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@Xerecs: It says “former slaves” in the first sentence of the ship’s flavor text, so I’m not going to worry about every iteration.
Evil’s Shadow
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: Cursed
Rarity: C
Point Value: 13
Number of Masts: 3
Cargo Space: 4
Base Move: S+S
Cannons: 2L-3L-2L
Ability: Other ships do not block this ship’s line of fire.Flavor text: The shadow of evil reaches far into the night. This ship uses extra gunpowder to blast through multiple enemies at the same time.
Historical Custom of the Day #406
James Allison
Pirate
Crew
4 points
Ability: Captain. Ship treasure trading.
Link: Good HopeYou can find my custom sets here: Pirates of the Age of Sail and Pirates of the Epic Seas
No 10 master this past Sunday so here we go again!
Slave Revolt
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: Pirate
Rarity: LE
Point Value: 31
Number of Masts: 10
Cargo Space: 8
Base Move: S
Cannons: 4L-4L-4S-4S-4S-3L-3L-5S-4S-4S
Ability: Junk. This ship gets +1 to her boarding rolls for every crew assigned to her. If this ship does not have a Captain or linked crew aboard, eliminate one crew from this ship at the beginning of each of your turns.
Link: Alshon Garnow, Havana Black, Mauled SlaveFlavor text: The biggest slave uprising in the history of the African continent has produced an unhealthy mass of vengeful former slaves. Taking command of an old treasure ship docked in Lagos, over 1200 slaves have come aboard to wreak havoc on the seas. Their seafaring inexperience shows in the vessel’s poor performance, but sheer brutality and manpower may propel the ship to surprising “heights” of chaos. Alshon Garnow has been elected the ship’s captain, but the ex-slaves have heard of the exploits of both Havana Black and the “Mauled Slave”, and hope to bring them aboard and be led to glory.
Alshon Garnow
Type: Crew
Faction Affiliation: Pirate
Rarity: LE
Point Value: 4
Ability: This crew can only use his abilities on his linked ship. Each turn, up to 2 of this ship’s non-Captain generic crew can reuse their ability once each.
Link: Slave Revolt(Musketeer can shoot twice, Shipwright can repair 2 masts, Firepot Specialist could be used twice in a turn, etc.)
Flavor text: Slightly hesitant to accept the role of Captain on the overcrewed Slave Revolt, the 24-year-old Garnow has nevertheless thrived as a calm and motivating leader of slaves. When the leaders of the revolt were killed in the escape, he was the main “mastermind” left to take control. Without Garnow’s calmness and wisdom, the crew aboard the Slave Revolt would likely have descended into civil wars and cannibalism by now.
Historical Custom of the Day #405
Francis Witherborn
Pirate
Crew
3 points
Ability: This ship gets +1 to her d6 rolls against the Spanish.You can find my custom sets here: Pirates of the Age of Sail and Pirates of the Epic Seas
I think the game would have benefited from more effects/mechanics like Dagger’s, it makes the game feel more realistic. Also its flavor text is one of very few references to the Dutch in the game. Still bummed they were never an official nation.
Agreed on both. It’s fun to figure out max base moves for some of those seemingly slow ships. The problem is they tank quickly as soon as they’re in combat.
LeNoir being a point more than normal for cancellers is a pain but yay for more French options.
True for the F&S version at 4 points, but the standard cost of canceller crew is 5 points. They’d still be amazing at 6-8 points, so F&S Lenoir is the oddity and sort of OP.
Odin’s Iceberg
Type: Unique Treasure
Rarity: R
Ability: If this treasure was found by a Viking ship, the controller of that ship may place this treasure on any iceberg in play. At the beginning of that player’s turns, the player may move the iceberg S in any direction. The player may also prevent the iceberg from moving as it normally would. If loaded by a non-Viking ship, you may exchange this treasure for a treasure of your choosing at the home island of any fleet with a Viking ship in it. Any Viking ship in that player’s fleet may then load this treasure and use it.Historical Custom of the Day #404
Jacob Evertson
Pirate
Crew
3 points
Ability: This ship gets +1 to her cannon rolls against the Spanish. If this crew would be eliminated, place it on your home island instead.
Link: Jan WillemsYou can find my custom sets here: Pirates of the Age of Sail and Pirates of the Epic Seas
Oh no, I meant with the Divers event. Doesn’t it allow you to sink a ship with treasure and then take all the treasure for yourself? Bringing back enemy derelicts is definitely an option though, since there shouldn’t be a lot of ships out on the seas to put pressure on a towing ship.
Ah yes. No problem there, I just prefer not to use events.
I know I’ve said it before, but I’m really enjoying building these fleets!
Indeed, it can be great fun! I’ve been having fun lately just looking back at my past fleets as I resubmit them to the site here.
You can remove a mast most of the time for free, but you sacrifice a move action next turn.
Not necessarily on the second part. If they move away on their turn after you ram, you could move again on your next turn unless you’re immobilized by something else. But it can also go the other way – if they don’t move away and they keep masts up, they can keep you pinned as long as they have masts on the rammed/pinning ship.
Anyways, advice is needed! Is this as tight and deadly as it can be? This isn’t for a learning game, it’s fully competitive!
I think it’s quite good for a 40 point French deathmatch fleet. You’ve got a max of 17 shots per turn, which is very nice. You have good abilities present and the 3L’s and Extended Range can help mitigate enemy cancellers, which you certainly might see. Barring a submarine, you should be well-prepared for most enemies and it could come down to a simple shootout.
Those latest fleets look good too. Though Leon and Raton are set up to only have 1 open cargo space between them, so stealing gold with them could be tough. (unless you’re referring to bringing back enemy derelicts)
MVP of the match was probably the HMS Algiers. At one point it was able to carry 6 pieces of cargo at once. (Admiral Blake, Watkins Defoe, First Mate Ismail, and 3 gold coins)
Took me a while to figure out how that worked, but very impressive!
I think it looks good! Tough to fit a canceller into the setup without eliminating the flotilla, even using the F&S Lenoir.
firing first to make sure the ram roll goes our way, keeping an enemy stuck in the water
I assume you’re talking about dismasting them; you get pinned after you ram, not them. (“reverse pinning” doesn’t work even with the Schooner keyword/etc)
Loser chooses for crew elimination, else it would be too easy to just pick off an opponent’s Davy Jones very early in the game/etc. The Superbe barely has better killing power, you’re mostly paying the extra points for the valuable speed increase.
I love the Magnifique as well, she was my first 5 master! The French got a lot of good and beautiful 5 masters, which is part of the reason I enjoy playing them as a faction. (favorite ship type and they just look awesome, though almost too pretty for battle sometimes XD)
@Ed: I think Gojira actually works! That point cost seems about right given the abilities and stats. I think the attack limitation helps as a “negative” ability.
Is this really just a giant crab? How would Godzilla carry all that cargo?
Bladestorm
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: Mercenary
Rarity: U
Point Value: 30
Number of Masts: 4
Cargo Space: 4
Base Move: L
Cannons: 3S-3L-4L-2S
Ability: Mercenary. Switchblade. Once per turn per ship affected, when this ship’s blades touch an enemy ship, eliminate one mast and one crew from that ship (before ramming and boarding takes place).
Link: Blade MasterFlavor text: The Blade Master has optimized his ship and crew to be incredibly deadly. With sharp blades that move quickly through enemy hulls, the Bladestorm is a menace to deal with. Her crew are experts in hand to hand combat, and use the ship’s massive blades as they would their own swords, wrecking all enemies that cross their path.
Willing to increase the cost on this one of course.
Blade Master
Type: Crew
Faction Affiliation: Mercenary
Rarity: C
Point Value: 7
Ability: Ex-Patriot. This ship gets +1 to her boarding rolls for every crew assigned to her. If this crew is assigned to a ship with the Switchblade keyword, this ship gets +1 to her ram rolls.
Link: BladestormFlavor text: The Blade Master is a swordsman second to none. He has over 2 decades of intense training under his belt, and still drills every single day while at sea. His passion is infectious, and he has trained all the members of the Bladestorm’s crew to use swords and daggers with maximum efficiency. Often wielding two swords into battle, he is one of the fiercest competitors in any naval discipline.
Historical Custom of the Day #403
Cornelius Essex
Pirate
Crew
4 points
Ability: Hostile: Spain. Musketeer. Filching Gold.You can find my custom sets here: Pirates of the Age of Sail and Pirates of the Epic Seas
3 more points. The Superbe is a better ship, but not necessarily when you factor in point costs. I did rank the Soleil Royal as the best French gunship. Looking at that, Superbe should probably be #3.
Which one is better just depends on the points you have available. If you can include Superbe without cutting too many corners, the speed is likely to be worth it. However, the Soleil has a better ability and the Superbe can’t do much against ships with L-immunity like the Jarvis. Soleil is a better budget gunship and one of the best cheap 5 masters, while the Superbe has better range between the speed and all L-range guns. Both are great so you can’t really go wrong here.
Noble Glacier
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: Viking
Rarity: R
Point Value: 17
Number of Masts: 3
Cargo Space: 5
Base Move: S+L
Cannons: 2S-3L-3L
Ability: Icebreaker. This ship gets +1 to her d6 rolls if she is within S of an iceberg.
Link: Hammupyklos, Grand PaladinFlavor text: The Noble Glacier is a fast icebreaker capable of defending herself extremely well even with a full cargo of important goods and stores. Maneuverable in the iciest conditions, she is known for lopsided victories in dense ice floes.
Historical Custom of the Day #402
Peter Harris
Pirate
Crew
5 points
Ability: Captain. Firepot Specialist.You can find my custom sets here: Pirates of the Age of Sail and Pirates of the Epic Seas
I really do feel like Marines were meant to be stacked. If Woelf’s lurking maybe he can correct me here, but as the only ability that can stack in the game I wonder if Wizkids meant for people to play 2-3 Marines per fleet, like an army to compliment your navy. But their point cost would make even less sense in that case.
You can absolutely do that, it’s just incredibly impractical. No sense in paying 12-18 points for 2-3 extra cannons when you can get a good gunship with crew for the same cost.
Just republished 4 Fleets since I missed yesterday. Including some relatively complicated switchblade crew setups that should be fun to play.
I’d show pictures, but I’m not sure how to post pictures here yet.
When using the Visual post editor, you should see a picture button on the far right that requires the url source. For the sake of forum speed and potential quoting/unresolved site issues (sorry, hope to resolve sometime!), I’d prefer if people didn’t post a ton of pictures within their posts. But you can also link to the picture as you would a regular link that should open in a new tab, same for albums.
Thank you for the reply I will just be sure to test them out before I go to far with them.
Feel free to post some here for feedback – it could be useful for you going forward. A brief period of “harsh feedback” can be good to completely course-correct and overhaul things before an entire set of OP stuff is designed.
Ive also been wondering what everyone uses for their custom ships
Xerecs is one of the only custom creators that makes physical versions. I’ve created so many customs (likely 1600+) that it will take many years of campaign games to get them all in play, much less try to make physical copies of them. I use the VASSAL module.
First time post here! I was hoping someone could give me advice on custom ship,crew,seamonster…stc formulas to make sure they dont get uber powerful.
Welcome aboard! Feel free to introduce yourself with your Pirates backstory.
There aren’t official formulas on making custom ships and crew. I actually think that would make it more boring. I’m not sure how familiar you are with the game pieces that Wizkids released, but the Master Spreadsheet has all of them. Of course, sometimes they made things too expensive or too cheap.
To me it’s more of an art than a science, but perhaps I just see it that way because I want to. 🙂
I’m even more convinced that the Duchesse could be very powerful, so I’ve bumped her to 20 right now.
John’s Knighthood
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: Pirate
Rarity: C
Point Value: 15
Number of Masts: 3
Cargo Space: 4
Base Move: S+L
Cannons: 3L-2S-3L
Ability: Schooner. Eternal. Sniping. [You may double the range of this ship’s cannons each turn, but you must roll a 6 to hit.]
Link: Sir John KingsbendFlavor text: Making a mockery of the English “sir system”, these Pirates have a captain who claims to be a former knight of the Crown. Now he enjoys nights in drunken revelry, partying the time away and looting all who come near. The vessel is fast becoming popular in Tortuga and on the Spanish Main.
Sir John Kingsbend
Type: Crew
Faction Affiliation: Pirate
Rarity: C
Point Value: 8
Ability: Captain. Once per turn, if this ship is touching another ship, she can randomly take as much treasure from the other ship as she can carry.
Link: John’s KnighthoodFlavor text: Having already achieved success as a pirate, “Sir” John is in danger of losing his fortune to his rum addiction. However, with eager sailors trying to join the John’s Knighthood every month, it appears that he will have enough support in the short run for more pirating adventures.
Historical Custom of the Day #401
Edward Davis
Pirate
Crew
8 points
Ability: Captain. HI Raider. When this ship unloads treasure at your home island, any coin printed with a silver number is worth +1 gold. This ship gets +1 to her cannon rolls against Spanish forts.
Link: Batchelor’s Delight, Mathurin Desmarestz, William Knight, James Kelly, George Raynor, Charles Swan, Peter HarrisMade the Batchelor’s Delight a bit better so she is now 8 points.
You can find my custom sets here: Pirates of the Age of Sail and Pirates of the Epic Seas
Welcome aboard! Thanks for joining the ship.
The rest I handed off as initial incentives to get new folks to start.
Love hearing that.
Nice to hear from someone who isn’t obsessed with Big 4 overpowered combos in all of their games. The Corsairs are excellent and fun to use.
Also, I enjoy history and appreciate what the developers have done in trying to inject some of that flavor in this environment.
Same here! I actually talked about that a little on a recent podcast with one of the game designers.
– 24 turns a day (one per “hour” until Barbarossa arrives. He’s expected between one and two weeks from now.)
Wow, that’s a lot! Will be interesting to see if that affects how it goes – I’d expect some kind of resolution before Barbarossa shows up. Should be Khalid and Defoe for the named crew.
Very interesting first day, I like your reporting style.
@Jack: That sounds awesome! I love how you’re playing a game based on a real-life outside force. I really love that the game hinges on an unknown – will Barbarossa arrive soon?? XD (though of course with tracking you can get a very good idea; I think it would be interesting to not check it though) There is a weird scenario where your game does end up taking “forever” – if Barbarossa gets lost in the mail! Meaning his transit ship went down with him. Hope that doesn’t happen of course.
I know my 2015 Economy Edition game kinda made it seem like it’s “my” ruleset, but all credit goes to cannonfury (not at Miniature Trading anymore). Hopefully I made that clear enough on the Game Ideas page and at the outset of the EE battle report.
Will your map somewhat resemble the Mediterranean, or is it just the 4 HI’s placed reasonably similarly to where they are on a map? (with no extra land area, whether imaginary or not) What about the wild islands – geographically similar or random?
Interesting that you need a steady stream of gold to keep the ports alive. It makes more sense than what I like to do (no gold/food maintenance), I just like to launch new stuff and constant maintenance costs slow down campaign games in that regard and just aren’t my thing. Glad you’re trying that though since it will be fun to see how it goes.
If Malta runs out of food… I don’t know. They don’t lose, though.
Either they could start the game with tons of food (I assume there will be some food for each port at the start? Else they’d die Turn 2), or perhaps get a reinforcement fleet from Europe. (though introducing free points would unbalance things of course)
All those UT’s floating around will be really interesting – it makes boarding the opposing fleet to try and flip the effect around for gold a viable strategy. I have some other thoughts on how the strategy might play out, but I don’t want to put thoughts in your head….
I always assumed that the “2 masts on roll of a 6” ability (and others like it, ex. “double range of cannons but must hit on 6”) only hit on a natural roll of a 6. So regardless of modifiers added. Is this specified in the Code?
You could check; the Code is on the homepage of my site here. Don’t mean to be harsh but I’m tired of looking things up for people that are VERY easy to find/search. (though if you’re on a phone let me know if you can’t get files from the site up since mobile can get funky)
Page 43 has the info, saying that modifiers still work. The “natural 6” was a mistake and I’ve seen some in the community in the past fighting for it to be the case, but that’s not how it’s supposed to work.
-The text for some ships with this ability refers to a “natural six”. The word “natural” should be ignored; this ability is treated the same for all ships that have it, and the roll can be modified.
Thanks for checking out my customs!
Cuchillo
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: Spanish
Rarity: C
Point Value: 6
Number of Masts: 2
Cargo Space: 1
Base Move: S+S+S
Cannons: 2S-4S
Ability: Schooner. This ship gets +1 to her d6 rolls against ships she is touching.Flavor text: Skilled criminals crew the Knife, whose small size is overcome by speed, agility, and close combat excellence. Some enemy marine complements have laughed aloud during boarding parties when the crew of this ship clamber to the deck with only simple knives in hand. The Spanish convicts laugh after their athleticism, acrobatics, and legendary skills with the knife win the fight.
Historical Custom of the Day #400!
Wanted to go big for another landmark number.George Cockburn
English
Crew
12 points
Ability: Captain. Once per turn give any ship in your fleet +1 to all of her cannon rolls. This ship gets +1 to her d6 rolls against game pieces on land.
Link: All English ShipsYou can find my custom sets here: Pirates of the Age of Sail and Pirates of the Epic Seas
@cwarde: Welcome aboard! Check out the Game Ideas page if you ever need inspiration, and feel free to submit your own as well!
Ben
He’ll link to the ship, and therefore not take up cargo space
He still takes up space. Glad you like them.
Duchesse
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: France
Rarity: R
Point Value: 18
Number of Masts: 5
Cargo Space: 4
Base Move: S+S
Cannons: 3L-2S-2S-2S-3L
Ability: If this ship hits with a 6, that hit eliminates two masts.
Link: French named crew with Captain abilityFlavor text: The Duchesse is the latest French capital ship ready for war. She continues the tradition of heavily armed French warships that look even better than they perform. With a grand launching, the French sail her out with high hopes.
This might need to go to 20, seeing as how a world hater could make 5’s trigger the ability as well, which would end up being a decent percentage of the total hits.
Historical Custom of the Day #399
Batchelor’s Delight
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: Pirate
Rarity: C
Point Value: 6
Number of Masts: 2
Cargo Space: 3
Base Move: S+S
Cannons: 4L-4L
Ability: This ship gets +1 to her cannon rolls against Spanish forts.
Link: Edward Davis, George Raynor, James KellyYou can find my custom sets here: Pirates of the Age of Sail and Pirates of the Epic Seas
Not sure if this would be 100% balanced, but I’m willing to try to convince my friends to try it so we can test it out.
Let us know how it goes if you can! I think it’s an intriguing idea.
I think decreasing the cost of shipwrights to 1 point would help a bit, but I don’t like how that would retroactively mess with some past fleets. Yet another potential house rule to try out!
I don’t take the masts off for this reason.
Haha, it’s totally worth it for me, to an extreme degree. They’re supposed to be taken out, that’s how the game works and is built to work. It takes a LOT of gameplay for things to get loose. I’ve played about 428 games and almost none of my ships have the issue.
Imagine how lame this would look:
You can see my collection history here, since then it’s been a lot of trades.
I got Paradis de la Mer, Libellule, Le Soleil Royal, and I’ll be getting the Bon Marin soon.
Wow, that sounds like a fleet right there! 🙂
It’s really fun to come up with ship combos and just building fleets!
No kidding! I’ve been in that stage many times throughout my pirating career. XD For now I’m pretty satisfied with my 117+ fleets submitted at MT.
I’m hitching the Mont Blanc to the Bonne Chance for a sweet 7 guns moving at SSS.
I love that combo! 😀
@Sneakster: Nice pulls, 40 packs is a lot!@Jack: Yeah, MI is kind of disappointing in general IMO.
UPDATE: My copy of Bon Marin is misprinted!! The holes for the port hull are a few millimeters closer to the center than they should be, so I’m not sure if the hull will fit.
Perhaps you can file the deck or hull in order to make it work.
HMS Grand Temple is really neat. Only 6-master I own is Grand Mountain which is probably the worst one.
You could make the case that she’s better than the Grand Wind and Grand Dynasty, but those are definitely the bottom 3. If you get sick of the GM, feel free to proxy one of my many custom 6 masters from Pirates of the Epic Seas. (21 for the Jades alone!) 🙂
Overall Spain is pretty balanced, but they have plenty of high-cargo ships and gold bonus abilities that make them perhaps slightly more to the treasure side than the French. Spain also got a weird 5 master distribution, with some ludicrous ones at the top along with a bunch of stinkers or mediocre 5’s. On the other hand the Pirates and French consistently got a lot of great (and somewhat similar) 5 masters.
