene Nui docks at the same time as the Grand Wind, giving the Jade Rebellion a huge windfall.
The Grand Path sinks the Jarvis, and the Jade Rebellion claims a whopping 31-0 victory!
The final game was the most unique. It featured 50 point fleets, with one wild island holding all the gold, defended by an old Viking fort with six 3L cannons. The island was completely surrounded by reefs and fog.
Cursed: (xerecs)
Revenant (custom ship) + captain, explorer
Divine Dragon + Davy Jones
My strategy was to use Calypso’s whirlpool-creating ability to warp into the area around the wild island, but it failed miserably. Further serving this goal and furthering the similarities to the epic Economy Edition, I secretly placed three UT’s: Bad Maps, Turtles, and Whirlpool.
Davy Jones got a 6 on the second turn, but the Pirates were smart to split up their ships in his presence.
Unfortunately for Calypso, she wasn’t such a surprise, since the Pirates waited too long to reveal her. As a result, the Cursed found the Whirlpool and Bad Maps UT’s, and figured out what was going on. Shades of Economy Edition indeed, but it didn’t work nearly as well. Further making the game a complete failure, we forgot to have the fort fire!
Chaos reigns as the island is displaced from the fake “lagoon” of reefs while the turtles start scrambling.
In my frustration, the Deliverance rammed the Revenant and destroyed the fort.
As the island does an Economy and returns to it’s former station, the fleets are flabbergasted.
The Divine Dragon and Deliverance are locked in a pitched battle.
The Deliverance sinks the Divine Dragon, while the Eagle heads to cut off the Revenant.
The Revenant is wrecked while moving over a reef, just like the Stephens in the first game! This ended the game, with the Cursed having no available ships. Neither fleet had any gold on their HI, so xerecs was decided the winner since his fleet had gold “in the water” while a7xfanben had no gold on his ships.
The last game was a complete disaster, but as usual in Pirates, “everything that can go wrong will go wrong”. However, all three games were fun and will now be forever known as the first confrontations between the legendary Admirals A7XfanBen and Xerecs, players of Economy Edition and Century of the Empires!
A HUGE thanks to el_cazador for reaching out to me! And once again, a HUGE thanks to B.J. Olejnik for getting this module up and running. I literally had VASSAL on my to-do list for today (part of a series of VASSAL ironies that keep happening – el_cazador literally PM’d me a few minutes after I responded to B.J.’s email), where I was going to experiment with it and play around a bit. Instead, my (and el_cazador’s) first game was played on VASSAL!!
I think VASSAL is going to be an extremely valuable tool. It’s the only known reliable way of people being able to play Pirates remotely, which is huge. This forum is full of the absolute, hardcore, diehard fans of the game that are still left supporting it and keeping it alive. The fact that we can play games of Pirates with each other for free and without the hassles of traveling is so cool!
This is a Battle Report of the game that myself and el_cazador played on 1/29/2016. It’s my first BR using “pictures” of a virtual game, which is crazy cool and crazy unique. You can’t get angled shots or closeups (edit: you can with a snipping tool or by editing and cropping full pictures), but the pros include not needing a camera of any kind, not having to worry about how the shot will look, and of course the nature of an overhead shot: every picture gives the viewer a great idea of what’s going on everywhere on the ocean.
Neither of us had much experience at all with VASSAL prior to this impromptu game. Nevertheless, we were determined to see it happen!! (I’m very excited about this lol.)
First, we didn’t even know how to set up the ocean. I’ll make a post within the next 24 hours where I do my best to give a comprehensive sort of “setup guide” for everyone. For now, I will focus on the report. This will eventually go in Battle Reports, but I think that this first game should definitely go in this thread, not to mention xerecs’ massively epic Economy Edition game going on right now. As always I’ll post it on BGG and Pojo (and I think reddit this time too!), so hopefully that will drum up additional interest.
I began creating a fleet. A day or two I was on VASSAL very briefly, and I created HMS Dover just to refresh my memory of how to create a ship and its associated deckplate card. As a result, she was the first ship I chose. My fleet was constructed somewhat randomly and haphazardly, but the English are my favorite faction and the Lord Algernon is my favorite ship, so it should come as no surprise that my first game on VASSAL featured them.
English: (Ben)
HMS Lord Algernon + Administrator Scott Bratley, captain, helmsman
HMS Dover + Thomas Gunn, explorer
HMS Hound + explorer
el_cazador, on the other hand, had a fleet ready.
Spanish: (El Cazador)
Spanish Cursed Seas Showcase (fleet was on Miniature Trading)
At this time it is necessary to explain the dumb setup. Once we had an ocean created, we got excited and started dumping stuff everywhere! We didn’t know how to delete islands and terrain! As a result, the setup was very abnormal and unfairly biased in favor of the English. Once our first ship was introduced to the sea, we both simply gravitated towards the nearest islands, so the HI placement was random as well. However, the treasure distribution was fair, with 4 coins on each of the 4 wild islands. There are no native canoes in the module so they’re represented by the 1 masted galleys.
The English rolled to go first, and the fleets were off! The Hound and Dover were quick to exploit the bad setup, docking and exploring nearby wild islands on the first two turns. The Lord Algernon headed out as the most dangerous but also slowest ship in play.
The Spanish sailed out, with the San Pedro easily navigating a reef successfully. The native canoes, however, couldn’t explore on the first turn.
The Dover docked home treasure, while the Lord Algernon moved within firing range of a native canoe!!
The Lord Algernon easily blasted the canoe to smithereens, and war was on! The remaining canoes had no choice but to run from the English flagship, but the Castigue had something to say about the Lord Algernon, hitting 2/3 to take out a mast!
Here the San Pedro docks and explores. a7xfanben, commander of the English forces, knew how valuable the +1 and +2 gold abilities (aboard the canoes and San Pedro) are, and therefore prioritized eliminating those ships from the game.
The Hound has docked home while the Morning Star takes gold from the western island. However, the English used their two gunships to sink the Castigue! This netted them 1 gold for eliminating the Ransom crew Anita Amore. The dots on the islands are explored markers, something el_cazador was brilliant enough to think of and find on the module. Nicely enough, they’re color-coded by player, and here they turned out to match the nationalities as well!
Surprising the English, the Spanish now attacked the Lord Algernon with their treasure runners! The San Pedro rammed and boarded. However, she failed with both rolls, losing her explorer. The canoes began to head towards the Lord Algernon, which El Cazador would later admit was a “canoe screen” to help shield the Morning Star. Mid-turn, you can see the S and L rulers in the directions ships have moved and are going to move.
The English strike again, and sink the San Pedro! After a brief discussion, it was decided that any gold on ships would sink to the bottom with the vessel carrying it. (Woelf does this and it’s obviously more historically accurate.) At this point the English finally remembered to use the Hound’s ability and revealed a 2 on the Morning Star, who was heading towards the southern island while the English were distracted by the canoes.
Here, the Morning Star has docked at the southern island, where she explores and finds some UT’s that were placed by a7xfanben. However, I didn’t define what they were when I placed them, so I decided to let El Cazador use them as “wilds” since the setup was so biased in my favor. This meant he could pick any value for the two “UT’s” from 1-7. Naturally, he picked 7 for both of them.
With a powerful broadside, the Lord Algernon stays put and sinks the remaining native canoes! The Dover returns home for the time being, while the Hound added to the English treasure haul.
The Morning Star began sailing away, but the Lord Algernon shot two of her masts off. The Dover docked home, only for me to realize that she didn’t have any gold on her after all!
The Morning Star continued to run, but the English continued to shoot! The Lord Algernon connected twice more, and the Dover moved into position to end the game.
The Dover fired and hit, sinking the final Spanish ship! The Royal Navy reigns supreme! (My shoot action die rolls were much better for this game than they are in the physical world, a promising sign for me lol.)
This image simply shows the English gold revealed on their HI, and they won by a 24-0 blowout! (The gold in the water is from the sunken San Pedro.)
