UPS 2 vs. EA Gold Runners: Game 1
The next three game series will pit UPS v. 2.0 against the Extra Action Gold Runners fleet. I was only able to play the first game of the series just now. Again, if you haven’t checked out those fleets yet I suggest you do so. The links are below.
The Lache de Calvados is a proxy for the Intrepide and the Rover is being used instead of Favor of the Gods.
The Swift is a proxy for the Star of Siam.
Turn 1:
UPS (v. 2.0) went first. The Hai Peng was Hidden Cove’d to the middle wild island and found Screu Engine which was left behind. A 2 coin was traded via CJS/Intrepide/Aristide (you know the deal by now) and the Pirates were in business with 4 gold. At the next island the Hai Peng found both Turtles and Homing Beacon, making the EA Runners fleet look bad by finding their UT’s before they even left home! Paradis de la Mer was built on this second island. The Rover sailed towards the middle island.
For the EA Runners fleet, all three (counting Vaccaro’s reroll) of the EA rolls failed and therefore the Star of Siam and Joya del Sol were unable to reach islands.
Turn 2:
Turn 2 was incredibly predictable. Thanks to darrin’s comprehensive fleet description I was able to follow his instructions to a tee:
| darrin wrote: |
| Second Turn 1. Move the Hai Peng away and then re-dock at the same island with your first fort. Send another coin to L’Intrepide. 2. As a free action, swap Maurice Aristide back onto L’Intrepide and put another oarsman on Le Coeur de Lion. 3. Use an explore action to unload L’Intrepide’s coin for +2 gold. 4. Sacrifice an oarsman to Jimmy Legs, load the traded oarsman as a free action, and move back to the first island you explored. Send another coin to Le Coeur de Lion. 5. As a free action, move Maurice Aristide to Le Coeur de Lion. 6. Use an explore action to unload Le Coeur de Lion’s coin for +2 gold. 7. Build a second fort at the island where Hai Peng is docked. |
Dead Man’s Point was built on the middle wild island.
The EA Runners were luckier than on their first turn with the Joya getting an extra action from Castro without having to reroll. The Joya explored the northeastern island and found 10 gold (the UT’s required the EA fleet to put a 7, a 6 and a 2 into the treasure mix), then turned around and made it halfway home.
Turn 3:
Because the gold in forts doesn’t technically count towards victory anymore the UPS fleet would have to make do. The Hai Peng traded another 2 (4 after Aristide) to her HI, leaving the Pirates with 12 gold total on their HI. The Hai Peng then went back to Paradis and loaded both 2’s for 4 gold total. At this point there were no more oarsmen left on the HI for which to trade to the Hai Peng. The Rover had meanwhile picked up a 2 from Dead Man’s Point and was sailing home with it.
For the EA fleet, all 3 rolls failed once again. The Joya del Sol docked home 10 gold to narrow the score to 12-10 in favor of UPS. In the meantime the Algeciras had approached the Rover and managed to get her 3L gun in range, but she missed (this was the only shot fired in the game).
Turn 4:
The Hai Peng simply raced home and sacced Cotton (the helmsman) to make it the whole way. She unloaded her cargo of 4 gold to give UPS the 16-10 victory!
Observations: This UPS fleet is obscenely complicated and involved, not to mention FAST. I’d like to congratulate darrin for making such a well-thought-out fleet. It really is interesting to play. I had to look at the fleet description to know what I was supposed to do with all the crew and treasure transfers! What really struck me was how long the turn takes. With the Hai Peng doing so much and getting the two ships at the HI involved, the UPS turns took FAR longer than any normal turn for other fleets, including the EA fleet.
It’s funky to do so much with crew. I started to get confused as to how many crew and points I was supposed to fit on the Hai Peng and which oarsmen were supposed to be on the Intrepide vs. the Coeur. Then the crew ran out! Jimmy Legs and Aristide just make things even more interesting. The explorer is a good candidate to be sacced because after the first turn you really don’t need him since you’ve already explored the two islands you need to hit.
The next two games in this series will be played tomorrow (12/23).