Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
My usual style of play centers around what I call “gap filling:” I’ll have a main faction that I primarily base my fleet around, but will bring in ships of another nation (usually Pirate) if there’s a role the primary nation can’t adequately provide with the remaining build points. Usually, the “gap fillers” are small treasure runners or support ships.
This tactic is very useful in small games, and makes playing minor factions like the Vikings much easier.
Time for round two of my picks, mostly just runners-up from my last list. Here are the last few from DJC:
Executioner
“El Fantasma’s new acquisition is composed of the bones of his victims. Each time a wave breaks over her bow, a thousand trapped souls scream in anguish.”
That’s pretty friggin’ metal if you ask me. I wonder if OSHA (if it existed in the world and time of Pirates CSG) would require her crew to wear hearing protection…
Mist Walker
“Sailors who have seen Mist Walker—and they are rare indeed—claim that the beast doesn’t make a sound as it materializes out of the fog. The memory of their companions’ screams and torn bodies, though, will forever live in their minds.”
Maybe this isn’t as creepy as other Cursed DJC flavor text, but it is reflective of its ability text, which I find neat.
Now for the non-DJC picks:
Scepter [CC 202]
“Jack Jenkins breathed a sigh of relief as his ship narrowly escaped the clutches of El Fantasma and his ghostly crew. Little did he know that it was his last breath as a living man.”
HMS London [CC 205]
“The crew of the London had grand designs on the contents of the Deliverance’s hold, but rather than emptying it, they found themselves filling it—with their souls.”
Turns out capturing a ghost ship is one of the worst ideas possible. Who would have thought?
El San Salvador [CC 208]
“Dead men tell no tales, and thus the mute crew of this ship cannot share the story of how they became damned to sail the Crimson Coast as spectral sailors.”
Lastly, a crew:
The Headhunter [SCS 041]
“The Headhunter does not heed the call of civilization. His appearance—the human bones that hang from his neck and decorate his ship—and tribal crew put him in a different category of pirate: the soulless.”
Maybe he isn’t as creepy-looking as any of the Cursed crew, but the Headhunter does have one thing about him that none of them have: he could have existed in real life. His flavor text (as well as his linked ship) also remind me of Kurtz from Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now.
I probably could have added a few more from later sets (looking at you, Skin Flayer and Mourning Star), but I think I’ve contributed enough. This thread has given me the motivation to make the Cursed pieces from my custom set as horrifying as possible, so thanks for starting this discussion, Ben.
The DJC LE ships have some of my favorite pieces of flavor text, some which are horrifying on a psychological level, and others which are more blatant. Here are my top picks:
Howl
“From the mists that gather at nightfall, the Howl appears with the scream of a thousand tormented souls.”
Crypt
“No one has seen the inside of the Crypt and lived.”
Dance
“This ship’s name comes from the swaying of hanged sailors, who still move this ship along her dark course.”
Blackgate
“This ship was banned from port because of rumor of plague. The screams of her dying crew can be heard for miles.”
Black Gentleman
“No sane crew would ever sail on a ship named for the Devil, and yet she does sail, especially on moonless nights when no wind blows.”
I used to keep all of my punched treasure coins in a small Icebreakers gum box. It could hold a lot of them, but it was very hard to find the coins I needed to set up a game.
Now I keep them in one of those plastic organizer boxes, and they are all separated by type (gold or silver) and value.
Mine is more of a double-edged sword than a thing I downright dislike: eBay.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve gotten some excellent deals on Pirates stuff on eBay, and I’m sure others here have too, but I’ve started to notice that prices for ships I consider to be relatively common are increasing at an absurd rate. This has spread over to lots as well, despite most of the offenders containing little to no elusive pieces.
The upside here is that trading looks like a better option, though I personally think the closing of MT has made it more difficult to do nowadays.
Crimson Coast is my favorite set, yet I’ve only built a handful of the ships from it (less than ten if I remember correctly) and have only played maybe three or four of them at most.
Also, I’ve only ever played Pirates CSG with people I introduced to the game, despite knowing about the existence of VASSAL for almost a year now.
Corsairs for sure. They offer the most bang for your buck, but their named crew is very hit-and-miss and their ships are plagued with poor cannon ranks, which probably leads people to choose the Pirates over them.
My personal choice would be the Vikings. Though they lack any overly fast or durable ships, they certainly aren’t lacking in firepower, and they have several decent options for hybrids (way more than they do treasure runners, oddly). That being said, I’d hesitate to use them in a <60 point game, unless some Pirate and Corsair ships were called in to handle treasure running.
I have ships and crew from every set, most of which are complete or near-complete (Curse you, Tasmanian Devil!!)
My favorite set is and will always be Crimson Coast. Besides the excellent selection of ships and crew it provides, I find myself fascinated by the much darker tone it has in comparison to the sets that preceded and followed it, a tone that can be attributed to CC’s stellar artwork and flavor text. Runner up would be South China Seas, which hopefully needs no explanation.
My least favorite set is Rise of the Fiends. While Ocean’s Edge and Caribbean had their share of problems, RotF didn’t really do much in my mind to improve upon them, resulting in a rather small and disappointing set. The worst offense, however, was how the Cursed were handled; for a set that builds them up as the biggest threat since their introduction in DJC, there isn’t much to appreciate and nary a sea monster in sight (save for Terrox, which you couldn’t obtain in a regular pack). Why they weren’t given a non-promo 5-master in this set, let alone more ships on the level of the superb Grinder, is beyond me. Other factions were handled a bit better and flotillas are terrific addition, though, so it has a few positives going for it.
I wouldn’t say cargo overall is undercosted, but it does seem like there are a handful of ships with absurd cargo capacities for their size and/or point cost.
Too bad WizKids never released a game bible or anything detailing exactly how they assigned point values to ships. It’s pretty easy to figure out the base cost of each ship type and the cost of most abilities, but I’ve yet to find a universal rule on how to factor in cargo capacity beyond just assigning one that seems proper.
If I had to pick a single ship, right now I’d have to say my Mourning Star [FS 207]. Not only does she have a lower point cost than pretty much every other five-master, she is also cheaper than so many of the Cursed’s smaller ships that it’s downright disturbing.
My second favorite thing would have to be my binder with all of my minor faction deckplates and named crew cards. I’ve almost completed all four (Missing Viper’s Bite from the Corsairs, Tasmanian Devil from the Mercenaries, and Andersen & Duex from the Vikings), so it’s always satisfying to be able to build a fleet for any of them while knowing you’ve got every option available.
Really interesting topic, and not really one I’ve thought about before. Probably would have had a different answer a year ago.
Parts I need:
- Tasmanian Devil [MI138] – I have two sets of punched cards for this ship, but not the ship herself or any of her pieces.
- Jape [OE144] – Missing the deckplate.
Here’s a quasi-historical ship from the custom set I’ve been working on. Point cost could probably use some adjustment
Moonlight
Type: Ship
Faction Affiliation: America
Rarity: UC
Point Value: 16
Number of Masts: 4
Cargo Space: 5
Base Move: L
Cannons: 3S-3S-3S-4L
Ability: Schooner, Ghost Ship. Once per turn, this ship may look at one face down cargo on any ship or island.
Flavor Text: The Moonlight sank in a violent storm, yet some say she can still be seen sailing along on calm, clear nights, bathing the coast in an unnatural glow.
The crew elimination ability seems useful, and makes the most sense. I’ve always found the Marine and Musketeer ability to eliminate masts rather comical, since you’d expect them to be carrying, well, a musket. It’s almost like they’re toting around a carronade or an antiquated forerunner to the Bazooka (the former makes more sense for Marines, especially after they’ve been dropped off at an island).
One change I would make is how they’re eliminated. Instead of two hits in the same turn, I think it should be two hits from the same shoot action (ignoring any ship or crew abilities that eliminate crew during shoot actions). In my mind, that would give them a bit more durability and make them more worth the investment.
I would say playing, too, though I find it much easier to make time to collect than play (I haven’t tried VASSAL yet, so all my games are in person).
Ahoy there, mateys!
I am MagExpress, which is short for Magnum Express. My username comes from a similarly named large-caliber German hunting rifle, the Heym Express Magnum; it doesn’t really have any significance, I just thought it sounded cool back in high school.
I got my first packs shortly after Crimson Coast came out (I knew someone who was into collecting Spanish Main) and dabbled in Barbary Coast Unlimited after it hit shelves, but it wasn’t until Ocean’s Edge came out that my interest in the game was cemented. From that point on, I would have occasional “Renaissances” with Pirates CSG every summer, buying what I could at Target, but those came to a halt around the time I started high school.
Moving forward to 2017, I got hit with a large wave of nostalgia (due in part to the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film), and I decided to get back into my old childhood hobby. From that point forward, I have been ceaselessly collecting Pirates and teaching the game to friends and family.
Currently, I’d say I am more of a collector than a player (75% vs. 25%), but I am doing my best to change that since a few of my friends are really taking to the game and the mind blowing amount of freedom/customization it offers. I have also made it a goal to use every single ship I own at least once, and with 800+ ships at my disposal, I’ll definitely have to sink more time into playing.
A lot of people have probably said this already, but my absolute favorite thing about Pirates is the shear scale and level of customization it has. There are so many options when it comes to building a fleet and choosing crew that no two games are ever the same, and even if you decide to play with the most basic ships and crew, the game is still highly enjoyable. I don’t really have a favorite ship or game piece, but I will say that my favorite sets are Crimson Coast (the only set I’ve 100% completed) and South China Seas.
As a side note, I have been working on a custom set since last summer that I’ll hopefully be able to share in some form on this site soon (the ship/crew list is about 70% finished). Feel free to DM me if you’re interested in hearing about it.
Glad to be aboard, Ben, and sorry for writing a novel.
