Due to time constraints I am only planning on playing one game per matchup from here on out.

*If you haven’t looked at these fleets you really should! I’m not going to repost entire fleet descriptions in the report. It would also be nice if there were more comments and votes on the fleets.*

Darrin’s Gold Race 

The Jade Rebellion Sea Crane is a proxy for the Pirate one from OE, which has the same stats. The Rover is being used instead of Favor of the Gods.

HMS Grand Temple v 3.0 

The islands were set up in a pyramid fashion to change things up. HMS Grand Temple v 3.0 (now referred to as GT3) rolled to go first, followed by the Gold Race fleet. Since the Gold Race fleet was entirely Pirate, the Headhunter’s world-hater was nullified. However, GT3 figured it wouldn’t matter with no opposing ship having more than 2 masts.

Turn 1:
The GT and Oxford couldn’t hit any of the Pirate ships docked at their home island.

The Gold Race fleet followed the 1st turn protocol laid out by darrin in his fleet description. However, I noticed a few issues. When trading away bad UT’s with Pedro Gilbert, the ship “must load the traded treasure“. However, with Jonah and so many crew/equipment on the ship, there’s no space with which to load it. Halfway through the first turn I decided that the Banshee’s Cry never started the game with English Letter of Marque aboard, which let the Cry trade later in the turn. For the first island she decided to keep Enemy of the State since the Cry didn’t plan on docking at her HI at any point in the game.

In addition, this fleet may be the most confusing fleet I’ve ever played. Evident by selvaxri’s comment above, Captain Jack Sparrow is probably the biggest conundrum in Pirates. (On another note, how does the crew/treasure swap work thematically?) I didn’t get it at first either and evidently I’m still having trouble with how powerful he is because in this game I made another mistake. Not only is the gold NOT loaded by the ship carrying CJS, the traded crew doesn’t go on the ship either, it just sits on the island in place of the coin. I thought there was an issue where since Jonah makes the oarsman take up space, there wouldn’t be any space with which to load the traded crew (which you would want to sac with Pedro anyway).

Lastly, Sunken Treasure probably shouldn’t be in the fleet because as darrin alluded to in his introduction to UPS v 2.0, CJS can’t trade away UT’s that are loaded face up.

On the first island that the BC explored, she found Enemy of the State, Sunken Treasure, and two 2’s (not enough to win). After trading a 2 home (which got +3’d by the Bonnie Liz), the BC sacced a crew to move to the next island to the north. Here she found Natives, which was traded away by Pedro for a 6 from another island. In addition to trading Natives away via Pedro, she traded a 4 home via CJS, giving the Pirates 12 gold at the end of the first turn.

Turn 2:
The Grand Temple sacced an oarsman but still couldn’t reach the Banshee’s Cry. The Oxford was partially blocked by the Pirates’ HI and sailed around it, sinking the Rover in the process.

The BC dumped her explorer and oarsman on the second island to make room for another explorer from home, which in hindsight was actually unnecessary because the crew isn’t actually loaded. She then traded a 2 home for a 17-0 victory!

Because of the cargo complications (which I’m still wrapping my head around, lol), I don’t know if I played Darrin’s Gold Race fleet 100% correctly. However, it still won by the end of the second turn without the Grand Temple firing a shot!

How much can you fit on a one masted sloop? 

The next three game series would be between my Hai Peng Fort Frenzy fleet and a fleet that was created recently with some of my new ships. The first game was particularly long and exciting, even complex to a degree.

Hai Peng Fort Frenzy

The Coeur du Lion is a proxy for the Lezard.

American Pirates

Game 1:

Turn 1:
The American Pirates (abbreviated AP’s) went first, using Hidden Cove to catapult the Amity out to the middle island. She explored and found Barbary Banner.

This Hai Peng can move 4S and 4L total distance because of Mycron on the Patagonia. She couldn’t quite reach the furthest island, and since the Amity had already docked at the middle island, the Hai Peng was forced to sail to the northwestern island. However, she found Holy Water, Pirate Globe and two 2’s. This was a problem because all forts cost at least 3 gold and therefore the Hai Peng couldn’t build a fort on the first turn. The HP took one of the 2 coins and traded the other one home via CJS and the Lezard.

 

Turn 2:
The Bandido docked at the northeastern island, while the Roanoke was not yet in range of either the Hai Peng or the Banshee’s Cry. With a helmsman and Blackheart the Roanoke could move up to L+S+L+S, quite fast but technically only half the total speed of the Hai Peng.

The reveal of Pirate Globe on the first turn proved to be very beneficial to the Hai Peng fleet (Hai Peng Fort Frenzy or HPFF). The Globe revealed that on the western island where the Banshee’s Cry was about to dock, there was Maps of Alexandria, Jailhouse Dog and two 5’s. On the northeastern island where the Bandido had docked there was a 5 and three 2’s. Because the Bandido was about to take treasure from her island and that island was closer to the AP’s HI (plus the fact that it had more gold on it), the HP sailed off to the island where the Bandido was docked. With 8 total move segments she was able to get there easily and also position herself in a way that let her shoot at the Bandido while staying out of range of the Roanoke. One of her two shots hit to dismast the Bandido. She then sent the 5 home to build Paradis de la Mer on the island as the Banshee’s Cry docked at the western island.

(The gold is already on the AP’s HI because I forgot to take a picture at the end of the turn.)

 

Turn 3:
The Amity docked home her 10 gold including the 5 from Barbary Banner, giving the AP’s a 10-2 gold advantage. Knowing that of the 11 gold that was on the northeastern island (with Paradis), only 7 could be transferred home (making the score 10-9 at a maximum), the Roanoke made the decision to keep sailing west towards the Banshee’s Cry.

The Hai Peng couldn’t quite make it to the western island where the Banshee’s Cry was docked, partly because she had docked on the other side of the island on the previous turn to shoot at the Bandido and avoid the Roanoke. As a result the HP couldn’t build a fort on this turn either, with three islands either emptied or having a fort on them already. The HP also realized that there wasn’t enough gold in Paradis de la Mer to win by simply transferring it home via CJS, not to mention that the oarsmen aboard the Lezard would run out anyway. Knowing that the HP would have a shot at the western island on the following turn, the Banshee’s Cry sailed away from the island because it would be easy for the Roanoke to sink her on the next turn and take the gold with Divers. The Banshee’s Cry and Hai Peng both made sure they were out of the Roanoke’s range.

 

Turn 4:
The Bandido was scuttled since Paradis would have sunk her anyway, leaving the AP’s with the Roanoke and Amity. HPFF forgot about the explorer on the Roanoke, and the Roanoke used him to grab both 5’s from the western island, saccing one of her two oarsmen to make enough space. Jailhouse Dog was used to eliminate the Holy Water that the HP had loaded. This was a blow to HPFF because they had wanted to use Jailhouse Dog to eliminate Barbary Banner to deny the AP’s 5 extra gold. The Roanoke’s foremast cannon was just out of range of the Banshee’s Cry.

HPFF now realized that to win the game they would have to steal at least one of the 5’s on board the Roanoke. The Banshee’s Cry had nowhere to run and no islands to explore, so she rammed the Roanoke out of desperation, losing both rolls and one of her two oarsmen. The Hai Peng sailed back to Paradis and transferred home the original 5 used to build the fort by leaving two 2’s as the gold necessary to keep the fort in operation. The gold count was now 10-7 in favour of the AP’s.

 

Turn 5:
The Roanoke sank the Banshee’s Cry, while the Amity wasn’t fast enough to ram the HP. The Hai Peng sent home 2 more gold from Paradis, leaving 4 gold permanently in the fort (10-9, AP’s winning).

 

Turn 6:
The Roanoke started to sail home. The Lezard, with no more oarsmen to transfer and no gold to unload at her HI, finally set sail. At this point the game was up to the HP and the Lezard (but realistically only the HP) to steal gold from the Roanoke and get away with it. The HP still had the 2 in her cargo hold from early in the game. This Hai Peng is so fast that she was able to go all the way home from Paradis and still sail back out again and catch the Roanoke.

 

Turn 7:
The Roanoke moved twice by saccing her second oarsman. The HP dropped off her 2 coin at her HI, giving HPFF an 11-10 lead.

 

Turn 8:
The Roanoke sacced her explorer to move twice once again, leaving her about a centimeter from her HI.

The moment was finally at hand! The Hai Peng was faced with her greatest challenge yet. With Mycron she was able to move and shoot twice before ramming the Roanoke. She missed both shots on the first action but hit both times on the second action, leaving the Roanoke with three masts. The Hai Peng rammed the Roanoke on the port side to avoid a potential ram by the Amity on the following turn. However, the ram roll failed, leaving the Hai Peng at a slight disadvantage going into the boarding action. With great drama the boarding action failed!  The Hai Peng only lost an oarsman but in reality she had lost the game, as the Roanoke ended the game on the next turn by docking home her two 5’s to give the American Pirates a thrilling 20-11 victory!

This was one of the more interesting games of this winter so far. It was definitely one of the longest 40 point games I’ve ever played, with 9 total turns counting the Roanoke’s final turn. During the game I noticed some problems with my HPFF fleet. I’ll look to correct them as I go along.

Game 2:

HPFF rolled to go first, and the HI setup was reversed with the AP’s in the south and HPFF in the east. Instead of two oarsmen on the Banshee’s Cry one was swapped out for an explorer.

Turn 1:
The Hai Peng couldn’t reach the western island and so was forced to dock at the northwestern island, where she built the Devil’s Maw.

 

Turn 2:
The Banshee’s Cry explored the middle wild island and found Jailhouse Dog, Barbary Banner, Maps of Alexandria, and a 2. She took the gold and the Hai Peng was able to see what treasures were on the remaining two islands. She sailed to the northeastern island and built Paradis de la Mer.

The Amity reached the western island and took the gold from it. In the first big move of the game, the Roanoke was Hidden Cove’d to the middle island. The AP’s had decided to use HC with the Roanoke rather than to run gold with it. This extra boost of movement got the Roanoke within saccing striking distance of the Hai Peng. Blackheart sacced an oarsman and the Roanoke sunk the Hai Peng while she was docked at Paradis!

Two turns in and the Hai Peng is gone.

 

Turn 3:
After a great start HPFF was now in big trouble. On the bright side, Mycron could now give the Patagonia’s action to the Banshee’s Cry, which let her return home at L+L+L+L speed from the middle island. In the meantime Paradis de la Mer exacted some revenge on the Roanoke by hitting twice with both of the cannons that were in range.

Since the Devil’s Maw was an easier target, the Roanoke turned west and sacced herself into range of the Pirate fort, hitting twice in five tries between two shoot actions. She could only get two of her three remaining guns in range for the first action. It was now up to the Roanoke to take out a fort since they held all the gold left in play that was needed for the AP’s to win.

 

Turn 4:
The Banshee’s Cry zipped out to Paradis and grabbed the 5 coin, which was the last coin that could leave the fort since the two 2’s had to stay. This is actually one of the biggest weaknesses of the HPFF fleet because they can only get so much gold home from the forts they build. The Devil’s Maw took a mast off the Roanoke with her three remaining cannons to establish a slight numerical advantage.

The Amity returned home with 8 gold, making the score 8-7 in favour of the AP’s. The Roanoke sacced her explorer to shoot twice at the Devil’s Maw but only hit once in four tries.

 

Turn 5:
The Banshee’s Cry docked home the 5 from Paradis to take the lead 12-8. The Devil’s Maw connected for a hit on the Roanoke, leaving the flagship with just one mast.

On the AP’s turn the Roanoke sacced her valuable helmsman to shoot twice at the Devil’s Maw. The risk paid off as the Roanoke hit both times to make the fort abandoned and render it useless!

 

Turn 6:
This is when the game started getting down to the wire. With the Hai Peng long gone and the Roanoke with one mast standing, the lesser ships would finally decide the outcome of the game.

Since the Roanoke was still around the Devil’s Maw island that the Banshee’s Cry had to get to in order to load the winning gold, HPFF decided to use Mycron’s action for the Lezard, who had been sailing northwest ever since her partner in crime (the HP) had sunk. HPFF was worried about the speed (S+S+S) of the Bandido to ram the Banshee’s Cry out of commission. The Lezard was given an extra action which she used to ram the Bandido, needing just a 2 to hit. She rolled a 1, leaving the AP’s with 5 masts in the area and HPFF with 2.

With no crew left to sac and no helmsman, Blackheart fired the Roanoke’s last cannon at the Devil’s Maw, but it missed. The Bandido sailed around the Lezard and rammed her in return, but somehow the Bandido also rolled a 1.

 

Turn 7:
With the Roanoke now in ramming range, the Lezard now rammed her and succeeded in taking out her last mast. The Roanoke was now derelict. The Banshee’s Cry used Mycron to approach the crucial northwestern island, which was actually the first island to be explored in this game.

The Amity returned the favour by ramming the Lezard, leaving three ships (two derelict) all in contact with one another.

 

Turn 8:
The Banshee’s Cry docked at the Devil’s Maw and loaded 4 gold, which would be enough to win the game for HPFF.

This was already a great, close, hard-fought game, but now it really started getting ridiculous. The Banshee’s Cry had measured multiple times and determined that there was nowhere at the northwestern island that she could dock without being in ramming range of the two Pirate ships. She docked on the far side of the island anyway.

The Bandido came around the north side of the island and rammed the Cry. Needing a 2 to dismast the Cry and probably win the game for the AP’s, the Bandido rolled another 1! The Amity sailed around the south side of the island, rammed the Banshee’s Cry and rolled a 1! O_O  The boarding rolls were ineffective and the Banshee’s Cry had inexplicably survived!

Is this die cursed?

The infamous and now apparently invincible Banshee’s Cry:

 

Turn 9:
The Banshee’s Cry was trapped between the Amity and the Bandido, and if you read my report from the game using El Garante a few weeks ago you’ll remember the moment where the huge ship was trapped on both sides by ships that had rammed her. I feel that it would be very unfair for a fleet to lose in such a way and therefore the “no ship may turn more than 90 degrees” house rule was temporarily broken to allow the Banshee’s Cry to move. She took off with the help of Mycron and there was no hope of the Amity or Bandido of catching her.

The Bandido used a shoot action to finally destroy the Devil’s Maw, and the Amity used her explorer to grab the 7 gold that was in the fort.

Turns 10 and 11:
The ships raced for home with their gold, but it was no contest. The Cry docked home 4 gold to give HPFF a 16-8 win!

This was one of the craziest games I’ve played so far this run and one of the better ones I’ve played overall. It was even longer than the last one between these fleets (11 turns and 9 for the first one). They seem to be unnaturally evenly matched, which makes for awesome gameplay. HPFF appears better on paper, but the advantage of having Hidden Cove is HUGE. This really evens out the fleets and even gives the American Pirates the upper hand in some ways.

It was good to see the smaller ships see action after the Roanoke and especially the Hai Peng were knocked out of the game. HPFF showed their mettle by winning the game even after their main ship was sunk on the second turn.

Despite the game’s length and overall excitement, I think I’ll always remember this game as the failed ramming game (or the ram game maybe?). I believe there were SIX ram attempts on ships with one mast, and only two of them succeeded! Mathematically you’d expect 5/6 to work. Perhaps shoot actions aren’t the only time where huge amounts of 1’s are rolled… XD

Game 3:

The third game featured the HPFF HI in the west and the AP HI on the northeast island. HPFF rolled to go first.

Turn 1:
The Hai Peng explored the middle island, finding Holy Water, Maps of Alexandria (thus turning over all the other treasure on the islands), a 5 and a 1. She sent the 5 home and kept the 1 and Holy Water. Then the HP went south and explored another island, sending another 5 gold home which came right back in the form of the Devil’s Maw.

 

Turn 2:
The HP now went to the northwestern island and grabbed Jailhouse Dog in order to potentially cancel Barbary Banner, which was on the eastern island near the AP HI. The HP sent a 2 to the Lezard. The Banshee’s Cry loaded 4 gold from the Devil’s Maw. At the end of the turn Paradis de la Mer was built on the northwest island.

The Amity used Ghost Ship to sail through the northwest island and ram the docked Hai Peng. The ram and board were successful, leaving the HP with one mast and the Amity with 1 gold in her cargo hold. The Bandido docked at the eastern island. The Roanoke was Hidden Cove’d to the middle island from which she sacced an oarsman to sink the Banshee’s Cry to the south. Divers was flipped to give the AP’s all 4 gold on their HI. The Roanoke was 4 out of 5 on her shoot action, with her last two hits coming against the Devil’s Maw.

 

Turn 3:
HPFF began the turn by opening fire with their two forts. This was probably the most triumphant game I’ve played with forts. The Devil’s Maw blasted the Roanoke 3/3 to leave her with two masts remaining. Then Paradis de la Mer let loose a flurry of shots on the Amity, shredding her to pieces and leaving her derelict! Once again the rage of the gunners on Paradis had gotten revenge on the AP’s for attacking the Hai Peng. When the smoke cleared from these battles the Hai Peng had already sailed away and was almost to the Bandido in the east.

The Bandido explored and took Barbary Banner and a 5 and a 2. The Roanoke retreated, with no interest in engaging the Devil’s Maw.

 

Turn 4:
The Hai Peng dismasted the Bandido with her first action and captured her and explored the island with her second action. This left the Roanoke as the only AP ship left that could move.

 

Turn 5:
The HP towed the Bandido back the way she had come to the northwest, desperate to stay out of the Roanoke’s range. The Roanoke sailed north, dismasting the Lezard, which had sailed out to capture the Amity.

 

Turn 6:
The Lezard had plenty of oarsmen aboard (including her French one) and captured the Amity. HPFF had now captured two of the three AP ships and the Roanoke only had two masts standing. The Hai Peng sailed south with the Bandido in tow (still moving S+L+S+S+L+S because of the bonuses and Mycron), once again avoiding the Roanoke. The Roanoke turned south but was just out of range.

 

Turn 7:

The Hai Peng docked, bringing in 14 gold between her and the Bandido. This gave Hai Peng Fort Frenzy a 16-4 victory and means that they win this series 2 games to 1!

This was an amazing series that was hotly contested. These fleets are very evenly matched, with both of the first two games taking a long time and going down to the wire. The third game finally featured a near-perfect game from HPFF, which shows how fast and powerful it can be. Hai Peng Fort Frenzy beats the American Pirates 2 games to 1.

I’ve played another 3 game series, this time between a different version of UPS and the EA Gold Runners fleet. Again, if you haven’t checked out these fleets yet I suggest you do so. The links are below.

Silver Crane (UPS v. 4.0) 

Extra Action Gold Runners

The island setup was a little bit different after a comment by marhawkman on BoardGameGeek.

Game 1:
The Coral was Hidden Cove’d to an island but she only found one silver coin on the island. She traded it home for +4 to give UPS4 7 gold at the end of the first turn, but she wouldn’t be able to get the extra +1 from the silver explorer back home if she continued to use that first island. However, because of the Sea Crane’s +1 and Gallows’ +2 there would always be at least +3 to the coin no matter the color. The Coral could go to another island and look for silver coins there, but she decided to stay at the first island.

By the end of the second turn UPS 4 had 12 gold on their HI.

On the third turn both of the EA rolls for the EA Runners fleet succeeded, with the Joya del Sol bringing home 7 gold. However, it was too little, too late as the Coral traded a 2 coin for the win after adding the +3 to make it 17-7 in favour of UPS4.

Game 2:
For the second game the HI’s were closer together towards the middle. UPS 4 went first and the Coral actually found the same treasure mix on her island as in the last game (one silver 3 and three gold 2’s).

This second game was quick and predictable after the Coral found the exact same treasure mix (the treasure was mixed up, it was just a coincidence). There was a little excitement however, with the Algeciras taking out two masts on the Longshanks after she docked at the island. The Joya again made it home, making the final score 17-8 in favour of UPS 4.

Game 3:
The third game saw the HI’s a medium distance apart. The Coral once again only found one silver coin, but this time it was a 1, with all three gold coins being 2’s. This meant that it would take four turns instead of three for UPS 4 to win the game since there were no 3’s on the island and therefore UPS 4 couldn’t bring in more than 5 gold in one turn.

The Algeciras was approaching the Coral’s island, forcing the Coral to act and build Dead Man’s Point.

The third turn of this game was the most exciting of the entire series. The Algeciras finally had a chance at the Coral, but only with a ram since the Coral can’t be shot at while docked. The Algeciras rammed but rolled a 1! She did manage to hit both times against the Longshanks, leaving the pirate ship with 1 mast. The Pirates retaliated on their turn by dismasting the Algeciras with both the Longshanks and Dead Man’s Point, but Captain Jack Hawkins died in the boarding action. At the end of turn 3 UPS 4 led 12-7.

The Star of Siam and Joya del Sol couldn’t get any gold home on the fourth turn, and the Coral traded another coin to a 17-7 victory!

For this series UPS version 4.0 beat EA Gold Runners 3 games to 0. This UPS fleet is fun to play although I think my favourite of the three UPS fleets (now that I’ve played them all) is the second one with the extreme speed of having a sac crew on a ship as fast as the Hai Peng.

I’ve played the last 2 games of the series between UPS v. 2.0 and Extra Action Gold Runners.

Game 2:
The EA Runners fleet went first in both games. The Joya del Sol got the EA from Castro and was able to explore a nearby wild island, finding 6 gold and Turtles.

The Hai Peng was Hidden Cove’d to a wild island where she found Homing Beacon, Cross of Coronado, and Screu Engine along with just one 2-gold coin. After trading this to the Intrepide she sacced to the next island and found the 7, sending it home and using the +2’d first coin to build Paradis de la Mer (I feel like this fleet makes a verb out of everything). This left 9 total gold on UPS’s HI (7 + 2).

On the second turn the EA fleet failed to get any extra actions and was relegated to sailing to and from islands at S+S+S, quite slow in a game like this haha.

Since the Hai Peng knew there was no point in going back to the first island with only UT’s, she redocked twice at Paradis on the second turn, sending home 4 gold total. This was upped to 8 via Aristide and it gave the Pirates a 17-0 victory!

At the end of the first turn the Hai Peng had loaded Homing Beacon, which UPS considered using because the first island was mostly a dud and they couldn’t send coins home from it. The Hai Peng would load two coins from the second island (Paradis), teleport home via the Beacon, then sac an oarsman to catapult to a new island that the Star of Siam had just docked at but not explored. However, it was easier to just use Captain Jack Sparrow and send home two coins from Paradis, upon which Aristide doubled their values and gave UPS enough gold to win. Also, although it was a shutout for UPS, the EA fleet had 6 gold on the Joya and all 10 Turtles approaching their HI.

Game 3:
The Joya del Sol got an EA from Castro on the first turn and found 17 gold on one island! She found the 7 and 6 that her fleet had contributed as well as two 2’s.

The Hai Peng traded back 2 gold as normal, but due to the island setup she wasn’t able to reach a second island. Their HI was the middle island and the Joya’s island and the EA fleet’s HI were the only islands she could have gotten to.

The island setup proved irrelevant on the second turn when the Joya got another EA and docked home her 17 gold to win the game for the EA Runners!

This third game was the fastest of the three and proved that even UPS v. 2.0 can be beat by a ship using extra actions that happened to get very lucky with the gold. It also made me think of the “more than half the starting gold” rule for two player games, which really does make things a bit boring and predictable. These games are meant to use the official rules (which actually help these particular fleets, especially UPS), but it would be interesting to see what would happen if the treasure was more random and it was kept face down on home islands.

Conclusion: UPS v. 2.0 beats EA Gold Runners 2 games to 1. The third game was a bit of a fluke because the Joya found 17 gold on one island and the UPS HI was in a bad spot. I would say that this version of UPS is better than the original fleet because of Jimmy Legs. The Longshanks didn’t really do a lot anyway and this Hai Peng is so fast and active it’s kind of scary.

UPS 2 vs. EA Gold Runners: Game 1

The next three game series will pit UPS v. 2.0 against the Extra Action Gold Runners fleet. I was only able to play the first game of the series just now. Again, if you haven’t checked out those fleets yet I suggest you do so. The links are below.

UPS v. 2.0

The Lache de Calvados is a proxy for the Intrepide and the Rover is being used instead of Favor of the Gods.

Extra Action Gold Runners

The Swift is a proxy for the Star of Siam.

Turn 1:
UPS (v. 2.0) went first. The Hai Peng was Hidden Cove’d to the middle wild island and found Screu Engine which was left behind. A 2 coin was traded via CJS/Intrepide/Aristide (you know the deal by now) and the Pirates were in business with 4 gold. At the next island the Hai Peng found both Turtles and Homing Beacon, making the EA Runners fleet look bad by finding their UT’s before they even left home! Paradis de la Mer was built on this second island. The Rover sailed towards the middle island.

For the EA Runners fleet, all three (counting Vaccaro’s reroll) of the EA rolls failed and therefore the Star of Siam and Joya del Sol were unable to reach islands.

Turn 2:
Turn 2 was incredibly predictable. Thanks to darrin’s comprehensive fleet description I was able to follow his instructions to a tee:

darrin wrote:

Second Turn 1. Move the Hai Peng away and then re-dock at the same island with your first fort. Send another coin to L’Intrepide. 2. As a free action, swap Maurice Aristide back onto L’Intrepide and put another oarsman on Le Coeur de Lion. 3. Use an explore action to unload L’Intrepide’s coin for +2 gold. 4. Sacrifice an oarsman to Jimmy Legs, load the traded oarsman as a free action, and move back to the first island you explored. Send another coin to Le Coeur de Lion. 5. As a free action, move Maurice Aristide to Le Coeur de Lion. 6. Use an explore action to unload Le Coeur de Lion’s coin for +2 gold. 7. Build a second fort at the island where Hai Peng is docked.

Dead Man’s Point was built on the middle wild island.

The EA Runners were luckier than on their first turn with the Joya getting an extra action from Castro without having to reroll. The Joya explored the northeastern island and found 10 gold (the UT’s required the EA fleet to put a 7, a 6 and a 2 into the treasure mix), then turned around and made it halfway home.

Turn 3:
Because the gold in forts doesn’t technically count towards victory anymore the UPS fleet would have to make do. The Hai Peng traded another 2 (4 after Aristide) to her HI, leaving the Pirates with 12 gold total on their HI. The Hai Peng then went back to Paradis and loaded both 2’s for 4 gold total. At this point there were no more oarsmen left on the HI for which to trade to the Hai Peng. The Rover had meanwhile picked up a 2 from Dead Man’s Point and was sailing home with it.

For the EA fleet, all 3 rolls failed once again. The Joya del Sol docked home 10 gold to narrow the score to 12-10 in favor of UPS. In the meantime the Algeciras had approached the Rover and managed to get her 3L gun in range, but she missed (this was the only shot fired in the game).

Turn 4:
The Hai Peng simply raced home and sacced Cotton (the helmsman) to make it the whole way. She unloaded her cargo of 4 gold to give UPS the 16-10 victory!

Observations: This UPS fleet is obscenely complicated and involved, not to mention FAST. I’d like to congratulate darrin for making such a well-thought-out fleet. It really is interesting to play. I had to look at the fleet description to know what I was supposed to do with all the crew and treasure transfers! What really struck me was how long the turn takes. With the Hai Peng doing so much and getting the two ships at the HI involved, the UPS turns took FAR longer than any normal turn for other fleets, including the EA fleet.

It’s funky to do so much with crew. I started to get confused as to how many crew and points I was supposed to fit on the Hai Peng and which oarsmen were supposed to be on the Intrepide vs. the Coeur. Then the crew ran out! Jimmy Legs and Aristide just make things even more interesting. The explorer is a good candidate to be sacced because after the first turn you really don’t need him since you’ve already explored the two islands you need to hit.

The next two games in this series will be played tomorrow (12/23).

Dead Man’s Chest UT fleet vs. Universal Pirate Shipping

I’ve started to test out a multitude of fleets that I’ve wanted to play for a while now. First up: Universal Pirate Shipping (by darrin) vs. the Dead Man’s Chest UT Fleet (lordstu). (Note: if you aren’t familiar with these fleets it would be very helpful to read up on them, or else the battle report probably won’t make a lot of sense.)

Universal Pirate Shipping

The Lache de Calvados is proxying in for the Intrepide, while the Zephyr plays the Jolly Mon.

Dead Man’s Chest UT Fleet 

Because this was a more “serious” game (just as the others between such competitive fleets will be), the islands were placed at their usual distance of 3L apart rather than 2L or 1L. No terrain was used. Since Captain Jack Sparrow can’t trade away the UT’s in the original UPS fleet they weren’t used. In this way the fleet utilized 7 2’s and a 1 so they’d be able to build Paradis de la Mer on the first turn no matter what. The DMC (Dead Man’s Chest) fleet only used the actual UT Dead Man’s Chest since that was the entire object of the gimmick.

For the first game the UPS fleet rolled to go first. The Hai Peng immediately jumped to the first island in the middle and was able to build Paradis de la Mer with the Longshanks and Jolly Mon following.

The DMC fleet Hidden Cove’d the Banshee’s Cry to the northeastern island and she redocked in order to explore, improbably finding the Dead Man’s Chest! The nature of the game (with the original “more than half the starting gold” aka 16 gold) lent itself to a quick ending. The Cry essentially contained an instant win if the UPS fleet couldn’t hit her or eliminate some crew. However, this is where another event, Becalmed, came into play. It was placed midway between the Hai Peng and the Longshanks, partially freezing both ships and the Jolly Mon. I say partially because all three ships had oarsmen and were able to move a little bit on the following turn. They couldn’t move enough to be able to catch the speedy Cry, leaving her to race home and give the DMC fleet a quick victory! The Cry also had 2 gold on her from the island so the final score was:

DMC fleet: 18 gold
UPS fleet: 0 gold

I was stunned that a fleet as slow and gimmicky as the DMC fleet could beat UPS so handily. However, Hidden Cove and Becalmed gave them a huge advantage, and the Cry was lucky to find the DMC UT at the first island she went to.

For the second game the home islands were reversed. UPS went first again, with the Hai Peng springing out to build Paradis de la Mer on the middle island. UPS tried to position their ships farther apart than in the last game but Becalmed still managed to reach the Hai Peng and Longshanks.

The Banshee’s Cry didn’t find the DMC on the first island she went to. However, the abilities of the Morocco and Raven’s Neck revealed it to be on the southwestern island.

Because of Becalmed the UPS fleet couldn’t build another fort on the second turn, but the Hai Peng saw the Banshee’s Cry and decided to go after her because she’s so vulnerable.

The Hai Peng used her extreme speed to catch up to the Cry and knock down her lone mast. At this point the game was looking dismal for the DMC fleet, but the Cry had an oarsman which she used to crawl towards the island with the DMC on it.

Despite their slow speeds the Morocco and Raven’s Neck started to reach the action, turning two all-gold fleets into a couple of fighting fleets! The Morocco rammed the Hai Peng but it backfired when she lost the boarding action and therefore one of her six oarsmen.

On the next turn the Longshanks took out a mast and oarsman on the Raven’s Neck, but the Hai Peng really sealed the game for the UPS fleet. She blocked the Cry, explored the island, took the DMC and built Dead Man’s Point (via Sparrow/Aristide) all in one turn!

At this point the game was safely in the hands of the UPS fleet so the DMC fleet forfeited the game to save some time for one final game to decide the winner of the three game series.

The third and final game was the shortest of them all. The DMC fleet went first for the first time and was therefore able to use Becalmed to freeze the Hai Peng for the UPS’s first turn. The Cry was Hidden Cove’d to an island where she found the DMC. With a turn already lost it was too late for the UPS fleet. The Hai Peng almost managed to catch the Cry since she moves so fast, but she came up just short, allowing the Cry to dock the DMC home for another instant win!

The Cry brings home the DMC just in front of the UPS fleet (unintentionally in line of battle lol).

For this series the DMC fleet beat the UPS fleet two out of three times. This really surprised me, although the original UPS fleet probably isn’t the most effective one. I’ll be testing the others very soon. The two events really help out quite a lot, part of the reason I made that thread recently. I’ll likely use these fleets in some other games soon, especially once more of the 40 point fleets are out.