There she is! Without further ado, introducing my newest 10 master: the Celtic Fury!
After becoming a moderator at Miniature Trading, a gift was sent to me by two extremely generous members of the forum for my contributions: the Celtic Fury, and a South China Seas Super Rare pack (which I partially featured on my Instagram) from xeriousone.
French Mercenaries:
Celtic Fury + Eileen Brigid O’Brien, Duncan Rousseau, captain, helmsman
Royal Louis + helmsman
Floating Stone
Grampus + captain, helmsman, oarsman
Pequod + explorer
HMS Dunlap
HMS Henry VIII + oarsman
On the second turn the fast Grampus invaded French waters, dismasting the Floating Stone. The Celtic Fury sailed up, and true to my past form (not just in terms of shooting but especially with 10 masters), missed 7 shots out of 8!! It was an unsurprisingly poor start for yet another disappointing 10 masted behemoth. (though, considering the cannon ranks it was much less bizarre than my Baochuan with world-hater Chang Pao aboard missing 6 shots out of 7 in the RISK game from 2012…)
A better angle on the battle:
The Henry VIII reached an island, but the Royal Louis had already taken most of its gold. The Pequod took most of the gold on the beach opposite the fighting. (sorry that my opponent has incorrectly assembled the Dunlap, I think we were too busy during the game to bother fixing it)
With the help of an SAT, eventually my strategy of simply putting more and more firepower on the target won the battle (not dissimilar to my strategy in VASSAL Campaign Game 1). The Grampus did sink the Floating Stone, but was sunk herself soon thereafter.
Perhaps the CF’s gunners were just waking up? XD Or they’re just inexperienced!
The CF heads to finish off the original beach she explored, while the Royal Louis sails over the debris of battle. The English Americans have gold headed home, and not much remains available.
All ships carrying gold eventually got home. The Celtic Fury got another SAT to cripple the Henry VIII, but after that, O’Brien decided she had caused enough carnage for one day.
The final scores proved how many high-value coins had been picked at random for distribution:
1. French Mercenaries: 49 gold
2. English Americans: 24 gold
A mostly successful debut for the Celtic Fury, with a lot of help from her crew combos. The English Americans had success as well, sinking the Floating Stone and collecting quite a bit of gold in a short time. The differential looks lopsided, but the game was arguably over early on, when the Celtic Fury found at least 19 gold (7,6,5,1 or something) in her first haul. I was happy not to use Parley, as it would have made my fleet seem somewhat OP, but Duncan Rousseau and the Royal Louis remain two of my favorite French game pieces. I find it funny how typical my luck was – rather good with double actions (I believe I got 3 SAT’s in a row without needing to reroll), but awful with cannon rolls (as usual, including recently on VASSAL).
More reports to read – besides not one but TWO Frozen North 10th anniversary games, Xerecs and I have been joined by Noahriffic from England for a 3 player game that is still in progress! (further proving that time zone differences don’t necessarily matter, even for live games)