Custom Ships (post your custom game pieces here!)

[Ben]

Very excited to finish a near-final draft of HMS Victory yesterday for Trafalgar Day!  (she will link to Lord Horatio Nelson of course)

[Ben]

Lighthouse

Building lighthouses follows the conditions for building forts. Gold used to build the lighthouse is placed face-up next to the lighthouse and still counts towards a player’s total for victory conditions. A lighthouse cannot use its abilities on the same turn that it is built. The effects of Mysterious Islands (including Great Turtles) are ignored if a lighthouse is present on the island.

If the Lighthouse has its light, a friendly ship within L+L of the Lighthouse gets +S to its base move once per turn (a yellow L+L tool can be used to indicate the range of this effect, or a light yellow plastic can be placed under the lighthouse).

Two hits from the same shoot action are required to eliminate the lighthouse light; when it is eliminated, remove it and the lighthouse top (if applicable). Once a lighthouse loses its light, it loses the L+L effect but retains its other abilities. When a lighthouse has no light, one additional hit destroys the lighthouse and it is eliminated; the gold used to build the lighthouse remains on the island (face down).

Enemy ships may dock, load treasure, and drop off crew or equipment from islands with lighthouses built on them. Enemy ships cannot load crew or equipment from this island that belong to the lighthouse controller as long as the lighthouse has its light. If the lighthouse has cannons, their ranges are measured from any part of the lighthouse base.

If a friendly ship is docked at the island, it can give up its turn and conduct a repair action on the lighthouse. If an enemy ship is docked at the island and no ship friendly to the current lighthouse controller is within L+L of the lighthouse, that ship can give up its turn to simultaneously capture and repair the lighthouse.

If a lighthouse has cargo space available, shipwrights and musketeers can use their abilities inside a lighthouse.

[Ben]

Atakebune
For my first custom ship type, I decided to go with something rather unique but still historical. These were Japanese warships active during the Age of Sail, with a focus on boarding and hand-to-hand combat rather than gunnery.
The flag towards the bow has the Tokugawa crest on it, while the flags with black and white are based on the naval ensign of the Tokugawa Shogunate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atakebune

Here is the new Atakebune keyword: (should be mostly finished; credit to Woelf for some assistance with it)
“A ship with this keyword printed on its deckplate card has removable flags that are treated exactly the same as masts on a normal ship (they can be replaced by fire masts).
This ship may be given move actions when it has no flags; its printed base move becomes S. When given a move action, this ship can rotate on her bow (the front of the ship) OR stern (the rear of the ship) in any direction as an additional, final movement segment (she cannot rotate on both bow and stern in the same move action).
This ship gets +1 to her boarding rolls for every crew assigned to her. If this ship wins a boarding party, she may eliminate a mast from the enemy ship, steal one treasure, and eliminate one crew.
This ship cannot be assigned treasure except for treasure taken via boarding party.
Crew assigned to this ship do not count towards the ship’s point limit.
If this ship has no crew, she cannot be given move actions.”

I know it is rather extreme, but I wanted to capture the nature of the ships and what they were used for. In a couple playtesting games involving the first one I’ve made, I didn’t see any real need for changes. Of course, it may be revised in the future.

Here is the first full custom Atakebune:
Sengoku
Nationality: Japanese
Point Cost: 6
Masts (flags): 3
Cargo: 5
Base Move: S+L
Cannons: 5S-5S-5S
Ability: Atakebune.
Flavor Text: With feudal conflicts ongoing, many warlords have joined the naval arms race, seeking to be the ruler with the largest fleet of Atakebune.

[Ben]

[Ben]

Introducing: Pirates of the Epic Seas Cursed Mega Pack!

Contents: 5 brand-new game pieces – a 10 masted junk, a new sea creature type, a 1 masted sloop, and 2 named crew!

Quantity: 5 copies to start, likely more if it sells out

Expected price: $90 on release day, then around $100 after that

Release Date: Friday the 13th of December

[Ben]

Minogame (pronounced “meen-oh-gah-may”)
Nationality: Japan
Point Cost: 20
Segments: 5
Cargo: 3
Base Move: S+S
Cannons: 4S
Ability: Giant Turtle. (keyword below)
At the beginning of your turn, if this giant turtle does not have a fort on it, decide if this giant turtle is submerged or on the surface. If submerged, this giant turtle can only move; it cannot shoot or be shot at, and it cannot dock or touch other ships.

If this giant turtle touches an empty sargasso sea, you may choose to tow that sargasso sea as a free action – place it touching this giant turtle’s tail and move it with this giant turtle. When towing a sargasso sea, this giant turtle’s base move is reduced to S. At the end of any move segment, you may stop towing it.

Flavor Text: Striking commonalities with the legendary sea turtle of Urashima Tarō fame has made this creature a favorite of the Japanese people. After a slew of recent rescues, some Tokugawa sailors even worship him.

Giant Turtle (keyword): A ship with this keyword printed on its deckplate is a sea creature.
A giant turtle can ram a sargasso sea as if ramming an iceberg; if it does, remove the sargasso sea from the game.
Two hits during the same player’s turn are required to eliminate one of this sea creature’s segments. When removing segments, remove a fin of the giant turtle. When all four fins are removed, the giant turtle is eliminated. The giant turtle’s cannon (its head) cannot be eliminated.
A giant turtle may move across islands (except enemy home islands and enemy forts) if it does not have a fort on its back. It becomes docked if it ends movement on an island. A giant turtle may shoot and be shot at while on an island (the island does not block lines of fire to and from the giant turtle on the island).
A giant turtle can be assigned crew.
A giant turtle may be given explore actions to load cargo like a normal ship.
A giant turtle may tow other ships (unless it has a fort on its back), it may ram (the rammed ship becomes pinned instead of the giant turtle), and it may board like a normal ship.
When building a new fort, you can build it on the back of a giant turtle docked at your home island. If there is a fort on the back of a giant turtle, it cannot move more than S in a single move action; during combat the fort takes damage instead of the turtle. The fort on the back of the turtle is treated like a fort on a wild island and has its own turns. Friendly ships can dock at a giant turtle with a fort and be given repair actions while there. If a ship is docked, the giant turtle cannot move.
Any treasure in a giant turtle’s fort does not take up cargo space. Crew and equipment still take up cargo space. When the fort on a giant turtle is destroyed, the treasure is moved into the giant turtle’s cargo. If there is more treasure than cargo space available, remove the excess treasure from the game instead of removing crew/equipment to make room for the treasure.
A fort built on a giant turtle cannot use crew abilities.

Credit to AlgothAybara for the Giant Turtle model design and original STL, which is available on PSMList.  We worked with Woelf on the keyword, which is long, but needs to be in order to cover all the details of such a unique game piece.

[Xerecs]

Quite an impressive turtle with several impressive abilities. This one in particular might benefit from not having a fort on it’s back, (even though that’s their main gimmick) as you could potentially assign a Marine crew to the Turtle and essentially make it function like some kind of giant submarine.

Towing a Sargasso around doesn’t sound that useful in the moment, but I suppose you could use it to “cover up” an island from smaller ships or group a bunch of them together to form some kind of barrier for an opposing fleet.

[Author]

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