Universal Pirate Shipping – The Best Fleet Strategy EVER

Posted on January 24, 2019January 24, 2019 by Ben

Universal Pirate Shipping – The Best Fleet Strategy EVER

Universal Pirate Shipping 2.0 on the verge of winning the ultra-competitive VASSAL Tournament #2

From a discussion on Miniature Trading in September 2016

You may have heard me mention the “UPS” (Universal Pirate Shipping) fleets before, created by darrin. I am still somewhat puzzled by the lack of discussion, commenting, and voting not just on these fleets, but on the strategy of it all.

Perhaps it’s due to confusion surrounding Captain Jack Sparrow? I didn’t understand the entire “UPS” strategy at first, and I still think that CJS is the most confusing crew in the game. Is it just too cheesy?

Part of what makes me puzzled is just how amazing the strategy is for gameplay. I would argue that it is on par with about anything in terms of pure effectiveness, especially when done correctly. Combined the UPS fleets have a general record of 11-3 in my games, and have completely destroyed other competitive fleets.

Here are the fleets for reference, along with their current records from my games. The records may not look as impressive as you’d expect, but they are the result of playing against similarly hyper-competitive fleets.

UPS 4.0 in action against my EA Gold Runners fleet

Universal Pirate Shipping (UPS 1.0) (1-2)

UPS 2 (15-5)

UPS 4 (4-2)

And another variant:
Darrin’s Gold Race fleet (7-5)

Here is a variant I came up with recently:
UPS 5 (11-5)
(UPS 3 is illegal)

My UPS 5 fleet has advanced to the finals of Tournament 1. It will also participate in T2, a tournament that will also see fleets like UPS 2, UPS 4, and Hai Peng Fort Frenzy (HPFF) compete. If I had to bet on a fleet to win T2 and therefore be crowned the best existing fleet of all-time, I would pick a UPS fleet. Of course, many games will have to be played to get to that point. But still, Universal Pirate Shipping is simply one of the most effective strategies for winning games, and seems grossly underrepresented and underrated (and possibly misunderstood) by the Pirates community.

2019 Update

UPS 2 won VASSAL Tournament #2, beating another fleet using Captain Jack Sparrow in the Finals. Further proving that this is the best fleet strategy in Pirates CSG history, and the most-proven way to win games.

The following is the discussion that took place at Miniature Trading in September 2016.

Woelf Responds

Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean set

I think the lack of discussion around the crew isn’t because he’s confusing, it’s because he has one of the most poorly-though-out abilities in the entire game and is ridiculously easy to abuse.

It’s not even clear what that ability is supposed to represent thematically. Maybe it does reference some specific event in one of the movies, but whatever it was, it definitely doesn’t account for how the ability can be used repeatedly to send treasure after treasure home.

There’s no question that a fleet set up to (ab)use his ability will be effective, it’s more a matter of whether your opponent will be able to keep up with it without resorting to something similarly broken and/or without using a fleet specifically designed to counter this.

Good points. However, he isn’t banned (even if he should be, or if the ability should have never been invented in the first place), so his fleets are still (in my opinion) the favorite to win Tournament 2 and be crowned the best fleet of all-time. I suppose there can be a “best non-UPS fleet”, but he’s not the only thing in the game that is easy to abuse. Things like the Banshee’s Cry, sac captains, cheap extra actions, events, and even cancellers have been around longer than CJS’s ability, and are also extremely easy to abuse and are either undercosted or flat-out broken.

However, fleets using any of those things often get considerably higher attention and recognition than fleets using CJS’s ability. That’s what I don’t like – sure it’s cheap, but so are other things in this game that are consistently more popular or even “accepted”.

Woelf:

Most of the others have been “accepted” because they’re easier to use, are much more common, or have a wider range of uses.

Extra actions of any variety are everywhere in the game, and are useful no matter what you’re doing with your ship. Because they’re so cheap and/or easy to use, no one ever has to go out of their way to use them.

Ships like Banshee’s Cry are undercosted for what they do, but even though that’s the “best” one out there, there are a lot of other cheap ships that are close enough to it that banning it wouldn’t solve the problem it represents, it would just shift it to the next ship in line – whether that’s Le Bon Marin, La Monarca or any number of others is open to debate, but like extra actions, they’re “accepted” because they’re widely available to pretty much everyone. Not every nation has one, but others have several so unless you lock in to a single-nation fleet, they’re easy to find.

Cancelers could probably could cost a point or two more, but for better or for worse, they’re game-breakers by design. They make players put a little more thought into what they do beyond just “sail up and shoot the other ship”. Like the other things that are on the borderline of being broken, they’ve become relatively common too, with most nations having at least one or two. Also, a key difference with cancelers is that they can’t win games on their own, because they don’t collect treasure or sink ships – they just make it easier for your other ships and crew to do it (or they make it more difficult for your opponent).

Jack is the weird one because there is nothing else quite like him anywhere else in the game, and because he does directly contribute toward winning (technically the target ship has to unload the treasure, but he’s the reason it’s there in the first place). He’s also not easy to counter with things that are widely available. Negative UTs can hurt him the most, but when you add them to the pool you’re accepting the fact that you might have to deal with them too. Taking out his transfer ship is another possibility, but depending on the board layout that may not be an option until he’s already been used a few times, or even at all.

He doesn’t need to be banned, but that combination of having an effect that’s somewhat overpowered, being kind of weird and confusing about what’s happening, and being one-of-a-kind really limits the discussion about him. A lot of players simply aren’t familiar enough with him, and most that are don’t use him other than to prove the point that he’s overpowered.

The original UPS fleet, with a proxy in for L’Intrepide

It seems that this is arguably one of the biggest mistakes the designers made – putting that ability on a crew. No UPS fleet uses the Rising Sun or Sol, because of their speed and CJS’s ridiculously perfect matching with the Hai Peng. The ability makes mediocre ships better, but giving it to a crew for essentially just 3 points was what led to the abuse in the first place. (That said, I suppose you could make the Rising Sun or Sol rather nasty if you had Hidden Cove and either a sac crew or Mycron.)

As a side note, I forget when (as in which set) you started working with Wizkids? During playtesting for the PotC set, did CJS and/or the combo with the Hai Peng ever come up as a concept or potential problem?

I would say that his effect is very overpowered, although at first glance you wouldn’t necessarily jump to conclusions like the UPS strategy.

That last part is part of why I made this thread – no matter how unique, confusing, or cheesy, I think everyone needs to be quite educated on what is arguably the single “best” game piece there is (with the Banshee’s Cry and generic captain/helmsman also in the discussion I suppose).

This discussion also makes me question my knowledge of PotC – if there is a connection, who will be the one to discover it here?

Woelf:

There was some very limited playtesting as far back as SCS, but with most of them the sets were pretty much fully designed by the time I saw anything and whatever input was provided didn’t amount to much.

I didn’t really get involved directly with the designers until RotF, but even then it was mostly just for rules consulting and going over the spreadsheets to see if there was anything obviously broken.

PotC kinda slipped through just beforehand, and I didn’t see anything significant from the set until it was published. I assume there was some internal playtesting, but considering how quickly some of the sets were being cranked out and especially how rushed the PotC set seemed, it wasn’t nearly as much as what was needed.

What are your thoughts?

I welcome all criticisms, questions, etc. What do you think of the Universal Pirate Shipping fleet strategy? Have you played a UPS fleet, or played against one? Do you plan on it? Feel free to nominate fleets that you think could beat a UPS fleet as well. Finally, try to vote or comment on some of the above fleets – as my battle reports have shown, this is one of the most viable competitive strategies in this game, and it doesn’t seem to get enough attention. Thanks!

Set Quality of the Cards – From Spanish Main to Savage Shores

Posted on January 23, 2019January 23, 2019 by Ben

From a discussion at Miniature Trading in 2016

Set Quality of the Cards

xeriousone wrote:

As I understood it the lamination process continued to change through the whole process from PotSM to PotSS.

I’ve noticed that a lot of the sets have slight differences. To me, BC was the highest-quality. The cards were beautiful, didn’t chip, didn’t get fingerprints easily (like some of the CC cards), and a lot of times the ships were remarkably easy to build, not difficult but not too loose either.

SM-faded print run
CC-some print runs fingerprint easily
RV-similar to CC but better (for me at least)
BC-no problems whatsoever
SCS-For me this one was great
DJC-awful print runs followed by great cards in the later print runs
MI-ships feel tougher to assemble and possibly more brittle/less give
FN/OE-similar to MI
PotC-big changes in design, cards and ships great but slightly less glossy
RotF-inside of packs changed considerably, and cards even less glossy than before (different lamination process/etc)
F&S/SS-similar to RotF

For me at least, there was a large change starting with DJC (my SCS cards and ships are fantastic), which continued through OE. Then things changed again with PotC and RotF, which generally continued through to the end.

If I can remember correctly, I would estimate that RV and possibly F&S/SS were the most “average” sets in terms of quality of the cards/ships, etc, with a bunch of the sets having specific good or bad points about them.

These are replies in the thread “Anyone have information on Chinese factory Wizkids used?”

xerecs wrote:

Why do you want to know what factory Wizkids used to make the ships? Thinking about trying to make your own ships?

Well, it’s a mystery. I like mysteries. I also like when mysteries are solved.

Not even Woelf has any clue, so it’s an interesting topic, even if it doesn’t (or can’t) really go anywhere.

Wouldn’t we all like to make our own ships? Heh, some kind of stickers are the most cost-effective method, but I’ve almost never even thought of designing actual artwork for my customs. I’d rather just play.

What is your experience regarding the set quality of the cards that Wizkids produced? I’d love to read your comments below!

Pirates CSG Rules – Start Here, Complete Game, and More

Posted on January 21, 2019January 21, 2019 by Ben

Pirates CSG Rules

My Basic Rules

Here at Pirates with Ben, you can always be sure to find the Pirates CSG Rules in all their various forms and formats. If you’re a beginner, the Start Here Rules are what you’ll want. However, that document assumes you only have one pack to start playing, which is part of the reason why I created My Basic Rules that you can use if you’d like (they include some of my own house rules, which I firmly believe make the game better).

Once you have a decent sense of the Start Here rules, you can move on to the Complete Game Rules. This is a much more advanced version of the game, but the way it’s intended to be played. These rules are also found in my custom rule set linked above.

Now that you’ve got the main rules, you should be ready to play full games of Pirates CSG without too much trouble. However, there are some very good supplemental materials that can greatly aid in your playing time. Woelf‘s Master Keyword List is a classic document containing all of the keywords ever made. This is great because Wizkids only printed keywords in the Complete Game rules associated with that pack’s specific set. If you use a copy of the MKL, you’ll never have to search through various Complete Game rulebooks just to find one set-specific keyword.

Unfortunately, Wizkids made a number of contradictions, gaffes, and confusing wordings in the rules and abilities for this game. That is where another fantastic document from Woelf comes into play. The Pirate Code (FAQ). This is a life saver. Although it’s much larger than any of the other Pirates CSG Rules documents, “the Code” (from Pirates of the Caribbean and of course pirate history) is an incredible resource that will answer nearly ALL of the potential questions you could have about the rules of the game.

Finally, although it’s far less necessary than any of the above documents, the Reference Diagrams (also by Woelf of course!) contain a number of useful tidbits. Veteran players will not need them for the most part, but they can be quite useful for beginners. Even after playing hundreds of games, I learned of a towing option I had never thought of or realized before!

Now that you have all of the Pirates CSG Rules, go forth and PLAY!!

Ocean Play Mat – Many Options for Pirates Players

Posted on January 13, 2019January 13, 2019 by Ben

Ocean Play Mat Options – Which is Best?

A member of the Facebook group asks:

What do you use for a play mat? I’ve used a sheet once but it bunches and moves. Neoprene playmat?

I don’t quite have a favorite ocean play mat, but I’ve used many great options in the past. In this post I’ll answer this question in detail, providing pictures and analysis for the ocean play mats that I use.

“Official” Options

European Pirates of the Spanish Main ocean play mat map

This is the mat that comes in European packs of Spanish Main (Unlimited Edition).

There are various “official” mats you can use. For starters, European Spanish Main Unlimited packs contain a basic small plastic mat. (thanks to Holofernes and others for the detailed Wikipedia page)

Gale Force Nine released a vinyl map that you can see here.

Probably the most “famous” is from the Plunder Pack. However, it’s both the least appealing and not very practical. Although I DON’T recommend the map, the Plunder Pack itself is quite cool.

The Plunder Pack map – dull, gray, boring, and prone to excessive creases from folding in storage.

Better Options!

Although the above ocean play mats are better than playing on less nautical surfaces (such as a wooden table or a random rug or carpet), it’s both cheap and effective to get something that really beautifies your games.

The answer? Basic chunks of fabric.

In 2015 I went to Joann Fabrics and bought 5 different yards of blue fabric for a grand total of about $17. At about $3/yard, I can honestly say it was one of my “best buys” of Pirates CSG ever (despite not buying any actual Pirates stuff) and transformative for both my games and associated Battle Reports. Since that awesome purchase, I’ve used almost nothing else in my games. I’ve attempted to rank them here.

#1 – Light, tropical, textured, “Caribbean” blue

This is a light blue fabric that makes you feel like you’re playing a game of Pirates CSG in the Caribbean! I call it a “textured” fabric because it’s not a solid blue color, with some variation throughout to make it look a bit more like real water.

The English and Spanish feel right at home in the “Caribbean”!

#2 – Silky shiny blue

This one is by FAR the most unique ocean I have. It’s a completely different material than the other 4 fabrics I use, making it quite distinct. It’s silky, smooth, shiny, and cool! It doesn’t fold like the other fabrics, being much more susceptible to sliding around in your hands. However, you can still wrap or fold it up easily for storage.

Gorgeous and luxurious!

#3 – Dark textured blue

This is just like the “Caribbean blue”, but with darker shades of blue. Creates more of a “deep sea exploration” feel as compared to the more tropical light blue.

Darker version of the other textured blue fabric.

#4 – Basic light blue

This solid colored fabric is a little more “boring”, but still provides infinitely more thematic element than the brown table below it.

Starting setup for an “Other Worlds” game.

#5 – Basic dark blue

More of a “navy blue”, this may be the most boring of the bunch, but it still turns Pirates CSG into more of a seafaring experience.

Custom islands and terrain can enhance your games even further!

Bigger Options?

If you’re like me and occasionally need a larger ocean (or oceans), there are still various options. You can use a blue bedsheet that you may have lying around, or bought for cheap. You could also buy more than a yard of fabric – 2 yards would give you quite a lot of space.

To avoid any extra purchases, you could also simply connect multiple (different) yards of fabric together to create one ocean. This has the added benefit of creating a “separation” of ocean colors/textures on your map, which can be great for designating a more tropical look or a more menacing deep blue Pacific look.

Here are a few more oceans I’ve played Pirates on:

: Those with a blue table are in luck!

: Playing on a blue bed sheet works just fine.

: Not my favorite, but this light blue-gray bed sheet is alright.

Combination of bed sheet and fabric yard used in the Sea of Allost (Command the Oceans).

I’m planning to get even more ocean fabrics in the future, especially shiny ones that look like glossy water. For example, you could use a big blue photography background for a Pirates ocean! A simple search reveals tons of great options for affordable prices. Just one yard can vastly improve your Pirates games forever. 😀

A Question (or two) for You

Which ocean play mat is your favorite? Do you generally prefer lighter or darker colored oceans? Comment below and I’ll respond! Feel free to even rank all of them if you’d like.

Thanks for reading and let’s get in touch about Pirates CSG! (a7xfanben@gmail.com)

-Admiral A7XfanBen

Best Crew – Optimize your crew complements to WIN

Posted on January 10, 2019January 10, 2019 by Ben

Another part of the Q&A series here at Pirates with Ben. This was asked in the Facebook group – a question about

which crew to use.

Captain

Best Crew to Use

Captains and helmsmen are the most important. I’m not the biggest fan of explorers but they can be quite good as well. In terms of named crew, anything that gives extra actions is extremely good (SAC/EA/SAT/etc). It does depend on my strategy and the ship though. Empty gold runners can work pretty well, but you’re not going to have an “empty gunship”, so a lot of times the percentage of crew in a fleet is massively biased towards gunships (meaning 75-90% of crew points spent could be assigned to gunships, for example).

C+H necessary to stay competitive

Helmsman

Specifically, if a ship has a base move of S+S or slower, she nearly always needs a helmsman for your fleet to stay competitive (exception is empty gold runner that gets +S with no cargo). Even the recent Savage Shores anniversary game is a good example of this. Gunships always need captains, and almost always need helmsmen too. I cannot emphasize this enough. If you don’t use captains and helmsmen on your gunships, you will not win against competent opponents.

Extreme Cases

However, a gimmick fleet might go with very little crew or many “abnormal” crew that don’t get pure results, but are VERY fun to use. These fleets often still use captains and helmsmen as a “backbone” of sorts, in addition to the wacky stuff that make them fun and unique. That said, if you’re strictly looking to WIN, you’re better off hammering the basics to ensure optimized fleet building. Personally I get a little bored of winning with the same fleet or strategy all the time, so I like to change it up!

Check out my Building a Fleet page and Gameplay page for more information. You may also find some specific crew on eBay.

Unsinkable ships – Eternal no more!

Posted on January 9, 2019January 9, 2019 by Ben

This is the first in what could be a nice long Q&A series. From my Eternal keyword video.

XxMrLimeyxX asks:

Is there absolutely no way to eliminate a ship with eternal built in? And if no does this cause any gameplay issues for smaller games or against opponents with a small variety of ships?

Eternal is underpriced by a point or two, but it’s not as powerful as it sounds. With the right tools and strategy, it’s not a big deal to counter. Best way to sink an Eternal ship permanently is with a canceller. Cancel the Eternal ability right before you take the shot to sink the ship.

Turn the tables

You can also capture Eternal ships and use them against your opponents. Just keep in mind that you’ll need to eliminate any oarsmen on the ship first, since they prevent dereliction and therefore capture. This is one of my favorite ways of dealing with Eternal because you can capture an enemy ship instead of “sinking” it and then immediately scuttle it and try to warp it back to YOUR home island instead of theirs! I was able to do this in CG3.

There are a few niche things you can use to make Eternal less effective too – simply leave the ship with no masts and refuse to sink it. Or use the Periscope UT to cancel the ability like you would with a canceller.

If you don’t have many tools available to help you with the above methods, simply sink the ship as quickly as possible and try to win the game before it comes back. Repairing an Eternal ship to any level of respectable health (likely 3+ masts for any gunship) can take a while. Not to mention how long it will take for the ship to get back in action. By simply blasting the ship away each time it approaches, you can minimize the threat by keeping it repairing at home rather than causing chaos on the battlefield.

Where it DOES get nasty

The tricky part is when you combine Eternal with other defensive stuff – such as a submarine with a canceller aboard as well. Think USS Mercury with both Ralph David (Eternal) and DNT (Canceller), with an oarsman. That’s when it gets a bit OP, but that kind of combo is really only valuable in deathmatches or big games, not so much competitive games with gold.

Eternal mostly only causes gameplay issues in deathmatches. My favorite house rule there is to only allow it to work once. So if Eternal is used in a deathmatch, the second sinking is permanent.

Thanks for the comment and let me know if you have any other questions.

Captured Eternal ship carrying Davy Jones at the lower right after my Americans nabbed him in VASSAL Campaign Game 3 – click for details!

How to repair your ships – for Pirates CSG

Posted on December 20, 2018December 20, 2018 by Ben

How to repair your ships – for Pirates CSG

A question was asked at the Facebook group – how do you repair broken masts?

I do a simple tape job system. I rip off a very small slice of tape and put one on each side of a broken mast. It can still be a bit wobbly or fragile, but usually holds up fine and sometimes can even be taken out and replaced again as normal. If you do this I recommend the very clear tape and not what they might call “transparent” (which is more like a fog color I think).

The few times I’ve tried glue with Pirates stuff it went horribly and I would almost rather just leave masts as-is than deal with any complicated or time consuming solutions.

I have left a few ships damaged for a while (Concord from RV being the main one I remember) – as long as you can see the cannon die marking and there’s some sail, it can almost look cool like the ship is just permanently damaged (depending on the break of course).

Check out this video I made about repairing basic mast breaks. This solution is especially great for repairing the typical break where you have a mast that has splintered near the base. With a thin piece of tape carefully applied to both sides to hold it in place, you should have your ship back into action and sailing in no time!

Question of the Day: How do you prefer to repair mast breaks?

Do you want to see more videos like this?

Alternative “solution”: Make shipwrecks!

If you have multiple mast breaks, your ship is beyond salvaging, or you simply want to experiment with a different solution, you could repurpose a broken ship as a shipwreck! I created this Shipwreck Cove and it’s quite a neat aesthetic to have in games.

My Shipwreck Cove creation during a game

Pirates CSG Megacards – Collection Review #21

Posted on December 17, 2018December 17, 2018 by Ben

Collection Review Episode 21: Pirates CSG MEGACARDS!! (Wizkids Pirates CSG)

Question of the Day: What is your favorite Pirates CSG ship/creature that comes on a megacard?

Ocean’s Edge Megapacks have the OE stuff from this video: https://goo.gl/eYjiYM

It can be tough to narrow down the search without looking for specific ships, but eBay is your friend for collecting: https://goo.gl/CM4rQj

Additional QOTD: How man CRS episodes do you think are left?

~~~~~

Recently I did another “video blast” with lots of content produced, so I’ll have plenty of videos for the foreseeable future in addition to the podcast and Hourly Campaign. The Start Here Rules tutorial is now above 2000 views, so that’s great!

Here’s the picture I decided to include in the youtube thumbnail. It shows all 5 of my 10 masters (Celtic Fury barely visible beyond the Baochuan) in play during Command the Oceans (click the picture to read the battle reports). Really shows what can be achieved in this game with massive scale.

Pure epicness.

What is a pokéship?

Posted on December 4, 2018December 4, 2018 by Ben

Originally posted to Miniature Trading on June 23rd 2017

What is a “pokéship”?

crsluggo wrote:

Please excuse my ignorance, but I see this term “pokeship” referenced from time to time on this site. What defines a pokeship? Is it good, bad, indifferent? Is there a set or sets in which they appear frequently? What are some examples of a pokeship?

(NOT laughing at you, I’m laughing at the concept and silliness of it all lol)

LOLOLOLOLOLOL Laughing

As far as I know the termed was coined by Holofernes back when the last sets were being released.

You’ve probably heard of the Pokemon phenomenon, which I happened to grow up with and love, hence why it’s even funnier to me haha. (scroll through post heh)

Scorpion ship literally called “Scythe”

Scyther card from 1999

The Bombardier uses flamethrower! XD

The mighty Charizard

The Skin Flayer, a Switchblade

The hoist is a lot harder to pin down…

The Buscador, a Spanish Hoist ship

Savage Shores – Mini Set Review

Posted on November 27, 2018December 1, 2018 by Ben

Savage Shores

Follow this link to find the Savage Shores!

Mini Set Review

Product: Pirates of the Cursed Seas: Savage Shores

Average auction box price: $21.33 (as of November 2018)

Cheapest place to buy: eBay

Factions: Pirates, English, Spanish, French, Americans, Cursed

Features/New Stuff: Hoists, Native Canoes, cargo masters, navigators, Great Turtles, trade currents

Ben’s Rating: 16/20

3 sets of American native canoes in Economy Edition (2015)

Savage Shores (SS, 2008) became the last set of Pirates CSG. The set was only the size of half of a normal set (just over 50 game pieces), released in Scavenger Pack boxes instead of the normal game packs. It featured a bunch of new game pieces and ship types despite the small size, and was notable for being the best set for gameplay since at least the Caribbean set. A small blaze of glory before the game went out of print just days after release. You can find all of the game pieces in the Master Spreadsheet, and I’ve ranked the Top 10 here.

Ratings

– Art: 4/5. Definitely stands out, but some ugly ships keep it from a perfect score. I think the named crew artwork was exceptional.
– Set Quality: 4/5. Some great stuff, mostly good. The sea monsters, lack of generic crew, and somewhat unbalanced pieces (navigators, cargo masters, American canoes, Libellule, hoists) keep it from a 5 for me.
– New Content: 4/5. Canoes and hoists are both fantastic, arguably too much so. Hoists are the most excusable Pokeship (if they are even considered to be one) simply due to how interesting they are in terms of gameplay. Navigators and cargo masters are both frustrating to deal with in large games, but they’re a welcome addition to most players.
– Collectability/Misc: 4/5. The set was almost too easy to acquire, and the box idea caused some consternation among people who didn’t or couldn’t (or still can’t!) complete 10 masters. The SR’s were relatively common as well, but I give the set a 2/3 for collectibility. The Miscellaneous score gets a 2/2 due to the set’s good reputation and a kind of positive farewell after the long decline. The set is generally viewed with very positive vibes due to it being so unique in so many ways, and a beacon of hope that unfortunately never was.
= Overall: 16/20. Very good but not all-time great.

Discover the Savage Shores here!

Below you can check out the entire Set Review Podcast episode for a full overview of all the game pieces.