My custom set: Age of Sail (ships and crew)
Some players of Pirates CSG enjoy making custom game pieces – for example, ships and crew that they come up with on their own that were never released by Wizkids and will likely never be “official” for playing purposes.
As some of you may know, I am currently engaging in a huge long-term project for my custom set. Over the course of many years I will be making customs (used as a broad blanket term to describe custom ships/crew/etc) based on history. The Age of Sail has always fascinated me, especially the naval warfare aspect of it. As a result, it comes naturally for me to make historical things come to life in the game. I always thought Wizkids should have included more historical stuff in the game, but legal problems may have gotten in the way. I love the thought of being able to play full games and campaigns of Pirates with all-historical game pieces. Hence, my desire to create the customs I make.
Pirates of the Age of Sail is my main custom set. A few things to note about it:
- The set is permanently “in progress”, meaning I will likely never truly finish it. (due to the sheer amount of historical game pieces that can be created.
- All game pieces are open to revision, especially if it is based on playtesting. (actually using the pieces in a game)
- I am currently engaged in a “Historical Custom of the Day” series at Miniature Trading that can be found here. That is how I intend to make consistent progress on the set.
- According to the spreadsheet I already have around 500 game pieces created for the set, with many more eventually on the way. O_O In theory the only limit to the set’s size is how many historical ships and crew can be created. In the long term the set should contain multiple thousands of game pieces for use in Pirates games. O_O
I also have another custom set, called Pirates of the Epic Seas. That set was made mostly in February and March of 2018, contains around 200 game pieces, and is mostly finished. However, it is also open to revisions and additions.
It’s likely I’ll be talking about customs and historical customs a lot more in the future. Feel free to browse my customs at your leisure.
Deal of the Day: Long gone. Current eBay options! This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
**Disclaimer: I will be using affiliate links with things like this, so if someone buys from it, I could make a few cents. XD
Card of the Day
Set number: 10 – Caribbean
Collector’s Number: 007 – HMS Adventure
- Collector’s Number: 007
- Faction Affiliation: England
- Rarity: R
- Type: Ship
- Point Value: 7
- Cargo Space: 3
- Base Move: L
- Cannons: 3S
- Number of Masts: 1
Crew of any nationality can use their abilities on this ship.
Wow, keep getting Caribbean for the set!
HMS Adventure pales in comparison to her sister ship from this set, HMS Trepassey, which is a nice English gold runner. Her slow speed and 3 cargo means she can’t really be optimized for gold running, as 2 cargo at L+S speed for 9 points (with a helmsman) doesn’t really cut it. I actually just got the Adventure, and haven’t used her yet (including on VASSAL I believe). However, I could see a niche usage. I like the thought of Calypso coming aboard and providing her services to the English, in which case you could add a 0LR reroller as well to help get the required die rolls to make whirlpools. Not a great idea perhaps, but an uninspiring ship like this is tough to use in the first place.
Standard 40 point games: Empty gold runner. No need to spend precious points on a ship that could easily be rammed out of the game.
Medium size games (50-100 points): Calypso + 0LR reroller and optional oarsman for some measure of protection.
Large games (over 100 points): Possibly the Calypso setup, or go crazy with international crew and experiment with something like an L-mover (something the English never got) while parked at the home island.
Game Piece Rating: 3/10. Besides her reasonable cargo and intriguing ability, there is not much at all that makes the Adventure stand out, let alone usable. The English aren’t known for their 1 masters like the French and Pirates are, but even they have a lot of better options.
Picture of the Day
(Campaign game spoiler alert) Today marks the two year anniversary of the end of VASSAL Campaign Game 1, one of the greatest games I’ve ever played. Click on the picture to read the battle reports, though unfortunately it may take some time to load since the originals were wrecked when the image hosting site changed their url’s.
My goal has been to add one new blog post and one new page or feature to this site each day, but lately some computer issues have been bogging me down a bit. It seems like time goes fastest when you’re doing what you want to do, and slowest when you’re doing something you don’t want to do. Ideally we can all be doing what we want, as often as we want. A good goal indeed.
It’s a Pirates’ Life for Me.
Ben