New eBay find and a minor anniversary of a game

Not much time to talk today, pressed for the time the next 3-4 days and can’t just ramble about Pirates as much as I usually like to.  XD   Also, all 3 of the daily features were longer than usual today!

What have I done with the site since the last blog post?

-I added the Building a Fleet page from weebly, improved with examples.  I’m hoping the examples make it easier to for new players to see exactly what I’m talking about, and to provide clarity if they don’t know what certain abilities are.  Feedback/additional fleet example candidates are welcome!

-The default font seems to be showing up lighter than I’d like it, so I’m trying to remember to change it to a pure black.  This relates to my whole text/background debate, which I think I’ll get into more detail on tomorrow.  For the blog I may leave the font as-is sometimes though…. hmm.

-I’m getting the social stuff in gear!   I added a social comment feature, so you should be able to comment on some stuff if you’re signed into Facebook, Google+, Disqus, or WordPress.  Check it out at the bottom of posts and pages!  I just implemented that so it may not always show up (for this, I think you have to view this post’s page separately from the category page).  Getting the kinks ironed out.  🙂

 

Deal of the Day: Super Rare version of Captain Mysion for just $2.66. I’d recommend looking at their page and then seeing if you can get a good deal on the shipping.  For example “request invoice” before paying in full.

**Disclaimer: I will be using affiliate links with things like this, so if someone buys from it, I could make a few cents.  XD

 

Pirates CSG Card of the Day

Set number: 12 – Rise of the Fiends

Collector’s Number: 031 – Sea Hag

Faction Affiliation: The Cursed
Rarity: U
Type: Ship
Point Value: 15
Cargo Space: 3
Base Move: L
Cannons: 3S, 3S, 3S, 3S
Number of Masts: 4

Schooner. If this ship ends her turn in a fog bank, on her next turn she can use her move action to move out of any other fog bank in play.

Nice!  Certainly an interesting ship to look at today.  The Sea Hag is incredibly dull and average until you see her feature ability, which is called fog hopping, or you could call the Sea Hag a “fog hopper”.  This is obviously due to the fact that she can hop out of any fog bank at will!  It’s definitely a cool ability, though another one that sounds better than it performs (like Ghost Ship, and the recently reviewed Shipwright).

Overall the Sea Hag is still not an exceptional ship, but rather a very gimmicky one.  Being the largest ship that has the fog hopping ability, she is often the flagship or centerpiece of fleets that are based around the fog hopping strategy.  I have two fleets involving this ship, and she has performed reasonably well in a few campaign games.  I’d recommend using her as a general gunship that takes advantage of fog sneak attacks to get the first strike.  Xerecs used her as a gold runner in VASSAL Campaign Game 3, which is a decent strategy for the Cursed to get gold at long range.

Standard 40 point games: Captain and helmsman.  She needs the speed boost, and is much more of a gunship than a gold runner.  (20 total points)

Medium size games (50-100 points): At least captain/helmsman, optional other crew.  Her guns are very average so a cannoneer or musketeer will help a bit.  An oarsman could protect other crew and let her limp away to the safety of the fog if she loses an engagement.  Since fog hopping is a very expensive gimmick, this game size probably won’t let you put many named crew aboard.

Large games (over 100 points):  Captain/helmsman of course, but now we can go a little crazy.  🙂  El Fantasma is a great crew to use on the Sea Hag, since he allows for the potential to come out of a fog bank at L+S+L+S speed with 8 shots!  Eternal would help too since fog hoppers often have short lives due to the nature of their hit-and-run raids without much support from elsewhere (since there are only a handful of fog hoppers in the whole game, so you can’t really put together a giant fog hopping squadron).   This version of Fantasma could be quite effective – the cannon bonus gives you 2S guns, while the reverse captain ability could help the Sea Hag escape into the fog after shooting.  Combine that with some extra actions from a Admiral’s Action 6 roll, and you could really have an effective and sneaky gunship.  Just keep in mind you may want to have a support ship around with a smokepot specialist if the Sea Hag gets far from her fog banks.  If you want to go on a massacre after exiting your fog bank, there is just enough point cap space for Sammy the Skull, White Crew, and a helmsman.  This ship is also the most expensive fog hopper, so conceivably you could fit copier Davy Jones aboard with a captain, and copy something like the Longship keyword to get 8 shots coming out of a fog bank.  XD

Game Piece Rating: 6/10.  The novelty and excitement of fog hopping prevents this ship from getting about a 4/10.  That said, it’s still not a great gunship by any means, and even the Cursed have numerous better options.

-You can get the Sea Hag here.

Gotta remember this more often!  It’s just that I don’t have pictures organized by ship, so even if I can recall a picture with the ship of the day in it, it can take a while to find it on my computer.

 

Picture of the Day

I know I’m cheating a bit, but I’ve got two today!  I’ve got a handful of nice pictures from a 3 player game I played 3 years ago today, on May 17th 2015.  It was a cool game where the Trinity was moving S+S+S between her ability and a helmsman early in the game.  However, she had gold aboard late in the game, and as boardings piled up, so did her masts – overboard!  XD   The ship gradually went from S+S+S to S+S, and even lost her helmsman to end up at just S.

My Valeroso was carrying some fiery stuff, and managed to really light up the poor Augusta, who eventually gave off quite the impressive smoke display.

It’s a Pirates’ Life for Me.

Ben