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Pirates: 2017 Year in Review

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Pirates: 2017 Year in Review

Hi everyone! This is a thread where you can share what Pirates stuff happened over the past year. It can be just about anything, from accomplishments to purchases to cool ideas. If this seems too vague, you can look at mine for an example. There’s also the option of stating your Pirates Goals for 2018.

Link to 2016 Year in Review thread (you might find your 2017 goals here)

It will be nice to look back upon the entire year and find joy and amazement in how much we’re capable of. List (possibly with links and/or a short description) everything you accomplished in 2017 in regards to Pirates that you thought was a good thing that happened. Everyone could make their own post and contribute their own things that they did or are currently doing. When I think about this past week for example, I don’t really think much of it, but when I consider everything I’ve personally done in the entire year, I feel amazed at myself! Very Happy I think others could share that feeling as well if they look back at everything. Also, little things count too, so it doesn’t have to be all about one particular event or anything. Once everyone has posted, we can talk about what we accomplished as a whole forum.

a7xfanben

Goals for 2017
-Taught 4 players, not 8. (including 2 in the past week)
-VASSAL module. This was hit and miss, with plenty of no-shows and excuses from others. However, it was still a solid year, with progress made on T2, a handful of players new to the module, and a THIRD campaign game starting up (with SIX players no less!).
-10 year anniversary games – These were played: FN (x2), OE, PotC
-I didn’t quite play a game in each month of the year, missing March and October (though of course CTO was going on in October)

General accomplishments:
-Taught 4 new players
-Had a good first full year as forum moderator
-Recently became a moderator at the Black Mongoose Tavern
-Completed 12 trades
-Submitted 37 fleets O_O (many of which could use more comments and votes!) (new personal record, and quite possibly a record at MT for Pirates fleets)
-Wrote 8 Miniature Reviews (new personal record)
-Posted a lot of pictures on Instagram and BGG
-Won two fleet challenges
-Won a Miniature Review Contest
-Was the driving force behind the creation of VASSAL Campaign Game 3, the first virtual campaign game with not just more than 3 players, but 6!
-Reached out to NECA and Wizkids, and did some legal research about the patents
-Ran the Pirates CSG Survey
-Started the Pirates CSG Podcast with godmason

Games:
-Played 76 games, my second highest single-year total
-Played Command the Oceans, the biggest game ever by a wide margin (at the time)
-Started CG3
-Finished VASSAL Tournament #2 with Xerecs

Pirates Goals for 2018
-At least 8 new players taught (strive for more!) (previous high for a year is 7, so I’m trying to top that each year)
-VASSAL module (get more players on the module, hopefully edit for more ship types, execute on plans with Xerecs)
-Finish VASSAL Tournament #2
-Make a bunch of videos for youtube
-Make great podcast episodes and have more guests
-Finish stuff for Ocean Terrain Contest #3
-10 year anniversary games (RotF, F&S, SS)
-Try to play at least one game in every month of the year

2017 Year in Review

Original thread on Miniature Trading

Pirates: 2016 Year in Review

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Pirates: 2016 Year in Review

Hi everyone! This is a thread where you can share what Pirates stuff happened over the past year. It can be just about anything, from accomplishments to purchases to cool ideas. If this seems too vague, you can look at mine for an example. There’s also the option of stating your Pirates Goals for 2017.

Link to 2015 Year in Review thread (you might find your 2016 goals here)

It will be nice to look back upon the entire year and find joy and amazement in how much we’re capable of. List (possibly with links and/or a short description) everything you accomplished in 2016 in regards to Pirates that you thought was a good thing that happened. Everyone could make their own post and contribute their own things that they did or are currently doing. When I think about this past week for example, I don’t really think much of it, but when I consider everything I’ve personally done in the entire year, I feel amazed at myself! Very Happy I think others could share that feeling as well if they look back at everything. Also, little things count too, so it doesn’t have to be all about one particular event or anything. Once everyone has posted, we can talk about what we accomplished as a whole forum.

a7xfanben

Goals for 2016
-Taught 6 players, not 24. I think for the future I will simply try to beat my previous record for a single year. In that case, I will do my best to teach at least 8 players in 2017 (I taught 7 in 2015).
-VASSAL module. This was a huge success, with two huge campaign games and around 9 different players on the module.
-10 year anniversary games – These were played: SCS, DJC, MI
-I did play at least one game in each month of the year

General accomplishments:
-Taught 6 new players
-Became a forum moderator
-Completed 27 trades
-Submitted 19 fleets
-Wrote 2 Miniature Reviews
-Posted a lot of pictures on Instagram, Tumblr, and BGG
-Won three fleet challenges
-Ran two fleet challenges with VASSAL
-Started a Miniature Review contest
-Planned, designed, and created the World game with Xerecs
-Edited the VASSAL module (fixed a few errors, added 10 masted junk ship type, and added things for the World game)

Games:
-Broke my personal record for single-year plays with 92 total on the year
-Played VASSAL Campaign Game 1 with Xerecs
-Started VASSAL Campaign Game 2 with Xerecs and El Cazador
–Experimental cumulative game
-Played VASSAL Tournament #1 with Xerecs
-Started VASSAL Tournament #2 with Xerecs

Pirates Goals for 2017
-At least 8 new players taught (strive for more!)
-VASSAL module (get more players on the module, start a new campaign game)
-10 year anniversary games (FN, OE, PotC)
-Try to play at least one game in every month of the year

2016 Year in Review

Original thread at Miniature Trading

Pirates: 2015 Year in Review

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Pirates: 2015 Year in Review

Hi everyone! This is a thread where you can share what Pirates stuff happened over the past year. It can be just about anything, from accomplishments to purchases to cool ideas. If this seems too vague, you can look at mine for an example. There’s also the option of stating your Pirates Goals for 2016.

I think this will be a great thread, and I’d like to make it a yearly tradition. It will be nice to look back upon the entire year and find joy and amazement in how much we’re capable of. List (possibly with links and/or a short description) everything you accomplished in 2015 in regards to Pirates that you thought was a good thing that happened. Everyone could make their own post and contribute their own things that they did or are currently doing. When I think about this past week for example, I don’t really think much of it, but when I consider everything I’ve personally done in the entire year, I feel amazed at myself! 2015 Year in Review I think others could share that feeling as well if they look back at everything. Also, little things count too, so it doesn’t have to be all about one particular event or anything. Once everyone has posted, we can talk about what we accomplished as a whole forum (ex: getting Custom Ships to 64 pages!).

a7xfanben

General accomplishments:
-Created new fansite (Pirates with Ben)
-Taught 7 new players
-Joined the Pirates CSG reddit community and became moderator there (community grew in number from ~23 to 41)
-Bought a ton of sealed packs and acquired more duplicates, all to be given away or traded
-Gave away lots of duplicate ships and packs (including some Christmas giving)
-Successfully completed a whopping 49 trades (some started in 2014 but all finished in 2015)
-Built my own custom islands and terrain

Forum:
–Thread of Threads
-Finished the Rankings threads (20 total)

Ideas:
-Sealed pack game(s) (finally played one!)
-Live-streamed Pirates game

Games:
–Economy Edition
-Played games in every month of the year for the first time ever (56 games total)
-Posted lots of BR’s at BGG to get more exposure

Other:
-10 year anniversaries of CC, RV, and BC

Pirates Goals for 2016
-At least 24 new players taught (strive for more! Hopefully not too ambitious lol)
-VASSAL module!
-10 year anniversary games
-Once again play at least one game in every month of the year

We can also edit new things in when we think of them!

2015 Year in Review

Original thread at Miniature Trading

Coolest part of Pirates CSG? (for you) (Miniature Trading Forum Thread)

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What is your favourite aspect of this game? It can be a particular fleet, ship, scenario, part of the rules, or just about anything (I think we know what woelf would say Coolest part?).

I love that the game is so customizable and unique. There are a few other games (like Sails of Glory) that use miniature ships, but none where you can build each and every ship and have so many different ship and crew types available. The different combinations of fleet setups are essentially limitless!  With over 1,000 ships released and many hundreds of total crew, it is pretty much impossible to run out of options when making fleets.

I love how unlimited the game is in terms of size, scope, and area. You can have a build total as small as (realistically) 10 or as high as infinity! Your play area is only limited by how big your table or floor is. Unlike almost ALL other games there is no limit to movement. There are no predetermined routes on which to sail, and no concrete “quests” or goals that every player must complete. You can sail anywhere you like and do whatever you like.  You can play tiny 10 point games, or giant campaign games that last for months or potentially years.  Between the number of fleet possibilities, game outcomes, gold scores, and game lengths, Pirates CSG is like “the infinity game”.

(I played Ticket to Ride recently and although it’s a good game, I was struck by how limited everything was. There’s only so many routes, and only so many cities to go through. With Pirates there’s just open ocean and an unlimited number of potential fleets to sail out in search of gold and glory!)

I want to know your opinion!

What is the coolest part of Pirates CSG for you?  Please give your thoughts in the comments below!

 

Here is the original thread from Miniature Trading:

My Collection – Collecting Pirates CSG over the years

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Originally posted to Miniature Trading

My Pirates CSG Collection

This is another thread I’m bringing over from Pojo. To see the original thread, go here.

I’ve always kept track of my collection over the years, partly because I like to have all of my possessions organized, but also to keep a record of my Pirates stuff.

I’ll paraphrase from the original thread to detail how my collection grew from 2004-2013. This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

I got into the game soon after it began, and purchased different packs from SM, CC, RV, BC, and DJC from 2004-2006. This amounted to 49 total ships, because I managed to break three ships beyond repair.  🙁

In the summer of 2010 I got 55 ships from Strikezoneonline (104 total ships). In early 2011 I bought 2 18 pack boxes of MI from Dave and Adam’s Card world (when they still had Pirates stuff left), leaving me with 176. Soon afterwards I got a lucky deal on eBay of 311 cards from just the Spanish Main set (my favourite set), which contained 104 more ships (280 total).

In July of 2011 I got a eBay lot of random stuff that contained 97 ships along with a 4 ship lot that had HMS Grand Temple and the Divine Dragon (381 total).

In December of 2011 I added another 143 ships between 3 Fairfield boxes, 1 18 pack box of DJC, and a handful of trades through MT (524 total).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2014: Just recently I’ve gone on a tear and grabbed some good deals.

For the first time ever, I got a large amount of stuff from the Frozen North, Barbary Coast, and South China Seas. I saw some good deals that I felt were too good to pass up. These were the three sets that I didn’t use to have much of, but now I’ve got tons! I also received some stuff from other sets, as well as a few random lots.

Not including duplicates (which I’m leaving unpunched for trade bait), I received a total of 205 new, unique ships to my collection.

Part of the reason I went for the three above-mentioned sets was their rarity and their corresponding deficiency in my collection. However, I also had extremely low numbers of both the Vikings and the Jade Rebellion, and a somewhat-lacking Barbary Corsair fleet. In fact, I didn’t have a single Viking ship!

With that said, it was nice to see some of the lesser factions grow like never before. I now own almost all of the Jade Rebellion ships, and I have every Corsair ship except for the Jackal’s Teeth. The Vikings still have some work to do, but at least now I can play them!

In addition, the Americans have always been a lesser faction in my collection, and I believe that holds true in general. I usually think of it as a Big 4: English, French, Spanish, Pirates, and then a Big 6: those four plus the Americans and the Cursed (although you can argue that the Cursed play worse than any faction other than the Mercenaries). With the stuff I’ve recently acquired, the United States has made a statement. They are looking to break into the dominant factions in the game and permanently establish themselves as a huge power. Between the Americans and the minor factions, it has been a revenge of the underdogs!

With that said, here are the numbers for each faction of NEW ships I’ve added:

New unique ships:
English: 20
French: 23
Spanish: 28
Pirates: 27
Americans: 44
Cursed: 5
Barbary Corsairs: 27
Jade Rebellion: 19 (from 3)
Vikings: 12 (from 0)
Total: 205

As you can see, the Americans take home the biggest fleet of new ships, among them FIVE new 5 masters. The Pirates actually got SIX new 5 masters, and they received a large number of other powerful ships.

The three main imperial nations of England, France, and Spain didn’t do quite as well, but I think it’s all for the better, as they are already dominant. The English did especially poorly, with not only a low number of new ships, but also a lack of quality additions. The French and Spanish both got a bunch of good pieces, but not to the extent of the Pirates and Americans.

The Cursed were the only real losers here, with just five new ships. However, 3 of those 5 are some of the best they have (Calim, Sea Monkey, Whydah).

The Barbary Corsairs saw a huge improvement in quantity and quality. I previously didn’t own any of their 4 masted galleys, but now I’ve got 6 out of 7. The Corsairs were previously severely lacking in crew, both named and generic, but now they’ve got plenty of support in those areas. Between their speed, good-looking ships, and fun crew and abilities, it’s hard not to love the Corsairs.

The Jade Rebellion goes from just 3 ships to 22 total, including 3 of the 5 six masted junks. They also filled out their collection of named and generic crew, which were lacking just as with the Corsairs.

The Vikings aren’t regarded as a very playable faction, but I was thrilled to finally acquire some Viking ships! We’ll see in December and January how they fare in their first games I’ve ever used them in!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As for the total size of my collection, I have no idea at this point. The last official count was 524, but since then I’ve made tons of trades, so I can’t even begin to estimate what the grand total would be now. It’s important to note that the number from the past was the total number of BUILT ships, not including unpunched duplicates. At the time of the last count, I had almost no unpunched duplicates. I’m planning on doing another count very soon, which will be nothing short of epic.

When I do the tally this time, I’m going to track things more closely. I’m going to count the overall number of BUILT ships, which will include everything I had punched previously plus the stuff I have now. As of a year or so ago I started leaving duplicates unpunched for a lot of reasons: I’ve got enough built ships, it’s easier to find and mail them for trades when they’re unpunched, and I don’t do huge historical fantasy scenarios anymore.

I’m also going to count the overall number of UNIQUE ships, that is, the number of ships I have not counting any duplicates, built or not built. In addition, I’d like to do a count for each faction, probably in both forms: overall and unique.

I keep all of my cards in a binder, but with the new stuff I’ve had to buy a bunch of new 9-pocket pages and use another binder. All of this is adding up to a MASSIVE overhaul and re-organizing of my collection, which I’m currently in the middle of! My Collection

And here it is:

2014 Fleet Review!!

2018: Since that Fleet Review in 2014 I’ve acquired more ships of course, but I’d estimate my current collection at around 850 punched ships. (including duplicates)

Feel free to share the progress you’ve made on your Pirates CSG collection in the comments below!

My Pirates CSG Collection

My entire collection from the November 2014 Fleet Review. There are 773 ships in the picture.

What is a pokéship?

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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)

LOL!  XD

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)

Pirates CSG Scythe Scorpion ship - example of a pokéship

Scorpion ship literally called “Scythe”

What is a Pokeship

Scyther card from 1999

Pirates CSG Bombardier - example of a pokéship

The Bombardier uses flamethrower! XD

What is a pokéship?

The mighty Charizard

Pirates CSG Skin Flayer Switchblade - example of a pokéship

The Skin Flayer, a Switchblade

The hoist is a lot harder to pin down…

Pirates CSG Hoist Buscador - example of a pokéship

The Buscador, a Spanish Hoist ship

Battle Reports Compendium

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Battle Reports Compendium

This is my attempt to organize all of my best battle reports in one place.  I will add to the list over time.  For tips on playing some huge games, check out my Guide to huge games.  You can see summaries of my huge games on this page.  My best strategic moments and well-played games can be found here.  The bolded ones are “extra good”.  🙂

Campaign Games

The 2011 Cumulative Game (2011)

Pirates CSG with RISK (2012)

Century of the Empires (2013)

Pirates: Economy Edition (2015)

VASSAL Campaign Game 1 (2016)

VASSAL Campaign Game 2 (2016)

VASSAL Campaign Game 3 (2017-2018)

VASSAL Campaign Game 4 (2018-present)

Command the Oceans (2017)

The Hourly Campaign (2018-present; on hiatus)

The Caribbean Game (2018-present; on hiatus)

 

Other Huge Games

First 5 fleet 500 point game (2011)

2nd 500 point game (2012)

Defence of St. Helen’s Scenario, 3rd 500 point game (2012)

 

Tournaments

VASSAL Tournament #1 (2016)

VASSAL Tournament #2 (2016-2017)

Tournament #3 (2024)

 

Other Games

The Acorazado Trials (2012)

El Acorazado vs. HMS Endeavour (2013)

My first game with a blue ocean (2015 – some of my best pictures)

Halloween Game – 4 Fleets at 60 Points (2015)

One of the best games I’ve ever played! (2015)

Smallest cumulative game ever (2015)

The Experimental Cumulative Game (2016)

8 fleet game after T1 (2016)

Legend of the Giant Turtle (2019)

4 Fleet 100 Point Game (2019)

6×150 (2019)

Circle of Blood by Riz

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Circle of Blood: (Riz)

Riz wrote:
Players design 100 pt fleets, mixed nations allowed. The privateer for the battle sets up islands in a pattern along the lines of this…

 

Link to photo album with pictures detailing the setup. (Black – wild islands, Orange – wild islands (with optional forts defending the gold), Green – terrain, White – neutral sea creatures, Yellow – Player 1, Red – Player 2)

Circle of Blood scenario by Rizz the Bloody/Bloody Riz

Riz wrote:
Now for the good stuff. Place 4 randomly selected gold coins, and 1 randomly grabbed UT on each island. No one has a home island at this time. The first island each player explores will become their new home island; all gold on that island is automatically theirs, as is the UT, apply the UT effect if applicable.

After both players take a turn, then the creatures get a turn. Each time the creatures get a turn, roll a d6 for each creature still alive, compare this number to a fog bank in play, the creature will move its full move in the direction rolled. If it encounters an island, iceberg, reef, or Sargasso Sea, it will stop moving until its next turn (ignore fogbanks for creature movement). At the beginning of a creatures turn, if ANY ship is within any attack range for the creature (this is checked before movement), instead of moving it will attack that ship (or the closest ship if more than one is in range). It will continue to attack this ship until either; 1 it is out of range, 2 it is destroyed, or 3 another ship moves closer.

Since the gold is a randomly selected amount, there is no “half way” rule for ending the game, it will continue until there is no gold left, or only one player remains (this puts HI raiders at a premium). Another variant we do here is throw four NPC forts out on the islands marked in orange.

These forts will fire under any of the following conditions; a ship of a non-matching faction moves into range or ANY ship attempts to dock at the island. The forts will fight until destroyed, and defend their gold and UT at all costs.

 

This is a very fun scenario that would work with more than 2 players. In fact, the more players, the more fun it would get I imagine. For an idea of how the game plays out, here is a Battle Report.

Rants on home island raiders

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Originally posted to Miniature Trading on March 12th, 2015

This was originally going to go in “Hijack this thread” but the post got really long since I’m trying to really explore these possibilities. Not really expecting many responses but I’d appreciate it if you could point out any strategies I’ve missed. At the moment I’m really interested in very unorthodox strategies and huge combos, so the more complex the better!

I’ve been running all sorts of combos through my mind concerning home island (HI) raiders. I’m trying to come up with the absolute best way to use them effectively.

I’ve been thinking about just about everything – Calypso (who has to place one of the whirlpools next to a WILD island, which I didn’t realize), smokepots with the reverse captain ability, fog hoppers, Grim, etc, etc.

Imagine that you had a fog hopping ship and two support ships. One support ship stays near your home island while the other sails off with the fog hopper, who could even stay at your HI if you wanted her to.

The fog hopper (with an HI-raider crew aboard) darts in and takes gold as her escort creates a “smokebank”. Either on the next turn or preferably on the same turn using Mycron or a fleet admiral, the fog hopper then ducks into the fog. On the next turn, the ship moves out of another fog bank created by the support ship back at your HI, upon which she docks and unloads the gold.

I like this strategy better than the reverse captain strategy since it’s much faster and creates more of a “smoke and mirrors” effect, allowing you to potentially go back for more if you can get your support ship out of trouble in time (in which case it would be useful if she had the reverse captain ability so she could duck into the fog with the fog hopper). With the reverse captain strategy the ship is essentially only moving S per turn, where she’s essentially invulnerable but very slow.

Sometime soon I’m going to try out a fun combo using the Akua Lapu with Grim the Savage, Crimson Angel, and Hammersmith on board. S+S+S speed with the captain ability with room for 4 treasures! I’m hoping to potentially combine this with some other strategy – I really want to start using more specialists (and probably equipment, although I don’t have smokepot shot) in my games. You could conceivably run as many HI raiders to your opponent’s HI as you wanted, as long as you had at least ONE ship with both the reverse captain and smokepot abilities. If you could coordinate your raiders you could swoop in with 2 or more of them and duck into the single smokebank before you could be sunk, especially since with multiple targets it would be hard for your opponent to stop or sink all of your ships. I’m considering including an escort ship or two equipped with captains and chainshot specialists to try to freeze any enemy ships to protect my HI raiders.

I also thought about loading up a speed demon like the San Cristobal with Fernando Sanchez, Victor de Alva, Vaccaro and a helmsman and trying to use the doubled S+S+L+S speed to get in and out extremely fast, flipping Sanchez at the last second (although I’ve always played my games with crew face up from the start of the game). Since de Alva and Vaccaro link the Cristobal still has 3 cargo spaces, so you could conceivably go back for more trips if your opponent’s gold was still vulnerable.

I just remembered another huge thought I found very intriguing – using a hoist. There are only 3 in the game but they are all 3 masters with a ton of cargo space.

If you could find a way to get Grim on a hoist, the possibilities become endless. Imagine sailing up 2 or more ships behind a HI-raiding hoist and then having the hoist transfer treasure to them, giving your opponent multiple targets! They could scatter in different directions, and it would be even cooler if you had a ship with Secret Hold to protect the treasure.

Hmmm… the Spanish and Americans lack a crew like Brother Virgil so it looks like it would have to be the Maui’s Fishhook. She’s got the smallest cargo but does have Secret Hold.

Now that I think about it, imagine if you could get both Grim and Secret Hold on the Guichuan! Rants on home island raiders You could use Tabatha McWarren to get both of them onboard, and add a helmsman to boost the speed. The whole idea is to take a TON of treasure using the Treasure Ship keyword and then having it be unobtainable unless your opponent can sink the Guichuan or kill Bianco, both of which are less likely after the Guichaun would become ghostly! This combo gets expensive in a hurry, especially since you have to add the Headhunter: 7+6+3+2+6=24 points at a minimum (a canceller would be nice insurance to fill out the points with). It would be useful to add some kind of Mycron combination on the Patagonia (10 extra points) to speed up the Guichuan to make sure she’d get out of there unharmed, unlikely since she’d probably be carrying the entire HI with her!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve always found HI-raiding to be rather ineffective, for multiple reasons. The biggest reason is that by the time your opponent can successfully take gold from your HI, you already have the gold advantage and a few coins won’t offset that advantage. Unless there is some very early HI-raiding successes that tip the balance before your opponent’s other ships can get back, it’s still necessary to run gold normally. The problem occurs when building your fleet, since HI raiders (crew and ships) and the combos needed to use them effectively are so expensive, there’s little to no room left in the rest of your fleet to actually run gold, which is necessary to win most games. But, on the other hand, if you only use one HI raider in your fleet and you don’t give her enough support, she will likely fail before she gets to their HI, get obliterated while she’s docked there, or be captured or sunk while trying to flee.