Jewels of the Fine Sea – Theme Fleet Challenge Entry

Originally published to Miniature Trading on January 1st, 2016

This is my entry into phymatine’s Theme Fleet Challenge.

This game is all about getting the most gold, so I decided upon a theme of jewels, gemstones, or precious metals. This might be the least creative fleet out there, but the few other ideas I thought of didn’t work as well. For example, a “Bloody” fleet – Bloody Spear, Bloody Jewel, Bloody Jake, etc.

This originally started out as diamonds being the only precious metal. This was a decent start, but I decided to broaden my horizons and include other materials as well. Therefore, ships like the Diamond Strike, Black Diamond, and HMS Diamond/HMS Diamond were heavily considered but eventually left out because I couldn’t fit them into the 40 point limit. Similarly, when I widened the theme, ships like the Pearl and all three versions of the Black Pearl missed out. (HMS Obsidian Sun was also briefly considered.  ) However, I was reasonably satisfied with what I came up with.

The first ship is the Tiger’s Eye. One of the best ships in the entire game, the Tiger’s Eye has gold-running duty here. She’d like a captain, but they didn’t fit the theme or the build total. Instead, she has Diamond Nelson Turner aboard. He’ll cancel enemy gunships if they get too close, and he could potentially slow or hinder an enemy gold runner if the Tiger’s Eye gets into a treasure dispute. In addition, he combos well with the Tiger’s Eye’s ability, since the Tiger’s Eye can’t be hit by L-range guns. With Diamond aboard the Tiger’s Eye will have partial immunity to S-range guns as well because he can cancel any captained ship that comes into range.

The second ship is another famous gold runner, the Bloody Jewel. She stretches the theme a bit, but oh well. The Bloody Jewel is one of the best gold runners in the game and features a Silver Explorer. This fleet is designed to find not just gold, but also silver, in addition to the precious metals added into the game with the UT’s.

The final ship is the lone gunship, USS Emerald. This ship is a somewhat underrated support gunship from SCS, and features a great ability in addition to good cannons. The standard captain and helmsman wouldn’t fit the theme, so Hermione Gold comes aboard. This gives the Emerald respectable speed and the necessary captain keyword. She’ll probably escort the Bloody Jewel, since she’s not strong enough to take on enemy gunships and the Tiger’s Eye is more durable and much more difficult to take out than the Jewel.

The UT’s deviate from the theme a bit since some of them are generic, but I wanted to include some UT’s. Jade and the Gem of Hades are in there, as well as Plunder and Buried Treasure, which could represent any of the aforementioned materials, or another one altogether.

The forts will probably detract from the main score, but they are there as well. They were included based on their flavor text, though “dorada” also means gold in Spanish.

The Spanish claim it doesn’t exist. Yet natives can be persuaded to speak of the “Golden Fortress,” the apparent source of the Spanish gold flowing along the Crimson Coast.

Informed captains know that when they dock at the port of St. Pierre, a little extra gold ensures that their cargo will be unloaded swiftly – and without a lot of questions.

Again it’s not very creative at all and it doesn’t have much combat capability, but I wanted to make a fleet for the challenge. Thanks for reading, feel free to comment and vote!

Fleet page at Miniature Trading