Well I certainly had a good day today.
In my eternal quest to make a Corsair fleet with offensive ability that doesn’t use Tiger’s Eye, I put together one using myself (Barbary Corsair version of course) on board the Desert Wind with Griffin and a Chainshot Specialist, with two cheap gold runners.
Tested this against a solid but not great Spanish fleet. Game 1 was close, and El Neptuno had a chance to put it away early but couldn’t quite get a second 6.
Game 2 was a slaughter. The Desert Wind single-handedly took out all three Spanish ships (El Neptuno, El Villalobos, San Theodora) before any gold runner for either side got to their HI. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a 2-master be so deadly. I got slightly lucky, as the 4-rank gun hit way more often than it should have, but the build does kind of make its own luck with the reroll from Griffin and SAT ability from me.