Epic Scale at Cal Anderson Park in Seattle
10/15/2022
After our 5×40 game in Bellevue to start the Saturday, Xerecs, L0rdgingerbread and I sailed off to Cal Anderson Park in Seattle for a game of Epic Scale Pirates! We used the usual house rules for the weekend, but did away with the setup specifics because it would be a faster and more casual game. We did a draft to pick our fleets, and this is what we ended up with:
L0rdgingerbread
Grinder + helmsman, oarsman
Shaihulud
Proud Tortoise + helmsman, explorer
A7XfanBen
President + captain, helmsman
Nautilus + captain, helmsman
Xerecs
Enterprise + explorer
Gog-Clocthoth
Le Coeur du Lion
We only did 3 wild islands, with 4 coins on each of them along with some terrain.
True to form, 3S cannons were completely useless to me. The Nautilus immediately attacked, but missed all shots and her ram and board against the Grinder. Spencer did heavy damage to the sub in his counterattack!
Our other ships got into an engagement as well, but my “luck” had truly deserted me, with the President failing to dismast the Proud Tortoise with a ram roll of 1! Even the big foam dice aren’t any good for me! XD In the background, Xerecs has explored an island and looks to transfer some of the treasure to the Coeur du Lion.
Unreal! The Proud Tortoise is immune to the President’s L-range cannons, so Spencer could just keep me pinned and plink away if he wanted to, forcing me to rely on Xerecs’ approaching Enterprise to break up the situation.
The President loses masts as the Enterprise closes in:
The President was able to shoot a few masts off the Enterprise while pinned – I didn’t want to make an enemy of Xerecs, but I was worried Xerecs would take out the PT and President in one volley or extra action (EA), which would eliminate me from the game (the Nautilus had been sunk by now). In the background the Grinder and Coeur have unloaded coins, with Shaihulud stalking Xerecs’ HI.
The Proud Tortoise ran for it, but was just barely caught by the President, who finally succeeded with a ram to dismast the turtle ship. I captured the PT on my next turn and was back in business to some degree. I had the PT dump her coins back on the island, as I had some swapping to do if I was going to get any coins home from such weakened vessels.
The coins on the island were somewhat low value (including a 0), so the Proud Tortoise explored it for me, re-dumped her explorer, loaded a crappy coin, and the President redocked for a free explore to load the two best coins from the island. An interesting sort of HI stalemate is developing between the Bowen brothers in the background. The Enterprise is headed home both to unload a coin and to repair.
The President was able to get the coins home to my HI and I believe the Coeur was sunk.
The President and Enterprise repair, the latter only after some bad fog rolls that forced her to stay hidden because Shaihulud blocked her path home. Spencer has recaptured his PT with the Grinder, but if you look closely you can see I’ve deked him slightly by putting the 0 on her knowing she wouldn’t be fast enough to row home for me.
The Grinder drops the tow to load the final coin worth any value in play (a 1) as American warships repair!
Sometime during this endgame we did a quick count to see if the final coin would matter, which revealed that Xerecs would win in a landslide either way! However, Spencer was at 8 and I was at 7, so we decided to play out the carnage for fun and to see who might get second place.
The fully repaired President was finally able to shoot a full broadside, smashing up the Grinder:
Spencer dismasted the President on his next turn, dooming my game:
Gog-Clocthoth surfaced to snack on some turtle shell panel. Indeed, it was nearly time for us to return to Mox Boarding House Bellevue for dinner. XD
This game of Epic Scale was over!
- Xerecs: 21 gold
- L0rdgingerbread: 9
- A7XfanBen: 7
Xerecs had found a bevy of valuable coins on the island he explored with the Enterprise, which was enough to secure the win!
Huge thanks to the Bowen brothers for flying up from LA and being great friends!! 😀
This was a luck win all the way. I didn’t have an optimal set-up on the Enterprise at all, relying on her EA to move and shoot, along with the built in captain on Gog-Clocth. I think the first island had almost all of the gold I got for this game, a very lucky find. However I had no idea of knowing what other coins had been found and figured that if I got a whole islands worth and a little more it might tip things in my favor. Epic Scale is definitely a fun experience, here’s hoping the roster of available ships and crew can be expanded!
It was cool, thanks for playing!