The setup featured 6 wild islands with 3 coins apiece, and flat earth rules.
Calypso was successful on the first turn, and the Paradox used a trade current to reach the first whirlpool and pop out of the second near the southwestern wild island. The Akua Lapu didn’t want to risk a lot of masts or crew via whirlpools, and needed to wait in order to use Grim’s ability, so she wasn’t in a hurry to do anything for the first part of the game. I must admit that the 5 extra points helped, since it allowed me to have a dedicated gold runner. The Paradox is very slow without a helmsman, but between trade currents and the whirlpools being placed close to wild islands, she wouldn’t need a lot of speed to move all over the map.
The Spanish set out, and the Paradox has an eventful trip already. She found an abandoned helmsman in the south, but also Barrel o’ Monkeys and a 6 coin. The monkeys took the 6 for themselves, which left the Paradox with no gold. Thus, she used another of Calypso’s whirlpools to emerge near another wild island, losing a mast in the process.
Risking negative UT’s, the bored Akua Lapu looks to explore in the northeast. The Paradox gets 3 coins from an island but one will be left behind due to the greedy monkeys.
Here, the Morning Star has emptied an island for the Spanish, while their gunships head northwest towards the Pirates. The Paradox unloads, while the Akua Lapu loads up 3 coins.
The AL gets the SAT from Calico Cat, allowing the AL to dock home for a Pirate windfall! You can see the strange situation around the Pirate HI, with two sargasso seas, a bunch of whirlpools, and a few trade currents, all near a corner of the map.
Much excitement! After some rules issues, the Paradox is forced south from using some faulty Bad Maps! However, the Spanish weren’t completely fortunate: Calypso finally rolled to place another whirlpool, and luckily for me Calico Cat also rolled successfully. The Akua Lapu took off for the Spanish home island!
Grim the Savage led a raiding party, and the Pirates took all of the Spanish loot!! The gimmick was complete, though the AL still had to make it home in one piece and unload the gold. Speaking of unloading gold, the Paradox did just that, further increasing the Spanish treasure deficit. At this point everything in my fleet was working perfectly, as even the slow Paradox was turned into an awesome gold runner between the whirlpools and her explorer.
Calypso placed another whirlpool, allowing the AL to scoot around the fog bank and be whisked back to friendly waters. The Morning Star unloaded another island worth of gold, and the Leon was approaching the Pirate home island and managed to hit the AL.
Another windfall! The Akua Lapu docks home the stolen gold, and the game was turning into a blowout. I decided I had enough whirlpools and trade currents to execute any late-game strategies and maneuvers I might need, so the Coeur and Banshee’s Cry got to do some sight-seeing.
However, the Morning Star would have none of it! She rammed the Coeur out of action and stole the 6 that the monkeys had originally stolen from the Paradox. The Leon arrived through a whirlpool, but the attack naturally triggered a Pirate response, with the Paradox and Akua Lapu arriving shortly thereafter. In hindsight, the AL could have just raided the unprotected Spanish home island a second time, but instead there was some fun combat.
Disaster for the Spanish! The Leon sank the Coeur, but the Morning Star boarded the Paradox (when she had 3 masts remaining after the AL shot off 2 of them) and lost the 6 coin! The Paradox took full advantage, speeding away through the whirlpool. The AL got another SAT from Cat and blasted two masts off the MS before turning east in anticipation of another HI raid!
The MS and Leon exchange crew so the Leon has Castro, captain, and helmsman. The Paradox docks home the 6 coin she originally found on the second turn, while the Banshee’s Cry prepared to sacrifice herself to defend the AL.
Race for the Spanish home island! The Leon gets an SAT from Castro, but now the Paradox is ready to assist the AL too.
The AL raided the Spanish home island of the last two coins in the game, but Castro got an SAT to allow the Leon to shoot twice. Furthering Spanish woes, both shots missed, which allowed the AL to escape via whirlpool after yet another SAT from Cat. The Pirates had escaped, and more gold was unloaded to end the game!
In a huge blowout, the Pirates defeat the Spanish 55-0! This is one of the only games I’ve ever played where a fleet gets every single coin in the treasure distribution. No gold was sunk, and the Pirates collected and stole the rest for a massive victory. This game made me want to use Calypso more, and it’s also one of the best gimmick games/fleets I’ve seen.
We both learned a lot from this game: I learned how effective Calypso can be by not always needing helmsmen on slower gold runners, as the Paradox was just as valuable a ship as the Akua Lapu. Repkosai learned the opposite – speed wins games, as the Acorazado was way too slow to have any impact on the game. We also learned some rules situations; though I was surprised by the answers and we played them wrong, it wouldn’t have affected the final outcome since the Pirates were so dominant in this game. Thanks for reading! More adventures await!
Welcome to the second VASSAL tournament! The winner of the tournament will be declared the best fleet of all time!!
Just like Tournament #1, each matchup consists of 2 fleets facing each other in 1v1 competition in a 3-game series. The fleet that wins the series advances to the next round. To save time, if a fleet wins the first 2 games of a series, the third game of the series will likely not be played. If you’d like to join the tournament, just let us know.
These games are being played under most of the “standard” game rules (8 coins per player worth 15 gold, 6 islands, etc). However, there will be a few house rules:
-Xerecs and I are changing the turn order after the first game of each series. The fleet that went second in the first game will go first in the second game. This is to ensure maximum fairness so one die roll doesn’t effectively decide a series. (though Game 3’s will still feature regular rolls)
-We will play until there is a clear winner. This will often be the “more than half the starting gold” rule, but there may be exceptions.
The seeding is based primarily on each fleet’s winning percentage. Of the 16 fleets participating in T2, 6 were determined before T1 based on their past performance – these are the best of the best. Then, the top 4 fleets from T1 were added. Finally, over the past few days Xerecs and I have selected 3 fleets each for the final 6 fleets of the tournament. The seeding wasn’t strictly based on winning percentage – exceptions were made based on our judgement and who was going to play each fleet in the first round.
We based our bracket on this, with the exception that in each matchup, the higher seeded fleet is on top. The picture below shows the bracket, but to clarify, here are all of the matchups and fleets. This order simply goes down the left “division” or column, and then it goes down from the right. However, we may not play the games in this order. Also, some of these fleets may be edited slightly by the time we play them.
If I had to bet money on the winner of the tournament, I would pick UPS 2. Xerecs said he would pick either HMS GT or UPS 5. Our “sleeper” picks were generally the Doldrums and “Quick wins the game” fleets.
The first matchup was underway! HMS GT vs. Artillery Strike, in a series that would likely be played in a deathmatch style.
Basically, I forgot about Hidden Cove. The overpowered event allowed the Neptuno to strike first, where she scored a whopping 5/5 hits on the Grand Temple. The London was overmatched for the remainder of the battle, and Artillery Strike pulled off a major upset!
The second game underway:
After a somewhat lengthy maneuvering process the GT finally got in range of the Neptuno and sank her outright!
Diablo managed to go 4/4 against the GT, but the Spanish fleet was effectively doomed. HMS GT won the game to even the series 1-1!
For the final game, the home islands were close together. The Neptuno didn’t have a lot of room on her first turn, and luckily I got an SAT to dismast her. From there the game was predictable, with the English firepower too much to overcome.
HMS GT wins the series 2-1 and advances to the second round! This series was unique in that it was essentially a deathmatch, since neither fleet loaded any gold in any of the games. This would soon change however, as Xerecs and I got started on the next matchup. The first game is in progress!
10/16/2016
Two more series have been played! We decided to go in seed order – the second matchup would feature the #2 seed, and so on.
UPS 5 (#2 seed) (commanded by xerecs)
vs. RtSS English (#15 seed) (commanded by a7xfanben)
This was my first time playing my RtSS fleet challenge entry, and my first time using the English native canoes. Of course, my fleet was in for a rude awakening, facing a UPS variant.
The canoes were designed to deny the Zeus from an island, but the Zeus sacced to explore first. The canoes scattered, while the Halcyon ducked into fog in anticipation of battle.
The Halcyon attacked but only scored one hit! This left the RtSS fleet in grave danger.
The Zeus sacs to sink the Halcyon! The Elthelfleda returns home with gold as canoes load gold.
The Elthelfleda gets home before the Zeus can strike, but things aren’t looking good for the English.
The Zeus then went after the canoes, eliminating one and being pestered by another. The Zeus had lost some masts when the Elthelfleda redocked at her home island, firing at the Zeus in the process.
The Zeus eliminated the gold-laden canoes but this left the Elthelfleda to sail east for more gold. The Zeus docked home, but was still a huge threat.
The Zeus sacced to cut off the Elthelfleda before she could return home!
The Elthelfleda was captured and UPS 5 won the game 11-8!
The second game featured different home islands. I made the mistake of putting the canoes near the Zeus again, but it didn’t seem to matter much.
Similar to the last game, but the Halcyon stays docked.
The Halcyon comes out and hits 2/3, trying to buy time for the gold runners.
The Zeus simply crushes the opposition. The Halcyon lies derelict while the Elthelfleda is close to being dismasted.
Now it was a chase for the canoes! I decided to spread them out, simply hoping that the Zeus would only be able to catch 2. The English were just trying to avoid being shut out at this point.
A canoe did manage to slip by, but UPS 5 still won the game easily, 9-2. UPS 5 advances to the second round!
The next matchup!
UPS 4 (#3 seed) (commanded by xerecs)
vs. Quick wins the game (#14 seed) (commanded by a7xfanben)
It’s important to note that the “Quick” fleet had the Coeur swapped out for Hidden Cove. The Coeur’s explorer was moved to the Courageux, while Cissey was moved to the Vengeance.
The sea was set for Game 1!
It quickly (no pun intended heh) became apparent that this series would be considerably more interesting than the last two. The first was a mismatch with HMS GT emerging victorious, with the second matchup also ending in a predictable fashion. Here, both fleets possessed gold bonus abilities (3 for UPS 4, and 1 for Quick), and both fleets were generally focused on gold, though each also had a purpose-built gunship. Here, the French gold runners have abandoned their explorers in favor of more gold, while Captain Jack Sparrow (CJS) gets busy aboard the Coral up north.
I knew I needed to force the action with the Vengeance, or else the Pirates would get a huge lead with all of their gold bonuses. The Coral would be the primary target in all games of the series, and here the Vengeance dismasted her with a well-placed L-range shot! At the French home island, the Pique is about to be given an explore action to give her gold to the Courageux, who will redock to get Aristide’s bonus on both hauls.
Battle erupts in the northwest, where the Longshanks and Vengeance duel. The Vengeance has a durability and cancelling advantage, but her gunners seemed tired to start this tournament. The Sea Crane has no UPS strategy to work with, so she sails out to get gold on her own.
After missing another shot, the Vengeance abandons the LS to go after the Sea Crane, hoping to cripple the ship before she docks home gold. The Courageux and Pique continue to tag team, getting the gold bonus on a single coin.
The Sea Crane did manage to get home in time, but the Vengeance was in cancelling range! Lenoir cancelled Genny Gallows, denying the Pirates an additional 2 gold. Battle then continued, with the Vengeance eventually winning out with just one mast remaining. The gold was counted up, and the Quick fleet had won a 19-14 upset! It helped that they had found most of the silver coins coveted by the Pirates.
For the second game the HI’s would once again be at opposite ends of the playing area.
The Coral does her thing, and the Vengeance comes after her.
The Pirates can get gold extremely quickly, but the French have 6 coins on their runners. The Vengeance is not fast enough to catch the Coral…
Then things started getting interesting. The Pirates built Dead Man’s Point on the island, but the Vengeance rammed off the Coral’s single mast.
The fort took out a mast on the Vengeance and Barbinais along with it, but the Coral was dismasted after repairing.
The Coral sank, and the Vengeance and Longshanks went at it again!
The Vengeance couldn’t overcome the combined firepower of the fort and LS. The French cleaned out their two islands, but the Sea Crane established the Devil’s Maw on the center island. This effectively ended the game, and it was time to count!
The Pirates had won a 31-24 victory in one of the highest-scoring standard games you’ll ever see! 55 total gold was counted, meaning that 25 extra gold had been created with the gold bonuses! (almost another game’s worth of gold!)
A Game 3 finale was in order! The French got to go first, and I made sure that the Pirate HI was next to my own.
The French used Hidden Cove to spring the Vengeance to the center island. She then moved east, looking to attack the Coral once again.
Once again the Coral built Dead Man’s Point:
The Vengeance got lucky and hit 3/4 on the fort to severely limit its return firepower. The Coral was in major trouble, with the LS too far away to help.
Similar to the first game, the Coral ran for it and was dismasted by a long range shot! As you can see, both fleets have unloaded some gold and received some bonuses from it.
The LS went after the French gold runners for the first time, but the Courageux fought back instead of running! The Vengeance went after the Sea Crane, and it looked like the Quick fleet could pull off a major upset if they could just dismast the remaining Pirate ships.
The battle in the center rages, with the Pique getting in on the action:
The LS was sunk and the Vengeance dismasted the Sea Crane to end the game!
The French had 16 gold to the Pirates’ 9. Quick wins the game advances to the second round!
Here’s the updated bracket. After two predictable matchups, we have our first upset. (The X’s at the upper left mean that the fleet was eliminated without getting any gold, while the 0’s mean that that fleet won the game despite not getting any gold.)
10/16/2016
Norvegia (#4 seed) (commanded by a7xfanben)
vs. Spanish Meta V2 (#13 seed) (commanded by xerecs)
The next matchup featured the classic Norvegia setup. We only had time for Game 1 so far.
The Neptune’s Hoard (NH) found Rum on the middle island, freezing the ship for a turn. In hindsight, I could have used the ship’s ability to trade away the UT, but in addition, Rum probably shouldn’t be in the fleet in the first place.
The San Cristobal (SC) caught the NH and blasted most of her masts off. Luckily for the Pirates, the final mast standing meant the NH could return home with a sac action. The Star of Siam docked home gold on the turn as well, giving Norvegia a bit of a windfall. The Banshee’s Cry (BC) is hiding from the SC while the Monarca runs gold.
At one point all the Pirate ships were docked at the home island, leading to the SC resorting to ramming.
The Monarca reached home with Buried Treasure (another UT I’m taking out of the Norvegia build for future games) and Spices, while the NH was able to damage the SC with a double action, including a ram of her own. The BC grabbed some coins but wasn’t able to get them back home.
In the end, Barbary Banner and the sheer volume of gold gave Norvegia the victory! The final score was 23-16. We look forward to Game 2!
10/19/2016
Norvegia (#4 seed) (commanded by a7xfanben)
vs. Spanish Meta V2 (#13 seed) (commanded by xerecs)
The second game of the series was about to begin!
Total destruction! The San Cristobal gets an EA, which lets her dismast the NH and BC. The Star of Siam was in the fog, and came out to score a hit. However, the game was as good as over when the NH’s final mast fell.
The SC sinks the remainder of the fleet, and the Spanish Meta fleet wins Game 2 by a score of 1-0! (from eliminating the Hag of Tortuga aboard the BC when she sank)
For the third time in the first four matchups, we were going to a decisive Game 3!
The NH and Star of Siam reached islands on their first turn, and the BC headed to a third island. The Pirates wanted to split their fleet so the SC would have to chase down multiple targets.
Once again the SC got an EA, but she couldn’t reach the Neptune’s Hoard! The Star of Siam was sunk instead, allowing the NH to reach home with gold.
With the NH docked, the SC then went after the Banshee’s Cry. The BC was sunk, but this opened the door for the Pirates to strike. I nearly went for the northernmost wild island, but I then remembered that from past experience, sinking the only gold runner an opponent has gives you a very good shot at winning the game. The NH used a sac action to reach the Monarca and dismasted her!
The SC finally missed the EA roll (about time haha), and missed the NH with both shots. This allowed the NH another sac action, which was used to sink the Monarca and miraculously dismast the SC as well!
Norvegia won the game 8-1. Norvegia advances to the second round! This was a fun series, and the Spanish Meta fleet is definitely a tough customer. The biggest differences were the guaranteed sac actions of the Norvegia fleet against the EA roll for the SC, which sometimes doesn’t work, as well as having 3 gold runners compared to 1.
I really love my EA gold runners fleet, but I love UPS 2 as well. Also, as I said previously, if I had to pick a fleet to win the tournament, it would be UPS 2, although it’s very close and there is very tough competition. I was disappointed to see that these fleets have already faced each other, with UPS 2 prevailing 2 games to 1, but that was bound to happen in this tournament anyway, and will likely happen again.
The EA fleet got off to a great start, with the Joya and Star of Siam (SoS) receiving EA’s on the first turn. The Joya grabbed gold from the center island, while the SoS headed west.
Then it was time for UPS 2. The strategy darrin outlined in his fleet was followed, and by the end of the turn UPS 2 had a bunch of gold sitting on their home island, two islands explored, Paradis de la Mer built on the island the SoS was sailing towards, and turtles swimming towards their home island.
The second turn saw the Joya dock home gold with the help of Skrew Engine, while the Hai Peng built another fort.
The SoS eliminated some turtles, while the Joya made for the northeastern island. The Hai Peng wasn’t quite fast enough to beat the Joya to the island from across the sea, so instead took a shot against the Algeciras (which missed) and then returned to Dead Man’s Point to transfer another coin home.
The Joya used Homing Beacon to get home extremely quickly, and with most of the gold unloaded and the rest in forts, the game was called. UPS 2 had won handily, 27-13. This was the first time using UPS 2 in a while, and it didn’t disappoint!
UPS 2 went first in the second game of the series, building a fort on the second island but finding useless UT’s and low gold values.
The Joya got an EA and found turtles, and it was clear that this game would be tougher for UPS 2 to win.
Only then did UPS 2 play Hidden Cove, and CJS transported some coins home and Dead Man’s Point was erected on the island.
That caused the SoS to change course, while the Joya got another EA to dock home some gold. The turtles were on their way, and they had a short trip home.
Here I made a mistake, thinking the Hai Peng could dismast the Algeciras with a shoot and ram. Both shots missed, and the Hai Peng was pinned. After dumping some crew, the Intrepide sailed from home, as it was a bit of an emergency for the usually-calm UPS 2 fleet. The Intrepide was ready to sail to the Paradis fort if needed, taking the gold to the much safer location of the home island.
The Algeciras scored a hit on the pinned Hai Peng, but it was ignored with a Cross of Coronado. The SoS then missed twice in a row, and UPS 2 had another chance.
The Hai Peng finally managed to dismast the Algeciras and escape a bad situation, scooting off to the southwest island to trade home some coins. My thinking here was that, knowing the gold values on the wild island, I could create a bigger gold advantage by tossing them home than eliminating turtles. It’s not likely the Hai Peng could get all of the turtles, but each coin transferred via CJS would get +2’d by Maurice Aristide. In addition, eliminating the turtles could have meant facing more shots from the SoS.
UPS 2 was content to transfer home coins and get the bonus on each one, while the EA runners got busy attacking Dead Man’s Point. The fort took a hit from the SoS, while the Joya waited for an EA to get in range since she had no captain. The fort’s gunners didn’t expect any contest with UPS 2 going, and they were asleep at their posts and forgot to fire.
The Star of Siam’s guns woke them up, and they connected to dismast the SoS! This took Gallows out of the action, and the EA runners were essentially down to one ship. The turtles reached home safely after the Hai Peng eliminated one of them, while the Intrepide and Coeur sailed north now that the HP didn’t have any gold to transfer.
The battle at the fort intensified! The Joya eliminated its final cannon, but that happened as the entire UPS 2 fleet sailed up to the Joya. The Joya was rammed by the HP and Coeur, while the Intrepide loaded the final available coin from the fort.
The Joya steals the coin! The SoS heads for the center island, where the Trees UT is located.
The HP stole the coin back, and the Joya was sunk.
The SoS used Homing Beacon to return home and repair, while the Intrepide took the coin from the HP. Aristide worked his magic once more, and the game ended. Once the gold was counted, it was obvious that the gold in the forts would not have given the EA fleet the win if they had gotten it.
The final score was:
UPS 2: 37 gold
EA gold runners: 17 gold
UPS 2 advances to Round 2! This came as no surprise, especially given that UPS 2 had already won a series against the EA fleet. My EA gold runner fleet is now 9-13, but 4 of those losses have come against UPS 2, one of the best fleets of all time.
With that, we also have our first Round 2 matchup: Norvegia vs. UPS 2!
12/1/2016
Xerecs and I were able to continue the tournament! We played three games; the third one was possibly the longest (by number of turns) 40 point game I’ve been involved in. It was incredibly desperate and wacky – keep reading to see what happened!
Becalmed would soon prove to be a massive nuisance to the AP’s, giving the Doldrums fleet a head start. The Eagle waited for the Roanoke in the fog, while the Banshee’s Cry and Amity both docked at the same island. The Longshanks is already headed back with gold due to Hidden Cove.
The Eagle managed to dismast the Roanoke and come to the BC’s aid when the Amity rammed the BC! With their gunship out of action and no gold on their ships or home island, it would be a tough road back for the AP’s in this game.
The Eagle has sunk the Roanoke, while the Longshanks rams the Amity.
The Eagle finishes off the Amity while the Bloody Jewel returns home with gold. The LS rescues the BC. The AP’s manage some gold as the Bandido returns home, but it’s only to avoid a shutout at this point. The Doldrums win 20-4!
The AP’s went first in the second game, but the Doldrums still managed to hit the Roanoke and Amity with Becalmed on their first turn. The Eagle stayed home, anticipating the Roanoke returning to her HI, while the Doldrum gold runners were wary of the dangerous American 5 master.
The Roanoke instead headed west, prompting the Eagle to sail out. Suddenly 4 ships were near the center island! The Bloody Jewel unloads gold, while the Amity grabs some for the AP’s.
Shots fired! The Eagle wasn’t able to hit anything with her first action, but by saccing she got lucky and took out 3 masts on the Roanoke! The Longshanks rammed the Bandido derelict, and combat was in full swing.
Of course, in a game this small, it didn’t last long. The Eagle used another double action to dismast the Roanoke, while the LS towed the Bandido.
This led to a strange situation where the Eagle purposely didn’t shoot at the Amity, since dismasting her would end the game. The Doldrums weren’t 100% sure they had more gold than the AP’s, so the Eagle sailed by while the Amity took some ineffective shots at the captured Roanoke. The BC engaged the Amity but failed her ram and was then dismasted.
The game ended when the Eagle docked home the Roanoke; the gold and captured Commodore Perry gave the Doldrums a 21-8 victory! The Doldrums advances to Round 2! Becalmed was certainly a factor in the two games, but good dice luck and appropriate maneuvering by the Eagle also won the day. (The Eagle would have to receive the MVS “Most Valuable Ship” award for this series)
The home islands were relatively close together. I was very excited to return to my HPFF fleet, which is a variant on the UPS strategy. Of the 16 ships the two fleets had on the ocean, none had more than 2 masts. Throw in only a single captain ability (Captain Jack Sparrow), and it looked like the series wouldn’t feature much combat. What looked like it could be a quick game turned into a long affair….
This is the situation before the swarm fleet even took a turn. The Hai Peng has followed the HPFF strategy, building Paradis de la Mer on the center wild island. The UT Maps of Alexandria was found, giving both fleets the location of each UT and standard coin. The HP (Hai Peng) loaded the traded oarsman and a coin, while the Banshee’s Cry headed for the southwestern island. Finally the swarm fleet could take its turn!
Here, the swarm fleet has set out, but the Hai Peng is at it again. The Devil’s Maw was built on the westernmost island, and the HP loaded another coin and the Holy Water UT.
The HP then headed south to build Dead Man’s Point, the third fort on four wild islands! Soon afterward, things started to “devolve into chaos”, as I like to say. A few swarm ships got too close to Paradis de la Mer, who shot a couple masts off. The Banshee’s Cry went there to grab any extra coins not used for the fort’s construction. The swarm fleet mostly divided itself in two: a contingent of ships headed west to attack the Devil’s Maw, while another group headed south towards the HPFF home island. There, the Hai Peng had just docked home the coins she had picked up on her journey to most of the wild islands. However, she was soon under attack! The swarm fleet can utilize rams quite effectively, and this strategy began to pay off as the HP lost a mast. CJS was surprised to be in so much trouble at his own HI! It’s worth noting that the northern wild island was effectively irrelevant at this point, having been emptied by the swarm fleet.
The swarm fleet took their turn, and the momentum began to shift! The sheer number of swarmers overwhelmed the Hai Peng and dismasted her via ramming! Then, in an expert display of seamanship, Xerecs used the swarm fleet to capture and chain-tow the Hai Peng away from the HPFF home island and out of harm’s way!!!! Chain-towing in a regular game, using about 6 total ships! (I sort of introduced chain-towing as a tactic back in my first 500 point game; it’s normally only viable in very large games so to see it here was epic.) At this point I commented that I was willing to lose despite my love for the HPFF fleet, simply because of Xerecs’ fantastic move and the honorable way of losing such a unique game. However, it was becoming evident that there was a lot of game left to play! The swarmers took up position in the far west against the Devil’s Maw, and began their bombardment! This was another unique feature of this game – a prolonged assault against a fort by multiple ships, something you’d be more likely to see in real life than in a game of Pirates.
With the Hai Peng captured, Lord Mycron aboard the Patagonia can now give the extra action to the Banshee’s Cry. The BC zips home with an extra coin from Paradis, giving the HPFF fleet 11 gold on their home island. The Lezard sails out, the HPFF fleet desperate now that the HP is gone. The Devil’s Maw puts up a good fight against the uncaptained swarmers, dismasting two ships even as three more prepare to fire.
The two battles continue to rage. The swarmers now concentrate some ships against the remaining HPFF ships. The Lezard and Patagonia are both dismasted by rams! The Devil’s Maw has knocked the western swarm squadron down to 2 masts, meaning that the fort has won the battle! Another rarity, as forts are often destroyed before they can even fire a shot when a fast gunship sails in and mauls them immediately. Between the lack of captains in the swarm fleet and the small size of the ships, the fort was in a uniquely good position. The Banshee’s Cry tries to get gold, while the Hai Peng is towed home by the swarmers. At this point, the only way for the swarm fleet to win is to get some of the gold from the forts. However, they will be hard-pressed to destroy all 3 with their lack of firepower.
Both fleets continue to have some successes: the Devil’s Maw finishes off the swarmers in the west, and the BC uses Skrew Engine to duck into a fog bank with a coin. However, the swarm fleet sinks the Lezard and captures the Patagonia! This gives the swarmers access to Lord Mycron.
Some turns later, and the Hai Peng has been repaired! She sets out for the swarm fleet, and is by far their best hope for them to destroy the forts, between her speed and CJS’s captain ability. Her first shots miss the Devil’s Maw, but Mycron can give the ship another action. At this point the Pirate fort is down to 3 cannons and faces a more powerful squadron in this second battle, with more swarm ships arriving soon. A ship stands guard at the HPFF HI, where the BC needs a 2 or 3 coming out of the fog to dock home her coin.
With 4 ships the swarm fleet manages to destroy the Devil’s Maw in the second assault! The Hai Peng is given the Patagonia’s action to load the 5 coin, which is extremely important. With two forts left, the swarmers will need some luck if they want to destroy both, especially against Paradis’ overpowered ability. The Banshee’s Cry has docked home a 3 for HPFF, and since she’s the only ship remaining in the fleet, she has become essentially invincible! If the swarm fleet dismasts the BC, the game immediately ends and the remaining gold in the two forts counts for the HPFF fleet, which would give them the win. Knowing this, the BC immediately rams the nearest swarm ship in the hopes of capturing and repairing it, but the hapless Venture sinks instantly!
The Banshee’s Cry manages to capture El Raton and even the Patagonia! However, the Patagonia is quickly sunk after being recaptured, giving the swarm fleet an extra 1 gold from Bratley’s Ransom ability, which could certainly matter in this hotly contested game. In the south, Dead Man’s Point has already fallen! Some of the fort’s gunners fell asleep at their posts after the battle of the Devil’s Maw took so long, and the fort is quickly defeated. The Hai Peng tries to load the gold used to build the fort… and we suddenly realize that I had accidentally cheated! The BC’s entire trip to Dead Man’s Point earlier in the game was all for nought: I thought there were two 3’s in the fort, but in reality the 3 used to build the fort was the only standard coin on the island. Thus the coin couldn’t be removed from the fort, and we corrected the mistake by transferring the coin from my HI to the Hai Peng. I knew something was amiss when I counted 38 total gold in play (30 + 5 from Barbary Banner, + a mysterious 3 that I mistook for an extra coin when it wasn’t).
Something else happened in this segment of turns that completely turned the game on its head. When the BC went to Dead Man’s Point to grab the “extra” 3 coin, she did pick up the Jailhouse Dog UT (so I guess the trip wasn’t completely worthless!). I completely forgot about the UT until one of the swarm ships won a boarding party against the BC. Having to look at the BC’s deckplate for the first time in a while, I suddenly saw the UT! I then consulted the Pirate Code and found this:
The Pirate Code wrote:
Jailhouse Dog
-This ability may be used at any time during the game.
Ecstatic, I then happened to (luckily!) read further:
The Pirate Code wrote:
-This ability may be used to remove a unique treasure that is worth gold after it has been unloaded to a home island, provided that unloading that treasure did not trigger an endgame condition. If any endgame condition has been reached, Jailhouse Dog can no longer be used.
I used Jailhouse Dog to eliminate the Barbary Banner sitting on the swarm HI and cost them 5 gold!
The BC lost one of her two oarsmen instead of having the UT stolen, and now it was once again a regular 30-gold game instead of the one-time “38”! At this point I knew exactly what I had to do: with 11 gold on my HI, just hold Paradis (with a 5 coin inside) and I would win the game. Jailhouse Dog meant the swarm fleet would have to get the gold from Paradis after all, rather than just the Devil’s Maw and Dead Man’s Point. Despite being on the winning side of the UT in this game, Jailhouse Dog is still one of my least favorite UT’s because it can be OP and game-breaking. It’s one of the ultimate “party poopers” of Pirates CSG.
With 2 of the 3 forts destroyed, it looked like the game would finally end soon. There was a brief scuffle near Paradis, which resulted in two derelict swarm ships. The Hai Peng hurried home with the gold from Dead Man’s Point (the real 3 that the BC never should have loaded heh), while the gunners at Paradis prepared for a final clash.
The BC captured the Intrepide and towed her to Paradis to repair, while the fort sank the other swarm ship. The Hai Peng sailed out, knowing that only one of the two HPFF ships (now including the Intrepide) could be dismasted (unless docked at the fort and therefore able to repair).
In between the above picture and this one, the Hai Peng rammed the Banshee’s Cry at such an angle that the guns of Paradis couldn’t hit the HP. However, the Intrepide rammed the HP and forced her to retreat. The HP went home to repair one final time! At this point I had been playing the game and typing in the chat with one hand for a while due to eating. This led to many bizarre and amusing things in the VASSAL chat, and further contributed to this long and wacky game.
The Hai Peng sailed out and dismasted the Intrepide, leaving the BC as the only HPFF ship once again. The Hai Peng tried to attack Paradis, but once the first die was rolled for Paradis’ effect, it was obvious that it was impossible for the HP to get enough hits. The fort’s guns boomed once more, and the Hai Peng was derelict! This seemed to end the game, but the swarm fleet still had the Jolly Mon at their home island! The Jolly Mon vs. Paradis de la Mer matchup didn’t happen for obvious reasons: the Jolly Mon would need an absolutely unprecedented string of luck to win, and even then a single successful ram from the BC would end the game as well.
Hai Peng Fort Frenzy wins the game 16-15!! 11 gold was on their HI, with 5 in the intact fort. The swarm fleet had 14 gold and 1 extra from sinking Bratley. How fitting that one of the longest and most desperate 40 point games ever ends with a 1-gold margin of victory! This is a game we’ll remember for a long time, and continues the trend of the HPFF fleet having very long and interesting games: its first series (against the AP fleet ironically) was also quite memorable. After all that, we still have at least one more game left to play in the series!
The second game of the series got started, with the swarm fleet going first. For the second game in a row the Hai Peng built Paradis de la Mer on the center island.
The HP was headed to the southeast (building Dead Man’s Point), where she found the Maps of Alexandria. By that point she had also loaded Holy Water and Jailhouse Dog. Paradis dismasted the swarm’s Banshee’s Cry, while the HPFF BC docked in the northeast.
The BC used Skrew Engine to dock home a few coins, including the Barbary Banner. This time HPFF had found both the dog and the banner, giving them a decided advantage. It was already likely that HPFF would win, but they also had luck on their side. Xerecs’ cannons were ineffective, and DMP crushed all comers in the southeast.
Here, the swarm fleet has some gold home, but they’re running out of ships. At this point the swarm fleet had to do the near-impossible: steal the Jailhouse Dog from the HP, use it to eliminate Barbary Banner, and then somehow destroy Paradis de la Mer to get the fort’s 5 coin. HPFF had 16 gold when counting Paradis’ gold but not counting the banner or the 3 in Dead Man’s Point. The Banshee’s Cry and Lezard were dismasted via rams but quickly repaired.
The Hai Peng got involved in the skirmish at the HPFF home island, where she was actually dismasted by rams and forced to hand over the Jailhouse Dog! Xerecs immediately played it to eliminate the Barbary Banner, but after the BC and Lezard got revenge by dismasting two swarm ships, the swarm fleet almost certainly wouldn’t be able to destroy Paradis. Realizing that the Hai Peng could move S+L+S when derelict (oarsman + both bonuses intact from having a captain and helmsman aboard), I decided to take off, knowing I could repair at either fort but knowing that the HP would be captured if she stayed at home.
An overly lengthy endgame process saw the Algeciras capture the Patagonia, so Mycron gave the swarm’s Coeur some extra actions. The Carrion Crow took the BC and Lezard out, leaving HPFF with just the HP. That would prove to be enough however, as the HP repaired at DMP, then dismasted the Carrion Crow. With only 2 masts left in the swarm fleet, we decided to call the game. HPFF had a 14-8 advantage even without the forts, which made the final score 22-8. Hai Peng Fort Frenzy advances to Round 2!
This was a bit of an odd matchup – a UPS variant against a fleet designed for deathmatch play. The Kettering fleet used the same nasty UT’s as the HMS Grand Temple fleet to maximize the competitive nature of the tournament.
Darrin’s fleet rolled to go first, and I followed his strategy to a T. The fleet had 12 gold on its HI by the end of the first turn.
CJS traded another coin home on the next turn, which was the final coin on the center island (Missionary was traded away on the first turn and the BC loaded a Monkey’s Paw). This gave the gold race fleet 17 gold, technically enough to win. However, knowing that the BC had only traded away 8 total gold, there was 22 more gold out on the islands. To be fair we kept playing in the off chance that the Kettering fleet could come back, since the gold race fleet didn’t have a true majority of all the gold now in play (9 extra on their HI from the bonuses).
The Rover turned around and rammed the Kettering! However, no damage was done. Then, in a bizarre twist, the Rover won the boarding party 7-6! A 2 point ship had just won a boarding party against one of the most feared ships in the game, and there was nothing the canceller ability could do about it! To continue the oddities, the Kettering then missed 4 shots in a row (partly due to Brent Rice having been eliminated in the boarding) before the Minuteman finally put an end to the mighty Rover. That whole sequence guaranteed the Banshee’s Cry another explore action at a different island, and it was over. CJS traded home a 7, which became a whopping 10 after the gold bonuses. Darrin’s gold race wins the first game of the series 27-0, the greatest margin of victory so far in the tournament and a higher margin of victory than any game from Tournament #1.
This time the Kettering fleet went first, and the BC was unlucky enough to find 2 negative UT’s at the center island, loading Maps of Hades.
The Rover was dismasted, and it was clear that the BC would have to do some sailing (rather than just “Hidden Cove’ing” to the island and redocking) in order to win the game. The BC needed more regular coins at the center island rather than UT’s. Negative UT’s may be the most reliable way to slow down these UPS fleets, since treasure traders like Gilbert can only toss away one at a time. Even then, there’s a chance you’ll get another bad one in the exchange!
The Maps of Hades allowed the Kettering to easily sink the BC, while the Sea Crane and Bonnie Liz sailed out to look for gold instead. The strategy of the gold race fleet was massively compromised, and the serious firepower advantage of the Kettering fleet looked like a tough obstacle to overcome.
Here the Sea Crane is being towed by the Kettering for her gold and gold bonus ability. The Bonnie Liz has gotten the Rover back in action, and they look to ram and steal before it’s too late.
The Bonnie Liz actually managed to steal a 7 from the Sea Crane, but it was promptly retaken by the Algeciras, who gave it to the Sea Crane to get the +1 bonus. The Rover was smashed again, while the Bonnie Liz tried to commit suicide on a reef in order to force the game’s end, simply hoping for enough gold to win. However, it would have been too late anyway, for the Kettering fleet won the game 22-9!
We have begun the third and final game of this series, and hope to complete it in the near future. After that, the competition heats up in Round 2!
The Banshee’s Cry had to make a run for a second island, while the Rover tried to hold off the Kettering and the Sea Crane left her HI.
Disaster for the gold race fleet: the BC is sunk, the Sea Crane captured, and the Rover dismasted. The Bonnie Liz is their only hope now.
The Kettering encountered a Missionary, but managed to get some gold home, leaving the Minuteman flotilla near the middle of the map. The Bonnie Liz was off to the southwestern island, where she found Wolves.
With Wolves making some of the gold unavailable, the game was soon decided. Darrin’s gold race had won a close 21-16 victory and advances to the second round of the tournament!
After the entire first round, here is the updated bracket. As before, the first number in each pair of scores belongs to the upper fleet, whether they won the game or not. Many fleets were quite impressive, winning both games of their series, while others prevailed against tough competition. The biggest upset was Quick wins the game (#14 seed) beating UPS 4, the #3 seed. After exactly 20 games in Round 1, there are 8 fleets remaining!
The home islands were the same as they were for the third game of the previous matchup, and with HMS GT following a similar style as the USS Kettering fleet, it would prove to be a similar game.
Once again, the Rover is dismasted as the BC runs off to a second island.
I didn’t take many pictures, but the Bonnie Liz ended up as the last ship in the gold race fleet once again. This time, the Bonnie Liz managed to do a suicide run onto a reef to force the game’s end, knowing that her fleet likely had more gold than the HMS GT fleet. This was correct, as darrin’s fleet won 15-6.
There are no pictures from the second game of the matchup, because there doesn’t need to be. The gold race fleet rolled to go first (after going second in the first game), and the Banshee’s Cry managed to find only standard coins on the island she was Hidden Cove’d to! This meant she could simply trade 4 coins home in 2 turns and get the +3 bonuses on all of them. There was no need to scramble and no need for a second island. With 13 regular gold on the HI, there was only 17 gold available for the GT fleet. However, with 12 gold in bonuses in addition to the 13 standard, there was absolutely no way for the GT fleet to win.
Darrin’s gold race wins 25-0 and advances to Round 3, the semifinals! The #1 seed is out of the tournament in an upset! It wasn’t hugely surprising, since the gold race fleet is a UPS variant and the HMS GT fleet is built for combat. The perfect scenario combined with going first let the gold race fleet attain an easy second victory.
2/3/2017
Xerecs and I have played a whopping 5 games in VASSAL Tournament #2! (and nearly finished a 6th)
Both fleets quickly got to work, with HPFF building Paradis de la Mer in the center and the Devil’s Maw in the north, and UPS 5 building their Devil’s Maw in the west. UPS 5 found better coin values.
Here, HPFF has gone to the southeastern island, but the Zeus has destroyed their Devil’s Maw!
With the remaining gold contained within the two forts, there wasn’t much HPFF could do with their lack of firepower. The Lezard blocked the Zeus temporarily while the Hai Peng sped off in an attempt to destroy the Devil’s Maw to get at the gold inside. The Banshee’s Cry looked to take out the Hag of Tortuga.
The BC succeeded, but was dismasted for the effort. The 1 extra gold would not be enough to make the difference for HPFF, whose Hai Peng managed some damage against the Devil’s Maw before being destroyed. UPS 5 had won the first game of the series 17-12!
One turn into Game 2. HPFF’s home island is in the southeast, with UPS 5 in the west. The HP made it to the northern island, finding Pirate Globe, Jailhouse Dog, and two of the three 5 coins. Indeed, the luck had reversed from the previous game in terms of gold. To make things even better for HPFF, the Barbary Banner was revealed to be in the east, where the BC was headed.
A few turns later and HPFF is able to get what they need home. The HP avoided building Paradis on the northern island because it would put the valuable gold back in play, where the Zeus could potentially get it. After a loss in the first game, a change in strategy was just what the HPFF fleet needed, and here it panned out nicely (normally it’s better to just build the forts, but with a Zeus moving L+S+L+S the gold is not safe for long at all heh). UPS 5 almost managed a late-game salvage operation: I had kept the Jailhouse Dog aboard the Hai Peng in case it was needed, but suddenly it became a huge liability since the Zeus could steal it and use it to eliminate the Barbary Banner, which would cost HPFF the game! Thinking quickly I did something unorthodox and eliminated one of my own positive UT’s, Holy Water. This was simply to eliminate the dog from play to deny UPS 5 from using it. Indeed, the game turned out closer than I expected, but HPFF won 18-17 to even the series at a game apiece.
Game 3!
The Hai Peng sprinted to the northern island, once again finding the Pirate Globe, and this time the Barbary Banner as well. The Zeus went to the center island before turning to the northeastern island, where the Jailhouse Dog was. I then had to think about the best course of action for my fleet – I originally was going to run home with the Barbary Banner and the other coin the HP was carrying. However, seeing that the Zeus would soon come into possession of the Jailhouse Dog, and knowing that the UT could eliminate the Banner even after I docked at my HI, I decided to do something more risky but also more wise. The Hai Peng took off for the same northeastern island the Zeus was headed to, which could have been a suicide move. The HP docked on the side opposite the Zeus to maximize how far the junk would have to travel to get in range, and picked up the Jailhouse Dog, immediately playing it to eliminate the now-useless Maps of Alexandria UT on the western island. The Hai Peng picked up the Banner, and traded a 5 from the island for an oarsman on the Banshee’s Cry. The BC, originally headed for the western island, now turned around and docked home the new 5 coin, giving HPFF two of the three 5’s. To finish the turn, one of the 5’s was transferred back to the northeast to build Paradis de la Mer, both in an attempt to deter the Zeus from attacking the Hai Peng/Barbary Banner, and to protect the final coin on the island. Not trying to brag but it was one of my best turns of the tournament and a fine example of how strategic this “beer and pretzels” game can be, and why it’s always best to think things through. In the end I had essentially swapped 5’s while protecting my end of the gold in play, since it was likely the Banner would be sunk or stolen, but that the 5 would remain in play for at least some time inside Paradis. Had I ran home, I would have lost the Banner immediately and not gotten the 5 in the northeast.
The Zeus decided against attacking Paradis and a double-action Hai Peng, turning to the western island instead. The HP used an action to trade home the 2 from the northeastern island, then used her second action to move towards home, careful to stay out of the Zeus’ range.
The Coeur came out to meet the Hai Peng, but was unsuccessful with a ram and board. The HP sought shelter within a fog bank, while the Zeus unloaded her gold and combined it with the gold on the western island inside the Devil’s Maw fort. Seeing the endgame conflict materialize, the Banshee’s Cry headed to Paradis.
And there you have it – HPFF isn’t willing (or capable, likely) to go after the Devil’s Maw (and has no reason to), so the Zeus heads east to destroy Paradis. The 5 coin inside will determine the winner of the game – HPFF was up 21-14 at this point in gold, which could be determined by the revealed gold and the lack of extra gold in play outside of the Barbary Banner. It looked like the Coeur was sailing out to join the Zeus, but the HP sank her quickly. HPFF’s strategy was to stop the Zeus from destroying Paradis and loading the 5 coin in a single turn. As long as that didn’t happen, the HP could scoot to the island after Paradis fell, and then simply trade the 5 home (the Lezard still had 2 oarsmen aboard) for the instant win. The advantage laid with HPFF, but the situation was tense and competitive.
The BC maneuvered to block the Zeus at her bow, which in hindsight was a mistake because the Zeus could stay in place and shoot at the BC without coming into the range of the fort’s guns. The Zeus did just that, but managed to go an abysmal 0 for 4! This gave the BC another chance, which she used to dock at the island on the side where Paradis was closest to the water (with her stern sticking out as far as possible). This new blocking method was designed to force the Zeus to go to the far side of the island and shoot at Paradis from longer range, reducing the number of effective guns. The Hai Peng observed everything, ready to pounce on the Zeus with a double action (4 shots) or grab the 5 if the Zeus got lucky against the fort.
Incredibly, Xerecs rolled a 6 for Paradis’ ability, meaning the Zeus had to hit the fort 6 times that turn just to damage the fort at all! After this was not accomplished, Paradis knocked down 3 masts on the junk. The Banshee’s Cry has departed the island, hoping to get revenge when the Zeus becomes weaker.
After another exchange of cannon fire, the Zeus is left with just 4 masts while Paradis still has 4 cannons. The BC saw her opportunity for a miraculous ram and board, but both failed!
The OP ability of Paradis was too much for the (similarly OP) Zeus to overcome, with the Hai Peng fittingly dealing the final damage to the 10 master. After a great game and hard-fought victory (final score 21-14), Hai Peng Fort Frenzy had knocked off the #2 seed to advance to Round 3, the semifinals!
This was a really memorable series, and showcased how HPFF is one of the best fleets out there. The fleet also seems to be involved in a LOT of very long games, from its first (and also extremely memorable) series against the American Pirate fleet, to that crazy game against the swarm fleet, and now to this hotly contested series against the fleet that won T1. Wacky enough, when considering the total gold scores from each of the three games, HPFF beat UPS 5 by a score of just 51-48!
Fittingly enough, as great as that series turned out, the next series was a complete dud! lol.
As the winner of the Round 1 series involving these fleets, I picked which one I controlled. Between my general disliking of events and my very positive experience using the Quick fleet to knock out UPS 4 in Round 1, I went with Quick wins the game despite its lower seed.
Game 1 setup: Quick in the north, Doldrums in the south.
Quick went first, with the Courageux being Hidden Cove’d to the center island to explore. The Pique headed east, while the Vengeance prepared to protect either gold runner while also trying to make sure that no two ships would be in range of Becalmed at the same time. Alas, it didn’t work, with the Pique and Vengeance getting hit with the event. I had forgotten that the Doldrums fleet also had Hidden Cove, and suddenly the Eagle was at the center island and attacking my fleet! The Courageux and Vengeance lost a mast apiece, but Becalmed was an even bigger problem. The Vengeance connected on my turn, but was unable to move and get canceller Lenoir in range, while the Courageux’s ram and board failed miserably.
The Eagle takes over, blasting the Quick fleet to smithereens! Suddenly the Pique was the only ship they could move (Vengeance sunk and Courageux derelict), and the game was effectively over.
The Eagle sank the Courageux with 6 gold aboard, but the Pique escaped into a fog bank, later grabbing gold from the western island. During all of the combat shenanigans the Pirate gold runners were busy establishing an advantage, and the French were out of the running. The Longshanks intercepted the Pique on her trip home and rammed her derelict to end the game. The Doldrums had won 13-0!
The second game went similarly great for the Doldrums, and similarly horrible for Quick. The Vengeance stayed in port, so the Eagle couldn’t shoot at her if the same Hidden Cove strategy was used. However, this allowed Becalmed to hit two ships on the first turn once again, and it looked like the Vengeance should have moved northwest. This time the Pique was Hidden Cove’d to the center island, the French changing their strategies after the embarrassing loss in Game 1.
Becalmed was played to hit the Vengeance and Courageux. Hidden Cove was then played to put the Eagle at the center island once again, where she wreaked havoc. The Pique was sunk, while the Courageux was dismasted soon afterwards. This left the French to seek Vengeance (ha ha… or not). The Vengeance got caught up in a skirmish with the Longshanks, which further proved how much momentum the Doldrums fleet had, for Xerecs even rolled much better at the guns during the engagement. The battle was ended by the Eagle, with the French eliminated for the second game in a row!
The Doldrums won 7-0 in dominating fashion, and are a force to be reckoned with as they move on to the semifinals to face HPFF!
Only one more series in Round 2, after which there are only 3 matchups before we crown the best fleet of all time!
2/5/2017
The final matchup of Round 2!
Norvegia (#4 seed) (commanded by xerecs)
vs. UPS 2 (#5 seed) (commanded by a7xfanben)
UPS 2 got busy with a couple forts, while Norvegia went to the northern and southeastern islands.
Eventually the only gold left was in the two forts, which would determine the winner of the game. The Neptune’s Hoard attacked Dead Man’s Point, knocking out three cannons before she was dismasted and captured by the fort and the Hai Peng. (we counted our gold early to determine if it was close enough to keep playing for the fort gold, and indeed it was, with Norvegia up 21-18 with 9 gold in the forts)
The Star of Siam and Banshee’s Cry didn’t have enough firepower to destroy Dead Man’s Point, and both ships were dismasted to end the game! UPS 2 won the game 27-21.
Norvegia went first in the second game, using sac actions to reach two wild islands. The Hai Peng settled for the northwestern island, finding good gold values there (4,3,2,2). UPS 2 didn’t build a fort, planning to send home the islands’ final two coins on the following turn.
After much excellent treasure running by both fleets, it looked like it was going to be a close finish. Norvegia found all of their UT’s (Spices, Barbary Banner, and Buried Treasure), while the Hai Peng was busy trading home coins from the northeastern and center islands. The last coin on the NE island was a 1, and CJS knew there was no point in getting that coin when he could try for a potentially better (and definitely not worse) coin with the final treasure of the center island. (UPS 2 had to pick one coin and not the other because the HP’s helmsman had been sacced recently so the HP could explore the NE island right after docking, and because the Neptune’s Hoard could catch the HP with her speed on Norvegia’s turn.) The decision paid off when the coin was a 2, which CJS traded home.
The Hai Peng was dismasted by the Neptune’s Hoard, while the Banshee’s Cry docked home the final 1 coin for Norvegia.
In the end, UPS 2 had won a very close 27-25 victory! This reveals how important it was that the HP switched islands at the end, for if CJS had traded home the 1, the game would likely have ended tied at 26! For me it was one of the best treasure running games I’ve ever seen, with a whopping 22 extra gold in play by the end of it (12 from Maurice Aristide’s +2 bonuses, and more from the UT’s). Another weird stat is that Norvegia totaled 46 gold between the two games and still lost both! It seems that UPS 2 is always involved in very high-scoring affairs; they just happen to score more than their opponents.
UPS 2 advances to the semifinals!
Here is the updated bracket, with just 3 matchups left! At this point, we may play more than 2 or 3 games per series, if there’s any doubt about which fleet is superior, similar to what we did in the last few series of T1.
Round 2 saw some VERY interesting series, with both the #1 and #2 seeds being knocked out. I’m not overly surprised at the left side of the bracket, as I had UPS 2 as the potential winner before the tournament started, and the gold race fleet not far behind. However, the right side of the bracket is a little more surprising, with HPFF knocking off UPS 5 in a close series. The Doldrums fleet has been the most dominant of the tournament, outscoring its opponents 61-12 (!), going 4-0, and often finishing games rather quickly. I hope Becalmed doesn’t effectively ruin the tournament… either way, these semifinal matchups look very competitive and intriguing. It’s also worth noting that the Doldrums fleet is the only fleet remaining that has a functional gunship… not overly surprising, but in the past I’ve seen different HMS GT fleets absolutely steamroll great gold fleets (which just speaks to how amazing Darrin’s gold race fleet really is).
Stay tuned to find out which fleet becomes the greatest ever!
2/10/2017
A grand mistake has been made… an embarrassing error that threatens the integrity of the tournament….
EVENTGATE.
The first of two semifinal matchups began, with Hai Peng Fort Frenzy (HPFF) facing the Doldrums fleet. As usual, the Doldrums fleet was cruising along, indeed on their path to an easy 17-2 victory for a nearly unprecedented 5-0 record. Early in the game the Hai Peng returned home to avoid being hit by Becalmed and then the Eagle, who would be Hidden Cove’d to the center island and then given a sac action to move and shoot twice. The Banshee’s Cry then moved into a fog bank, which prompted Xerecs to wonder if the fog would make the BC immune to Becalmed. I figured as much since I thought that lines of sight/ability/etc were blocked by fog. The game continued, and here you can see the Eagle in the southwest after sinking the HP, essentially ending the game in favor of the Doldrums.
To confirm my thoughts about Becalmed I went to the Pirate Code, and funny enough I went to the section on Becalmed instead of the section on fog banks (where the answer to the question actually is). It was then and there that I saw it:
-Only one “beginning of turn” event token may be revealed during your turn.
O_O
Neither of us knew about this ruling, and it changed EVERYTHING. I immediately looked back at the battle reports concerning the Doldrums fleet, and sure enough, the fleet had used both Becalmed and Hidden Cove on their first turn in possibly every game.
Suddenly the Doldrums’ 5-0 record was in doubt. Not only that, but their position in the tournament. One more win would put them into the final round, where a series victory would give them the title of “best fleet of all time”. It became very apparent that controversy and scandal would win the night, but with T2 being a somewhat serious affair (we have to get it right), we were determined to fix what we could.
I have decided not to go back and edit any previous reports, since it could be confusing and disrupts the story of the tournament. A new picture of the updated bracket follows at the end of this report.
After a discussion, Xerecs and I narrowly decided to replay both series that the Doldrums fleet was involved in. This would be the most fair, and the Doldrums fleet would need to prove itself using the better rules. After all, it felt like Becalmed had gotten them to the semifinals almost by itself, and it was the only fleet in the tournament using the event. (the latter of which was very lucky – since no other fleet in the tournament uses both Becalmed and Hidden Cove, there wouldn’t be any other matchups to replay)
We used the same home islands as in Game 1 of the original series. The Amity used Hidden Cove to load up from the center island.
The Doldrums used their own Hidden Cove to dismast the Amity with the Eagle and take two masts off the Roanoke.
However, on the next turn the Roanoke sank the Eagle! It became clear that playing Becalmed and Hidden Cove on the first turn hadbeen giving the Doldrums fleet quite an unfair advantage.
The Roanoke sank the Bloody Jewel, while the Amity and Bandido eventually returned with gold for the AP’s.
The Roanoke was then set upon by the Longshanks (LS) and BC of the Doldrums fleet, until she was dismasted and captured! The Amity repaired two of her three masts before setting out for the final coin on the southwestern island. The Bandido followed her into a fog bank, while the remaining Doldrums fleet looked to intercept. The BC was rammed out of the game, while the Roanoke repaired. Eventually the Bandido rammed the final mast off the LS and captured her, towing the ship to block the Roanoke from attacking the Amity. The Amity returned the coin home and the American Pirates had dealt the Doldrums fleet their first loss! The final score was 17-15 after finding out that Raft had no effect on the Hag of Tortuga; she became 1 gold for the AP’s when the Eagle sank.
The setup for Game 2:
This time the “Hidden Cove chess game” resulted in the Roanoke besting the Eagle once again.
Now the Roanoke can effectively terrorize the Doldrums gold runners, while the Amity and Bandido both dock in the west.
The BC was dismasted and captured, while the Amity and Bandido returned home with gold.
The Bloody Jewel ducked into fog with gold aboard, while the LS was targeted by the Roanoke. The AP fleet has formed a temporary chain of ships to block the Bloody Jewel if she comes out of the fog.
Some late-game antics made the game closer than it looks. (capturing the BC was a mistake) However, in the end the AP fleet won 9-8!
The American Pirates move on to Round 2! The Doldrums fleet has been retroactively eliminated! In stunning fashion, the Doldrums fleet falls as far as you could possibly imagine, from 5-0 and one win away from the finals to 0-2 and out of the tournament. 0_0
Now we had a brand-new Round 2 matchup, and HPFF would have to wait to see who their new opponent in the semifinals would be.
Quick rolled to go first, and both fleets used Hidden Cove on their first turns, with the Roanoke dismasting but unable to sink the Courageux.
The Roanoke captured the Courageux, which later turned out to be a mistake.
The Amity and Bandido hide in the fog, while the Vengeance blockades the AP home island. The Roanoke uses the opportunity to drop the Courageux and sink the Pique.
Here I made another mistake (one of many this session) and pulled the gold runners out of the fog too early. The Vengeance turned around and dismasted both of them in one action! Now the AP’s would have to win with just the Roanoke.
The Vengeance sank the Amity and Bandido, eliminating 11 gold from the game. This left 19 in play, of which the Roanoke deposited 4 from the center island soon afterwards. She then headed northwest for 4 more, while the Vengeance recaptured the Courageux. In a nice move the Vengeance towed the Courageux to dock her at the center island, loading up gold.
With no helmsman, the Vengeance could only tow the Courageux at S speed, allowing the Roanoke to get in range of the Courageux while being out of Lenoir’s cancelling range. The Courageux was sunk, and the Roanoke won a brief battle of the gunships to end the game. The AP’s win 8-4!
Here is the updated bracket, with Eventgate over. The AP’s went from being eliminated to being one win away from a trip to the semifinals (if they get there, they would face HPFF, which would be an extremely highly anticipated rematch for the ages). At the opposite end of the spectrum, the Doldrums fleet proved to be a lot of hype for nothing. This also gives the Quick fleet new life, though now they have to win 2 in a row to advance.
After losing the first game of the series, Quick went first once again.
The AP’s were very aggressive with Hidden Cove, using it to catapult the Roanoke towards the French gold runners.
This turned out to be a mistake, for the Courageux was never in range, and the Vengeance arrived to cancel Captain Blackheart and eventually sink the Roanoke.
The Vengeance headed south to cut off the Bandido and Amity on their second gold run. Seeing no chance of getting the gold home, the Pirates turned to attack! An impressive ram and board from the Amity (two 6’s in a row) hurt the Vengeance a little, but things were still looking dire for the AP’s.
After the Bandido was sunk, the Amity put up a rather miraculous fight against the Vengeance, though it was more due to the Amity carrying the final AP mast (Quick needed to make sure they had more gold before triggering an endgame condition) than the excellent exploits of the Amity and her crew. The AP’s built a Devil’s Maw in the west after capturing the Vengeance and her two coins from the same island. However, the Courageux was going to the northern island once more, and gold bonuses were already stacking up on the Quick HI.
The Vengeance brought home de Cissey for a ransom payment, and the Courageux avoided the Amity to dock home the final coin. Due to the gold bonuses from Maurice Aristide, the Quick fleet had won a nice 24-20 victory!
It was one of the better games of the tournament thus far, and sets up a Game 3 showdown to see who moves on to the semifinals to face Hai Peng Fort Frenzy!
5/26/2017
With xerecs not responding to my emails and showing zero interest in T2, and myself eager to resume/finish the tournament, I have decided to forge onward by myself. (If anyone else would like to join, just let me know, keeping in mind that the games are competitive and mistakes pretty much have to be replayed to have optimal results)
The tournament left off in the middle of the final game of the second round! The rubber game (#3) between these two great fleets: Quick wins the game (#14 seed)
vs. American Pirates (#6 seed)
These were the home islands, from play back in February:
The fleets made mirrored movements to the north, with neither playing their Hidden Coves.
The northern islands were explored:
This is where the game left off. After my question was answered by Woelf in the Rules thread, it was clear how to continue the game.
As expected, the AP’s used Hidden Cove to get the Roanoke out of Lenoir’s cancelling range. With careful maneuvering and a sac action, the Roanoke was able to knock down the Vengeance’s final two masts and capture her!
The Courageux explores the Pique for her 1 coin, eager to unload it to get Aristide’s +2 bonus. They plan to do the same at the northeastern island, which would give them 20 gold total (which they are aware of because they’ve explored two islands and found both 1’s, and know the treasure distribution based on the previous games). However, the AP’s would have 21 if they unload all of their gold (16 between the Amity and Bandido) as well as Cissey, who would provide 5 via the Ransom keyword. Thus, the French must make some kind of daring attempt to limit how much the AP’s bring back.
The Pique was going to capture or sink the Amity, but Captain Blackheart on the Roanoke had other plans. At this point I forgot about the “new” oarsman keyword ruling, where you can’t tow a ship if it has an oarsman. The Amity was towed a little bit by the Roanoke, but she could have just hidden in a fog bank or made it on her own anyway. The Roanoke could have dismasted the Pique instead of the Courageux to avoid forcing the end of the game and the treasure count, at which point a similar situation would have unfolded at the end of the game. In addition, the Roanoke would then have time to load the Amity’s oarsman for sacrificial purposes and also to tow the Amity. Here are the pictures from the rest of the game, which the AP’s won 21-17. It’s extremely likely they would have won anyway, but I’m playing another game for maximum fairness.
In the other game, the same home islands were picked with Quick going first. The Roanoke used Hidden Cove to go to the center island and attack the Vengeance, hitting 2/3 times. The Vengeance fought back and cancelled Blackheart, but eventually lost the fight. The Amity beat the Pique to the northern island and the AP’s won in a shutout.
With that, the American Pirates move on to Round 3 of the tournament, the semifinals! There they will face Hai Peng Fort Frenzy, in an epic rematch! But first, the other matchup will be played: Darrin’s Gold Race fleet vs. UPS 2!
5/27/2017
Xerecs has rejoined the tournament and Round 3 (the semifinals) has begun! From here on out, a fleet will need at least two more victories than its opponent in order to advance. We will play as many games as necessary to determine which fleet is better in each matchup.
This matchup pitted two fleets that use Captain Jack Sparrow against each other. Each has Hidden Cove and CJS on a very fast flagship (Banshee’s Cry and Hai Peng). The games didn’t disappoint! Xerecs also got a crash course on the gold race fleet, which I consider to be the most confusing fleet ever made.
The first game was marred by a UT problem. The gold race fleet has Periscope listed (Sunken Treasure was already taken out based on past problems with including it), but the Hai Peng (HP) found it. The Hai Peng used a double action (saccing with Jimmy Legs) to activate the UT and cancel Jonah aboard the Banshee’s Cry (BC), shutting down the crew and therefore forcing the removal of both Captain Jack Sparrow and Don Pedro Gilbert, two extremely essential crew for the gold race fleet! They were tossed overboard, and meanwhile the Hai Peng’s CJS was busy ordering the gunners to open fire, leaving the BC derelict.
From here it looked like UPS 2 would have an easy ride to victory. The HP teleported two coins home from the northern island, getting bonuses on both. The gold race fleet was forced to sail out their remaining ships, with the Banshee’s Cry useless and later scuttled.
The HP gets gold from the center island, while the gold race fleet salvages what they can.
After clearing out the western island, the HP headed east to intercept the final coins sailing home in the opposing fleet. However, she lost a skirmish and was captured! Here the Bonnie Liz transfers individual coins to the Sea Crane, who redocks to get a +3 bonus on each coin. This was the gold race’s best chance at victory, and it could work as long as the rest of UPS 2 (Intrepide and Coeur du Lion) couldn’t interfere.
The final coins were unloaded, and UPS 2 had won a 35-26 victory! This broke the previous tournament record (for T1 and T2) of total gold collected in a single game, at 61 gold! (previous high was 55)
The second game started, with the gold race HI in the southeast and the UPS 2 HI in the northeast. The BC has built Dead Man’s Point in the center, dumping her French Letter of Marque equipment to make room for more sacrifices.
The fleets accumulate more and more gold via the UPS strategy.
Things started to get interesting. UPS 2 ran out of sac crew for the Hai Peng, who shadowed the BC and managed to dismast her (sending that CJS to the northern wild island via Jonah). The Intrepide and Coeur are sailing to the northern wild island.
The HP tries to steal the BC’s coin, but manages to lose the boarding party! The Sea Crane stays docked to protect her valuable gold bonus crew. This makes Genny Gallows (aboard the Sea Crane) a “stay-at-home mom”. (I wonder what Sean thinks of that? ) The Bonnie Liz sails to the fort and grabs the gold there. The Rover stalks the Intrepide and Coeur up north.
The Hai Peng sets up a sort of blockade of the gold race HI, leading the Bonnie Liz to seek shelter in the fog and wait for a good die roll to come out. The Sea Crane waits for her. Captain Jack, even the opportunist, seizes the chance to grab Powder Pete (traded earlier in the game via the other CJS to the southwestern island), in order to sac him. The Rover rams the Coeur derelict to get at the Intrepide.
The Intrepide has a mast rammed off by the Rover, before returning the favor to end the threat. In the southeast, further disaster for the Hai Peng! She went after the Bonnie Liz, who came out of the fog eager to hand off coins to the Sea Crane. With a handful of terrible die rolls (typical for me of course), the HP is eventually captured as you can see in the next photo…
… as all three 2 masters race to stop the Intrepide from accumulating more coins and bonuses. I finally managed to calculate that grabbing the final coin from the northern island and towing the Coeur home (she also had a coin aboard) would take 7 turns, compared to 8 turns if the Intrepide explored the Coeur, took that coin home, and then went back out for the other one. Exploring the Coeur and then going to the island (or vice versa) and taking them both home at once wasn’t a good option, since I had also calculated/estimated that I needed the +2 gold bonus from Aristide on both coins (which was proven correct in the final gold totals). Hopefully this gives some insight into how competitive these tournaments have been – not so much between myself and Xerecs, but more between the fleets themselves. There’s been plenty of math and deductions going on, with estimates and projections changing every turn based on the changing conditions of the game. The level of play is extremely high, evidenced by the very very high, very very close scores. Normally I wouldn’t do so much before one action, but this turn got a little extreme and I really wanted to know what was truly optimal. Of course, I didn’t factor in the other variable – the gold race fleet was already on its way, which meant the Intrepide had to get ANY coin home as fast as possible, with no time to get both. (pretty much guaranteed to lose both if that was pursued)
In the ensuing skirmish (not quite “chaos” between a few small ships heh), the Coeur was sunk and the Rover recaptured. The Intrepide got a coin home but it probably wouldn’t be enough. The gold race fleet was in full control, but didn’t want to end the game since they could still get the final coin on the northern island and +3 bonus it. (4 gold vs 1 from Cissey’s elimination; capturing Cissey would end the game with no chance to unload him) The Intrepide initially tried to suicide on a reef, but then began fighting Dead Man’s Point.
In a brilliant move, Xerecs used the captured Hai Peng to load up an oarsman and the CJS that was originally on the BC (so the HP had two Jack Sparrow’s on her during the same game – Multiple Jacks like in At World’s End!!). Then he used Jimmy Legs to sac the oarsman and redock, NOW using CJS’s ability to flip the coin to the Sea Crane way in the south, who unloaded it for 4 gold total. To end the play, the gold race fleet was now free to end the game, and that they did, with the fort blasting the Intrepide apart and getting 1 gold from Cissey’s elimination.
The final score was 34-28 in favor of the gold race fleet! The series was tied 1-1. This also rebroke the record set earlier in the day of most total gold in a standard game, with 62.
For the third game of the series, the gold race fleet rolled to go first, just as in the first game (and they went first in the second game too since they lost the first game). The home island locations happened to reverse, and we set sail!
Once again the BC built Dead Man’s Point on the center island, which forced the Hai Peng to go around the perimeter. The HP was Hidden Cove’d (copyright lordstu) to the southwestern island but skipped it entirely, sailing north to the western island.
The HP and BC got busy trading, with the HP continuing to circle the center island by moving to the northern island, much to Xerecs’ dismay. Paradis was built on that island, and the BC turned away.
The sickening speed of the Hai Peng was soon on full display. She sent another coin home before saccing to dismast the Rover, and then moved on to the southwestern island (finally returning to it) on the next turn. Honestly, sometimes there’s just not much you can do against a ship like the Hai Peng with the right crew setup.
Another example: the Hai Peng is running out of crew to sac, but catches the Sea Crane right before she gets home and dismasts her. This is when it was time to get wild, with strategies going out the window and the desperate endgame situations kicking in.
Here is when it happened. The Banshee’s Cry scored a hit. With CJS aboard and desperate times calling for desperate measures, the BC somehow dismasted the HP with a shot and ram! Importantly, the BC stole back the coin the HP had stolen from the Sea Crane. The Bonnie Liz came out to help the Sea Crane, while the Intrepide and Coeur looked on from afar in confusion and disbelief.
Then, another bizarre thing happened. While attacking the Coeur, the Banshee’s Cry couldn’t shoot due to carrying treasure, the same treasure that she stole partly as a result of her earlier hit.
The Coeur eventually sank, and the Intrepide once again tried to fight a fort. This time, she would survive at least in the interim, since the gold race fleet was trying to get the 4 gold from Paradis rather than settling for the 1 from eliminating Cissey.
The battles at the forts continued after a brief break, caused by yours truly messing up and pasting the entire eBay spreadsheet into the chat box lol, causing my VASSAL window to freeze and crash. (this can happen even if you don’t submit the message, so beware)
Paradis is massively overpowered and unsurprisingly put up a great fight against the gold race coalition of 4 ships, besting all 3 comers! To complicate matters further for the gold racers, the Intrepide had just finished taking out the guns of Dead Man’s Point, so it would only be a matter of time before she loaded the fort’s former gold and sailed it home for a reversal of fortune and momentum. The Bonnie Liz put a stop to all that by ramming the Intrepide to end the game!
As you can see from the gold, it was a very high-scoring game! UPS 2 wins 37-31! This game set yet another record (rebroken for the 3rd time in 3 games, all in one day) for the most total gold unloaded or scored in a standard (40 point) game, with 68! This means we had well over twice as much gold than when the game started!
Between that (averaging gold scores in the 30’s, like what??) and the overall effectiveness of the strategy, these are absolutely two of the best fleets of all time. It’s interesting that UPS 2 holds a 2-1 advantage despite the gold race fleet going first in all 3 games, but that was partly due to the Periscope situation in Game 1. The future holds more excitement, for at least one more game will be played between these two fleets. The winner of the series advances to the finals!
My horrendous dice luck continued at a near-unprecedented rate, starting with losing the roll to go first. The gold race fleet uses Hidden Cove to send the Banshee’s Cry to the center island.
The Hai Peng was Cove’d to the western island, and she continued south from there, exploring two islands in the same turn.
UPS 2 built Paradis de la Mer, and the gold race fleet responded by building Dead Man’s Point in the northeast.
This is where things started to get interesting – with a scarcity of crew to trade with Captain Jack Sparrow, both fleets would need to scramble to secure victory. The Hai Peng lurks in wait for the Banshee’s Cry and/or Rover, who could be coming home with gold soon.
After a change of plans, the HP instead attacks the Sea Crane, nearly losing the battle due to my bad rolls in the process. The ship is captured, and the Intrepide comes out to tow her home. The Coeur grabs an oarsman in the northwest, while the gold race fleet gets bonuses the hard way with the Bonnie Liz.
Suddenly all ships of UPS 2 are headed home, as I realized the HP could simply tow the Sea Crane back at S+L+S speed. In addition, the 5-gold payout from the Hag’s Ransom keyword was greater than the potential 3 the HP could get at the southwestern island. Finally, it allowed the Intrepide to go back home and not risk being vulnerable to the gold race fleet while towing at S speed.
The HP repairs and speeds out to the southwest, where she trades home the final coin that she had found earlier. Then UPS 2 appears to sail straight for Dead Man’s Point.
Battle for the fort! My die rolls continue to defy belief, and Dead Man’s Point and the gold race fleet quickly gain the upper hand. Before the Rover was dismasted by a shot from the HP, a ram roll failed with a 1. You really can’t make this stuff up.
Eventually 3 of the fort’s 4 guns were silenced, but not before the HP was captured and most of UPS 2 dismasted. Xerecs didn’t have amazing die rolls this game, but naturally the Banshee’s Cry hit once again with a 6 to dismast the HP. (An outsider wouldn’t be crazy to think that the module is biased against me.) A final shot rang out, and the game was over!
The final scores:
1. Darrin’s gold race: 38 gold
2. UPS 2: 31 gold
With that, two more records are set! 38 gold is the new high score of any fleet in a single game, beating the 37 that UPS 2 collected in the previous game of this series. The 69 total gold breaks the previous record of 68, also set in the previous game.
The series is now technically tied at 2-2, but it’s more like 2-1 in favor of the gold race because of the Periscope dilemma that ruined the first game. However, UPS 2 still hasn’t gone first in any of the games. Between these factors and the close scores, it’s incredibly unclear which fleet is superior. Stay tuned for more!
Xerecs and I were recording our Skype discussion for a video of the game.
With the series tied at 2 games apiece, we decided to let UPS 2 go first because the gold race fleet had gone first in all 4 previous games in the series. This led to the Hai Peng quickly establishing forts at the center and northern wild islands.
Turns and turns of furious treasure-trading and gold bonus applications went by. There wasn’t much the gold race fleet could do about the UPS 2 forts, and the game was truly a gold race. In the end, UPS 2 won the game with an insane score of 44-21! This is a new single-fleet high for gold in a standard game that we have played, breaking the previous record of 38 set by the gold race fleet in Game 4 of the series.
Game 6
Due to eating and an imminent time crunch, we didn’t do Skype or a video for the second game of the session. Since the gold race fleet had gone first in more games (3 to 1 even if you don’t count the first game which was marred by the Periscope incident), UPS 2 went first once again.
The home islands were swapped, with UPS 2 in the southeast and the gold race fleet in the west. Both fleets built Dead Man’s Point in the north!
Knowing I had to get moving in order to prevent the Rover from getting gold in the southwest, the Hai Peng used one turn to build Paradis de la Mer on the center island, and the next turn to build the Devil’s Maw on the southwestern island right before the Rover would have been able to explore. This meant that all wild islands had a fort on them!
The Dead Man’s Point is the easiest target for the gold race fleet, who must destroy at least one fort and get its gold to have a chance. The Intrepide sails out to meet the HP and get a double bonus from Spices after a treasure swap. I dismasted the Rover with the intention of capturing her, thinking she might be useful down the line if the game came down to a battle to the death at a fort.
DMP (the UPS 2 version heh) puts up a good resistance, blasting masts off all 3 remaining gold race ships. The Intrepide makes another trade, this time with the captured and repaired Rover. The Coeur is ready to assist the fort up north, while the Hai Peng finally repairs (she was hit by the Rover after I missed her 4 times in a row) and gets ready for maximum speed once more (she was only doing stuff at one action per turn for 2 or 3 turns in a row, which is nearly unheard of in this fleet).
The Intrepide got yet another bonus via Aristide, and the Coeur rammed the Bonnie Liz unsuccessfully. The firepower in the northwest eventually subdued the BL and Sea Crane, while the Hai Peng chased down the Banshee’s Cry and dismasted her to end the game!
In a second consecutive blowout, UPS 2 wins 40-20!
After a brief discussion, Xerecs and I decided that UPS 2 advances to the Finals of VASSAL Tournament #2!!
Our reasoning was that UPS 2 had a 4-2 lead in the series, though it was more like 3-2 because of the weird Game 1. However, UPS 2 won a game (out of three) despite going second. In the only games where UPS 2 went first, the gold race fleet lost both by a wide margin. As a result, it seems that the gold race fleet cannot beat UPS 2 when going second, while UPS 2 can beat the gold race fleet when going second. With that, we have a finalist. At the start of the tournament, I predicted that UPS 2 would win if I had to put money on just one fleet. Now they are in the finals, and have a serious shot at winning the title of the best fleet of all time.
The other semifinal matchup is next! Hai Peng Fort Frenzy versus the American Pirates! Get hyped! XD
8/4/2017
In one of the most highly anticipated series of all time, an epic rematch is taking place!! I knew this was a possibility from how the bracket was structured, but I can hardly believe it’s actually happening. Similar to darrin’s fleets facing off in the other semifinal matchup, my best two fleets I’ve submitted go head-to-head with huge stakes!
HPFF rolled to go first, and was placed at the center island.
The Hai Peng has explored the two western islands, building Paradis de la Mer on the southwestern one. She unloads Barbary Banner at home, while the Roanoke sinks the Banshee’s Cry.
The Amity explored the northeastern island and flipped Jailhouse Dog to eliminate the Barbary Banner. Knowing I’d need more gold, the HP scurried past the Roanoke to explore the northern island. However, the Roanoke’s boarding party kills Lord Mycron, which puts a severe dent in the HPFF game plan.
The Roanoke sped north to dismast the HP, who took off into the safety of a fog bank. The Patagonia and Lezard sailed out, now unable to serve the HP.
The Lezard was sunk, but the HP managed to get a lucky roll out of the fog bank and speedily row home to unload her coins from the northern island!
With a considerable ship and mast advantage, the AP’s capture the Patagonia, hoping to unload Bratley for the 5 gold Ransom payout. However, the Hai Peng is too fast for that! Although she missed when redocking at her home island, the HP managed to try again on her next turn. The second shot connected, sinking the Patagonia and denying the AP’s the ransom.
At this point, only the 5 coin in Paradis remained. The AP’s would give it up if they sunk the HP, and therefore the HP became essentially invincible for the endgame. The Roanoke and Amity headed over to the fort, but the Roanoke rolled a 5 for the ability and thus was only able to eliminate one cannon even after saccing for a double shoot.
Paradis was simply too much for the AP’s to overcome, and the game ended after the Roanoke was sunk and the Amity was dismasted. That gold in the fort was the difference, as HPFF won a 18-13 victory in the first game of this highly anticipated rematch!
It was a great game, with more to come soon. In fact, we’ve already started the second game, which you can see part of if you check out the video on my channel.
8/13/2017
In one of the most highly anticipated series of all time, an epic rematch is taking place!! I knew this was a possibility from how the bracket was structured, but I can hardly believe it’s actually happening. Similar to darrin’s fleets facing off in the other semifinal matchup, my best two fleets I’ve submitted go head-to-head with huge stakes!
For the second game of the series, the AP’s went first and HPFF’s HI was moved to the northwest.
The HP builds Paradis in the north, while Maps of Alexandria reveals the southwestern island to have both the Barbary Banner and the Jailhouse Dog, two important UT’s in this series that often cancel each other out. Knowing the Bandido would likely ram the Banshee’s Cry to dismast her, I had to try to explore the island anyway.
The HP was dismasted by the Roanoke, but since she can move S+L+S with a captain/helmsman/oarsman setup, she was able to return home some gold and repair there. The BC is indeed dismasted by a Bandido ram, but HPFF gets another fort built. The Roanoke has begun a fight with Paradis, but the OP fort shreds the gunship without taking any damage!
Both flagships repair (the Roanoke at a new fort built by the AP’s in the northeast), and both Pirate 1 masters are sunk in the south. The Amity and Lezard are unable to do their usual tasks (respectively to gather gold and flip oarsmen for coins), and so they prepare for the inevitability of war.
The AP’s destroyed Dead Man’s Point in the southwest, but immediately afterwards the Hai Peng showed her worth using her uber-fast speed and great crew complement to get both gold coins from the fort back home to safety. This led to an inevitable and lengthy conclusion, with the AP’s assaulting Paradis to no avail. However, in this picture you can see not only the mess, but also how close the AP’s got to destroying the fort. Paradis is down to one cannon, while the Lezard and HP only have one mast standing between them.
In the end, HPFF won its second game in a row, this one by a score of 19-11! With that, HPFF seems like the better fleet, but at least one more game will be played in the series. We’ll swap the Bandido out for the Banshee’s Cry with a helmsman and explorer, and possibly switch controllers at some point. Either way, the Finals of T2 are not far away!
9/2/2017
In one of the most highly anticipated series of all time, an epic rematch is taking place!! I knew this was a possibility from how the bracket was structured, but I can hardly believe it’s actually happening. Similar to darrin’s fleets facing off in the other semifinal matchup, my best two fleets I’ve submitted go head-to-head with huge stakes!
Here is a recording of the night’s action, which happened directly after the start of CG3! The Bandido was swapped out for the Banshee’s Cry with a helmsman and explorer. I didn’t really want to do that, but I wanted to see if the AP’s could pull out a win with a more optimized setup.
Here is the only picture from Game 3 of this series, showing how the Amity Hidden Cove’d to the center island and the Hai Peng used Mycron to reach the west. The Pirate Globe and Maps of Alexandria revealed the treasure distribution, with HPFF getting the better of it. They grabbed the 5 coins they needed to win (two 5’s and three 2’s), with the final score being 16-14.
With that, HPFF had a commanding (and indeed, decisive in normal circumstances) lead in the series, but I wanted to experiment. We switched fleets with myself in control of the AP’s and Xerecs getting HPFF. Once again the AP’s went first since they were behind in the series. The Roanoke was Coved out to the center island, where for the second game in a row, Pirate Globe and Maps of Alexandria were revealed at the same time! With two 5’s on the southeastern island, the AP’s got a better treasure distribution.
The Hai Peng couldn’t reach a far island on her first turn, and so settled for the northern one. The Roanoke blasted her with a double action but couldn’t sink her, which let her get away to the east. However, she was slowed, and by this point the Amity, BC, and Roanoke carried enough gold to win the game for the AP’s. In a rarity, HPFF got both the Dog and the Banner, raising their potential score. However, I knew how much gold was on the Roanoke, and the calculations for this series were far easier than in the other semifinal series (which had a TON of gold bonus variables). The partially repaired HP nearly managed a miracle against the Roanoke, hitting 3/4 and getting her ram roll, but lost the boarding party. The Roanoke docked home her 6 gold, giving the AP’s their first victory of the series by a narrow 18-17 margin!
Those two games were quick, but the third and final one of the night was FAR longer. It was one of the most desperate and drawn-out games I’ve ever been involved in.
Once again the Roanoke finds the revealing UT’s on the middle island after Coving. On HPFF’s first turn they get the Dog to knock out the Banner.
The HP has built Paradis in the southwest, while the Amity and BC clean up the center and northern islands for the AP’s. The Roanoke reaches the HP with a double action but only hits once in three tries!
The HP goes all the way around the map (but still very quickly of course) to reach home without being intercepted by any AP ships. She docks home her gold, which leaves only a couple coins left in play. Between the 30 gold in play and the UT’s that reveal everything, I knew how much gold was on my HI and how much was left. I came to the unfortunate realization that I (as the AP’s now) would be playing for a tie in an attempt to continue the series with a rematch. That is, until xerecs made the good point that if I could eliminate Bratley on the Patagonia, the Ransom payout could potentially give the AP’s a 16-15 win. However, that trade route (not road haha!) was fraught with waterfalls (instead of pitfalls), since a ton of things had to break right for that conclusion to even be plausible.
With the game in her hands (or so we thought…), the Roanoke begins bombarding Paradis with a 2 in her hold and a 5 in Paradis. I had 8 gold at this point, so I needed both coins to tie. I was afraid that HPFF would simply trigger the Ransom keyword of Perry, making it even more of an uphill (stormy?) battle. I did have absolutely incredible good luck in this game, which is somewhat rare for me (although it’s mostly just shoot actions that give me problems). The roll for Paradis was a 1, which let the Roanoke hit 4/5 to take the fort down to just one cannon. In this picture, the HP has arrived to damage the Roanoke, with the fort contributing as well. The Amity and Lezard flock to the scene, while the AP’s BC rams the Patagonia, killing Mycron.
A fair bit of wackiness later, and the Roanoke is derelict and the fort is abandoned. The HP, Patagonia, HPFF BC, and Lezard are all dismasted. This was where things really degenerated into madness, but unbeknownst to us, it was just beginning….
So much happened in the “endgame” (I call it that since we were fighting over the last few coins left, but it took longer than the other parts of the game) that I cannot remember all of it. HPFF managed to capture the Roanoke and began repairing her at the fort, but the Amity put a stop to that and eventually the Roanoke sank. The Amity became a major factor in the game, providing All-Star service to the AP’s. However, the pesky rams from the HP and Lezard took her down to 1 mast. In the southeast, the “Battle of the Banshees” took place, with the HPFF Banshee’s Cry eventually prevailing, but not before the AP BC successfully boarded the Patagonia again to eliminate Bratley and give the AP’s 1 extra gold! However, now that the AP’s were down to just one ship, the Amity, they couldn’t afford to lose her. With HPFF having a gold advantage, the Amity needed to keep her final mast standing at all costs. As a result, although her priority was to get the 5 coin from Paradis (abandoned but still standing), she was forced to ram and dismast any potential threats in the area. This included the Lezard and Hai Peng, both of which had oarsmen before the Amity eventually eliminated them to render them harmless. Whew! This is just about as desperate as this game gets!
But of course! More ramming and boarding! LOL. The Amity needed to take care of the dual BC threat (both healthy and in the HPFF fleet) before moving back to the fort (I believe she had missed a handful of times with her remaining 5S gun in the attempt to destroy it). Both BC’s were dismasted, but another shenanigan was continued from earlier, though I haven’t mentioned it yet: the Roanoke’s old 2 coin was making its rounds through both fleets, and it was probably on at least 4 of the ships by the time the game ended. The Amity was trying to protect the 2 coin and recover it and re-recover it so that HPFF couldn’t get it home somehow. This all in addition to the whole purpose of getting the 5 from Paradis!
With the BC’s still in play (at least one of them rowing around), the Amity returned to the fort but I believe she missed again. She then dealt with one of the BC’s and towed her to retrieve the coin and end the threat. However, by this point the most unlikely of ships had entered the fray: HMS Patagonia! With Mycron and Bratley killed in combat, only Robinson remained to crew the ship all the way to the southwest at S speed. With the Amity busy ending threats to stay in the game, the Patagonia managed to get in range. Her 2L cannon boomed for the first time in ages, and the Amity’s last mast fell overboard! Finally there was a victor! The final score was 20-9 in favor of HPFF, since the AP’s got Bratley but HPFF retained the fort gold. (and the 2 was still afloat on the Amity when the game ended)
With that, an incredible game ends the series. By the end of the game, only the Patagonia had a mast standing, with 3 derelicts and one abandoned fort among the living. 3 ships were sunk, and most of the crew were gone. In fact, we probably came close to setting a record for most crew eliminated in a standard game.
With that, Hai Peng Fort Frenzy wins the series 4-1! Hai Peng Fort Frenzy advances to the Finals of VASSAL Tournament #2!
Here is the updated bracket. Only 2 fleets remain!! Which will claim the title of The Best Fleet of All Time?
12/29/2017
The Finals
After a long hiatus since early September, T2 has been revived for its grand finale! The Final Round has begun!
UPS 2 rolled to go first in Game 1, establishing a gold lead and finding the Maps of Alexandria to reveal all treasures on all islands.
After much trading of gold and crew, and the building of a fort, my calculations revealed that I could not win with HPFF in this game. This was due to how early everything was flipped due to Maps of Alexandria – even with gold bonuses piling up for UPS 2, I was able to figure out the situation in terms of gold scores, both real and potential. The best I could hope for was to lose 22-21, since UPS 2 had the Barbary Banner and Jailhouse Dog (which had been played to deny my Hai Peng from getting Holy Water), in addition to a trio of +2 bonuses. The semi-worst case scenario in a long endgame would see HPFF lose 23-20 instead. Therefore, we called it, with UPS 2 technically winning the first game 22-5.
HPFF automatically went first in Game 2, trading home the Banner and building Paradis de la Mer on the lucrative northern island.
My Hai Peng went all the way to the southwestern island to trade home another coin…
… but was eventually sunk by the UPS 2 Hai Peng. XD
With only Paradis’ 5 left in play, we counted gold to see if it was relevant. With UPS 2 winning 14-11 NOT counting the fort’s gold, it was clear we had to play the endgame out. Things quickly devolved into a ramming fest, with the Banshee’s Cry playing the role of hero. She was able to sail out, ram off a mast from a UPS 2 ship, get rammed in return, row home at S+S with the help of Mycron, and then repair and sail out to ram again on the next turn (with the help of Mycron).
UPS 2 needed to destroy the fort to eliminate or claim the gold there, but they couldn’t get there. The ramming and boarding antics favored HPFF, who got consistently better rolls. The Coeur was captured and the HP dismasted, at which point we called it. HPFF wins the second game 16-14.
With the series tied at one apiece, we had to play at least 2 more games. The home islands changed again, with UPS 2 rolling to go first as in Game 1.
However, Game 3 was the most lopsided of the series so far. UPS 2 went first and got all the good coins, with HPFF having to settle for a bad haul up north. This forced me to fight early, which ended as poorly as one would expect. In one of the most lopsided games of the entire tournament, UPS 2 won 34-6!
With that, UPS 2 has a 2-1 lead over HPFF! At least one more game will be played, and we’d like to see UPS 2 win while going second to have a more decisive and conclusive result. Either way, the greatest fleet ever will be crowned very soon!
12/30/2017
The Finals
With UPS 2 up in the series 2-1, the Finals of Tournament #2 have concluded!
HPFF went first with its back against the wall. The HP reached the center and northern islands on the first turn, with one of the UT’s revealing where everything was.
I don’t have more pictures from this game, since it ended in a tie! 19-19 was the final score, which meant we had to play on.
The home islands were essentially rotated anticlockwise for the second game, with HPFF going first again and hitting two islands.
Both fleets used their Hai Pengs to build Paradis de la Mer, showing how similar and evenly matched these two are:
The UPS 2 Hai Peng was sunk, and with the support ships unable to blast Paradis, the game was over! HPFF won this game 21-11, evening the series at 2.
The HI’s were reversed for the start of Game 6:
UPS 2 rolled to go first and got busy exploring and trading. Honestly this final round was a bit of a blur, and both fleets are complex, confusing, extremely similar, and entirely based on maximizing profit. As a result, there’s not a ton to report on. XD
UPS 2 went to the center island for more gold bonus trading opportunities, while HPFF built a fort on the northern island:
With the fort’s gold becoming irrelevant, UPS 2 had a 19-9 victory!
With HPFF down in the series 3-2, they went first once again.
I made a mistake by not trying to build a fort on the western island. This resulted in a throwaway win for UPS 2 (final score 29-18 ), but due to the unknown, we played another game to see if UPS 2 could conclusively win even while going second without mistakes made by either commander.
Game 8!
We kept the same home islands as last time, and ironically the treasure distribution also turned out very similar, with HPFF getting solid values along with the Banner, Jailhouse Dog, and Holy Water. (Jailhouse Dog was played to eliminate the Holy Water to prevent UPS 2 from stealing the Dog to eliminate the Banner)
This time HPFF did build a fort on the western island, with Dead Man’s Point providing a second fort.
Both Hai Pengs were busy trading gold home, but the advantage of UPS 2 lies in its gold bonuses….
The UPS 2 HP was dismasted by DMP, after which we counted gold to see if the forts were worth fighting over. They were not!
With a dramatically close finish, UPS 2 defeats HPFF 22-21 and wins the series 5-2!!!!
UPS 2 IS OFFICIALLY THE BEST FLEET OF ALL TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It’s finally over! After starting this tournament in October 2016, it fittingly ends right as 2017 ends as well. The tournament featured 16 different fleets, and it took 53 total games to have a decisive winner.
Congratulations to darrin for making such a brilliant fleet. 3 of the 4 semifinal fleets used the Hai Peng/Captain Jack Sparrow strategy, but UPS 2 emerged victorious in large part due to saccing efficiency and gold bonus galore. It truly is an incredible fleet, and is now the fleet to beat in competitive play.
Congratulations to myself and Xerecs too, for playing such incredible tournaments out (T1 included). They have been quite fun, with a ton of games being very close or quite exciting. We’ve learned a lot about playing standard games optimally, and could certainly be considered experts in regards to the UPS strategy and competitive play in general. However, things got a little bogged down over the course of SO many standard 40 point games, and we’re ready to take a break from the endless “Hidden Cove’ing/saccing/treasure trading with CJS/extra action to HP”/etc etc. XD Also, congratulations to a7xfanben for correctly guessing the winner of the tournament right from the start! O_O
a7xfanben wrote:
If I had to bet money on the winner of the tournament, I would pick UPS 2.
This was partly because of my prior experience with UPS 2 in a small number of physical games, in which it dominated to the extent that it was my winner pick (though I had a feeling the Gold Race fleet or UPS 4 would give it a serious run for its money (literally), and the Gold Race fleet did not disappoint in this tournament). It feels good to have a good handle on the various fleets, and it’s too bad that nobody bet against me. XD
From here we do have one final thing left to do with this game file: the 16 fleet game to conclude the festivities. O_O This will be played soon, after which we turn our attention to other projects of a larger nature. Until then, thanks for reading these reports, and look out for that wacky 16 fleet game sometime soon.
Here is the final, completed bracket!
1/1/2018
The first Piratical activity of 2018!
The 16 fleet game has begun! As far as I know, this sets a new record for total fleets used in a single game!
If you watch the video you’ll get the gist of it, but here’s how we started things.
Xerecs rolled higher than me to go first in the player turn order. From there, we decided to do a draft in reverse turn order! This meant that I had the first pick in the draft, followed by Xerecs for a fleet, and so on until all the fleets were picked. This was a fun way of doing it rather than haggling over which fleets we each controlled. We ended up with mostly the fleets we wanted to play, which is great. I had some conflicts of interest and decided to choose fleets that were NOT my own, passing over HPFF to select UPS 2 (a fleet I like about as much as HPFF though) and taking the swarm fleet instead of RtSS English since I’ve barely controlled the swarm fleet at all since T1 began. However, I did go with classic favorites American Pirates and HMS GT, while Xerecs went with some of the more combat-heavy options, locking up both Spanish 5 masters along with the Doldrums and Kettering.
Then, for fleet turn order, we simply went in reverse draft order. (might be getting confusing XD) That meant the last fleet picked would go first in the game, so RtSS English (controlled by Xerecs) would go first, followed by the swarm fleet (controlled by me). In this way you can see the order here: (go side to side before up and down; this is the reverse draft order with the AP’s and then Norvegia going in the second round of the draft)
Since this game is purely for fun and the tournament is over, it would not nearly be worth the considerable time involved to recreate all 16 fleets in a bigger ocean to have a “standard” setup with 2 wild islands per fleet. Also, less wild islands and less distance between islands can often make for a more fun, fast-paced, and combative game. We were barely able to fit 32 total islands in, with 16 home and 16 wild. This meant there would be 8 coins per island, double the normal amount. The home islands were chosen in draft order/reverse turn order, with UPS 2 picking their HI first.
It is important to note we would use round earth rules, just as in the big T1 game. To not ruin the fun of having all the coins revealed early, a custom ruling for Maps of Alexandria and Pirate Globe is being used: when those are found, the fleet can choose to look (privately) at all the coins on ONE other island, instead of revealing every coin in play to all the fleets.
Reminiscent of my 12 fleet game and the 8 fleet game to conclude T1, here is the grand setup with all the fleets ready to set sail!
Entering play, my American Pirates fleet had not only the most pressure on them in a way (having an incredible pedigree in these giant multiplayer games, coming in 2nd in the 12 fleet game and winning the 8 fleet game), but also a good home island location despite choosing third. Most fleets tried to stay away from the Zeus and Grand Temple during HI selection, but in general these things turn into a crapshoot due to how many fleets pick after you (or before, as picking last has narrow options) and due to the randomness of the treasure distribution.
We were off! The first turn saw a lot of developments, with 16 fleets trying to maximize their potential to win the same game. It truly is incredible, with most of the best (submitted) fleets ever matching up against each other in a big game like this. Whoever wins will certainly have bragging rights forever, but could an underdog pull away with an upset due to the sheer amount of luck and chaos involved?
UPS 4 ran into some trouble early when the Kettering and Minuteman flotilla round earthed to sink the Longshanks. A bunch of Hidden Coves were played, with ships trying to get gold as fast as possible.
As far as combat goes, the Artillery Strike fleet made the biggest first impact. The Neptuno Coved out to the island where the English canoes were docked, and used extra range and cannon bonuses to hit 3/4 and dismast the Kettering! The Diablo flotilla shot 1/2 to eliminate one of those English canoes. The AP’s were one of the last fleets to go, and after much pondering, I had the Roanoke cove out near the Neptuno, capturing the Kettering instead of exploring and/or trying to hit the Neptuno (keep in mind with all these nasty fleets, UT’s like Missionary are out there). With a good home island location, the Amity and Bandido were able to take coins from the same island this turn, with the Amity discovering Holy Water. (this is in the deep south to the left)
Some other happenings around the map: at the lower right, the Zeus traded home a 5 to build Paradis, making that corner of the board a certified UPS 5 stronghold, with the most OP 10 master and the most OP fort in the same area. To the right of the Zeus, the Gold Race fleet didn’t have many options for Hidden Cove, having to choose between the Zeus and the San Cristobal (round earth at top center). The BC docked at the eastern edge of the SE island, but the Elthelfleda is approaching via round earth. However, the Gold Race quickly showed why it’s the 3rd or 4th best fleet of all time (would be interesting to match it up against the AP’s, though I think the Gold Race would win), saccing to trade home two coins which both got +3 bonuses. O_O
EA Gold Runners does not have a favorable HI position, but the Joya got an EA to reach and explore a wild island, grabbing a bunch of coins along with some Spices. At the upper right, the Doldrums coved the Bloody Jewel to deny that wild island from HPFF, whose Hai Peng has gone to the west via round earth. In the upper right quadrant you can also see the Neptune’s Hoard hit the Pique, but only with the help of the Monkey’s Paw UT. The Quick wins the game fleet did not have a good first turn, with a tough HI position and the Pique likely doomed after finding a bad island and the Norvegia cheese attack. XD (they partly picked that HI since Lenoir’s cancelling can help them deal with the nearby Zeus)
The Swarm fleet is heading towards at least 3 wild islands, and may somehow be the first to explore 2 of them. However, they have been denied of that island in the center/northwest by a wacky first turn from UPS 2, the last fleet to go each round and the winners of the actual tournament. UPS 2 continues to dominate headlines, winning the tournament in grand fashion, getting picked first (albeit predictably) in the draft, and now finishing the first round of turns with a BANG. The HP was coved out to that island where you see a bunch of Pirate crew chips. The HP redocked to explore but also shoot at the nearby HMS London of the HMS GT fleet, incredibly shooting 2/2 to take the London down to 2 masts! I was originally going to trade home the best coin and then drop some crew to sac and get home with more (so the London couldn’t return fire next turn), but one of my least favorite UT’s in the game ruined all that: Natives. Ironically one of the UT’s placed by the HMS GT fleet, this freezes the Hai Peng for FIVE turns, since that’s how many crew were on the ship when the island was explored. O_O In all likelihood this could doom UPS 2’s chances of winning, but they could at least finish the explore action even if they couldn’t sac afterwards. The island was good otherwise, with CJS trading home a 7. Paradis was built! This may keep the London at bay while simultaneously keeping the swarm fleet from taking any of the island’s remaining gold. The Hai Peng was simply emptied out, since the crew and gold will be safer inside the fort. Also, I didn’t want crew on the HP since if she is somehow still alive after 5 turns of sitting there, she could redock and take the remaining gold without triggering the Natives again. I wanted to send the Coeur out to the island, but figured she’d be safer at home with the London still lurking. Overall a wild turn for UPS 2, from the brink of glory (flipping a 7, building Paradis, and saccing to get most of the island’s gold back home) to disaster (Natives keeping the rest of the gold there and likely dooming the Hai Peng for the rest of the game).
Whew! What a first turn! The sheer amount of fleets and things to do each turn mean this game will take quite a while to complete over the course of several VASSAL sessions. We hope to continue the video footage, and we’re looking forward to what will likely become one of the best games we’ve ever been involved in!!
1/12/2018
The 16 fleet game has continued with a partial turn.
After finding Natives, the swarm fleet loaded the remaining gold from this wild island onto 3 different ships. However, the Algeciras and Armada teamed up to sink their escort, the Carrion Crow. At the left, the Lezard has rammed a mast off the Hai Peng of UPS 2.
In the deep south, the Minuteman flotilla missed all of her shots on the Roanoke and Neptuno. The Artillery Strike fleet did not reengage with the American Pirates or RtSS English, instead opting to regroup in preparation for a potential round-earth assault from the HMS Grand Temple. However, after considering all the options (with an EA available from Calico Cat), the GT decided to stay close to home and go after the lucrative island where UPS 2 was stuck at (HP sitting around for 5 turns due to the Natives there). HMS London got things started, dismasting the HP and Lezard while staying out of range of Paradis. However, after the GT used a whirlpool and extra action to get in range of the fort, the roll came up a 6! One miss meant that the mighty GT couldn’t even damage the fort, and that’s exactly what happened. It may look silly now, but this was the best route Lord Thomas Gunn saw after considering the various options. Attacking the canoes and Artillery Strike in the deep south may not have led to any gold, and it’s quite possible that the cannons of that Spanish fleet would cripple the GT next turn. Whirlpooling to the center would mean the GT would be stuck in a crossfire between Armada and the San Cristobal, with towing home multiple swarm ships for gold not a likely possibility. With the Joya del Sol in a fog bank, there were almost no gold targets within reach of the GT from that whirlpool at the center right. In the southeast, attacking UPS 5 likely would have been a disaster (Zeus + Paradis at the same island O_O). Overall the HMS GT fleet made the choice they saw as the most profitable in the long term, as they will still try to win the game despite being more of a 1v1 deathmatch fleet. If they can indeed destroy Paradis and UPS 2 in the process, that wild island has at least a 7 along with all the gold the HP has seen but not loaded.
In the north, the San Cristobal has sunk the Banshee’s Cry of Norvegia and dismasted the Pique of the swarm fleet. In the far east, the Quick fleet finds more misfortune. They found TWO packs of Wolves on that island, and although some Turtles would have aided them since they aren’t loaded onto the ship, the swarm fleet played Jailhouse Dog immediately to knock out the turtles. So, we have the dog from PotC eating a bunch of turtles while a ton of wolves look on. O_O Quite the spectacle. XD
All that, and there are still 6 fleets left to go in Turn 2!
About a full round was played, with various activities happening around the sea.
With only some of these fleets taking turns during this live session, here’s the busy situation around the swarm HI. Paradis has shot two masts off HMS Grand Temple, while the swarm fleet gets gold home from the south but struggles against Spaniards in the north.
In the south, the AP’s got some gold home to build Thompson’s Island, with the Roanoke damaging the Minuteman flotilla (of the Kettering fleet) and Neptuno. The captured Kettering was docked at the northern end of the island when the Roanoke docked in an effort to protect the Bandido, who was also coming home like the Amity.
Alas, it was of no use, as the Artillery Strike fleet has a fantastic turn! The Roanoke was sunk by the power of both flotillas and the Neptuno, with the Diablo going 4/4. The Neptuno then turned her cannons to the other ships in the AP fleet, sinking the Kettering and dismasting the Bandido! Once looking strong to finish high in the standings in yet another big multiplayer game, the AP’s are now teetering on the edge of disaster. At the left, the Artillery Strike fleet accomplishes a rarity, with 2 gold both from eliminating Ransom crew in the same game (in this case two versions of Commodore Matthew Perry from the Roanoke and Kettering).
1/30/2018
We played a session last night. This and other reports are naturally a bit biased towards the fleets I control, even more so for this game due to how many things are happening each turn and how many things are forgotten about.
With some ships sunk or out of action and many fleets just getting home some gold, we finished the rest of Turn 3 and all of Turn 4.
I’ll go west to east to make things easier to look at. HPFF has built Paradis de la Mer in the far west, just to the left of where HMS GT has taken out all flags on the Paradis of UPS 2. With the London capturing the Hai Peng of UPS 2, the remaining ships in that fleet have fled north in search of alternate treasure options. In the upper center, about half of the swarm fleet has gotten into a crossfire mess between part of the Kettering fleet and the San Cristobal of the Spanish Meta fleet. 4 ships are derelict, but the swarm fleet still has 5 ships with masts up. EA gold runners is having a fantastic time of it, with the Joya consistently getting her EA’s most turns. She has dropped off a full spicy load at the HI, and has sailed back out to nab some gold from under the Coral of UPS 4 in the south. The Rover of the Gold Race fleet has dismasted the Star of Siam, but the SoS is limping home on oar power with a coin left. Speaking of the Gold Race, their Banshee’s Cry was sunk by the Elthelfleda of RtSS English, who you can see at the lower right in the vicinity of the Zeus. In the northeast, the Neptune’s Hoard ran into a cancelling problem, but was lucky to lose only two masts to the Vengeance of the Quick fleet. The Vengeance will try to tow the Pique home while the Courageux looks for gold in the west after round earthing (probably). The Doldrums fleet has amassed quite a stash, and I think they still have Becalmed left to use.
Later in the action, with a few more developments. In the far northwest, the Algeciras of EA gold runners looks to intercept the English canoes. In the far southwest, her fleetmate the Joya del Sol looks to grab gold from the island the canoes loaded up at! The swarm Algeciras has joined the fight against the Armada flotilla terrorizing the middle northern part of the map, but the San Cristobal has left that same area to round earth to the south and dismast both ships remaining in the UPS 4 fleet. UPS 4 had a great start and have enough gold on their HI to maintain a respectable finish in the standings, but as of now it looks like they might be the first fleet eliminated. Speaking of riches, the swarm fleet is piling up some gold. They only gained control of 1 of the 3 wild islands they were targeting from the start of the game, but they have made a good profit nonetheless, wiping the island clean with 3 different ships. The American Pirates managed to get the Bandido home, but Artillery Strike still lurks in the deep southwest where their fort is located. The bonus ships of the Gold Race fleet (Sea Crane and Bonnie Liz) have begun heading north, fearing the San Cristobal’s arrival in the south.
The faster pace of play has been nice as we approach one month since we started this game. With so many fleets, there is a massive, unprecedented level of uncertainty. It’s not QUITE anyone’s game, but at least half a dozen fleets are easily in the running for the win and possibly 10 or more still have a shot. O_O It’s a fun free-for-all that will likely see extremely close gold scores similar to the 8 fleet game, and we are looking forward to the eventual conclusion!
Most fleets have quick turns at this stage of the game, so we were able to cycle through a lot of minor developments. At the far left, the Halcyon and Elthelfleda of RtSS English are heading home, while the Courageux of the Quick fleet has round earthed in search of treasure, which has so far eluded Maurice Aristide. One of the more exciting developments of the night was when the Hai Peng of HPFF rolled a 6 to activate Maps of Hades , which not only denied that fleet from using Mycron on the HP, but also the player “to their right” would be the American Pirates!! This was an ultimate irony, as HPFF and American Pirates have one of the longest fleet-to-fleet rivalries of all time, first matching up in a classic 3-game series back in January 2015 before having an epic rematch in the semifinals of T2. It’s safe to say that the AP’s hate HPFF, and the Hai Peng in general by extension. In a “double whammy” move, they sent the HP south to shoot at the Hai Peng of UPS 2, which has been captured by the HMS GT fleet! Both shots missed, but the HP of HPFF got stuck in the sargasso sea! Speaking of the GT fleet, they have destroyed Paradis on that wild island, which is now “open for business” again. XD However everyone now knows of the Natives there that doomed the UPS 2 fleet, which basically requires the GT fleet to drop off crew (for the London at least) in order to explore the island and take coins. With most other wild islands wiped clean, that island and other fort islands (such as the Paradis of HPFF just to the west) may become hotspots of activity with most of the gold concentrated there. To the right, the swarm fleet has had at least two ships sunk and one dismasted by the Armada flotilla, which is the only functioning game piece left in the Kettering fleet. Further to the right we have some brutal gunship vs. gold runner engagements. The Zeus hit 2/6 to damage the Joya del Sol after whirling to that region with Grease Barrels, while the San Cristobal continued her reign of terror in the south, dismasting both 2 masters of the Gold Race fleet.
A short bit later and HMS GT has sunk the HP of HPFF (!), along with the Algeciras of the EA Gold Runners (the latter of which took out an English canoe earlier in the night). The AP’s are back in business to some extent, with the Bandido repaired and most of the big threats of the area (Kettering, Neptuno, etc) finally gone. South of the GT, the swarm Intrepide and Quick Courageux are looking for gold, but most of it is defended by gunships or forts. In the northwest, UPS 2 had a hope at that previously unexplored wild island, but the Neptuno may put an end to their dream of a comeback. In the center, the Joya and others have been frozen by Becalmed, which was finally played by the Doldrums fleet! The Zeus predictably won a firefight against the Joya, which is now derelict. However, the Star of Siam used an EA to row home with a coin. The EA runners have had incredible luck this game, but now they have no masts standing. The San Cristobal has left the south a desolate wasteland, with 4 derelicts trying to scuttle themselves (UPS 4 and Gold Race essentially out of it). The Norvegians and Spanish Meta are still doing well health-wise, but the Doldrums fleet is really piling up the gold.
The Monarca of the Spanish Meta fleet was dismasted but then rescued by the San Cristobal, who put an end to the Norvegia fleet, making them the first fleet technically eliminated. UPS 4 quickly followed them with scuttles, and by the end of the night UPS 2 was also out of it! Of the 13 fleets remaining, a handful have quite a bit of gold. In the center, the Joya del Sol was sunk but her crew escaped with gold via a Raft to the wild island the swarm fleet was smashed at. However, it wasn’t all bad for the swarm fleet, for they had a Pique Miracle! (patent pending XD) The Pique still had her helmsman and oarsman, and finally started rowing after the effect of the Natives wore off and I remembered the generic crew aboard. After this picture she got home with 6 additional gold for the already-wealthy swarm fleet, with 4 coming from Buried Treasure.
After a bizarre situation where they had 4 ships and no gold (strange since they started with 2 ships and most fleets have gold but less ships than they started with XD), the HMS GT fleet is rising up! The repaired Lezard is loading gold from the wild island where UPS 2’s Paradis fort was destroyed, with the London and Hai Peng (captured from UPS 2) possibly looking to join her. However, HMS Grand Temple has been quite busy, destroying not one Paradis de la Mer, but TWO in a single game! After towing home the HP and repairing, she got an EA to finish off the Paradis southwest of their HI. Of course, she got solid help from the London and enemy Halcyon (basically another London haha) along with a lucky 1 roll on the second Paradis’ fort ability (though she rolled a 6 on her first attempt at the UPS 2 Paradis). However, with the arrival of the mighty Zeus from UPS 5, things may quickly unravel for the HMS GT fleet. That’s right, it’s a showdown between the Zeus and the Grand Temple! However, the Zeus sacced out of the whirlpool to hit an impressive 5/7, likely dooming the GT in the near future. That said, with both of those Paradis’ gone almost at the same time, it opens up a bunch of newly available gold in the northwest, which is why I zoomed in here to see all the action. In the far north, the swarm fleet’s Intrepide is trying to take gold from the island where the remaining two UPS 2 ships have been dismasted by the Neptuno of Artillery Strike. At the bottom right, the Pique Miracle is complete as the ship docks home and then repairs. However, trouble for the swarm fleet is brewing. The Coeur has loaded the coins from the Joya’s Raft adventure, but the Star of Siam (the Joya’s fleetmate in EA Gold Runners) has whirled to the area in an attempt to steal it back! Complicating matters is the Bandido of the American Pirate fleet, which is doing alright but won’t get enough gold to win. There was a mistake where the Neptuno had a false reroll, which may have messed up some of the stuff earlier in the game. However, the fleets affected (Artillery Strike, AP’s, USS Kettering, and now UPS 2) were not really in the running anyway so it is not likely to affect the top standings results at all (hopefully; maybe someday I’ll go back and look at the videos to find out haha).
At the far right, it’s another Pique Miracle!! (TM) After being dismasted early in the game by Norvegia, the Pique of the Quick fleet sat at a wild island for a while (somehow not being sunk or captured by Norvegia, Spanish Meta, Doldrums, or anyone else) until the Vengeance finally showed up to tow her home. The return trip was uninterrupted, and another Pique has somehow made it home with gold! Speaking of the Quick fleet, their Courageux had a mast rammed off by the Intrepide of the swarm fleet and can be seen lurking in the far west after retreating into and back out of the fog. In the south, the Diablo flotilla has destroyed Thompson’s Island, but the Amity will just get the gold home for the AP’s anyway. The Bandido ended up ramming the Jolly Mon of the swarm fleet, netting the AP’s an extra gold from the Ransom keyword.
With three fleets (Norvegia, UPS 4, and UPS 2) out of the active running and with much of the ocean deserted, the game is winding down. There is still considerable treasure to be hauled home, but it requires extreme bravery due to the forts protecting it and the various monster gunships (Zeus, San Cristobal, and until this turn the Grand Temple) still sailing around. We should be able to finish the game with another session or two, and then we’ll have an epic coin count to determine the winner and finale of this T2 story!
2/10/2018
Another session was played. The entire game is just desperate and kind of wacky at this point, so it’s tough to remember all of the insignificant details. In the far west, the Zeus has shown up to crash the HMS GT fleet party. The wounded GT and HP have tried to block her, allowing the London and captured Lezard to get coins from the island where UPS 2 essentially met their doom in two ways (Natives plus Paradis destruction by the GT). In the center, the swarm denies the Star of Siam and is about to capture the Bandido. The Doldrums continues to rack up the gold, while the Quick fleet tries to round earth to the far west.
With very few coins readily available on islands, the northwest becomes a hotspot of activity. The Pique and Courageux are quickly (pun intended) trying to go back to the east with 3 coins between them. In the far west the Vengeance is dueling the Longshanks of the Doldrums fleet to protect the gold runners. In the northwest both islands have been mostly wiped clean, with the Zeus dismasting the HP and the London having dropped off her captain and helmsman to load 3 coins. The Neptuno dismasted the swarm Intrepide, who wants to be rescued by one of their sloops. However, the Star of Siam has appeared through the whirlpool, annoyed at having lost the boarding party to the Coeur recently. In the far southeast, the San Cristobal rolled poorly for Paradis (a 5 roll), but hit a whopping 9 for 9 in a double action to make the fort go from healthy to abandoned!!
In the NW, the London got home by whirling a slight bit to the far north so the Zeus wouldn’t be able to get her. She brought home some nice gold for HMS GT, who has risen to late-game prominence a bit after a somewhat slow start. The SoS has stolen the Intrepide’s final coin, but the Lezard has rammed a mast off. The Pique captured the GT. In the SW, the Amity used Skrew Engine to ram the final mast off the Neptuno, getting ready to capture the ship for some revenge at the Artillery Strike fleet being very detrimental to the AP’s early in the game. In the SE the San Cristobal and Monarca have loaded up a lot of coins from the spoils of UPS 5’s Paradis fort, now destroyed by the Spanish Meta fleet. The Quick fleet had a good turn, with the Courageux capturing the Longshanks and the Pique darting into the fog to protect her gold.
But the Quick fleet couldn’t sustain their brief success. Although the Pique got a lucky fog roll to dock home her coin safely, the Rover (the final ship remaining from the Gold Race fleet) rammed the final mast off the Courageux, the ship with two coins aboard. The Vengeance captured the Patagonia for Mycron’s ability but is nearly dismasted with the powerful Eagle nearby. In the SE, revenge for UPS 5! The Zeus flies through the whirlpool and knocks down 4 of Cristobal’s 5 masts. She boards the Monarca and hoards all the gold! The NW becomes a desperate ramming and boarding situation, with the SoS somehow holding onto her coin (vaguely similar to a situation in the NW in the 8 fleet game at the end of T1 I believe). The swarm fleet was going to become a juggernaut with the repaired HMS GT, but the Pique lost her mast on the whirlpool trip and they’re stuck! XD
The London picks up her captain and helmsman, sailing out to wreak havoc. The English are tired of running gold! The London goes 3/3 against various canoes as the Star of Siam improbably escapes home via the whirlpool with her coin. The Bandido and Jolly Mon of the swarm fleet (Bandido captured) face off against the Lezard of HMS GT (captured from the swarm fleet!) for the final coin of the western Natives island. So many ships have swapped sides in this game that is has gotten rather confusing. Another example of that is in the northeast, where the AP’s try to make things interesting. The Amity would take a while to drag the captured Neptuno back home and repair her, so the AP’s are giving the Neptuno to Spanish Meta (ironically an all-Spanish fleet) in the hopes of creating a short-term alliance to help bring down the Doldrums, who I suspect have the most gold. The Doldrums fleet even has a shot at the Courageux, who has both coins still aboard and is likely the largest amount of gold left in play that is realistically available (Zeus with 7 masts left is just about unbeatable at this point haha). Speaking of the Courageux, she has been captured by the Rover of the Gold Race fleet!
In a reversal from the previous handful of turns, the west empties out as eyes turn towards the Doldrums vs. Quick showdown of sorts in the far east. Neither of those fleets may win the fight however, as the Eagle sinks the Vengeance and the Rover takes the captured Courageux into the fog. Various single ships are on their way to the area, including the Amity, Coeur (of the swarm fleet), and Elthelfleda. The AP’s plan backfired, as the Spanish Meta fleet rammed the Amity. The Zeus got her gold home and the London looks to explore to take the last coin from the former UPS 5 island.
Fleets that have been eliminated or essentially eliminated now include UPS 4, Artillery Strike, USS Kettering, Norvegia, HPFF, and UPS 2.
The game is obviously winding down and we will hopefully finish it in the eighth and final session!
2/11/2018
The eighth and final session of this game has been played! 😀
The two coins on Le Courageux became some of the final in play. Various ships are here fighting over them, with Le Pique of the Quick fleet briefly recapturing the ship that was originally theirs (after the Rover was dismasted.
At the upper left, the Lezard (now of HMS GT) whirlpools to the northwest to avoid the Jolly Mon of the swarm fleet. HMS London of the same fleet has one of the other final coins, so the Monarca and Star of Siam have entered the area, anticipating the return of the London through a whirlpool. In the far east, the Eagle has gotten one of the Courageux’s coins and ducks into a fog bank near her HI for safety.
Yet AGAIN there is chaos in the far northwest! The London returns, but is ambushed by one of her own former allies in a way! The Zeus of UPS 5 loaded aboard the HMS GT’s Calico Cat, and her extra action allowed the Zeus to go through the whirlpool to steal the London’s coin! However, it made the Zeus a magnet for fire, and being pinned to the London meant it would be difficult for the Zeus to get the coin home, even with 7 (at the time of the ram) masts remaining. The Neptuno, London, and Star of Siam all pounded away at the 10 master, with the Jolly Mon and Lezard anxiously waiting to ram and try to steal the coin.
The Lezard of HMS GT DID steal the coin away from the Zeus, but the Zeus sank the London to unpin herself shortly afterwards. Then she smashed the Lezard and took the coin back, sinking the Jolly Mon and eliminating the swarm fleet in the process. XD The San Cristobal won the final battle in the far east, taking the Courageux’s other coin all the way home (the Eagle of the Doldrums fleet did unload the other one). With that there was only one coin left!! The San Cristobal got an extra action to go through the SE whirlpool and dismast the Zeus, stealing the coin!! The Zeus would indeed NOT get the coin home, as it instead went to the Spanish Meta fleet, who had an incredible and dominant endgame.
In an epic COIN COUNT, Dakmor’s Swarm Fleet has WON the 16 fleet game!!!!!!!
Here are the final gold scores after a VERY long game (23 turns, but over a dozen hours).
The final standings for this epic game:
1. dakmor’s Swarm fleet: 34 gold
2. The Doldrums: 33 gold
3. Darrin’s Gold Race: 29 gold
4. EA Gold Runners: 26 gold
5. Spanish Meta Fleet V2: 24 gold
6. HMS Grand Temple: 22 gold
7. American Pirates: 16 gold
8. UPS 4: 16 gold (AP’s had a ship active at the end)
9. UPS 5: 13 gold
10. RtSS English: 12 gold
11. Quick wins the game: 9 gold
12. Norvegia: 6 gold
13. Artillery Strike: 4 gold
14. (tie) UPS 2 and Hai Peng Fort Frenzy: 2 gold
16. USS Kettering: 0 gold
Truly incredible with a 1-gold margin of victory for the swarm fleet! For the past few sessions I suspected that the Doldrums fleet had the most gold, but the swarm did very well. They had the Barbary Banner, which I think was included in a “motherlode” of about 14 gold brought home by the Intrepide. The swarm fleet ekes out a win, proving that it’s a great fleet to use in multiplayer games (which was already established from games I played a WHILE ago, but still, winning a 16 fleet game is a big deal after all! XD).
Finishing on the “podium” was Darrin’s Gold Race fleet, which placed the highest of the “super fleets” from the actual tournament. That fleet further proves itself, especially when you consider that they were down to just the Rover for the entire endgame. (so they got that 29 gold very early and quickly in the game)
The EA Gold Runners fleet did admirably, coming in 4th after winning the 12 fleet game I played awhile back. The AP’s (winner of the 8 fleet game and 2nd place in the 12 fleet game) didn’t do as well as I had hoped (I wanted them to win among my fleets), but still had a respectable finish in the top half of fleets.
The Spanish Meta had an amazing endgame, becoming a juggernaut as less and less ships were sailing around. The San Cristobal came to dominate, with the Monarca as her sidekick. Eventually they even took control of the Neptuno of the Artillery Strike fleet, giving them a perfect all-Spanish addition to an already great Spanish fleet. It was a bit too late to win the game but a very strong showing from them.
Speaking of good endgames, HMS GT came out of nowhere to finish 6th! After struggling against the Paradis built by UPS 2, they finally got some gold home (London had 3 coins worth about 13 in one load I think) and even managed to double their fleet size to 4 ships with the HP and Lezard.
From there it was mostly disappointments, but only so many fleets can do extremely well with so many participants. The Zeus of UPS 5 had a powerful endgame but they finished with just 13 gold. Fleets like Norvegia, UPS 2 and HPFF underperformed, but that was partly due to going late in the turn order. In fact, the top two fleets of this game were in the first 3 fleets to go in the turn order. In that case the AP’s and Gold Race fleets outperformed their starting positions a bit, but so much happened on the early turns that getting behind meant doom.
As far as player stats go, I got 60 more gold with my fleets than Xerecs did with his (154-94), along with one of my fleets actually winning the game, but he had many more ships active at the end of the game, including a nearly healthy Spanish Meta fleet and a Zeus that wrecked my hopes of HMS GT upsetting more fleets in the standings.
Overall it was a very fun game! This officially concludes the Tournament #2 festivities for good, and likely it says goodbye to “official” tournament play for a long time, at least between Xerecs and I. We hope you enjoyed the journey, which started in fall 2016. O_O From here we plan other adventures, including a grand one that will hopefully start sometime this year… plans to be revealed at a later date….
In addition, a few simple house rules:
-No Events
-No 0LR +5 crew
-0LR reroller crew will cost 3 points so they’re not free
-When a ship wins a boarding party, the winner decides whether they will take gold/resources or eliminate crew. The winner chooses which gold/resources to take, but the loser chooses which crew is eliminated.
-Whirlpools take effect on a roll of 1-3 instead of 4-6 (since you almost never want to roll low in this game)
-Return to Savage Shores is available
-Custom game pieces are allowed, but they may be modified or banned in-game (through a vote) if they are overpowered (OP).
-Other house rules may be instituted during the game if players are in favor of them.
This game has two abbreviated names:
VEE: VASSAL Economy Edition
CG3: Campaign Game 3
2019 Edit: You can use the Master Spreadsheet to see the game pieces now that Miniature Trading doesn’t work.
Here are the players with their associated factions, in the order that turns will be taken.
Pirateaj14, Spanish
La Santa Isabel + Dominic Freda
La Monarca + explorer
El Algeciras + captain
Diablo
Repkosai, English
HMS Bolingbroke + captain, helmsman
Aberdeen Baron + helmsman
Honu Iki + captain, helmsman
The home islands were chosen in reverse turn order, with the English choosing first and the Spanish choosing last.
Here is the ocean, created by xerecs! A great barrier reef divides the sea mostly in half, with the Gateway island in the center where the reefs part. There is a Frozen North, as well as a Great Sargasso and Gray Shrouds in the south.
The northwest, where the storms are currently clustered into a hurricane. The storms are from xerecs’ EE game:
STORM
Type: Terrain
Every storm has two sets of numbers on it, one in the middle, and 1-6 on the edge. Once per every players turn, roll a d6. If the number matches the middle number of any storm in play, roll another d6, the storm moves L from that number in a straight line. Storms may move over islands and other terrain.
If any part of a game piece, even submerged pieces, touches a storm place the game piece inside the storm, it is now lost. Roll a d6 and subtract the result from the number of masts, segments, or flags remaining on the game piece. Ships may be sunk by storms, and forts may be eliminated by storms as well.
To escape the Storm, give the piece a move action, and roll a d6. Place the game piece facing away from the storm on the resulting number, the game piece may continue moving from there.
If a storm moves over or into another storm they join, if either of them is rolled, move both as one.
The other fog banks with numbers on them (not grouped together) are icebergs. The Spanish and Cursed home islands (HI’s) are visible.
The northeast, showing the American HI.
The southeast, showing the American and Pirate HI’s, the Barrier Reef, and the Great Sargasso.
The southwest, showing the home ports of England, France, and Spain. Indeed, by coincidence the major imperial factions are grouped in the west half, while the “others” (Pirates, Americans, Cursed) are on the eastern side of the big reef. An island is hidden in the Gray Shrouds, which may part or roll at various times.
Stay tuned, for adventure awaits!
9/3/2017
The third Pirates CSG campaign game on the VASSAL module has BEGUN! VEE (VASSAL Economy Edition) is now in progress!
Video of the first session. “Alive” by Phil Lober is one of the best fantasy/adventure/epic songs that encompasses the grand and epic nature of this kind of game, and provides a perfect thematic start. This was live streamed to youtube but may be quite a rarity because coordinating the logistics of 6 different people across 3 different time zones is rather difficult for the purposes of playing live. However, we wanted to do a “grand opening”, and here it is!
The first resource rolls were made! A 4 was rolled for value, with a 9 for duration. This gave us some time to acquire resources and cash them in if desired, with metals and textiles being the most valuable. We are keeping track of the resource rolls with face up coins in the upper left corner.
The first turn of the game! As with the other Economy Edition games, face up coins represent resources, while face down coins represent gold. Launchings happen at the end of each player’s turn, and the icebergs and storm terrain is moved at the beginning of each round of turns. We confirmed flat earth due to how the map was constructed.
This shows a chunk of the east, where the first launching has occurred! The Spanish found extremely valuable metals on the island west of their home island, and have cashed in 3 of them for 18 gold! pirateaj14’s Spanish launched La Resolucion, giving the Spanish two capable gunships very early in the game. You can see repkosai’s English heading for an island north of their HI, while to the east the Gateway island is unexplored.
Incredibly, all four explored islands in the west are metals islands!! All of those metals are currently worth 6 gold apiece, so the English, French, and Spanish are hurrying to cash them in before the next resource rolls are made. wifey’s Pirates are making their way around the Great Sargasso to a southern island. In the east, my Americans made the second launching of the game with the Rattlesnake. They have found good resources as well, with their two islands producing textiles and lumber. In the Frozen North, the Cursed have found textiles of their own in addition to luxuries. In the south, the French took great advantage of the explorer-reroll rule, turning an island from fish (currently worth 1) to metals! (currently worth 6)
It was a successful start to this grand endeavor, and we hope to continue soon with individual turns and hopefully live play as well. Stay tuned!
9/9/2017
Another live session has been played! I forgot to take pictures for most of the session, partly because it was recorded.
Partway through the session, the first resource change happened! With great anticipation from a laggy die roll, a 6 was rolled for value, and another 6 for duration! For the next 6 turns, spices and fish would be the most valuable resources.
The Americans launched their native canoes, with the chieftain residing on the James Madison. The Spanish and Americans have established military ports on the islands west of their home islands.
The first shots have been fired! The French sailed the Bonne Chance towards the Gateway, but the Spanish were not having any of it! With a quick turnaround, the Resolucion sailed south and took a mast off the French junk! No declarations of war have been made, but the Resolucion also provided the first sinking of the game on the next turn, sending the Bonne Chance to the depths!
The Spanish found textiles on the Gateway island. From their new military port, the Spanish launched La Tartessos, who began sailing towards the English. The Aberdeen Baron and Bolingbroke were taking a roundabout way back to their HI, using whirlpools to go in a circle of sorts. This may have been to avoid the Algeciras and Diablo, and indeed the Spanish are off to a very strong start. At the bottom left, the Honu Iki prepares to re-enter the Gray Shrouds in hopes of finding the island again.
The Frozen North, where the Cursed reside. The resource change didn’t do them any favors, as they currently have access to the lowest-value resources. Although, the Hangman’s Joke discovered lumber after fog hopping to the far northeast! You can see the trading port southwest of their HI, but the Sea Monkey has taken a hit from an iceberg.
Likely in response to Spanish aggression, the French launch two 5 masters: the Soleil Royal and Monaque! They join an impressive fleet of French resource runners, who are collecting still-valuable metals from two different islands. At the far right, the Swift has loaded spices from the Pirates’ wild island, and the Hai Peng and Banshee’s Cry are approaching home farther north.
It was an interesting night, which saw the first shots fired, the first ship sunk, and the first resource change.
10/27/2017
Since Xerecs’ last report, some stuff has happened!
Retaliating for the sinking of the Bonne Chance and possibly aiding the English at the same time, the French strike the Spanish hard!! The Acorazado was sunk (!), with the Joya del Sol and Monarca dismasted. The San Cristobal has sailed in to dismast L’Ange, but the Spanish are in major trouble.
Up in the north, the Cursed are using their fog hoppers to great effect, gathering valuable lumber from the northeasternmost island. At the bottom left, my Americans have established the second trading port of the game, which is right near the first one built by the Cursed. At the bottom right, the Pirates’ Darkhawk II loads textiles from an island in the far east.
The entire ocean, showing the decent-size French-Spanish action in the middle.
11/8/2017
A few major developments have happened! After the latest report, the Americans spent a whopping 221 gold in one turn to launch the Zhanfu, Baochuan, Nautilus, Mobilis, Concordia and New Orleans, all replete with crew setups!
The French have nearly finished off the Spanish, capturing the Joya del Sol, San Cristobal, and Santa Isabel in addition to eliminating most of their native canoes. The Spanish settlement on the Gateway island was destroyed as well.
After spending big at their trading and military ports in recent turns, the Americans finally show their might! Seeing the potential for huge French competition in the near future (a military port about to be established on the Gateway island with a resource change coming soon to possibly skyrocket the value of French metals), Montana Mays decided to launch a preemptive strike!
With careful execution, the American gunships are sent into battle! The Julius Caesar and York knocked masts off the Belle Etoile, who was docked at the Gateway island with both a settlement and military port upgrade. Then it was the Zhanfu’s turn! Huang Bai sacced an oarsman, and the 10 master from Return to Savage Shores surged southwards. Her second action brought her within range of the Soleil Royal. Ibrahan Ozat launched an S-boarding party, which let Captain Nemo capture Capitaine Arathiel! Then, in a rare display of accurate shooting from yours truly, the Zhanfu went 5/5 on the cannons she had in range, dismasting the Soleil Royal! The Atlanta was given the Tombstone’s action via GWL (RtSS version of George Washington LeBeaux, the American version of Lord Mycron), and the Belle Etoile was sunk with her island upgrades aboard! O_O
The whole ocean, with the sudden American strike in the center. The Spanish, Pirates, and English have about 8 usable ships between them, leaving the Cursed, French and Americans as the dominant factions as of now. The hurricane in the northwest has not affected play yet, but it has been moving southeast somewhat consistently….
12/2/2017
After two more turns, the Americans have emerged as the dominant faction in the game.
One turn ago, the French tried to escape and salvage what gunships they could. However, Montana Mays and Captain Nemo weren’t having any of it. The Zhanfu took out the final mast on Le Bonaparte, leaving her and the captured San Cristobal dead in the water. The Superbe was dismasted and the Soleil Royal captured. The Julius Caesar and Atlanta chased down the Monaque, hitting her with exploding shot and stinkpot shot.
After 8 turns, a new resource change was needed! A 2 was rolled, crashing the textiles market but increasing the value of everything else by 1 (lumber is the most valuable). The values will hold for the next 5 turns.
This past turn, the Monaque shot 2/2 (with Deleflote’s action) against the Zhanfu, but the Americans completed their victory just afterwards. The Americans have captured most of the ships, though the Monaque will have to be scuttled. The Mobilis cancelled the Nautilus’ Submarine keyword, allowing the ship to tow the Joya del Sol out of the way so the Peacock could dock and explore the Gateway island. However, more textiles were found, a resource readily available to the Americans. Thus, the Americans built Thompson’s Island at the end of their turn! This will give them a place to repair, quite convenient given the plethora of valuable derelicts now in their possession.
The Americans have declared war on the French! The Zhanfu also sunk the Mont Blanc flotilla this turn, and the captured Bonaparte will eventually be scuttled since I hate that ship. The American victory is complete, and gives them total control over the center area. The Pirates and French still won’t have valuable resources readily available to them during this change, but the final English ship (Aberdeen Baron) may finally be able to dock home on their turn! Curiously, the Spanish have not returned to their HI or tried to gather resources with El Algeciras, as they appear hell-bent on eliminating the English. The Cursed just launched their icebreaker (Urd), and have pretty easy access to islands that produce the two most valuable resources.
1/15/2018
The action has continued! In this picture you can see that the Americans have captured Davy Jones!! This was their ultimate objective when they suddenly sent the Grampus and Bonhomme Richard north into Cursed territory, seizing the opportunity to take out a huge threat (and the reason the Joya del Sol sank after being captured by the Americans, which is why the Americans took action in the first place). The Urd was dismasted by the Grampus, with AA’s and GWL (American Mycron) helping out immensely. You can see that the Americans have launched more ships from their trading port, with two turtle ships crossing the reef barrier and four new ships at the port.
However, an even bigger development has been taking place in the mostly deserted western half of the sea…
THE SPANISH HAVE BEEN ELIMINATED!!!!
The Zhanfu had been dispatched to the west a number of turns ago, with the mission of eliminating the final Spanish presence in the game. After they were decimated in the French attack near the Gateway, the Spanish eventually had only two game pieces afloat – El Algeciras and the Diablo flotilla. With the Spanish for some reason seemingly still hell-bent on eliminating the English instead of returning home to secure the HI and start gathering resources again, it was time for the Americans to end things. The slightly weakened Zhanfu (8 masts remaining) dismasted the Algeciras and knocked out the flotilla’s flag with her first broadside, and this turn she has sunk both to knock pirateaj14 from the game! They still have their military port, but that is now easy picking for whoever wants that island as their own. There is a tiny loophole in the EE rules where the Spanish could get back into the game, but it would require a failed razing of that port by an enemy ship (at which point the Spanish would capture the ship). The possibility of Cursed or Pirate help potentially bringing the Spanish back into the fold is an ugly one (due to the Spanish often taking the longest to complete their turn despite the lack of time it takes to give a single move action), so it’s possible the Americans will have the Zhanfu sac next turn and try to eliminate the port herself.
At the left, the Aberdeen Baron repairs, as the English are still in it!
Action in the north! The first American reinforcements are on the scene of the “Battle for Davy Jones”, which the Americans have won so far. The Divine Dragon began towing the Grampus, knocking a mast off the Hades’ Realm. The Noble Swan arrived as well, but missed her shot. The DD was later given an AA to shoot and ram the Hades’ Realm, taking out two more masts along with a crew (successful shot plus devastating ability). However, the Cursed are on the move with their gunships, with the Grim Reaper and Fallen Angel leading the charge. Those subs at the top of the picture have cancellers (Papa Doc and Madame Maria, a custom by Xerecs), which is part of the reason the newly launched Naegling and Polaris have turned around lol. However, the Glorious Treasure and Slipstream have ventured across the great Barrier Reef. With the captured Slipknot (the ship that carries All-Powerful Davy Jones) failing her scuttle roll again, the Bonhomme Richard was given an extra action by GWL to tow the Slipknot into the fog bank at the lower right, where DJ will be “safe” until his ship can “sink” and warp home via Eternal. Some slightly complicated business, but the Americans have accomplished their objective (it seems, unless the Cursed can extricate their captured leader) and now have control of Davy Jones.
At the bottom, the Mercury (windcatcher) is the first of a few American gunships slowly bringing up support from the home waters to the south. At the left, though, is something else entirely. Wanting to make a STATEMENT, the Americans spent most of their income from this turn on the Fortaleza, their third 10 master of the game! This was a perfect and ironic “gift” the Americans gave to themselves after eliminating the Spanish from the game.
With most of the ocean somewhat deserted, the only remaining conflict is in the north now. Of course, the French, Pirates, and English are all biding their time until the next resource change, which is now less than 2 rounds away. The American force in the south is nearing the French fleet, even as the influence of America reaches far into the west and north. Further conflict between the Americans and Cursed looks inevitable.
1/20/2018
After another turn, the Americans continue to make aggressive moves. The force in the south has reached the primary French resource island, with the combined firepower of three ships destroying the French settlement there! This makes the island go back to unexplored for all players and resets the island’s resource. In hindsight the Americans probably should have captured the settlement instead, but oops on my part for that.
In the north, the Cursed appeared to begin retreating, but the Americans are considering their hired turtle ships from the Jades as disposable, so they pressed the attack. The Noble Swan knocked a mast off the Grinder and eventually sank the Urd with an AA, while the Divine Dragon beat up on the Grim Reaper a bit. The Americans have slowly been trying to mass a small force near the reef barrier, with the Glorious Treasure, Mercury windcatcher, Minuteman flotilla, and now Naegling in that area. The recently launched Kettering looks to join them soon. The Slipknot finally got her scuttle roll and will join the American HI soon, while her captor (the Bonhomme Richard) sails to the military port for repairs.
The resources are about to change! Knowing this, the Americans used an AA to get the James Madison home (along with other ships of course) when she otherwise wouldn’t have, cashing in some extra lumber in the anticipation that lumber may not be valuable again for a while. This paid off immediately, as the Americans used all but one of their 84 gold to launch 4 new ships from their military port.
A few developments in the west too: the Zhanfu destroyed the Spanish military port to officially eliminate them from the game for good, while the Aberdeen Baron finished repairing so the English are ready to sail once more.
1/23/2018
What is going on?!
This game isn’t as big as my EE game, CG1, or CTO, but I’m hyped about it right now and feel like it’s a solid time to do a little overview.
Finding valuable resources early, the Spanish got off to the quickest start. They soon launched some of Spain’s finest ships and got into small-scale conflicts with their neighbors, the English and French. This ultimately led to their demise, with both factions fighting back.
Eventually the resources changed and the Americans were able to put forth some good warships and start to optimize their resource system. There was essentially a domino effect. First the Spanish largely took out the English, who still only have one ship in play. Then the French got revenge for the sinking of the Bonne Chance and took the Spanish down to one ship remaining. Then the Americans struck suddenly at the Gateway island, sinking or capturing the entire French battle squadron that had crushed the Spanish.
Just recently the Americans have finished off the Spanish, while the Pirates and English slip under the radar and try to recover from difficult starts. The Cursed have been rising of late, and the capture of Davy Jones by the powerful Americans has escalated into very tense relations between those two factions.
~~~~~
Onto the actual developments! Of which there are only a couple now haha, but more soon. A VERY important resource change just took place, with a value roll of 3 for 8 turns!! This is incredibly fortunate for the factions already in power positions, as the Americans and Cursed have the valuable resources (textiles and lumber) readily available to them. Dark times continue for the French and English, who likely wanted nothing more than to cash in their metals and go on a spending spree.
As of the current turn, the Cursed have launched some of their best custom ships, and now have 4 cancellers in play to counter the 4 the Americans have launched over the past few turns. Papa Doc from RtSS is the only standard one, with Madame Maria, the Demise, and the Rampage (a Merc 5 master launched from the trading port) joining the Cursed ranks.
However, the Americans spent last night plotting and strategizing, planning out their launches for a while in what looks to be a borderline-unprecedented 8 turn spending spree as high volumes of textiles and lumber are cashed in for new ships. The American leaders will have to juggle difficult operations on two fronts, though they will now have the spending power to potentially make aggressive moves at both locales. In the south, they face the fact that it is extremely difficult to eliminate a faction entrenched at their home island. In the north, powerful customs and a “blanket” of cancelling surrounding Cursed operations will require serious efforts to contain or overwhelm.
1/27/2018
After a few more faction turns, there has been some big spending. In the far south, the French decided to cash out their immense hoard of metals, spending nearly all of it (almost 100 metals) despite the resource being only worth 1 gold. However, it makes sense because the Americans look to be bearing down on them and have declared war. Waiting 8 turns for the metals to jump in value would be risky as well. The French have launched some new gunships and put some fighting crew on existing vessels.
With the Americans once again possessing the two most valuable resources (textiles and lumber), it was launch time at the home island! Cashing out their stash of 41 textiles for 246 gold and adding to it with some lumber, the Americans spent 292 gold on their turn, completely emptying the coffers. They launched from all three of their available locations: the Grand Temple and Crescent Moon came into play at the trading port, where the Fortaleza and Grand Path also lurk. 6 warships were launched from the military port, and 3 ships were launched from the home island.
In addition, the Slipknot was repaired at her new home after finally being scuttled. The Noble Swan burned to the waterline after being hit with exploding shot, while the Slipstream zoomed back across the reefs after seeing the newly launched Rampage (which has the canceller ability) at the Cursed trading port. The Americans already have about a dozen ships stationed near their own trading port, with more on the way from the south.
It will be interesting to see if the Americans can fight on two fronts at once, with a full squadron of 10 ships still stationed in the south near the French HI. In other news, you may have noticed that the Zeus is loose!! At the lower right you can see her newly launched at the Pirate HI. This is the fourth 10 master in play, with all of them spread out right now in different locations. At the far left, the Aberdeen Baron has finally sailed out after repairing for quite some time!
1/30/2018
Perhaps an unnecessary report, but certainly some interesting developments to report on. The Cursed appear to be in fully defensive mode, with most of their new launches staying docked at their home island and the Rampage and others retreating a bit from their positions a turn ago. In the far south, the French are off! Their entire fleet has departed the HI, heading in a northwesterly direction.
Seeing a chance to really maximize their profits, the Americans are devoting even more cargo capacity to their textile-laden island northeast of their HI. The Providence and Bellevue are being used as hybrid escorts in an attempt to protect the canoes from possible fog hopping attacks by the Cursed. With textiles as the most valuable resource for another 6 turns (after this picture was taken), the Lynx and Carolina have switched islands from the lumber island to the textiles island to assist in the efforts. Finally, you can glimpse four ships heading to the island as well. This is a random mishmash including the recently repaired Strongarm hoist, the newly launched Silver Dollar (Xerecs custom), the fully repaired Slipknot with Davy Jones aboard, and the (finally repaired) Santa Isabel, another grand prize the Americans have brought home from their war spoils. Throw in the Darkhawk II of the Pirate fleet, and the textiles island will see a huge harvest over the coming turns. There was a tiny bit of combat on this turn as well, with the Fortaleza getting an EA from Count Gustov. My custom equipment Bow Chasers was revealed, with the ship using both actions to shoot across the reef and hit 1/4 to dismast the Fallen Angel. The Americans ended their turn by launching 4 new ships from their trading port: the Assassin (one of my oldest customs), the Sigra Mein (a custom Viking 3 masted longship, with S+S+S speed but costing 20 points for just 2 cargo spaces), the Majestic, and the Wiglaf, the latter of which has a cannon bonus against the Cursed.
2/7/2018
A Turn for the Ages
Normally I don’t title these but this deserves special mention. Check out the video of my combat turn here.
First, the situation at the end of the Americans’ last turn: “tightening the noose”. In the north, and the south. The Fortaleza paid the price for using Bow Chasers to dismast the Fallen Angel, with the Cursed dragging her across a reef with an L-mover. This left the 10 master essentially doomed with just 2 masts remaining (3 taken out via the Death’s Anchor flotilla, and 5 more from the reef roll), since she couldn’t move off the reef without being wrecked automatically (highest roll of 6 for the reef would result in 4 masts eliminated and a shipwreck in this case). Knowing this, the Americans simply shot again, with the Fallen Angel sinking. The Death’s Anchor sank the Fortaleza, which the Americans knew was inevitable. However, all the while they have been tightening the noose around the Cursed home island. Not wanting to risk the Grand Temple and Grand Path across the reefs that wrecked the Fortaleza, the Americans sent them west towards a convenient whirlpool. Around 10 ships clustered near the American trading port, waiting for the command to surge northwards. The Kettering guarded the Naegling, who was on a strange mission to explore the Cursed luxuries island as part of an American goal. Further south lies some of America’s newest ships, among them 3 cancellers and 3 five masted capital ships (with the President, Montezuma, Eagan, and cheerleading Denver to back them up, an impressive force indeed).
However, the real immediate strength lay in the deep south, where the task force assigned to the French fleet was gathered around the whirlpool, having anticipated an attack on the Cursed for weeks now. In that squadron were three more cancellers, and the mammoth Baochuan. In an important development, the Flying Fish arrived through the southern whirlpool carrying island upgrades, turning a former French metals island into an American military port! This was the final piece of the puzzle for the American strategy, as they could now launch in the deep south to keep the French at bay (or now to blockade them since they are leaving the area). This would free up their megaships (cancellers and best gunships) to enter the whirlpool and emerge in the Frozen North where the Cursed were concentrated!
THE AMERICANS DECLARE WAR ON THE CURSED!!!!
USS Kettering starts the war! She sailed over and cancelled the Interloper to the surface, sinking the expensive submarine with a barrage of cannon fire augmented by her captain Jonas Richman’s hatred of the Cursed.
The American force in the north may not look strong enough to take on the Cursed, but with a LOT of help from their friends…. 😀
Chaos erupts! The Wiglaf and Sigra Mein brave the Barrier Reef to dismast and capture the Grim Reaper. In a calculated strike, the Americans send forth their cancellers to counter the 4 Cursed cancellers in the area. Christian Fiore (aboard the Nautilus) and Madame Maria (aboard the Locker) cancel each other out. The Mobilis and Papa Doc (aboard the Pyre) cancel each other out. The Constitution gets her SAT with a reroll from Jonathan Haraden, and America’s most famous sailing warship is back in action! The Americans had a little trick up their sleeve: the previous turn they had launched the Majestic, a 14 point 1 masted galley that has the cheerleading ability (friendly ships within S get +1 to their cannon rolls). As a Barbary Corsair ship she was fair game to launch at the trading port, and with only one mast, she wouldn’t take reef damage when crossing. The Majestic was sent over before the Constitution’s second action of the turn, and although she didn’t play a HUGE role in the battle so far, it’s a cool way to use 19 points on something (with helmsman/shipwright/oarsman aboard for maximum support, as I am wont to do XD) that nobody would ever use in most regular games.
And now things descend into the chaos only seen in huge games. O_O This is where the action is! The Constitution sank the Death’s Anchor flotilla before shooting at the Rampage, with DNT and the Rampage cancelling each other out. Next came the mighty Baochuan! However, she wasn’t so mighty this turn, as she couldn’t quite reach the Cursed trading port (I had wanted to raze it on this turn), but sacced to eventually sink the dangerous Rampage. From there the Americans had a bit of luck, but they were certainly due for it. Since getting two more AA crew (any ship in your fleet gets two actions on a 6) 3 turns ago, the Americans got just ONE AA over those three turns (the one came on this turn). Since I have paired every AA crew with the reroll ability, in this case that represents 1/29 total rolls being a 6. O_O (normal odds would be 5/30, so 1 is extreme) However, the Americans made up for it with their SAT and EA rolls this turn. The Grand Temple got her SAT to blast away. The Kettering received the AA so she could blast away at the Demise. The Grand Path received an extra action from GWL (American Mycron) to do the same thing as the Grand Temple. The cannon smoke hasn’t even cleared, but the Cursed lost the Demise and Flying Dutchman in the carnage.
With less emphasis on the action itself, here is the whole situation. The Americans are now at war with the French and the Cursed. The Concordia, Mercury, and Lamon also showed up through the whirlpool from the south. At the lower right, the Americans show that the Cursed must act fast and have a miraculous comeback, for the speedy Sea Wind is carrying settlement and military port upgrades to the luxuries island the Naegling explored! All is revealed in this battle report on the American side, as they plan to build an MP there to launch right near the Cursed and eventually wipe them out. Various ships have surged across the reef barrier and up from the south in an all-out CHARGE!!! O_O
The deep south is suddenly nearly devoid of American activity, though 4 gunships are sailing to blockade the French HI.
In their final action of the turn, the Americans pull a shocker! Having established a secret alliance with the Pirates early in the game, the Americans didn’t put any island upgrades on the textiles island northeast of their HI so they could share the island with the Pirates. Nice right? However, the Americans suspect the Pirates might be in cahoots with at least one of the other factions, including the French or Cursed that the Americans are at war with! This is because the recently launched Zeus has pointed her bow towards the American resource system with a crew complement ready to strike! (sac with captain/helmsman and world hater) An attempt to contact the Pirate admiral was in vain, but it didn’t help that the Americans were trigger-happy tonight! XD Wanting to get a preemptive strike in the case of a betrayal, the Americans strike first and break their alliance with the Pirates!! The captured Superbe sacs an oarsman to rake the Zeus’ bow, but lands just two hits. However, the attack was a statement, since any Pirate aggression will result in earning the wrath of the mighty Americans. The Americans have not declared war, and are even still open to the possibility of working with the Pirates.
Here is the full ocean, with the Americans becoming dominant to the point of a full Empire. They have declared war on the Cursed and crushed many of their best ships with a single, massive, devastating attack, and have sent dozens of ships sailing straight for the Cursed HI in what could become the longest and bloodiest conflict of this game. To show off their might, the Americans launched the Shui Xian from their trading port just a turn after the Fortaleza sank! XD Sink one of their 10 masters, and they’ll just launch another. They also launched the Tiger’s Breath as an impromptu medical barge, with various Jade ships losing crew from the whirlpool and likely losing more in the War on the Cursed. In the deep south the Americans have begun activity at their new military port, where the USS Thomas Jefferson (one of my favorite American ships) and Brandywine have been launched.
So all in all, you could say “the Americans hit the nuclear option”. XD Declaring war on the second-largest faction, launching a new 10 master, potentially wrecking their only alliance, and going ballistic on the game in an attempt to dominate this ocean. All of this (except the attack on the Pirates) has been in the works for weeks, but only now was it the perfect time to strike. It has now been about 5 hours since I downloaded the new file and started my turn, which took over 3 hours. Thanks for reading, and thank you to those who are playing this huge game! 😀
2/8/2018
Here are the latest ship and point counts for this game. I didn’t post this first one back then since I didn’t want it to be as obvious how much of a points lead I had, in an attempt to prevent a coalition against the Americans. XD (though anyone could total things up at any time of course)
The game has ballooned by almost 1,000 points in the past month! The Spanish were eliminated, but most other factions gained at least some stuff. The Americans have had fortunate resource changes, adding 29 ships and 672 points to their fleet! O_O
The Americans have many heavily crewed gunships, along with three 10 masters. What’s more impressive is the percentages:
Americans:
Ships in play: 62.6% (72/115)
Points in play: 67.8% (1565/2307)
That means the Americans have more than twice as many points in play as all the other factions COMBINED! O_O
American points in play: 1,565
All other points in play: 742
The Americans are approaching the status of the largest single fleet ever seen on VASSAL, within sight of the Spanish CG1 record of 1,631 points in play. That fleet did have a ridiculous 111 ships in play at that point count, so that record probably won’t be broken in this game. The Americans are also approaching the record for the largest American fleet I have controlled, which was 96 ships at 1,660 points from Command the Oceans.
2/12/2018
The Americans are here! With another fantastic turn they tighten their hold on what I would now say is officially the “endgame” assuming the Americans can keep their point lead and win their wars.
Here is the combat situation in the far north, where the action is still hot. The King Jones was dismasted by a trio of ships (including Glorious Treasure and Assassin), with DNT of the Constitution cancelling the ship’s oarsman so the Grand Temple could capture her. At the far left, the Baochuan and Minuteman flotilla teamed up to sink the Sea Monkey, but not before the Baochuan won a boarding party to take three textiles. The Americans are disappointed they haven’t razed the trading port yet, but at this point they can do that at their leisure, having gained control of the area. After the 2 submerged cancelling submarines on each side cancelled each other out, the Lizard sailed over the Pyre to cancel the Eternal keyword on Admiral of the Skelds, allowing the Grand Path to shoot twice via the only American AA this turn to sink the Hell Hound! Just to the right of that, the Ghost Walker got within cancelling and cannon range of the Locker, bringing the sub to surface by cancelling the Submarine keyword. One hit from the GW and a pair of hits from the Sigra Mein eliminated all three of the Locker’s segments. With the now-dominant cancelling advantage the Americans enjoy (4-2 in that area with DNT and the late-arriving Hessian making SIX on the overall battlefield), they hope to capture at least one of the Cursed submarines that has a canceller on it, since cancelling the Submarine keyword allows it to be towed. One thing that didn’t go well at all for the Americans this turn was submerged ramming, as their subs generally failed to damage the Nightmare and Hell Hound. The Concordia shot 3/5 to leave just one mast standing on the Hades’ Realm. The Cursed have now been pushed back against their own home island as a result of the 2 turn offensive (so far). However, from previous reports you might expect to see more American gunships flooding the area in this picture. Their attention has been drawn elsewhere!
The French have arrived in the northeast! Sending almost their entire remaining fleet through the whirlpool near their home island, they have come to the eastern half of the sea presumably to wage war on the Americans. The Americans have already called 3 capital ships away from the squadron heading north, with the Enterprise, Colossus (out of frame to upper left), Essex, Denver, and Hannah breaking off to head southeast. The Bonhomme Richard was almost finished repairing (4 masts up) when she too was called to active duty, rushing to intercept the oncoming French (the captured San Cristobal is behind her at the far left). At the upper right, the Bellevue only managed to take out one mast on the Sea Hag, and the Americans don’t have any other captained ships in the area with which to take on the Ouroboros fort. However, the timing wasn’t too terrible for the Americans, since their larger cargo ships (Carolina, Silver Dollar, Strongarm, Slipknot, Santa Isabel) all got loaded up with textiles just before the fort was built last turn. They are now running home along with the canoes, though some might be intercepted by the French before they can get there. However, the Americans probably have enough points in play and resources coming in to win the game as-is, so the triple threat of Zeus/Cursed fort/French attack may not hinder them as much as you would think.
At the lower right, the Kentucky was clutch on this turn, hitting the Zeus 2/2 on her first action and using an AA (not from Preble himself, who is aboard) to hit 3/4 on her second action! This takes the Zeus down to 3 masts, and the Kentucky also towed the now-derelict (courtesy of the Zeus) Superbe with her second action. A canoe and the Argo have positioned off the bow of the Zeus to hinder her mobility a bit, and the powerful Kettering has begun repairing at the home island.
For the first time in a while, the Americans launched only from their HI, buying swift gunships they will use to combat the French threat. They launched four of their fastest and most effective 4 masters, including 3 schooners: the Franklin, Intrepid, Hudson, and Saratoga. The Americans are hoping those 4 can get out and defend the resource system quickly, since the likely imminent French attack puts the cargo ships in danger. Those 4 will combine with the 5 ships coming in from the northwest, along with the two 5 masters from the west, and likely more gunship launches next turn. It’s an emergency situation for the Americans, but one that I think they are reasonably prepared to deal with. I have been meaning to launch more hybrids to use as escorts to the textiles island, but the Providence and Bellevue are the only ones around so far. Most of the money has gone towards the War on the Cursed, and understandably so given their powerful customs in play (some formerly) and at one point their 4 cancellers. The Kentucky had been sailing slowly off the south shore of my HI, so she was in decent position to hit the Zeus.
With that, the French appear to be giving up on trying to win, which will likely hasten the end of the game. The American-Pirate alliance is clearly gone for good. As the American admiral I have some inkling that the remaining factions have made a coalition alliance against the Americans, but as evidenced by the latest point count, the Americans have more than twice as many points in play as all of the other factions combined. O_O
In the far west, the lone English ship (Aberdeen Baron) has turned east, though it’s unsure if she is heading towards the anti-American war effort, or simply another wild island in search of resources seeing that the hurricane has overrun the island the English visited a long time ago. In the far south, the Americans were planning to establish a blockade of the French home island, but now that looks generally unnecessary. The York and Destiny are headed there anyway, but the better American gunships in the area (USS Thomas Jefferson, Atlanta, and Julius Caesar) are headed towards the whirlpool to go fight the French or possibly the Cursed. Speaking of whirlpools, that is another area where the Americans could hit the French soon. They almost sent the Lizard through the whirlpool to cancel Lenoir aboard La Gaule (the Americans have been using their 3 cargo spies lately to look at face down French crew), allowing the Grand Temple to zoom through with an AA to smash the French 5 masters. However, I didn’t want to give up a canceller in the complicated Cursed situation, and that would also likely mean sacrificing the Grand Temple when a significant defense of the American resource system is being put together rather effectively on the fly. Between their ships in the far north and the USS Thomas Jefferson in the south (EA available via Commodore Stern), the Americans have flexibility for a many-pronged attack to combat the French invasion.
In the middle, The Zhanfu finally reaches Thompson’s Island to repair, joining the Slipstream. The Shui Xian may not even see combat in this game, but the newest 10 master in play is lumbering south in an attempt to join the effort against the French and/or Pirates. In the northeast, the Americans have gotten some measure of (largely unnecessary XD) revenge against the Cursed fort, as they’ve built their own fort on the Cursed resource island! It is a new game piece designed as part of my new fantasy (non-historical) custom set:
Eagle’s Roost
American Fort
Cost: 4 gold
Guns: 3L,3L,3L,3L
You may double the range of this fort’s cannons each turn, but you must roll a 6 to hit.
2/17/2018
With another devastating turn of brutal combat, the Americans have mostly recovered from their home island “crisis” and have scored a coup in the far north against the Cursed.
The Baochuan was L-moved by the Cursed onto a reef, where she was wrecked regardless of the die roll! This was the second time the Baochuan has become a shipwreck while in the pay of the Americans, the other example being the famous situation in Xerecs’ 2015 CoE game. The Americans are disappointed, but it was arguably inevitable with the Baochuan’s extreme length and difficulty positioning. The Baochuan kind of failed in this game (couldn’t raze the trading port, didn’t last long in combat, and couldn’t take advantage of the Treasure Ship keyword to be a hybrid like in CG2), but the Americans have such a massive lead in the game that it hardly matters. They’ve now lost the Fortaleza and Baochuan, but still have the Zhanfu and Shui Xian. At the far left, the Polaris has destroyed her third iceberg (I believe), making the passage of the Mercury easier.
Near the whirlpool, the Americans scored a “coup” this turn! With enough cancellers in the area, I was hoping to capture at least one of the Cursed cancellers, as Papa Doc and Madame Maria were still aboard the Pyre and Locker. With those cancelling out the Lizard and Ghost Walker, it was time for some finagling. The Sigra Mein got into position and got her temporary Fear ability, gaining the keyword for this turn. Then, I improbably rolled a 5 to scare the Locker, shutting down all crew and ship abilities!! No Submarine keyword meant the sub could be towed immediately, and the Philadelphia did the honors. DNT (on the Constitution) cancelled the Pyre to the surface, where she was dismasted by the Sigra Mein. The New Orleans then started towing her! The Americans have now captured both Cursed cancellers!
The Mobilis was able to repair after surfacing, also putting out a dangerous fire. She cancelled the Atlantis to the surface, who was sunk by the Grand Path and Assassin. The Hades’ Realm was captured, with the Divine Dragon recaptured. The Mercury (submarine now) rammed a mast off the Tarantula, and the Glorious Treasure used her ability to take out a mast and crew from the Executioner, whose EA ability provided by Igor McWarren is being cancelled by Christian Fiore of the Nautilus. This represents the beginning of the assault on the Cursed HI, which will likely take many turns and be a brutal affair for both sides. At the far right, the Naegling and President (latter with Bow Chasers as you can see) teamed up to dismast the Skwaluck (not the actual spelling XD) before she can reach the HI. The Americans don’t want any more resources coming in, since every potential Cursed launch represents more and more firepower needed at the HI. If you’ve read the BR’s for CG1, you know how incredibly difficult it is to eliminate a faction AT their HI. Knowing this the Americans also launched a few ships from their new military port to the southeast: the Paul Revere and USS Morning Star.
Now, for a historic situation. Now that they have both Cursed cancellers in their possession (Papa Doc pun intended), the Americans control a whopping NINE cancellers as of now. O_O I believe this is the most ever seen in a single fleet in a game of Pirates CSG. The Kettering is back at the HI, but in this picture you can see EIGHT cancellers all in the same general area. I have marked them with the range “rosettes”, though of course only the S-range applies to the cancellation. The Nautilus (with Christian Fiore) and Ghost Walker are the farthest to the top, with the Constitution (DNT) on the left. Around the whirlpool is an incredible CANCELLING CLUSTER of 5, with the Mobilis/Lizard/Hessian/Papa Doc/Madame Maria ready to shut down anything and everything that gets close. Even with all my CG experience I have never seen anything like this. The amount of cancelling available to the Americans right here is astounding. Keep in mind that the Americans have the most officially released cancellers of any faction, with 5. This means that to get to this level of 9, you’d have to do a combination of capturing enemy cancellers, using other faction’s cancellers (like the Mobilis and Fiore), and/or using custom cancellers that aren’t Wizkids official. As a big fan of cancellers this is a wacky but cool moment in this game. Between this coup and the drowning of Lenoir (see below), the Americans also now control most of the cancellers left in play, for a 9-1 (Demise still Cursed) advantage over all 4 other factions.
Chaos reigns in the east! The American home island is under attack, but they are now well-equipped to defend it. The Carolina and a few canoes were sunk by the French and the big Pirate ship Zeus, but the Americans have responded with force of their own. 4 ships have teamed up to dismast the Zeus, but the Americans are purposely waiting on the capture part. I’ve learned a bunch about 10 masters on VASSAL, and I know how dramatic and extreme their length can be. If I captured the Zeus this turn, the resultant “towing flip” would likely put her in range of the Cursed fort and/or some oncoming French ships. By waiting, the Americans theoretically increase their chance of actually getting the 10 master home to repair, which would once again give them three 10’s in play along with the Zhanfu and Shui Xian. Unfortunately the Bellevue (upper right) is likely doomed, as she couldn’t hit the Sea Hag much and is now pinned in place with one mast standing. The Americans are rushing to get some L-range cannons out there (Ouroboros can’t be shot at by ships within S), including the newly built Blackwatch and Stephens.
Against the French the Americans were actually able to do better than I expected, partly due to 2 AA’s this turn (as compared to 1 or 0 on the previous 3 turns). The new launches did their job exactly as intended, with the Franklin, Intrepid, Saratoga, and Hudson zooming out from home to block and blast the French ships. The Franklin was devastating, starting a fire on the Gaule after Lenoir cancelled the Providence’s captain. The Intrepid and Saratoga did well, but the Franklin really shined when given an AA, finishing her turn 8/8 to sink the Gaule and dismast the Neptune. The Hudson and Lynx were ineffective against the Possession, but the Saratoga helped out and the ship still lost 2 masts. More to the west, the Enterprise got an EA to team up with the Bonhomme Richard and Denver to sink the Lyon and severely damage the Triton and Libellule. The Colossus and Essex are reaching the battlefield, and two surprise (to me) entrants came in at the end. The Atlanta and Julius Caesar were originally part of the squadron assigned to blockade the French HI, but seeing as how that’s unnecessary, they have arrived via the whirlpool to join the fight against France! The Atlanta got an AA, which I knew probably should have gone to the Intrepid or Saratoga. However, I wanted to take a chance and use some equipment instead of the easier option, plus I clearly love extra action-based whirlpool strikes as evidenced by CG2 and this game. The Atlanta did well, and didn’t roll a 1 with exploding shot at least. XD Her stinkpot shot hit, shutting down the crew of Le Descharges next turn. Two hits on the Courageux took out a mast due to the defensive ability. Overall the attack on the French went even better than I had anticipated, but having good extra action/AA rolls and tons of ships coming in at multiple angles helps a lot. XD
Here is the whole situation, though the closeups probably show at least 90% of the points in play. The Aberdeen Baron is all alone in the far west, looking for metals as the hurricane moves off to the northwest. The French ship Lezard seems to be hiding among the Grey Shrouds, giving out actions via Deleflote. The Destiny and York are off to take care of her, though they won’t be able to do much if she flees into the dense fog.
THE AMERICANS HAVE DECLARED WAR ON THE PIRATES!!!!
Though, it was pretty lame. XD USS Thomas Jefferson was given the Tombstone’s action via GWL, but only hit the Hai Peng once, with stinkpot shot. In addition, the Americans have way more points in play than the Pirates, so it’s not like the war declaration was a big deal either way now that their alliance has completely fallen apart.
The Cursed used the Executioner to sink the Ghost Walker, taking out one of the many American cancellers. At the far left, the Celestine was sunk by the Polaris. The Cursed home island is under siege, with the Sea Duck captured and L-mover Mimi cancelled by the Hessian. The Americans have captured a bunch of Cursed ships over the course of the battle, but they won’t be able to finish them off yet. That’s why you see a bunch of smaller ships launched from the military port at the bottom right – to eliminate the Cursed from their HI will be difficult, so the Americans have launched “ram ships” that will serve no other purpose since ships cannot be shot at while docked at their home islands. The Americans were not as aggressive this turn, since their cancellers are still getting into position and Ocean’s Edge is just north of the Cursed HI. If the submarines go too far north during their submerged ram attempts, it will leave them vulnerable to being moved off the map by the L-mover crew. One of them is now cancelled, but the Cursed have enough stuff left to hold out for a while, partly due to what they have (2 L-movers, 1 canceller, two sources of Eternal, some oarsmen, etc) and also because of how close their HI is to the dangerous edge of the map.
Much more decisive and quick is the situation at the American home island. The French have nearly been eliminated!! American firepower closed in on the remaining French squadron from all angles, dismasting all French ships in the area. The French managed to sink USS Atlanta, but now I believe they are out of move actions. The Americans are capturing as many French ships as possible to increase their fleet’s point total, with the Neptune and Triton being saved from scuttling. At the right, the Zeus is finally captured by the Americans, while the eternal ships Kettering and Concordia repair. Soon the Hudson, Blackwatch and Julius Caesar will bombard the Cursed Ouroboros fort to get the American resource system back to normal. The Americans have still had healthy launches of late, due to how many ships managed to load textiles from that island right before the fort was built, and their undisturbed lumber trade route to the west.
The clincher! The York received an AA to dismast the Lezard, eliminating her potential to escape into the fog and dismasting the final French ship in play. I included the Grey Shrouds in the picture because those Cursed fog hoppers could be problematic for the Americans to eliminate the Cursed, as the Cursed also have a fog bank conveniently right next to their HI. At the lower right, the French do have one metal resource token left, so if it increases in value when the next resource change occurs (2 turns from now), they could theoretically put another ship in play. However, the Americans have emerged victorious in their war against France!
The entire ocean, with American victory looking inevitable at this point. They have crushed the opposition and the 4 remaining fleets have considerably smaller areas that deckplates occupy. In fact, the Americans now need about half of all border space available for their burgeoning fleet. Outside of the two HI/battle “hub” areas, the sea is mostly empty at this point.
2/28/2018
Another round of turns has been completed. Here you can see the intense blockade/assault of the Cursed home island. At the upper corners, the Sea Rat and Maman Brigitte have been sunk. With a lot of ramming, the Americans have captured both Cursed L-moving crew, with the Tarantula and Fiddler’s Green towed. This was a priority for the Americans, since now the Cursed cannot move American ships off the map with the L-movers. The Executioner and Nightmare lost some masts to ramming as well.
It’s a bit of a convoluted mess to the southeast, but the Americans have captured the Grinder by using the Mobilis to cancel the Turbine keyword, and now their newly launched ram ships are sailing towards the Cursed HI. The Cursed now have 7 ships left in play – the Executioner, Nightmare, Demise, and Lizard’s Sting at their HI, the Sea Hag, and the Howl and Hangman’s Joke in the Grey Shrouds hoping to come home and unload fish. That is why you see the Americans doing a new tactic to the left – the “fog blockade”. XD The Americans are trying to block off most or all exit points at that fog bank in order to force the fog hoppers to go somewhere else and eventually be intercepted by the vast American war fleet. If the fog hoppers can pop out right there, they can dock home on the same turn, which would not only allow the Cursed to launch more stuff, but it would also place additional ships that cannot be shot at at the Cursed HI, requiring even more American rams to take them out. The American situations against the French and Cursed show the contrast simultaneously – the Americans disposed of a similar-sized French fleet in just a few turns, but eliminating the Cursed while they are docked at their HI will take much longer.
The situation in the east. The Americans have captured the remaining French ships in play, eliminating their fleet from the game! The sole possession the French have is one metal token, so if that spikes in value (resource change is about to occur), they might be able to launch a small ship to stay alive. At the upper right, the Hudson and Blackwatch teamed up to destroy the Ouroboros fort built by the Cursed. The Julius Caesar shot off the Sea Hag’s final mast, so that ship is also now derelict. Next turn the Santa Isabel will re-explore the island and American trade will resume at the island once more. North of the American HI is just towing logistics as French ships are captured and towed home. To the southeast, the Americans show they mean business against the Pirates, with the Colossus, Essex, and Denver whirling into the area from just above the American HI, not wanting to go all the way around. The repaired Kettering is headed south along with the newly launched Wasp, the first of more “ram ships” designated for use against the Pirates. Three more were launched this turn: the Dolphin (custom by Cadet-Captain Mike), Fly and Hornet.
In fact, those three Pirate ships in the above picture are what they have left. In the deep southeast, the Brandywine was given an AA to catch and dismast the Banshee’s Cry. Between the resources and gold on their HI and the resources coming in, the Pirates may be able to mount a significant defense of their home island in the coming turns. However, it will still depend somewhat on the resource change roll. In the southwest, the York captures the Lezard as the USS Thomas Jefferson arrives via whirlpool to assist the Zhanfu in chasing down the Aberdeen Baron, the only English ship. As the end approaches, the American fleet is a mammoth size many times larger than all the other factions left in play. Only the 12 deckplates you see in the far west borders are not part of the American fleet now.
3/1/2018
With the help of 3 AA’s and GWL’s action, the Americans managed to capture all four Cursed ships that were stationed at their home island. From the dense cluster you can tell that I needed a lot of ships to ram the Cursed ships derelict, and indeed five 1’s were rolled between the Lizard’s Sting and Demise! The Glorious Treasure’s ability proved useful, and a clutch 6 ram from USS Mercury (submarine, the windcatcher is actually just to the west haha) dismasted the Demise. With Fiore cancelling the Demise’s cancelling, and the Hessian cancelling the Cursed oarsman, the Wiglaf moved in to tow the Cursed gunship. It was a fitting end to the Cursed HI, as the Wiglaf has +1 to cannon rolls against the Cursed and her flavor text is very anti-Cursed. With the Executioner, Nightmare, Demise, Lizard’s Sting and Sea Hag all captured, the Cursed have only their two fog hoppers left. However, the close blockade around the Cursed home island could mean they won’t be able to get their now-valuable fish home. That’s right, the resources changed and finally lumber and textiles weren’t valuable. Spices are now the most valuable resource, which is what the Pirates have a bunch of!
However, the Pirates are about to experience a home island attack similar in intensity and nature as the Cursed. At the bottom right, the Hai Peng, Swift, and Darkhawk II are the three Pirate ships in play, but they can launch a bunch more. Already about half a dozen American ships are closing in on the Pirate HI, and a whopping 10 ships have emerged from the whirlpool near the Great Sargasso. Many other ships are on their way or about to be, including many of the ships that recently defeated France along with the captured French vessels. At the upper right, things get back to normal. With the Sea Hag captured and the fort destroyed, the Americans can run resources to and from that island once more. The Santa Isabel explored it to find luxuries, currently the least valuable resource; however it doesn’t really matter at this point. In addition, the Americans are still getting some lumber from their western island and cashed in some now-valuable fish and spices to get 36 gold, which they used to launch the Celtic Fury from their trading port. Because why not? XD
This was not the final event on the American turn, but check out the English finally coming into contact with another faction again! After being isolated since the Spanish had to back off, the Zhanfu has sacced to chase down and intercept the Aberdeen Baron. Ibrahan Ozat led an S-Boarding party and captured the English helmsman, with the ship’s foremost cannons also shooting off a mast. At this point it’s unlikely the Aberdeen Baron will get home to unload her metals, but the Americans have the powerful USS Thomas Jefferson now stationed off the English HI in case things get wacky.
3/5/2018
With only a handful of turns left I would think (and hope! XD), the Americans converge on the Pirate home island! The Pirates did cash in their spices and launched a bunch of well-equipped gunships. Here the Americans have used the captured L-mover Screaming Mimi to move the Revenant away from the Pirate HI, allowing the Hudson and Kettering to sink her. The Revenant carried Dirk Chivers, a new historical crew from my custom set that I was pleasantly surprised to see so early after I created him. The Hai Peng was dismasted, and the Pirates have 5 healthy ships at their home island now (none of my rams worked).
Zoomed out a bit, and you can see the extent of the American operation in its “swan song” days. The Blackwatch got an EA to come south and sink the Darkhawk II. The Americans may already have enough points near the Pirates to eliminate them, but they’ve sent some additional ships through the whirlpool at the left, and more ships are coming down from the north after repairing at the American HI.
The French are alive again! Cashing in their final resource token, it was just enough to launch the Marianne. The York and Destiny are headed there to dispatch her, while the English do what is also likely to be their final launch in the west. HMS Oxford has a captain and Sir Christopher Myngs aboard, but the Zhanfu has sank the Aberdeen Baron and is ready for more, with USS Thomas Jefferson for support. In the center, the Shui Xian and Celtic Fury are headed to separate whirlpools. In the far north, the Americans now have a close blockade of the Cursed home island and their fog bank.
With that, potentially a “final” point count. It exceeded my expectations, and may require another just before the game ends.
3/5/2018
Americans: 119 ships, 2,263 points
O_O The Americans have nearly reached the size of the biggest fleet of all time! That was the Pirate fleet from Command the Oceans in 2017, with 131 ships for 2,347 total points. So, if the Americans can capture enough ships and crew (along with minor launches) in these final turns, they may just claim the title of “biggest fleet ever”. 😀 I will admit it’s somewhat flawed due to how lopsided things are now, and many of the American ships are captures, derelict, or repairing. That Pirate fleet didn’t even make it to the final battle of CTO, and they certainly didn’t win the game. However, that’s part of the reason I want to keep track of the American point total – if it goes up enough, they could become the largest fleet ever AND the largest fleet to ever win a game.
3/9/2018
Given an Admiral’s Action from Commodore Preble himself, the York catches the Marianne and dismasts her, officially eliminating the French from the game!!!!
In the far west, the USS Thomas Jefferson gets the Tombstone’s action via GWL (American Mycron), hitting 3/5 to set HMS Oxford (the final English ship) ablaze. Then the Zhanfu’s commander (Huang Bai) sacced Capitaine Arathiel (a “prize of war” taken from the French much earlier in the game) to get in range of the Oxford, sinking her with a few accurate shots! This means that the English have been eliminated from the game!!!!
Whew! My Americans were on a roll, and I eyed what was very nearly an incredible THIRD faction elimination in one turn! However, it didn’t quite work out since the Akua Lapu and Empress are still docked. The Pirates did manage to sink the Essex on their turn, but the Americans hit back by capturing the Black Pearl, Hai Peng, and Swift. They also dismasted the Harbinger, so the AL and Empress are the only two usable Pirate ships left. The devastating flood of American ships has hit the Pirate home island hard, and their elimination is likely only a turn or two away.
The entire ocean, with now only 3 factions left in play: the Americans as the clear dominant force in CG3, the Cursed hanging onto two fog hoppers and a trading port, and the Pirates being besieged at their home island with a few usable ships left.
Keeping in mind the all-time fleet record of 131 ships at 2,347 points set by the Pirates of Command the Oceans, I’m trying to keep track of the American fleet totals on a per-turn basis. The Essex was sunk, but her ~23 points total was easily made up by the capture of the Hai Peng for the same point total. Between the other two Pirate captures and 48 gold spent on launching (the United States and Grand Storm), the Americans actually gained 90 total points from last turn! (they also lost an oarsman, but I don’t think any other crew were eliminated)
3/9/2018: 123 ships, 2,353 points
O_O
By point total, this American fleet now claims the title of largest fleet ever!! 😀 Of course, they’re only ahead of those Pirates by 6 points right now, though they should be able to launch next turn as well. They’re also behind the Pirates in ship count, and many of the American ships are in bad shape, especially the various captured vessels. Still though, it’s an amazing record to break, and I’m happy to have broken the record with a fleet that will actually win the game the record is set in. XD
3/11/2018
After about 8 rams, the Americans capture the final 3 Pirate ships and the Pirates are eliminated from the game!!!!
The Cursed split up as the final faction in play, with the Hangman’s Joke making a final stand and shooting 2/2 against the USS Thomas Jefferson.
The Americans clamp down on the incursion and the Zhanfu sinks the Hangman’s Joke!
Only the Howl remained. She fog hopped to the northeast and started heading home when the Enterprise caught her. In a fitting end, one of the best American ships in the game sank the Howl! The Cursed have been eliminated!!!!
ADMIRAL A7XFANBEN’S AMERICANS HAVE WON VASSAL CAMPAIGN GAME 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Having won all 3 VASSAL campaign games (CG1 and CG2 in 2016), I have asserted extreme dominance over the CG world, and could now be called “The Tom Brady of campaign games”. O_O XD (at 3-0 with 3 wins and no losses in my first 3 non-solo campaign games, like Tom Brady going 3-0 in his first 3 Super Bowl appearances) More on that later, I hope. XD
In their final turns, the Americans captured 4 ships, the final 3 Pirate ships and the Marianne, the final French ship. This increased the size of their fleet of course…
Truly the final point count from this game:
3/11/2018: 127 ships, 2,414 points
This means they have extended their record from the last battle report as the largest fleet of all time by point count. As CG3 is now officially over, the Pirates of Command the Oceans hold onto the ship count record (for now…) at 131 total ships. However, the Americans of CG3 are the first fleet to break the 2,400 point mark, which is an insane number.
I’ll leave the rest of the analysis in the now-traditional reflection post, which you can find below.
Reflection post
Looking back on VASSAL Campaign Game 3, I would say it was largely successful. The biggest reason is that we set a new (by far) record for players in a virtual campaign game, with 6! The previous high was 3 for CG2, so to double that and not have any long-term issues with people dropping out or quitting was quite awesome. The game lasted almost exactly 6 months, with play going from 9/2/2017 until 3/11/2018.
The high number of players was certainly a new experience for me, having controlled 3 of the 6 fleets in CG1, and then controlling 1 of the 3 fleets in CG2. However, I eventually came to dominate both of those games points-wise, so the bulk of playing time in the long run was done by me. CG3 was totally different since I theoretically only controlled about 17% (1/6) of the points in play to begin the game, and a reasonably slow start by the Americans meant I was mostly relegated to seeing how things developed.
I will start this with an analysis of my own game that I played; all the other players are free of course to post their thoughts on the game, their strategies throughout, what their plans were, and what they thought of the experience overall. (also feel free to reveal any alliances/etc, with the game over there’s not much to hide haha!)
Americans
As play began, I did NOT plan to dominate this much and to eliminate all the other factions. XD Knowing that there were 4 new players in the CG, and hoping the game would have parity for quite a while, I was planning to sort of “take it easy” and be a somewhat passive or friendly faction.
Everything changed when the Spanish started being aggressive though. That got my competitive spirit rekindled, and it was game on from there. XD Within a few turns or weeks I went from hoping I could be passive to being completely optimized and getting ready to dominate in the long-term. This happened because the Spanish showed they meant business VERY early, sinking a French gunship and nearly eliminating the English completely before any of the rest of us could do anything. This did a handful of things for me – it worried me on one hand, since the Spanish were a faction that I saw as a potential territorial rival, since they commanded a strong position on the map (center of the western hemisphere) and I was directly opposite them across the Gateway. In addition, it happened quite a bit faster than I (or possibly anyone else) had anticipated. I didn’t want to see another faction eliminated so early, but unlike CG1 and some of CG2, I was not in a position to be “world policeman” (like the British Empire during Pax Britannica 1815-1914) and interfere to guarantee the survival of a faction. The English were at risk of a VERY early elimination, but I had played with the English commander (repkosai) quite a bit on VASSAL in 2017, and I knew he was pretty stoked to be playing in CG3. Therefore, I didn’t want to see him go so early without hardly getting a chance to play, so I was somewhat opposed to the early Spanish lead. Some talks were had about a coalition to save the English, but in the end the French were the ones to take the fight to the Spanish since they had similarly valuable resources and the means necessary to get a battle fleet in play.
Very early in the game I pursued an alliance with the Pirates. This was partly since wifey was relatively new to pretty much everything going on – VASSAL, her first campaign game, and even Pirates CSG to a degree (and the EE ruleset of course). In addition, I recognized that their somewhat poor home island position could mean that my Americans would have a much better time getting gold from resources than the Pirates. So I wanted to take the Pirates “under my wing” if you will and have a friendly neighbor. And also, to hopefully prevent a pincer movement on all sides in the case of an alliance against me. XD This secret alliance solidified my position in the game, and made me feel decent about my chances going forward. Other alliances never really came to fruition, as the English didn’t respond to my tentative offer of help and the French and Cursed always seemed like factions I would have to fight to win the game. The Spanish actually reached out to me with an alliance offer, which I accepted. However, they then proceeded to establish a settlement on the Gateway island, which was near the American military port. I had doubts about the alliance, and couldn’t take it seriously when the Spanish were putting island upgrades near me on islands I also wanted.
As the French closed in and started wiping out the Spanish with their impressive battle fleet, I knew I had a chance to strike. The problem was how long it would take to get at the French (and what was left of the Spanish) effectively. With extreme haste, I rushed to get a trading port on the west side of the Barrier Reef, as the island was nearly untouched by the Cursed and Spanish. Some of the fastest American ships (Peacock, Sea Wind, Mercury windcatcher) were instrumental in this development, which I now see as one of the keys to my eventual victory. I escorted those ships with a few gunships, but not ones I wanted to risk in battle if I could help it (since they had tribal chieftains aboard). I also wanted a trading port because the players had voted that Mercenaries would function as regular privateers, with no bidding system as I had proposed. I was fine with that, but it was fun to get a little “payback” for the decision, as I eventually came to dominate privateer launches. XD We had also decided that the Mercenary 10 masters with faction biases were free to be launched by anyone that could do so, but I decided not to take overt advantage of that, generally only launching those 10 masters once the faction in question had been eliminated or effectively eliminated. The trading port also came in handy for launching AA crew, of which the Americans eventually had 5 including 3 privateers. Various AA’s were very useful down the line and provided support in key moments.
I didn’t put a trading port on the island northeast of the American HI because I was purposely sharing that with the Pirates, to keep the alliance strong and give them more of a chance if they had another island they could go to. The Cursed were actually the first to build a trading port, but they hardly ever used it for launching. This left the door wide open for me to take full advantage of the one built north of the Gateway, which became a launch hotspot and the bane of both the French and the Cursed.
In early November, I seized my opportunity and started the beginning of the American empire. After some saving, I spent over 200 gold to get some very effective ships, namely the Zhanfu, Baochuan (both 10 masters I felt comfortable launching at the time), Nautilus, and Mobilis. This dramatically increased my potential to hit the French before they could make it back home, as their fleet was somewhat far from home and exposed in the middle of the map while collecting Spanish prizes and being slowed by the towing process. It also gave me two cancellers, which is of course one of my favorite things to have in these giant games. Knowing the Americans have the most cancellers of any faction in the game (5 total), I decided to attempt a “canceller monopoly” that would form a potential “super squadron” surpassing even the super squadrons put together by the English and Spanish of CG1. Due to logistics and opportunities, this squadron never quite came together the way I wanted it to, but towards the end of the game it was mostly unified. Anyway, the Mobilis and Christian Fiore gave me a leg up in the cancelling game, locking up both Merc cancellers after the vote to not implement the bidding system for Mercenaries (and denying them from the Cursed, who had a trading port before the Americans).
I felt my window of opportunity closing fast, so I immediately hit the French as hard as I could. The French were about to establish a military port at the Gateway island (the ship with the upgrades was literally docked at the island and just needed another turn to explore and unload them!), and a resource change was imminent, making me worried that French metals would skyrocket in value and start a chain reaction that could see the elimination of the Americans. The attack went fantastic overall, and the rest is history. XD
After declaring war on the French and capturing many of the ships from the battle, I turned my attention to the Cursed, who were now the biggest long-term threat to the Americans (excepting if metals went to 6 gold apiece, which would have gotten the French back into things in a big way). Once again, the opportune moment came and I couldn’t pass it up. Though, the Cursed started it by using one of the American 10 masters to sink a captured prize (through Davy Jones), which I was looking forward to having in my fleet. XD I saw Davy Jones in a unique spot – somewhat isolated, nearly unprotected, and with his own ship open to attack! Knowing the downside if I failed (losing two gunships and their associated tribal chieftains, but only eliminating chieftains directly and rolling badly for them would really affect me negatively, since you only need one chieftain to actually give the canoes actions), and having checked the tribal chieftain rules to see that sinking them wouldn’t be too bad after all, I decided to take the plunge! The Grampus and Bonhomme Richard used AA’s to sail north and dismast the Slipknot, and after a couple tense turns, the former Cursed admiral was mine! (along with his ship, which was a nice resource gatherer towards the end of the game) This was another “masterstroke” of my game, mostly predicated on previous CG experience. From CG1 and CG2, I’ve learned that taking action and launching preemptive strikes can lead to great results in the long term, even though being hostile is always risky. In addition, I had learned from CG2 that having an All-Powerful crew in an enemy fleet rolling 6’s to sink your own ships (with your own ships) is one of the most annoying things in Pirates CSG. XD So I was determined to get quick revenge and not let it happen again. The skirmish was the start of the greater American-Cursed conflict, which mostly defined the last third of the game.
I was going to blockade the French home island and keep them there as best I could, but they fled the area before I could launch much from the military port the Americans set up in the south. Although there was a brief and somewhat minor “crisis” at the American home island when the French converged from the north and the Pirates sailed the Zeus up from the south (I just assumed they were breaking the alliance due to my points lead), I was actually relieved that the French would not have to be eliminated at their HI, which is extremely difficult and becomes a huge drain on resources the more ships there are to ram-dismast. Instead they were defeated on the open ocean, allowing for a quick elimination and some easy towing back to the American HI. Then I was able to focus on the remaining Cursed and Pirate ships.
Once the French left and I had a military port near their HI, I felt comfortable sending the elite southern squadron through the whirlpool to emerge in the north to combat the Cursed. It was quite the complicated mess for a number of turns, but eventually the Cursed HI was blockaded and their ships captured. That “turn for the ages” was the most complicated of the game, and reminds me of my whirlpool strikes from CG2. (whirlpool attacks are kind of my thing in these games now I guess XD)
If there was a “turning point”, I would say it was the Second Battle of the Gateway Island where the Americans defeated the French. This completed the domino effect, and led to the Americans dominating for the rest of the game. It really was a strangely perfect domino effect in a way – the Spanish nearly eliminated the English, the French nearly eliminated the Spanish, and the Americans nearly eliminated the French. The Americans were eventually responsible for the elimination of all the other factions.
So there you go. A detailed look into the mind of the winning Admiral. XD As the “Tom Brady” of campaign games, I’m happy with the way I played.
Of course, anyone could spin it another way. I benefited massively from the strange run of resource changes, which saw American islands (with textiles and lumber) valuable for months on end, whereas French metals stayed very low for just as long. In addition, I came in with a HUGE experience advantage over 4 of the other 5 players (Xerecs being the exception), and indeed this was the first campaign game (I think) for all 4 of those players. However, you could paint it the opposite way and point out that the Americans are almost objectively the second-worst faction of the Big 6, meaning I was at a somewhat severe disadvantage from the start. In addition, the resource changes benefited the western factions for a while at the start, but none of them were able to build up enough of an advantage that would resist the eventual riches of America (sounds familiar… XD). Finally, I am impressed with how quickly the Americans were able to end the game, since 6 months for a virtual CG with 6 players feels pretty short. Once the French were defeated at the Gateway and the Americans continued to get fortuitous resource changes, the steamrolling was just about inevitable and impossible to stop. (Cursed mounted a great defense of their HI but the numbers advantage was too great) I also made some mistakes of my own, though they were generally gameplay gaffes and not strategic blunders. For example, I tried to launch the Mercenary Divine Dragon with Christian Fiore before establishing a trading port (forgot about the EE ruling for that especially after not using it for CG1/2). Ironically I did launch both of those game pieces properly later on. XD I also had the Kettering cancel two abilities in one turn against the Cursed, so she lost her ability to cancel for the turn after. Oops!
Since I won the game and I have a wealth of knowledge when it comes to these kinds of games (and I greatly enjoy these reflection posts), I can give a brief analysis of the other factions and some “pointers”. 🙂 Kinda hesitant to do this since I’m revealing the “grand strategy” that has proven to be essential to winning these things, but I suppose it’s easy to understand and maybe not as helpful as I think it will be. XD
In the order of play:
Spanish
The Spanish were the dominant force early on, getting very valuable resources consistently from wild islands. They were the first to do a lot of things, such as launch, build a port, shoot, etc. However, it fizzled out quickly. I think they were a bit too aggressive, which made the factions on their west side of the map hostile to them. In addition, they didn’t really optimize their resource system before going after other fleets. They never had a lot of ships getting resources for gold, so things fell apart quickly. They attacked the French when they didn’t need to and couldn’t handle the later counterattack. Their gunships couldn’t handle the French fleet out for revenge, and their “alliance” with the Americans never panned out, especially when they claimed the Gateway island for themselves despite the Americans just to the east. They also seemed hell-bent on eliminating the English, keeping the Algeciras and flotilla stationed off the English HI when they may have been able to survive by running home or trying to get resources (not sure why the Spanish were so onto the English like that). In the end it was too much too soon, but partly as a result of not optimizing their income and launch strategy.
Cursed
The Cursed did well as a somewhat passive or isolationist faction. Their fog hoppers were used to great effect to get resources not readily available on nearby wild islands. The Cursed made themselves difficult to reach and attack early, helping out the English with L movers and positioning themselves in the Frozen North near the icebergs. However, they saved resources and gold too much, never fully optimizing their resource system. This was their Achilles’ heel, as other factions were usually ahead of them in point counts. With more ships running resources, the Cursed could have built up a more impressive hoard they could use for defense. One could also argue the Cursed were slightly too passive, and didn’t appear to align with any factions against the powerful Americans. When they did anger the Americans, it was too early (or too late) for them to get into that giant conflict. However, the Cursed still played a solid game and finish in second place, VERY good considering the factional limitations.
Pirates
The Pirates’ biggest problem was a disadvantageous home island location. In the far southeast, they didn’t have easy access to a single island, as the Americans were closer to an island in the northeast and the main Pirate wild island was far to the southwest around the Great Sargasso and possibly as close to the French HI as it was to the Pirate HI. This resulted in the Pirates getting WAY behind right from the start. In reality, they didn’t have much of a chance. They did accept a smart alliance with the Americans, so their powerful neighbors were on great terms with them for nearly the entire game. By the time the Americans sensed betrayal, the points lead the Americans had was overwhelming. Outside of that the Pirates didn’t really do anything wrong that I noticed.
French
I would contend that the French actually played the second-best game, though that can’t always be reflected in the final standings/elimination order. I don’t feel like they truly made any big mistakes that doomed them. I suppose you could make the case that they shouldn’t have used the explorer’s reroll at their second wild island during the first session of play, but it did help them early on. In addition, seeing the battle reports for CG1 and CG2 may have helped them anticipate a strike by yours truly, given the situation near the Gateway. The French were one of the early leaders due to valuable metals, and they sent an appropriately large squadron north to retaliate for the Spanish sinking of the Bonne Chance. As the Americans and French had no real contact prior to my attack (diplomatic or physical), there wasn’t a lot to suggest that they’d be crushed almost immediately after their big victory at the Gateway. However, with that decisive battle ending in favor of the Americans, it was very difficult to recover after that. Just as the resource “changes” (aka American and Cursed resources retaining high value) favored the eastern factions, the French were left with little means to launch things with. When one of the final resource changes kept metals at 1 gold apiece, the French decided to just spend what they had (99 metals I believe) and avoid a blockade scenario. If they had gotten lucky and metals had jumped to 6 (basically a windfall of 600 gold!), the French would have done better and possibly altered the final result of the game. (though since the Americans had over 1,000 points in play at that point, it still would likely have taken a coalition to unseat them as the eventual victor) All in all, it was a well-played game by the French, and like I said, in my opinion arguably the second-best game of the six factions.
English
The English went last and got to pick their home island first, which can be both a blessing and a curse. It allowed them to get a good location, but they had no idea where the other factions would settle. In the end they were close to the most aggressive faction of the early game, the Spanish. They were left at the mercy of Spanish firepower, though their questionable detour through a whirlpool route to get home may have doomed them just as much. Unfortunately the English spent many of the game’s most exciting turns simply repairing the Aberdeen Baron, the only English ship in play for most of the final half of the game. It was a disappointing outing for a faction that usually does quite well in these grand adventures, but like the Pirates they had lots of trouble early on and couldn’t make a comeback.
~~~~~
Random stuff from my google doc I use for all VASSAL CG’s (strategy/launch plans/etc)
-I wanted to eliminate the French within the 8 turns when that resource change happened, to prevent their metals from potentially skyrocketing
-At some point (in January or February) the main part of the strategy said “End the game as soon as possible!” XD (in bold) Mostly since it was borderline over, but also so we could potentially start another CG since the other players would get sick of the American dominance and inevitable outcome (trying to rush things so everyone could get a chance again in the next CG)
-Keep cancellers together and protect them (canceller squadron sails against Cursed, non-canceller ships blockade French HI) – this didn’t work that much, but it didn’t need to since the French left their HI and I couldn’t get all the cancellers together until the battle against the Cursed was already going well.
-Try to eliminate Cursed trading port?
-Peacock – where to put next military port? (after Flying Fish puts one near French HI)
(neither of those were particularly relevant as the endgame accelerated, the Celtic Fury did raze the Cursed TP on one of the final turns though)
These were from a while ago:
-Establish an alliance with wifey and possibly repkosai
-Deterrence with a fleet in being
-Escorts around fog banks
I accomplished the alliance with the Pirates, didn’t really need a “fleet in being” since I started playing offense earlier than I wanted/expected to, and started to get some escorts around fog banks to protect against fog hoppers. However, the Cursed didn’t use them for offense much and Davy Jones was captured before his 6’s could wreak havoc on the American resource system.
I also recorded a lot of various launch plans, which I followed some of the time. The game actually ended with a bunch of notes still in that section, so if the game had continued I had another ~400 points of launches planned out. XD I did manage to launch all 4 Merc 10 masters, and I think I put all the American 5 masters in play overall.
The super squadron never united as one due to how things panned out, but this was the fearsome main part of it that I wanted to assemble in the same small area:
Long term: Super squadron w/ Constitution + DNT, cancellers, Eternal, oarsmen
Kettering + Ralph David, Ghost Walker, Hessian, Lizard, Mercury, Lamon (+ Fiore and Mobilis in hindsight)
Here’s a random part of the doc where I recorded what I was satisfied with/had done right. XD
Accomplished:
-Alliance with wifey
-Kill Davy Jones and other similar threats before they can be used to cripple gunships (in hindsight, capturing worked even better!)
-MP on one of Cursed wild islands
Alliances: Spanish, Pirates (neither really worked out, but they didn’t need to)
~~~~~
The final standings:
1. Americans
2. Cursed
3. Pirates
4. French
5. English
6. Spanish
Major Battles:
-First Battle of the Gateway Island: French decisively defeat the Spanish
-Second Battle of the Gateway Island: Americans decisively defeat the French (immediately after first battle)
-Battle of the American home island: Americans decisively defeat the French and Pirates
-Battle of the Cursed home island: Americans decisively defeat the Cursed
Minor Battles:
-Skirmishes won by Spanish against English and French
-Battle for Davy Jones: American victory over Cursed
-Battle of the Pirate home island: Americans eliminate the Pirates
(there were some other minor skirmishes)
Official new records:
Largest recorded single-fleet point total: Americans at 2,414 points
Most cancellers ever seen in a fleet? (likely): 9 (Americans)
Most players ever seen in a campaign game? (impossible to know for sure): 6
Most players ever seen in a virtual/VASSAL campaign game: 6
Thank you all for playing! Also, thanks to xerecs and repkosai for helping with the battle reports.
Here is a picture of the Miniature Trading forum from soon after the game ended featuring reflections by some of the other players:
Published to Miniature Trading on November 26th, 2017
Miniature Review: Mysterious Island #2 – Live off the land, and drive your opponents away from it!
Mysterious Island #2
Collector’s Number: I02
Rarity: C
Type: Island Miniature text:
1-2: Roll 3d6. For every 4-6 result, eliminate one of this ship’s masts.
3-4: No effect.
5-6: Move an opposing ship using this ship’s base move.
General description:
After just two previous reviews of specific islands, I figured I would review my all-time favorite MI (Mysterious Island). It’s one that has been a cornerstone of my favorite gimmick strategy: Mind Control. It’s quite risky but can be incredibly fun and rewarding to use. By its nature as a mysterious island, it’s available to all players to use, so the “OP” talk is minimized. Mysterious islands were generally not a great addition to the game, but I think this one is more good than bad.
Uses:
-Control your enemies and throw their ships away from you and into terrain
-Help out an ally in a multiplayer game
Time to bring up the Code!
quote from The Pirate Code:
Abilities That Move Ships (“This ship may move X” or “Move a ship X”)
-If an ability refers to an outside force moving or pushing the ship, such as “move an enemy ship L”, it is not treated like a movement segment; the ship’s heading does not change, but it can be used if the ship is pinned or entangled.
-Unless a movement ability specifically states that it is a move action (or “move as a free action”), other abilities and effects (shooting with a Captain, ramming, etc.) that refer to move actions cannot be used.
-Docking only requires contact between a ship’s bow and an island, so it may occur any time a ship moves or is moved.
So we cannot use it with a captain for “friendly fire” like we can with All-Powerful. However, you can purposely use the effect to help out an ally by docking one of their ships home to repair or unload gold.
Strategies and game play:
Alright. Let’s get to it. This thing has the potential to affect gameplay rather dramatically if used to its fullest effect. From my Mind Control fleet, we can see that it is rather evil. To “farm” a mysterious island, you dock at it multiple times to get the positive effect many times over. This is often done with rerollers or linked Ex-Patriot crew, which I’ll talk about more in the combos section. By farming the island, you can move other ships more than once, including on the same turn! You can quickly see the possibilities racking up. With two S+S+S ships of your own docking at the island, you could move an enemy ship 6S in a single turn! This can delay their advance for 2+ turns, or send them flying into a reef that wasn’t even proximal to the ship.
This island could truly affect gameplay. The MI’s are placed face down when put in the play area, so your opponent may not be aware of the effect until the game is underway. Once revealed, your opponent may freak out a bit when you control their ships. It’s not the smartest thing to do with a hotheaded enemy, as getting your ships yanked around is sure to cause some animosity. Once the effect is “live” and known to all players, it could become a hotspot. Multiple players might flock to the island in order to farm it, throwing ships all over the board. Also, a player may try to get revenge on another by moving a ship after one of theirs has been moved. Messing with other players will probably cause chaos, and it might even spill over into a heated argument at the gaming area! XD
You could also bargain with another player: threaten to move one of their ships, and coerce them into helping you. If not, chuck their ship onto a reef.
In a multiplayer game, you could also help out an ally. Unless you’re playing as the same fleet, an “opposing ship” to you could be any of the other players. This could save one of their ships from a deadly chase, or allow them to reach a fog bank or whirlpool at the perfect moment.
Combos with other miniatures:
Of course, there is a rather severe negative effect. Any ship with 3 masts or less stands a reasonable chance of being completely dismasted. However, there are various ways to increase your odds.
One basic way is with Nemo’s Charts , which takes away the negative ability entirely since your worst roll is boosted to 3. It will turn 3’s into 5’s, which means you’ll get the positive effect 2/3 of the time!
The standard reroll ability is a great way to farm MI’s more effectively. One of the least-known parts of any keyword shows up at the end of Ex-Patriot: “If this crew is assigned to its linked ship, add 1 to the result when the ship rolls for effect at a Mysterious Island.” Of the EP crew that link, there are a few that would work especially well with mysterious islands. Count Gustov can give the Terror multiple actions so the ship can dock twice, but even a few bad rolls could really limit the submarine’s potential for the rest of the game, especially since you’d need a shipwright or fort to repair potential damage due to the MI. You can use the SS version of Eileen Brigid O’Brien on the Mobilis to do the same thing, but that sub is better used as a defensive underwater canceller. However, there is one truly exceptional link you can use.Thane Hartless provides the reroll ability as well as MI +1’s for the Slipstream , which even has the amazing ability to bring in crew from other nationalities. Using the reroll for someone like Sir Christopher Myngs and possibly in conjunction with Bianco’s Haulers , a somewhat complex Slipstream setup is probably the best way in the game to farm MI’s. There is still a big risk involved, so a shipwright or helmsman/oarsman combo may be needed to guarantee some success.
However, we must pay close attention to the MI’s final text: “using this ship’s base move.” As a result, none of the above combos are going to do a lot in terms of throwing enemies great distances, since the best Merc linked ships have slow base moves. You cannot add on any movement bonuses from the docking ship either, so you’ll probably want something faster.
This is where it gets CHEESY.
Since the negative effect only refers to mast elimination and not crew elimination or sinking, there is nothing to stop a mastless ship from redocking at the island via a helmsman and oarsman (or a keyword such as Galley/Turtle Ship/Longship/Turbine). Since the negative effect is rather brutal and will likely dismast most “farmers” in short order, why not just plan for the worst? Rather than bemoaning the dismasting of your Terror or other 3+ masted ship, you can just use a tiny ship with a helmsman and oarsman! XD
Using the Banshee’s Cry with a helmsman and oarsman for just 6 total points, you can have an effective MI farmer. Losing the ship’s only mast is pretty much inevitable with the odds, but the crew allow the ship to move S away from the island and S back to redock even after the ship is dismasted. From there, you are immune to the negative effect. Unfortunately, you cannot move the ship’s printed base move even when dismasted, so small ships would only be able to move enemy ships S once the masts are gone from the negative effect.
Continuing the theme of tiny ships that cost at least 3 points to accommodate the helmsman/oarsman complement, consider La Fureur. Going slightly more expensive but slightly more effective, faster ships like the Carrion Crow and Lezard could do pretty well with their decent speed. There are other good options, including the Zephyr and Pique.
There are a few other UT’s that can help optimize the farming process. Notably, combining Runes of Thor with Nemo’s Plans. This allows you to roll a 6 every time a ship docks at the island, so with a swarm fleet you could be immune to damage and move your opponents ships off of and back onto reefs! Or, with “At World’s End”/Ocean’s Edge style flat earth rules, move their ships off the map to eliminate them from play!
A particularly brutal combo would be to move an enemy ship so that it docks at the very island covered in this review, and then reveal Runes of Loki, forcing them to get the negative effect! Even more sinister, combine those Runes with Nemo’s Plans, and force them to automatically lose three masts!!
From my Mind Control fleet, there are other things you can do to maximize this island’s effectiveness: Combine it with other things that move enemy ships, such as abilities and a very similar mysterious island.
Ways to counteract it:
-Build a fort on it (“Mysterious Island abilities (including Great Turtles) are ignored if a fort is present on the island.” – The Pirate Code)
-Use your own Runes of Loki to deny an opponent their opportunity to become a rural farmer.
-Flip Potions and Brews to turn an enemy 5-6 into a 1-2.
-Put Bad Maps in the treasure distribution and let an opponent find it, so you can both move it farther from their fleet and closer to yours at the same time!
– Natives could severely delay farming efforts; Plague would knock out the helmsman/oarsman crew on farmer ships, at which point the negative effect would become more relevant.
-Choose it as your own home island
-Don’t put it into the island pool when setting up the ocean, or refuse to play with mysterious islands in general (not a bad idea, since many of them are OP and can tilt a game more than they should)
-If your opponent is basing their strategy around this type of island, get there first and move their ships away so they cannot build a farm on the island. XD
The Competition:
So. As nasty as this island is, there are OTHER mysterious islands that make this one look like a frightened little animal!! That’s right, many of the MI’s can be quite OP, especially with the right farming setup.
Mysterious Island #1 , Mysterious Island #5 , and Mysterious Island #11 are possibly the biggest offenders to in-game balance, as they usually become extreme hotspots of activity after just one or two 6’s are rolled. The gold simply flocks there very soon after the MI is explored, and if that MI is close to a player’s HI, it could be game over. Mysterious Island #4 and Mysterious Island #12 are quite amazing, as it allows you to farm for powerful things like Neptune’s Trident, Poseidon’s Breath, or even Plague for a suicide mission. Mysterious Island #6 and Mysterious Island #14 are just silly; events were the worst addition to the entire game in the first place, and this allows you to bring them in for free, an infinite number of times. Mysterious Island #10 isn’t as bad as the above, but lets you potentially turn a 0 into a 7, dramatically changing the total amount of gold available in a standard game. Mysterious Island #15 gives you a pseudo-CJS-style teleportation, and could be used at the opportune moment to flip home a 7 to avoid it getting intercepted on the return trip.
As you can see, more than half of the MI’s from the set are more OP than this one. Throw in things like Ancient Altar, Island Paradise, and Verdant Isle, and it’s clear that using this is not as bad as using some of the other crazy ones.
Mysterious Island #13 is both the biggest “competition” for this island, and the biggest partner. They are great when used together, since you can decide which island to dock at when moving a specific enemy ship. Keep in mind this one has a slightly worse negative effect, as you can lose up to 4 masts at once. I decided to review this one instead mostly because I like how it gives a greater degree of control over how far you move the opposing ship. For example, say you have an enemy ship picked out that you want or need to move. With this island, you can dock your fastest ship at it and give that move to the enemy ship. With #13, you can only move the ship as far as its own base move, which could be slower or just less predictable if you’re choosing from multiple options. Therefore, this island also gives you a slightly easier decision making process. However, you can really take advantage of #13 if you have a slow ship like Paradox (almost useless at this island) and you’re trying to move a fast ship in the enemy fleet such as throwing the Hai Peng onto a sargasso sea.
Strengths/Pros:
-Fun cool effect that adds diversity and excitement to the game
-In play for all players, so not OP like some crew and ships that are part of a fleet build
-Powerful effect that can change a game without ruining it
Weaknesses/Cons:
-Very nasty and debilitating negative effect
-It’s a Mysterious Island with a powerful positive effect, so naturally it’s prone to farming
-Opponents may not want to play with it/fellow Pirates may hate you for using it
Artwork and aesthetics:
I’ve always liked the way MI’s looked, both front and back. When face down, they have a nice palm tree indicating their status as mysterious, and the text on the back doesn’t detract much from the islands overall. Getting really specific, I’ve always thought of the “dual” islands as naturally wild, with the larger rounder ones (like #4) being better as home islands since they look big enough for a town and more docking areas. Therefore, this particular shape of island is perfect for a wild island, and therefore to remain mysterious. (leave a comment if you understand the callback)
Overall rating:
I’ll give this one a 7.5/10. Rating a specific mysterious island feels a little strange, but it’s fun to review things other than ships and crew once in a while. This MI is certainly prone to farming, but the nasty side effect of “living off the land” (lol) will make you pause before pursuing its full potential. I have a bit of bias since I have used the “Mind Control” strategy very successfully in the past and quite enjoy it. It’s also not as OP as many other MI’s, which would otherwise decrease the rating. As a result, it’s generally my favorite MI and one you should try out sometime! Thanks for reading! Comment and vote if you’d like.
Published to Miniature Trading on August 30th, 2017
Miniature Review: Jade
Green > Gold (sometimes)
Jade
Set: South China Seas
Collector’s Number: 101
Faction Affiliation: Treasure
Rarity: R
Type: Unique Treasure
Ability: Jade takes up one cargo space, and you may choose not to unload it. Whenever this ship docks at your home island, double the gold value of the treasure with the lowest gold value on this ship.
General description:
As of this writing (7/31/2017), I recently got Jade in a trade, and finally read it properly for the first time. I had always thought it was just a clone of Spices and Smuggled Goods, and therefore not very unique (puns incoming). However, since you can keep it aboard your ship(s), Jade becomes far more interesting and powerful.
For reference, here is the Pirate Code entry for it:
quote from The Pirate Code:
Jade
-This ability may be reused, if it is not unloaded.
-If this unique treasure is unloaded to your home island, it cannot be reloaded by any means.
-This ability is applied before any modifiers that add to the gold value of a treasure.
Uses:
This UT is best used in fleets that plan on getting gold. Deathmatch fleets and fleets with mostly gunships should stick to no UT’s or negative ones. In addition, since Jade can double the value of the lowest coin on the ship, it’s worth noting that a 7 can still be low if that’s the only value the ship has. (more on that soon)
Strategies and game play:
The strategies with Jade aren’t particularly numerous, but it’s an overlooked UT that deserves more attention, just like the other things I’ve reviewed.
– Ships with large cargo holds won’t be able to take full advantage of Jade without leaving coins behind. This is because they will likely have a full haul of coins (such as 5,2,1,1, etc) and can only double the value of the lowest coin. Instead, try using a gold runner with 2 or 3 cargo spaces open (possibly after adding some crew). Since Jade takes up a space, this will leave the ship with 1 or 2 spots for regular treasure. Now you’re not worried about having to double the 1 when you have a 5 on board. Simply take the best one or two treasures from an island or a friendly ship, and maximize how much gold you can get with Jade! This is especially powerful with 7’s, as you can load up a single 7 coin and unload it for 14 gold!
– If your opponent has almost no cargo spaces open, or they’re using a combat-heavy fleet, Jade can double as a sabotage play. If you find it, you’ll be ready to use it. If they find it, it could take up the last spot of cargo on a ship since it’s loaded face up and they have to take it if possible. This will deny it’s usage for standard treasure with nothing else to unload, and might even further wreck strategies if they’re using things like Captain Jack Sparrow or cargo masters.
– You may need to transfer Jade to a ship that can maximize its power, such as a fast gold runner with a relatively small cargo hold. Once Jade is aboard your ideal ship, you can sail that ship near your home island, and essentially replicate the “gold factory” strategy with the UT instead. This means you’ll be transferring one or two coins at a time to the Jade ship, which then unloads them (but not Jade!) for as much benefit as possible.
Combos with other miniatures:
Before going into the ship and crew combos that could be used with Jade, you might want to make sure you acquire it in the first place:
– Mysterious Islands like this can yank it into the game automatically.
– You could choose it as your selection after finding Pandora’s Box, although there will often be much better options.
– There are variousthings you can do to maximize your chances of finding it early in the game.
There are plenty of great gold runners to use this UT with. As stated above, having only 2 or 3 cargo spaces open can be fine with Jade, since you really want to get the bonus on as many high value coins as possible. Some cheap ships you could turn a quick profit with include the Sea Tiger, Whisper, and Fancy.
One particularly nasty combo would be to use the amazing American Native Canoes. Load them up with 1 coin apiece, and give Jade to one of them as well. When it comes time to dock, you can dock home the canoe with Jade first. Then, use the free transfer to move Jade to the next ship in line. That ship docks and gets her (only) coin doubled, and the process continues until all 5 (or 10, or 15, …) have unloaded their coin along with essentially a second coin worth the same value. This is probably one of the most profitable combos you could use with Jade, and really shows the power of the American canoes. It also shows how great Jade can be, as not unloading it gives you the opportunity to use it many times throughout the game. Just remember that you have to redock or explore in order to unload the second coin, since the potential transfer at home doesn’t lead to automatically unloading. Of course, it would be better to receive the UT before docking anyway, so it’s a situation that could easily be avoided.
If you’re trying to trade Jade around to a bunch of different ships offloading gold in a short period of time, a hoist will do the job effectively.
You could keep Jade on a ship at home that is receiving gold via the UPS strategy.
Instead of making it an alternate gold factory strategy, you could simply combine it for maximum profit. Leave a ship with Ralph David near your home island, and give it Jade as well. Ships coming back home can transfer each coin to the ship individually, who redocks to double its value and add +2!
Here you can see what fleets and games I’ve used this UT in.
Ways to counteract it:
The easiest way to knock Jade out is simply to include Kharmic Idol or Pirata Codex in the treasure distribution. The green dragon also happens to be weak to puppies for some reason.
Other than that, stop your opponent’s gold game with superior gunnery. Jade IS generic cargo, so things like this can eliminate it. You could also try to board and take the UT so you can use it yourself.
The Competition:
Various other UT’s can create wealth. However, the aforementioned Spices and Smuggled Goods can only be used once. Things like Rum have a costly drawback, while ones like Sunken Treasure are tricky to use. Other than a few specific UT’s like Turtles and Dead Man’s Chest, Jade is tough to match for total potential gold output among UT’s.
Strengths/Pros:
-Doesn’t cost points
-Double a gold value = win (gold wins the game!)
-Can be extremely valuable (use it multiples times/with high value coins)
-Looks cool/thematic (perfect for the set)
Weaknesses/Cons:
-Must find it before opponent!
-Takes up a cargo space unlike most other face up UT’s
Artwork and aesthetics:
It seems to be a Chinese dragon made out of jade, which looks quite cool. The UT is perfect for the set, as it fits the Jade Rebellion and South China Seas theme.
Overall rating:
I give Jade a 9/10. It’s a very unique treasure that can be used over and over for a huge gold and green profit. No UT is quite perfect since they are randomly placed, and this one takes up a cargo space, but Jade is tough to resist!
Miniature Review: Potions and Brews – Game-changing in the right situation
Potions and Brews
Set: Pirates of the Caribbean
Collector’s Number: 080b
Faction Affiliation: Treasure
Rarity: C
Type: Unique Treasure
Ability: You can load this treasure face down. You can reveal it to force an opponent to reroll a die or dice roll. Then remove Potions and Brews from the game.
General description:
Potions and Brews is a Unique Treasure that can be incredibly frustrating for your opponent. Just when they think they’ve hit with a cannon, or gotten a critical extra action roll to work out, you flip this thing over, and make them reroll their die! As is typical for me, I am partly reviewing this game piece because it’s not very popular, with no other reviews and having been used in two fleets.
Uses:
Use it as a surprise defensive maneuver – right when your opponent gets a good die roll against you, use Potions and Brews to force a reroll where a worse result is quite possible.
Here is the full Pirate Code entry on it:
quote from The Pirate Code:
Potions & Brews
-This ability may be used to force an opponent to re-roll any die roll made during the game regardless of why it was rolled, including terrain and Mysterious Island rolls. The only exception is a shoot action using the Broadsides Attack keyword, which prevents all other abilities from applying to the action.
-This ability can force the re-roll of multiple dice only if all of those dice are rolled at the same time.
–Cannons are rolled individually during a shoot action, so this ability can force the re-roll of only one.
–If multiple dice were rolled, you may choose to require all dice or only specific die or dice to be re-rolled.
Strategies and game play:
Since it’s a one-time usage and you have to find it on a wild island first, there’s not much strategy to base around it. However, there are certain things you can do to improve your chances of finding it and using it effectively, as detailed in the next section. It’s not likely to affect gameplay very often, but when played at the right moment (and assuming the second die roll is unsuccessful) it can be a game changer! Here you might find some games I’ve used it in.
Nemo’s Plans: With this thing aboard, you can use Potions and Brews indefinitely!
Ways to counteract it:
-Use less abilities that are dependent on die rolls
-Find the UT first
-Take it out with Jailhouse Dog, possibly after finding it with something like La Iberia
-Steal it from an enemy ship
-Sink the ship carrying it before it can hurt you
Strengths/Pros:
-Can be very powerful in the right situation
-Die rolls are everywhere in this game, so it’s very versatile
-Sneaky/under-the-radar nature
Weaknesses/Cons:
-Takes up a cargo space when hidden
-Could be hard to find in a game
-Tough to know exactly when to use it (at the “opportune moment”)
Artwork and aesthetics:
Simple and effective like most of the PotC pictures. Definitely a unique set since they were able to use actual characters and props instead of illustrations.
Overall rating:
7/10. Potions and Brews is a nice UT, but takes up potentially valuable cargo space until it’s revealed. It also loses a point or two since it can be tough to use perfectly, and may not impact the game much at all, especially if your opponent’s second die roll is the same (or better) than their first.
Miniature Review: Fire Shot – A potent offensive weapon for a dirt cheap cost
Fire Shot
Set: Fire and Steel
Collector’s Number: 057
Faction Affiliation: Neutral
Rarity: U
Type: Equipment
Point Value: 1
Ability: Once per turn when this ship is given a shoot action, one of her cannons can shoot a fire shot. Declare which cannon will shoot the fire shot before rolling a d6. If it hits, the target’s controller replaces one of her masts with a fire mast. If the cannon roll is a 1, eliminate Fire Shot from the game and replace one of this ship’s masts with a fire mast.
General description:
Fire Shot actually doesn’t have a review yet, although this review of the Firepot Specialist does cover some points. However, it’s the equipment I’ve found most common in packs, and is perhaps the most popular equipment piece in the game based on usage.
Uses:
Fire shot is a cheap offensive weapon that can enhance any gunship. Use it to take down larger enemy ships, force them to be scuttled, and to spread fear throughout your opponent’s ranks!
Strategies and game play:
Fire shot affects gameplay as one of the cheapest ways to beef up a ship’s (literal) firepower. Firepot Specialists cost one point more and are limited to S range, but they still changed the game. Imagine what the cheaper and more versatile fire shot could do! Fire is one of the more effective ways to take down ships, since it can ruin a ship without you needing to hit more than once. Strategically, it’s also a fear factor. If an opponent knows or even thinks you have fire shot aboard one of your ships, they have to be careful not to let their ships get hit with it.
Combos with other miniatures:
One of the biggest strengths of this equipment is that it can fire at any range. Therefore, unlike firepot specialists, it’s great on ships that have L range cannons rather than ships that only have S range cannons. Since it’s an offensive weapon, you’ll want accurate cannons as well. When you combine these factors, here are a few ships that stand out, though there are MANY others that would work great with fire shot.
HMS Gallows: With effectively 1L cannons, this ship can deal out a ton of damage very quickly. Any of the cannons could hit with fire shot at 83% hit rate, though if you miss it will be a 1, causing the equipment to backfire. Selkie: Perfect for equipment in general, the Selkie carries a nice long-range armament that allows her to hit accurately at L-range or sometimes even at L+L range. El Neptuno/USS Atlanta: With all L-range cannons and the sniping ability, these ships are perfect for setting enemies alight from extreme range.
~~~~~
Due to the horrible thought of rolling a 1 and setting your ship alight and losing fire shot, rerollers of varioustypes can dramatically improve your odds of success. One of these is highly recommended, especially if you’re like me and roll lots of 1’s during shoot actions. However, the chance of the fire shot backfiring on you is just about 17%, so it’s a solid gamble to take, especially for the dirt cheap cost.
If you’re facing a ship like the Constitution or La Corse, fire is a great thing to have since it ignores those abilities and goes right through them! (based on mast replacement as opposed to elimination; a wording technicality)
In addition, fire shot goes right through the defensive abilities of catamarans (though they can still roll to ignore the hit) and turtle ships! Even submarines aren’t safe, as they can’t extinguish the flames just by submerging!
Offensive abilities that improve a ship’s cannon ranks (such as a world hater) can help the chances of hitting.
Ammunition: The shot equipment you choose really depends on the situation, but this is a great way to get a free fire shot! (often better than choosing the 3 point exploding shot, since the equipment does count towards the ship’s point limit)
Another random thought is to use a cargo master or some other crew to put fire shot on a flotilla. Depending on the cannon ranges, you could have a really nasty combo that allows you to start fires at L+L range without needing to roll a 6 from the sniping ability!
Ships to NOT put fire shot on: HMS Endeavour: the abilities function separately, so you can’t deal a double fire mast with a hit. Better to just do the regular double damage, especially since you’re paying so much for the ability.
-Ships with all S range cannons: These ships aren’t taking full advantage of the equipment’s potential range, and are often better off with the firepot specialist. Still an option though, especially if you only have 1 point to spend.
-Ships with rank-4 or worse cannons: Since this is a powerful offensive weapon, you really want it to hit and not waste your fire shot. Also, since it can only be used once per turn, it’s best to use it on the ship’s best cannon.
~~~~~
Unfortunately, since fire shot can only be used once per turn, it’s not one of the best choices for ships that have the potential for double actions. It’d be nice to shoot a fire shot twice with two move-and-shoots, but you’re better off just shooting normally. This isn’t to say you should never use fire shot on a gunship with double actions, but more to remember that the number of fire masts you can place per turn is limited to one per fire shot. If you wanted to cause extreme fire damage, you could add exploding shot and a firepot specialist to the same ship, at which point you could start up to 3 fires!
Also, keep in mind that equipment cannot be eliminated when traveling through whirlpools. This is generally a negative of fire shot, since it can’t be sacrificed to protect more important things like the ship’s helmsman or her final mast.
Firepot Specialists are a great way to add fire potential to a ship without the drawback of losing the game piece on a bad die roll. These are better if you can afford the extra point and don’t need or want the extra range that fire shot can provide, or if you’re simply risk-averse.
Exploding Shot is more expensive but comes with a better drawback and eliminates a crew on a successful hit. Once again, if you have the points to spend, this is probably better than fire shot, but oftentimes build totals fill up quickly and you’re better off getting a captain, helmsman, or tiny ship instead of this equipment. (not to mention 3 fire shots on 3 different ships!) If you have the LE version of exploding shot, it can be added if you need a quick boost to firepower.
The other equipment is more situational than fire shot, but can be better depending on the game circumstances and your play style/preferences.
There are only a few bombardiers in the game, and they are all quite expensive for what you get. Fire shot is also far more flexible, though if you use it on a bombardier you can really make the game hot!
Strengths/Pros:
-Very cheap; the cheapest way to add fire to your fleet
-Effective offensive weapon
-Fire can be a big fear factor for opponents
-Can shoot at any range unlike specialists
-One of the best counters to ships with differentdefensiveabilities
-Cannot be cancelled directly
-Can be assigned to sea creatures
Weaknesses/Cons:
-Huge negative effect if you roll a 1: major backfire!
-Can only be used once per turn, so not as effective with ships that have double action abilities
Artwork and aesthetics:
The artwork is great: very explosive and fiery!
Overall rating:
I give Fire Shot an 8/10. It’s an insanely effective offensive weapon that costs just 1 point, but the huge drawback must be accounted for when considering its use. (I think I’d give firepot specialists and exploding shot a 8 and 7.5 respectively)
RainTyger has this equipment for just $.20! If they run out, you can probably find it on eBay.
Miniature Review: Le Renard qui Vole – Simple speedy subhunter
Le Renard qui Vole
Set: Pirates of the Mysterious Islands
Collector’s Number: 206
Faction Affiliation: France
Rarity: PR
Type: Ship
Point Value: 7
Number of Masts: 1
Cargo Space: 2
Base Move: S+S+S
Cannons: 2S
Ability: This ship can shoot at submerged ships within S of her.
Flavor: Shipwrecked in Manila the French crew of the “Flying Fox” spent two years building the ship and named her for the enormous bats in the area.
General description:
Here I will review a ship that I don’t own. Actually, many people don’t own the Renard qui Vole. In fact, the database says that not a single member here at Miniature Trading has one up for trade, while 16 members want one. The Renard (as I will refer to her) is one of the very rare Mysterious Islands PR/LE box topper tournament ships, and is one of many small LE ships that are hard to find (similar to the DJC LE’s).
She hasn’t been reviewed yet, and has been used in only one fleet. As the title suggests, she has a few distinct strengths that make her stand out, but other than that, the Renard is a fragile and not overly useful one master.
Uses:
The Renard qui Vole is best used as a support gunship. Due to her small cargo hold, she isn’t a great gold runner. For 1 point less you can have Le Bon Marin, not to mention all the other great little gold runners the French have. Her ability, speed, and cannon makes her ideal to be used as a submarine counter.
Strategies and game play:
If your opponent uses submarines a lot, this is a decent ship to bring to the table. Since most submarines aren’t particularly fast, the Renard will likely be able to catch them and get the first shot. However, since her armament is limited and that same submarine could ram the Renard’s only mast off, it’s wise to be cautious when hunting subs with this ship. Other strategies include using the ship as a generic support gunship, or as a scout ship that can grab a couple coins when bored or defend a particular area you control.
Combos with other miniatures:
Due to the Renard’s speed and the general lacking of speed on submarines, the Renard doesn’t usually need a helmsman to reach full effectiveness. For a gunship, this is great and saves the Renard 2 points on her total point cost. (though, if needed, a captain and helmsman fit aboard at 12 points to give her S+S+S+S speed!)
However, you’ll definitely want a captain to make sure you can move and shoot. This brings the Renard’s total cost to 10 points, which is a lot for a single masted support gunship, but at least one that is very quick and has an accurate cannon.
A musketeer is actually a good option for the Renard, because it nearly doubles the ship’s total firepower and allows you to take on larger submarines. A cannoneer is a bit less effective in this case because you already have a 66% chance of hitting with the main gun, so it’s better to add an extra cannon than reroll a shot that could easily hit. You could get a free reroll for either cannon with Godiva or LaFontaine, though that’s a very risky bet to put a Ransom crew on a 1 masted ship.
Where this ship becomes fun is with the various specialist crew. I’d highly recommend a Firepot Specialist for the Renard, as it can cut through the defenses of the Nautilus and set subs aflame when they’re still underwater! Next up, the Stinkpot Specialist allows for crew cancelling, which is a very important tactic in battles. The Renard’s speed can allow her to race ahead of a bigger gunship, blast the crew of the sub with stinkpots, and allow for the larger gunship to follow up soon afterwards. This could slow the sub down if she has a helmsman, and also prevent disaster from encountering crew like Captain Nemo. The chainshot and smokepot specialists aren’t as highly recommended, but could help in specific situations. (especially if the sub is fast and you need to slow it down until further help arrives)
For named crew, the options are severely limited by the Renard’s point cost and cargo capacity. However, there is one that is absolutely perfect for the Renard. Henri Diop. This guy is one of the least useful French crew in existence, yet here you can finally have a great reason to use him. Most of the game’s submarines are of the Mercenary faction, so the Renard will be able to use Diop’s ability when hunting most subs. In addition, Diop links to all French ships, which allows you to still put another crew (for 2 points or less) on the Renard! This gives you a 1S specialist shot firing at a submerged ship; if you hit with a firepot, you could potentially end a huge threat with one shot!
Possibly the most dangerous combo is to add Capitaine Arathiel and two oarsmen. This would allow for maximum sub hunting capability, and gives the Renard enough speed to catch almost any ship.
Funny enough, Claude Perier is a decent option if you’re unsure of which specialist to use.
There are a few other fringe cases where you might put a named crew aboard the Renard for various objectives, such as Nicholas-Thomas Baudin or Lenoir. Also, if you know that an enemy submarine has a canceller on board, this Lenoir will allow you to still take your important shot(s).
Ways to counteract it:
-Cancellers
-Using USS Mercury; the ability will negate the only chance the Renard has of hitting (watch out for a musketeer though, which could hit and allow for the regular 2S gun to connect normally)
-Ram it out of commission (possibly from underwater for maximum revenge/irony)
-Avoid using submarines – the Renard is a ship with a very specific use, and outside of her ability she’s not going to have a big effect on the game
The Competition:
The biggest competition for the Renard comes from Pierre Aronnax. Being a crew that can serve aboard any of France’s best gunships, Aronnax is far more flexible than the Renard. If you know you’ll be facing submarines (or see them on the ocean and can hire him with Vicomte Jules de Cissey), Aronnax is your man. He would be fantastic on many French ships, especially some of the better 5 masters that have L range guns (watch out for Christian Fiore). In addition, he links to all French ships and is a common, literally the complete opposite of the Renard’s extreme rarity. To be honest, Aronnax is a far better option. However, if you’re lacking points with which to hire a large subhunter and put Aronnax aboard, the Renard is a great option to fall back on.
The Renard doesn’t face much other competition, but it’s worth noting that there are some better options at the 7 point level for French gunships. The Le Coeur de Lionis probably the best of the bunch and happens to be one of the most fun and underrated ships in the game, mostly due to her namesake. However, the other optionsare pretty good too, so the Renard is mostly relegated to strictly sub hunting.
Strengths/Pros:
-Fast
-Accurate cannon
-Enough cargo and point space to complement her ability with the right crew setup
-Relatively cheap – Aronnax gives the ability alone for only 2 points less
Weaknesses/Cons:
-Extremely fragile
-Only fills a specific role
-Outclassed by a much better and more common option with the same ability within the same faction
Artwork and aesthetics:
Unfortunately we don’t yet have a picture of the constructed ship, but based on the card picture she’s not exceptionally pretty like a lot of French ships. There’s some evidence of bat-like artwork that connects to the flavor text, but overall she looks pretty drab.
Overall rating:
The Renard is not one of the best ships in the game, and she never will be. However, she fills a very niche role in a very effective way, and when combined with specialist crew she can do her job to perfection. I give the Renard qui Vole a 5/10. (8.5/10 strictly within the realm of sub hunting)
You’re not likely to find her on eBay, but go ahead and take a peek if you want.
Miniature Review: USS Albany – Big bad capital ship
USS Albany
Set: Pirates of the Frozen North
Collector’s Number: 077
Faction Affiliation: America
Rarity: U
Type: Ship
Point Value: 15
Number of Masts: 4
Cargo Space: 5
Base Move: L
Cannons: 2S-2S-2S-2S
Ability: If this ship wins a boarding party, she may take as much treasure from the other ship as she can carry.
Flavor text: The crew of USS Albany is composed of former prisoners of war who are focused only on extracting gold from their prey.
General description:
USS Albany is a very good ship from the Frozen North set. The relative rarity and quality of that set, in addition to the plethora of American gunships, likely contributes to her being underrated, underused, and not as well known as she should be. This is her first Miniature Review, and she has been used in just two fleets. However, she is one of my favorite American ships, and I’ll certainly tell you why. I’ve wanted to review this ship for a while now, and here I intend to do her justice with a great review.
Uses:
The Albany is a very interesting ship, the type of ship that I love. Her point cost almost necessitates usage as some kind of gunship, and her powerful short range armament calls for bloodshed. However, her large cargo hold and very good (but situational) ability make you think twice about using her solely as a gunship. This is the kind of ship that functions best as one of two things:
1. A primary gunship loaded up well to take advantage of the high ceiling set by the point cost and 5 cargo spaces.
2. One of the more powerful hybrids in the game.
Strategies and game play:
Based on the two main uses for the Albany, she will likely be serving as a combat force or a hybrid that fights often but takes advantage of golden situations (pun? intended either way heh). Send her after your opponent’s main gunship, and a clash of titans will occur. Send her after your opponent’s gold runners (with the right crew setup), and they will quake in fear and be splintered from bow to stern. This is a badass ship, so use her as such!
Combos with other miniatures:
Before I get into the more complex combos, let’s not forget that it’s perfectly reasonable to sail the Albany out of port with nothing more than a captain and helmsman. This would give her the essential abilities for any hybrid or gunship, and leave 3 spaces open for gold. Adding an explorer would only cost a point more, make going to wild islands more appealing, and protect the other two crew. Especially on a budget, these options are great. However, I like to complicate things and make crew combos more interesting, so let’s not stop there!
I find hybrids a bit more interesting and flexible than more simple gunships, and I know a lot of people look at a ship’s ability as a main driver of its uses, so I will look at hybrid combos first.
To use the Albany’s ability, you’ll want as many cargo spaces free as possible. Stern combines three abilities into one crew, and all three are extremely relevant to what the Albany will be doing. The captain ability can help soften up or dismast enemy treasure runners before the Albany easily wins the boarding party. The +1 to boarding rolls means the Albany will almost always win against most gold runners. Lastly, the extra action capabilities will allow the Albany to catch enemy treasure runners, which might not be possible even with the mandatory helmsman. Nolan makes the setup even more ideal, linking to Stern and providing a free reroll for either the extra action or the boarding attempt. In conclusion, the Albany is set up quite well to do anything. Even if she doesn’t get the chance to raid any gold runners, she’s a formidable gunship in her own right, with so many abilities at her disposal in addition to her powerful guns.
There you have it; one of my favorite crew setups of all time. As I said, even if you can’t use her as a hybrid due to a lack of ships to steal from, she can move up to L+S+L+S with eight 2S shots, which is primary gunship material. In hindsight, adding an oarsman would be a good idea since he won’t take up space and helps to protect the crew, all of which are very valuable in that combo. With an oarsman, the setup totals 25 points, which leaves you with 15 or 20 points left over in a standard 40 point game.
That setup is so ideal that other hybrid setups for the Albany pale in comparison. If you were on a tighter budget, you could add Master CPO Charles Richard and a helmsman, but you’ll likely need some kind of speed boost to catch enemy gold runners. If you wanted speed but couldn’t afford a captain, Captain Montana Mays with a helmsman could work.
Gunship combos
There are so many great crew combos for the Albany to utilize. The Americans may not have any cheap options for double actions, but they can certainly combo well with intimidating setups.
Bread and butter gunship setup (30 points)
–Jonathan Haraden, Commander Steven Decatur, helmsman
Here the Albany gets the standard captain/helmsman in addition to EA (extra action)/reroll. This is actually somewhat similar to the best hybrid setup, but more offensively minded. Decatur protects the important crew from elimination, while two cargo spaces are left over if an opportunity for a treasure raid presents itself. Unfortunately the point total quickly maximizes the ship’s point space, so there’s no room for an oarsman. Though, if you used Nolan instead of Haraden and went with a regular captain, you would have 3 points left for two cargo spaces. You could add a firepot specialist and an oarsman in that case, or leave the setup at 27 points. Haraden is just a cool character and bringing Nolan’s Ransom keyword into that much combat can be risky in a tight gold race.
Defensive setup (30/33 points)
–Montana Mays, Diamond Nelson Turner, Ralph David, Wayne Nolan, helmsman (+ optional Ruth Lee/Pierce Hollow and oarsman to prevent capture and dereliction)
The numerous options the Americans have for Eternal and crew protecting make this combo a nice option. This version of Mays is used to make sure the ship has the captain ability, but no double actions are available. The Albany’s point space quickly fills up, but the ship has many great abilities available. Mays also protects the essential crew, all of which play important roles. DNT is the only American canceller crew, and serves as the best defense the Albany can have. Cancellers almost cannot be overvalued. Next is Ralph David, who makes the ship Eternal (Gus, who is listed below, is too expensive to not need a point reducer in addition to him). The helmsman is necessary as usual, to give the ship a fighting chance of getting the first shot and catching enemies. The optional point reducer/oarsman is for the players who want to optimize this setup, despite essentially paying 3 points for an oarsman and risking people getting thrown overboard if the ship is hit with stinkystuff. However, it gets the ship as close as one can get to the Eternal “god ship” setup, as the oarsman prevents capture and dereliction. Since the oarsman can’t be eliminated due to Mays, the ship must be sunk, but she has Eternal due to Ralph David. This combo is not for the faint of heart, but makes the Albany as durable and indestructible as possible. (more recommended for large/long games than competitive games where speed is always the most important thing)
Those are the best overall setups I can come up with, but here are a bunch of other fun options:
Equipment attacker (30 points)
–Jonathan Haraden, Commander Albert Crenshaw, helmsman, your choice of two 1 point shot equipment
Crenshaw is a unique crew who is rarely worth the points, but since the Albany’s guns are accurate to begin with and all have S range, he’s a reasonable option for her. One of my favorite things about equipment is that they can be fired at any range, unlike the specialists that are reduced to S range. The cargo hold quickly fills up, but leaves room for a couple pieces of shot equipment. I’d probably go with fire shot and stinkpot shot, but it really depends on your preferences and strategies. Haraden combines two abilities into one cargo space, the latter of which (reroll) can help to avoid a backfiring equipment malfunction. As you can see by now, the helmsman is just mandatory to make the ship effective.
Specialist Striker (26 points)
-Captain, helmsman, firepot specialist, chainshot specialist, stinkpot specialist (American crew)
This is a bit silly, but you can use the Albany’s cargo hold to bring aboard various specialist crew. Though Crenshaw allows the Albany to take full advantage of his ability, her natural 2S guns are perfect for specialist crew, since you don’t have to shorten the range of any L range cannons to use them. You could really throw a ship for a loop here if you hit with all 3, which would immobilize them, set them alight, and freeze their crew for a turn, allowing you to clean up with another gunship or follow with another volley from the Albany on the next turn. This combo could work well in challenging more dangerous foes, such as 5, 6, and 10 masters. The extra weaponry could help even the playing field and allow the Albany to pull off an upset.
Fire bomber (29 points)
–Jonathan Haraden, helmsman, Firepot Specialist, Exploding Shot, Fire Shot
This is a fun combo that allows you to blaze your opponent’s ship with up to 3 fire masts at once! Haraden’s reroll is highly recommended to prevent dangerous malfunctions of the equipment.
Brutal effectiveness (26 points)
–Brent Rice/Chief PO Charles Richard, captain, helmsman, firepot specialist
This gives the Albany 1S cannons and a very high chance of setting enemy ships on fire. This illustrates the lack of cheap American double actions, but serves you well based on firepower alone. If you really wanted one of the 7 point crew, you could ditch the specialist for them and a point reducer.
Going for broke (25 points)
–Commodore David Porter, helmsman, oarsman
I wouldn’t really recommend this, but if you like using Broadsides Attack and have good luck with it, the Albany is one of the best American ships for Porter to serve on. Her 2S cannons have the rank and range you want for a BA blast, and makes the ship comparable to HMS Bretwalda.
Maximum gunnery (30 points)
–William Eaton, captain, helmsman, musketeer
As the name suggests, this produces a lot of firepower. The Albany would have 6 total cannons in this setup, with five at 2S and one at 3S. You could try this if you’re going up against a 6 or 10 masted ship or a problem like Paradis de la Mer.
I think that’s enough primary gunship setups, but here are some other crew that could do well on the Albany:
–Gus Schultz: if you’re using the Pirates and can’t take advantage of Ralph David’s cheap cost, the Americans have a second Eternal crew, one of only 3 in the game.
–RV “Diamond” Nelson Turner is far less effective than his canceller version, but could really mess with an opponent if used at the right moment (use with a hybrid setup)
–F&S Diamond Nelson Turner: not the most effective use of 8 points, but if your luck on shoot actions is as bad as mine, the insurance could really come in handy. With a captain and helmsman you’d still have room for some shot equipment, which would doubly benefit from the ability.
–John Paul Jones and Captain Montana Mays are excellent options in general, it’s just that Decatur gives the EA ability (more flexible than SAT) for the same total point cost. The setups would work just as well if you don’t have Decatur, with the possible exception of needing to explore wild islands and/or enemy ships.
–Shinji Smith makes the ship comparable to USS Eagan but simply costs more to execute a similar strategy. (similar to the specialists, the 2S guns are ideal for Shinji’s ability though)
-The American Cargo Master is a unique crew that combos well with American fleets, since they aren’t exceptionally strong in the gold running department. I didn’t include him above, since a lot of the setups fill up the Albany’s point cost and therefore you would need a point reducer to take full advantage of the extra stuff. It’s easy enough to figure out: with a cargo master on another ship, take any of the above combos that are less than 30 points and add anything that further complements the abilities of that particular setup.
-In Return to Savage Shores, the Americans received a new version of George Washington LeBeaux, who gives the same ability as the infamous Lord Mycron. This could allow the Albany virtually guaranteed double actions from a ship like the Annapolis docked at home. Similarly, Commodore Edward Preble is a great crew for larger games (80+ points), though the Albany might often be too crowded for him to come aboard. Ships like the USS Kentucky with a built-in reroll are a perfect spot for him to give the Albany AA’s (admiral actions) from afar.
-Don’t slouch on the original Ralph David; with a hybrid setup you could offload coins to a ship with RD aboard, who then unloads them one at a time for maximum bonuses.
–Commodore Matthew Perry can single-handedly give the Albany the necessary captain and helmsman abilities. He also would feel reasonably comfortable aboard the Albany with one of the crew protectors around.
–Navigators could help let the Albany catch enemy ships.
–Captain Charles Richard isn’t recommended, but for fun you could go overboard and add Stern, canceller DNT, Nolan, Gus Schultz, and an SAT/crew protector for maximum craziness. (just remember that abilities don’t stack and you can only give a ship two non-free actions per turn)
-The Letter of Marque equipment is good if you know which faction(s) you’ll be facing.
Your basic generic crew options (musketeer, cannoneer, shipwright, etc) also work well on the Albany since she can easily fit them aboard with her big cargo hold. They’re not often the best value you can get for your points, but for a beginner or someone with a limited collection they’re good options to beef up the Albany beyond the simple captain+helmsman setup.
If you find the treasures and have the time to transport them to the Albany, Ammunition, Deck Cannon, Dry Powder, and Power Cannons can give her a boost in firepower. Also, you may find the Albany a good place to put those unwanted face down UT’s that would only take up important space on your treasure runners.
In a large game or campaign game, the Albany’s durability, cargo hold, and ability would make it reasonable for usage as a gold runner. In that capacity, you couldn’t go wrong with a helmsman and explorer; after dropping the explorer and with a potential cargo master in play, the Albany could bring back 5 coins per trip at L+S speed, which is pretty good for the Americans. Certainly a fringe use, but for hardcore players of large games who might have a battle fleet of American 5 masters already in play, it’s not a bad way to go. The guns and ability will certainly ensure the island the Albany goes to is free of enemy gold runners!
Ways to counteract it:
The Albany is a powerful and intimidating ship, so your best bet is to knock it out of the game with a more powerful warship, cancel its captain ability when it comes within range (watch out for Crenshaw though), or use this nonsense. Gold runners can run away if they’re faster than L+S (though they might need double actions if the Albany has some). Other than that, you could try to capture the ship since she’d make a fine addition to any fleet.
The Competition:
The Americans have plenty of 15 point ships.
-The Bonhomme Richard is a classic historical favorite that beats the Albany at being a pure gunship, with better speed and slightly more powerful/flexible firepower. If not for the Albany’s ability she’d be a better ship regardless, but the BR could be a good hybrid.
-The Ghost Walker is fantastic, but can’t do quite as much damage as the Albany and doesn’t function as well in the hybrid role.
-The Intrepid, similar to the BR, beats the Albany in the gunship role, with better speed and really good guns.
-The Jarvis is a very good ship with a nice ability, but falls just short of the Albany overall.
–Paul Revere is one of my favorite ships and combines great speed with a solid complement of guns and abilities.
-The USS Constitution is a quintessential gunship choice and better at that role than the Albany.
However, the Albany is better than the other ships on that list (linked above), so she’s about in the middle of the pack. She also compares pretty well to most American 4 masters, though ships like the Franklin, Providence, and Hudson are pretty much undeniably better.
If we look at game pieces with the same ability, we see that the Albany is FAR superior than most, with only the Zeus (ugh lol) and Descharges giving her serious competition.
In short, the Albany compares favorably to ships of her size in her own faction, but faces stiffer competition from American ships that share her point cost. She’s also one of the best ships in the game with the Hoarding Gold ability.
Strengths/Pros:
-Size/durability
-Great cannons
-Big cargo hold
-Point cost that allows effective and fun named crew combos to take advantage of her ability and cannons
-Ability that actually suits her stats (lots of cargo)
-Hybrid potential
Weaknesses/Cons:
-A bit slow
-Lack of defined role (would likely be used more with a more offensive ability)
-Vulnerable to cancellers and “can’t hit within S” ships
-Not a weakness in my opinion, but a con that the Americans don’t have great options for named crew like the Big 4 have
Artwork and aesthetics:
The artwork is rather typical of FN, with a dark hull but light colored sails. The chains on her sails look a bit odd but make the ship stand out, along with connecting to the flavor text.
Overall rating:
I give the Albany a 7.5/10. She’s one of the most underrated hybrids in the game and functions quite well as a primary gunship, but her speed and extensive competition hold her back from getting an 8. A cool ship that is fun to sail around in!
Published to Miniature Trading on March 22nd, 2017
Miniature Review: Xi’an – Not the Shui, but Shee Ahn!
Xi’an
Set: Savage Shores
Collector’s Number: 023
Faction Affiliation: Pirate
Rarity: C
Type: Ship
Point Value: 8
Number of Masts: 2
Cargo Space: 2
Base Move: L+S
Cannons: 2S-3L
Ability: Junk.
Flavor text: The Xi’an and her crew are nearly all that remain of the once powerful Jade Empire.
This is the Xi’an’s first appearance in the fleets or Miniature Review sections!
General description:
Here’s a little-known ship from Savage Shores that is overlooked for different reasons. The Xi’an has only her ship type keyword, with no other abilities. Her cargo space is mostly average, though her speed is good. Throw in her status as a common and a Pirate ship, and it’s easy to overlook her.
I looked up the pronunciation of the ship’s name and it sounds like “shee ahn” or “shee an”. The first part of Shui Xian might be either “schway” or “shoo-ee”.
Uses:
I would recommend using the Xi’an as a gunship. Her cargo hold is a bit small for a gold role, though sending her out empty could work to get a couple coins due to her fast base move. In addition, her guns are good enough to dismast or damage most small gold runners.
Strategies and game play:
The Xi’an should normally be used as a support gunship. Her size and point cost are small enough to include another gunship in your standard 40 point fleet, if desired. The Xi’an can be used as an escort ship for your treasure runners, and/or as a harassing ship to attack enemy gold runners. Another ship could be used to mop up the remains of the Xi’an’s attack, whether that means towing an enemy gold runner or boarding her to load gold.
Combos with other miniatures:
The most obvious combo is to put a simple captain aboard. I would highly recommend this, as the Xi’an’s fragility makes it clear that you may not want to spend many points on her. Adding a helmsman would give the ship L+S+S speed, fast enough to catch most enemy gold runners. This would total 13 points. (If you want to combine those abilities into one cargo space and add one of the below combos for 3 or less points, Hammersmith would be perfect.)
A few other generic crew are solid options if you have more points to spend. An oarsman could protect any two crew you use, though it’s less important with a small ship. A firepot specialist could work really well, using that 2S foremast cannon to set enemies aflame. A musketeer could increase the ship’s damage potential by 50%.
The options for named crew are numerous, despite the Xi’an’s small point cost. This is due to the immense numbers of fantastic crew the Pirate faction has.
Crimson Angel is the most offensive route you can take with the Xi’an. Effectively cheating the point costs of her abilities, for 16 points (with a captain) you could have up to 4 shots at 1S and 2L ranks. If you wanted the potential SAT for less points, the Pirates have numerous cheap options for that.
Since the Xi’an only has 2 cannons, she can’t afford to miss often. Calico Cat provides some insurance while comboing excellently with a firepot specialist or equipment.
I wouldn’t really recommend it, but if you really need guaranteed extra actions, Captain Blackheart or Havana Black could be paired with an explorer and oarsman.
Captain Jack Hawkins would work well with a helmsman in a suicide mission: L+S+S up to an enemy gunship, two shots, a ram, and then a boarding party and pinned effect.
Other fun ideas:
Especially in larger games, you could even leave the Xi’an parked at your home island with Calypso and a navigator. Leave Capitaine Chevalle face down until the right moment to surprise an opponent. Similarly, Tia Dalma fits perfectly with a captain for 16 total points. Captain Jack Sparrow is actually a solid option, as he gives the captain ability in addition to his other (OP) ability, in which the treasure is never loaded onto his ship in the first place. Geoffery Flores would work similar to a musketeer, but you need a 4 or higher to hit. If you did use Hammersmith, you’d have space for Amos to bring in a crew, giving you more flexibility.
In addition, the Xi’an could use any of the various equipment.
Obviously the crew options are still limited, and those are the ones that make more sense than some of the more gimmicky ones or the ones that are much better suited to larger ships.
Ways to counteract it:
Sink it! The Xi’an isn’t a huge threat, and her masts could fall quickly. A canceller might come in handy assuming your opponent has a captain aboard, especially if that lets you avoid getting hit with fire.
The Competition:
There are plenty of 8 point Pirate ships, and some of them far outclass the Xi’an. The Royal James, Cutlass, and Freedom’s Hand are the most direct competitors, and all 3 are clearly superior to the Xi’an. The Executioner is also a better ship most of the time. The Star of Siam and Bonnie Liz are two of the best gold runners in the game. I did put her as an honorable mention for 8 point ships.
Even among the 5 other 2 masted Pirate junks, the Xi’an has stiff competition. The Hai Peng is the fastest ship in existence, as well as one of the most effective. The Sea Crane is able to play a hybrid role and has a great ability.
Weaknesses/Cons:
-Junk keyword doesn’t help the ship
-Small cargo hold limits ship to a gunship role
-Overpriced compared to competition
Artwork and aesthetics:
I like the artwork – the fancy patterns on the deck and sails are reminiscent of some French ships, while the hull details fit the Savage Shores theme well. The flavor text is also rather interesting.
Overall rating:
6/10. The Xi’an is a nice support gunship option, but is completely obliterated by her competition.
Chain-towing in a regular game, using about 6 total ships! (I sort of introduced chain-towing as a tactic back in my first 500 point game; it’s normally only viable in very large games so to see it here was epic.) At this point I commented that I was willing to lose despite my love for the HPFF fleet, simply because of Xerecs’ fantastic move and the honorable way of losing such a unique game. However, it was becoming evident that there was a lot of game left to play! The swarmers took up position in the far west against the Devil’s Maw, and began their bombardment! This was another unique feature of this game – a prolonged assault against a fort by multiple ships, something you’d be more likely to see in real life than in a game of Pirates.
) The Bonnie Liz sails to the fort and grabs the gold there. The Rover stalks the Intrepide and Coeur up north.
