4×80 in Henderson

11/25/2023

I met up with Stefan (Kogz03) to play at this meetup in south Las Vegas!  We were able to teach 2 new interested players, making it a 4×80 game! (4 players, 80 points)  We used the Las Vegas house rules.  I made a couple quick beginner fleets for the new players. Stefan and I probably had an advantage with our named crew, but we didn’t know if anyone would want to join us (fleets made in advance) and I think it can be best to avoid named crew for a player’s first game.  Here are the fleets in the order of play:

Marco’s Frenchmen
La Ville de Paris + captain, helmsman
Tepant + captain, helmsman, oarsman
Cleopatre + captain, helmsman
L’Intrepide + explorer
La Courageux + captain
Le Bon Marin

Ben’s Spaniards
El Corazon Dorado + Victor de Alva (F&S), helmsman, Contessa Anita Amore (23)
El Neptuno + captain, tribal chieftain (24)
La Santa Ana + Dominic Freda (LE version), captain, helmsman, oarsman (22)
Concepcion + helmsman, explorer, oarsman (16)
Spanish native canoes
Coins: Rats, Fireworks, Weapons, 5 0’s
-My strategy was to bump up the 0 values with my gold bonus ships, which works better in a 1v1 game due to the 0’s taking up a greater percentage of the total coins in play. Rats would hopefully make it an even more low-scoring game that I could benefit from while hurting an opponent. Fireworks would be quite useful on any of my captained ships (especially Neptuno!), unlike something like HMS Gallows that already has essentially perfect cannons.  I’ve always loved the high-cargo Spanish 4 masted square rigged ships, which evoke themes of Spanish treasure galleons from the Age of Sail. I often like to use them in tandem, with the Neptuno acting as a third galleon of sorts, but with some armament as well.

Spice’s English
HMS Goliath + captain, helmsman, oarsman
HMS London + captain, helmsman
HMS Sultan + captain, helmsman
HMS Lady Provost + helmsman, explorer, oarsman
HMS Bletchley

Stefan’s Cursed
Divine Dragon + Davy Jones (OE), captain, oarsman
Flying Dutchman + El Fantasma (OE), helmsman, oarsmen x3
Grinder + crew
Sea Duck

We were ready to set sail!

The English draw first blood!  HMS London blasts masts off the Concepcion after she loaded some loot.

Fleets scattered about, with L’Intrepide snagging coins from the middle, leaving a 0 coin for HMS Bletchley to find.  The Lady Provost has explored for 4 coins, denying the Spanish native canoes that island as HMS Sultan also round earths to provide escort protection.  The Divine Dragon starts her night by shooting poorly, but eventually manages to dismast the Courageux.

The Tepant wades into the fray, deepening the Franco-Cursed conflict:

Both of my “bonus galleons” got home with 3 coins apiece, while the Neptuno explored for 3 coins of her own.  El Corazon Dorado had her hands full watching both the London and Sultan.  My canoes scattered, unlikely to get any gold with how fast it was flying off the wild islands.  In the east, the Cleopatre takes a third mast off the Flying Dutchman while Intrepide docks home her coins.  The Cursed have Grinder and Sea Duck explore.

With the nearby Spanish 4 masters all docked at home, HMS London heads east to continue her cannon barrage!  She shoots 3/4 to sink two canoes and dismast the Bon Marin!

Victor de Alva didn’t give his Corazon Dorado an extra action all game, but that didn’t stop him from blasting 2 masts off the London.  Concepcion is looking to “plus up” a 0 she left behind on her first gold trip.  Neptuno is looking to offload her gold to Freda’s Santa Ana (to get the +2 bonus on at least one coin) and receive the Fireworks UT in return, potentially setting up a deadly weapon where Neptuno could hit on 4-6 at L+L range.  HMS Lady Provost gets the English on the board, while the Goliath searches for treasure of her own.  The eastern firefight has calmed down slightly – Tepant shot masts off the Divine Dragon, who explores rather than continue the bloodshed.  The Cleopatre raids The Cursed home island (HI) of a coin, but is staring down a bunch of 2L cannons on the FD and Grinder.

Unfortunately time was running out, so we had to call for a last round – Stefan would get the final player turn so all players could have an equal number of turns.  With this knowledge and the multiplayer rule that gold on ships counts towards victory, it got more desperate in a hurry.  The following picture shows the second to last round of play.

London pivots to starboard and shoots at Corazon!  Lady Provost makes a beeline for my home island, with a raid imminent! That would wreck my plans of having a gold factory and getting Neptuno set up for firework carnage (since I wanted to offload the gold but also stop Lady P if possible).  Maybe the combo will work another time!

On the final round, the Spanish desperately tried to maximize their gold score while denying Lady P from stealing anything.  However, Corazon only shot 1/3, and Neptuno missed all 5 shots at L+L range, with no 6’s rolled.  She did dock home her 3 coins, while Santa Ana sped north to load the final coin from her previously explored wild island, in case it would matter in the final count.  With 1 mast standing, Lady P was able to sneak around Corazon at S+L+S speed and steal a coin, which would count for the English in the scores.

The carnage continues out east!  Cleopatre was dismasted by a Broadsides Attack from the Flying Dutchman!  This allowed Grinder to capture the Cleopatre, but Tepant and Ville de Paris were on the scene to make sure The Cursed didn’t get their stolen coin back.  Both ships were shot to the ocean floor!  Overall the French had very good cannon luck in this game – lots of their shots hit, while a lot of enemy shots against them missed.  Alas, they had only explored one island and it wasn’t very valuable.

Nearly at an end:

On their final turn, The Cursed broadsided the Ville de Paris and had Sea Duck pick up a final coin that would count towards victory.

Scores:

1. Spanish: 26 gold
2. The Cursed: 22
3. English: 14
4. French: 3

A rousing adventure to start two new pirate careers!  This 4×80 game featured shooting, stealing, and plenty of good action! The gold bonuses proved key, as I believe they accounted for at least 6 of my gold.  Stefan also found the Rats UT, which took a couple gold off his total.  The Lady Provost’s raid only stole a low-value coin – if she had snagged the 5 instead, it would have been a very close 22-21-19 Cursed victory!  However, the Spanish made up for their lack of EA and cannon luck with a big gold haul.  I feel like a bunch of recent games have seen UT luck not go my way, so it was nice to have that strategy pay off a bit – I might even use a similar fleet in the future to try the Fireworks combo again.  Neptuno using it could be spectacular, but Santa Ana or Corazon Dorado could have made good use of it as well.

Thanks again to all who played!  For anyone reading that wants to play, let me know if you’re in Las Vegas!  😀

60 Point Games in Vegas with Kogz03!

11/17/2023

Kogz03 and I met up at Dangerous Dave’s Vegas Board Games Meetup for a pair of 60 point games.  We used the Las Vegas house rules.  We both had English fleets in the first game. Kogz rolled to go first.

Kogz03 English
HMS Titan + Thomas Gunn (RotF version), Lawrence, Administror Scott Bratley
HMS London + Hermione Gold (RotF version)
Aberdeen Baron + helmsman
HMS Hound + explorer

Ben’s English
HMS Phoenix + Admiral James Norrington, helmsman, oarsman (20)
HMS Lord Kenyon + captain, helmsman (15)
HMS Rye + explorer (10)
-towing Gibraltar (7)
Honu Iki + explorer (8)
(for a lot of battle reports I just paste my fleet notes from a document into the BR, which is why sometimes there are point totals for me but not opponents)

Due to the limited table space available, it would be a tight setup.  However, this promised to make the games fast and furious, and made it far more likely we’d be able to finish a second game before the Panera Bread closed at 9.

First turn carnage!!  Hound and Aberdeen snag 7 coins between them, but I had to pounce to stay alive in the game.  Rye snagged the final coin from the southwestern island, with Gibraltar dismasting the Hound! (I intended to capture for her gold) Phoenix (who redocked to stay safe), and Lord Kenyon (LK) teamed up to nearly dismast the Titan!  Norrington’s cannon bonus was irrelevant against a fellow Briton, but LK was devastating, eliminating the maximum 3 masts from her shoot+ram barrage.

Honu Iki has explored the southeastern island.

Aberdeen couldn’t quite reach home, leaving her open to a cannonade from the Gibraltar flotilla, which knocked out 3 masts but wouldn’t prevent her from docking home her booty on the next turn.  HMS London dismasted the Honu Iki, while the Titan docked at home.

Rye captured Hound after dropping her tow of the flotilla.  LK risked getting a 1 on her ram roll of HMS Titan, but the gamble paid off.  The Titan’s final mast fell overboard from the concussive impact, allowing Phoenix to capture the ship!  (I was also gambling that the final face down crew on the Titan was some kind of captain, not an oarsman, which proved to be Thomas Gunn)

Aberdeen Baron docked home her coins.  HMS London arrived on the scene to contest my capture of the Titan, but couldn’t get all cannons in range of Phoenix and took out 2 masts.  This allowed Phoenix and Gibraltar to dismast London my turn, with Titan firmly switching sides with a double repair after getting towed home.  Bratley would be worth 5 gold to me, but I wasn’t finding any good values even with my capture of the Hound.  Since Rye had no helmsman but LK did, LK took up towing duties of the Hound while Rye went off to get meager loot from the southeast and possibly rescue Honu Iki.

With the English being my favorite faction, it felt strangely cathartic to capture some of my favorite ships in the game (Hound and Titan) and nearly snag London as well.  However, the gold race was not in my favor, with Kogz finding the 6 and 4 he had contributed, among others.  Hound and all the southeast gold was mine, but Aberdeen was able to get the northwest island’s gold home in just a couple short turns, with LK not wanting to dismast and end the game since I would prematurely lose. (almost nothing on my HI until the final round)

1. Kogz English: 26 gold
2. Ben’s English: 17 gold (12+5 from Ransom)

What an interesting game!  I’ve had games similar to this in the past where one player can dominate the combat but lose the gold race, but usually it’s not this lopsided. (usually either a closer gold score, or the combat winner is able to control the endgame and win)

For our second game, Kogz switched to an all-Guichuan setup.  I only brought one fleet and would be running the same setup. I answered a few questions about Kogz’ fleet beforehand; both players knew the entire crew setups of the other fleet before the game began.

Kogz’ Guichuan
Guichuan + The Headhunter, Davy Jones (DJC version), El Fantasma (OE version), helmsman, shipwright, explorer, oarsmen x3

We redid the island setup and actually remembered to add terrain!  I rolled to go first this turn, and tried to pick a home island that had quick access to 3 of the 4 wild islands.

I did reach 3 islands on my first turn, but could only explore 2 of them since LK had no explorer.  However, Fantasma was ready for slaughter, saccing to dismast Rye and then round earthing to dismast the Phoenix!

I made sure to have a huge homecoming party and all-out attack on the Guichuan!  Rye rowed into position where she was within S for cancelling, but also got all of Gibraltar’s dangerous cannons in range.  Combined with LK, 3 masts were shot away.  Honu Iki dropped off 3 coins, while Phoenix rowed for home at S+S but couldn’t quite hide behind LK and was likely doomed.

Sure enough, Guichuan stayed in the fight and sank the Phoenix.  Fantasma sacced another oarsman to repair and shoot, with Gibraltar’s flag being shot off.  Fear affected both Rye and LK (6’s to limit their base moves to S on my next turn).

The English spent another turn blasting away, taking the Guichuan down to 3 masts.  Fantasma sacced again to explore the northeast island and then round earthed to deposit the coins.  This allowed Rye to dock home her coin and repair, while LK looked to get the rest of the gold that the Rye had found on turn 1.

Guichuan repaired two masts in a double action.  LK and Honu Iki have drained the southern islands, while Rye has designs on round earthing to the northwest to snag the best coin from the final unexplored island!

Rye was able to grab a coin while Guichuan was busy copying Extended Range to blast away at the LK.  We took a look at how much gold each of us had, knowing that we had contributed the same 38 total gold between us as the last game.  I calculated that I could just edge out the win if I held steady with the gold currently in my possession, thankful I wouldn’t have to risk going back to the northwestern island again.

Guichuan cleaned out the NW island and LK and Rye managed to make it back with their loads!

1. English: 20 gold
2. Guichuan: 18

A very close finish!  I think going first and being able to divert my ship resources across the map made up for the early loss of the Phoenix and not having any extra actions available in my fleet.

A nice pair of 60 point games!  We both won, and got to use some pieces we’d been looking forward to playing.  Catch us soon in Vegas for more adventures!

PS: A quick heads up that we’re planning a big Pirates weekend at Dice Tower West from 3/8-3/10/2024.  Let me know if you’d like to attend and hope to see you there!