New eBay find and a minor anniversary of a game

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pirates CSG Card of the Day

Set number: 12 – Rise of the Fiends

Collector’s Number: 031 – Sea Hag

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-You can get the Sea Hag here.

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

The Sea Hag assaulting a French fort with Shal-Bala during Economy Edition, June 2015.

Picture of the Day

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

Chase to catch the slowing Trinity!

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

A rare sight – a ship almost completely engulfed by flames!

It’s a Pirates’ Life for Me.

Ben

Updates and News – May 16th, 2018

Hello again.  Admiral A7XfanBen reporting in.  XD

What have I done with the site since the last blog post?
-Added youtube channel page (gallery style shows newest uploads, easy to navigate and see a lot of vids at once)
-Added daily blog category description

I’m super happy to get the youtube integration going, since I’ve been going kinda CRAZY with youtube lately.  By that I mean as of 5/16 I have uploaded 8 videos in the past 5 days!  Along with about 4 in the week before that.  You can see the camera icon I added for the menu part; I might experiment with doing that for other pages as well if I can find something fitting, or I may do away with it altogether.  I’m immensely enjoying the youtube stuff right now and more feedback and video suggestions are always welcomed and appreciated.  For the first time, I also have a slight backlog of videos lined up for release.  XD  Nothing too crazy or long, but I’ve got 3 more ready to go and who knows, I might record tomorrow and/or friday.  😀  I just don’t want to overload the subscription feeds people have, so I probably won’t do more than 2 vids per day.  I think I’d be happy with about 2 videos per week on average, but right now I’m feeding off the suggestions video and making a lot of short content in a short period of time, hence the flurry of uploads.

The new youtube page will show my latest video in the feed, with the other recent videos below in the gallery format.  This is fantastic since the site will update automatically, unlike weebly where I had to paste each video url individually (which was fast, but the page got big and slow to load, and this will be even faster – ZERO time required!  XD).

I added a daily blog category description because it looked a little weird as-is, and because I want it to be known I plan to do this every day so people can tune in and check things out often.  Just trying to bring as much value as possible through all of my content, so please reach out to tell me how I can improve or add to things.

Right after I publish this blog post I’m planning to add another page.  From there I need to get some features going and try to figure out the sidebar issue.

Pirates CSG News

-VASSAL Campaign Game 4 has continued, updates here.

-Godmason has a new Rankings thread up.  These are a great way to learn about the game and learn about all the ships out there.  More posts mean more attention for the game, which is always a good thing!

-As for personal news, I have literally thrown out what was left of my black spray paint I was planning to use for future ideas in Ocean Terrain Contest #3.  I feel very strongly about the negative health effects, even more so than before.  Even with little exposure, I just don’t feel like putting myself at any risk whatsoever.  My extremely long term health matters infinitely more than a few more islands or winning a contest on the forum, so I’m just done with any kinds of paint right now.  However, as I said recently on this blog, there are a few more things I’d like to do for my entry, including some new pieces.

I LOVE the idea of the news section for the Pirates CSG Podcast, so I hope to do the same here with reasonable regularity.  It may not always be new for the game itself, but more personal news that affects my piratical activities.  Once I get more readers and figure out adding commenting features, I’d like to do a question of the day series as well.

Deal of the Day: Long gone, but here is eBay. This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

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

Pirates CSG Card of the Day

Set number: 9 – Ocean’s Edge

Collector’s Number: 124 – Shipwright

2 points

This ship may repair at sea or at any island.

I’m not super into reviewing the essential basics like this, but perhaps I’ll do it as they come up until I’ve done one of each type of generic crew/etc.

Shipwrights are in my opinion overrated by new players, who sometimes lack the experience of quick battles happening often.  In most games (30-100 points), battles end before a shipwright can do his work.  He might have an opportunity to benefit the victor, but they already won the battle anyway.  Trying to repair during battle almost never seems to work in my experience, unless you can repair multiple masts in one turn with extra actions and/or have defensive abilities to make it worthwhile.  Shipwrights still have a place in the game and it’s quite possible at this point that I underrate them, but they’re not a staple of competitive fleets at all.  99% of the time you should choose a helmsman instead.  Even if you have 2 points left over and all the ships in your fleet have helmsmen, I’d still probably recommend a cannoneer on your main gunship, or possibly two oarsmen on different ships rather than a shipwright.  All that said, I would like to revisit shipwrights a bit in the future to see if I’m too harsh on them.

Game Piece Rating: 5/10.  A nice ability that can be great when it works, but sounds much better than it actually is practical.  Like I said above, great fleets that win often never seem to have shipwrights in them, since they don’t need them and are using the points elsewhere for speed and efficiency.

Picture of the Day

VASSAL Campaign Game 4 a handful of turns into the game.  My Pirates had the first launch of the game this past turn; you can spot them at the bottom in the southeast.

Latest screenshot from CG4

Thanks for reading.  Off to make more progress!

It’s a Pirates’ Life for Me.

Ben

Changes and Plans

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

-Added social icons, updated About Ben page

-Added Other Sites page

Earlier today I made a short little video summarizing the changes and what I’d like to see from the site going forward.

Plans

I’d like to post at least one battle report (BR) per week, sometimes more depending on the circumstances and the game or games in question.  As you can see from that separate blog, I’m starting with the very first battle report I ever wrote and will be posting them in chronological order.  My battle reports have become a bit scattered and random over the years, due to:

1. Pojo is the only place to find the reports from before 2013’s Century of the Empires game, the first game I took pictures for.
2. photobucket disaster in summer 2017 – all links from that stupid site trashed.
3. Postimages changing their url’s from .org to .cc in 2018 – all picture links broken, and I have only gotten the campaign game BR’s back up in new posts in the BR thread at Miniature Trading.

So, all in all the state of battle reporting is in shambles unfortunately.  It has been two huge setbacks in just the past 10 months, resulting in me not trusting any image hosting site no matter what.  As a result, I may or may not have full battle reports with pictures here.  I may do mostly video battle reports and just save the files.  That way, I can just repost one mp4 file on a different website if the primary host goes down, rather than having to redo dozens, hundreds, or thousands of picture link url’s.

-Need to customize sidebars to category pages (blog vs. BR’s)

This refers to how on the right side of this page, the recent posts and other things refer to any blog posts, not just the Daily Blog stuff.  I’d like to separate them, so the sidebar on the Battle Reports blog page only refers to other BR things.

I would love for my site to become the “ultimate” conglomeration of all things Pirates.  Files, info, data, reviews, stats, content, pictures, BR’s, record, etc.  As of now, the community is still scattered in a way; I suspect that a lot of members in the growing Facebook group do not have accounts at Miniature Trading, and vice versa.  Then you’ve got BoardGameGeek, Pojo, the Yahoo groups, the subreddit, and others (check out the Other Sites page).  That’s all fine, but it also leads to a scattering of information and data.  I like the thought of hosting a lot of files at this site if possible, giving credit of course for ones that aren’t mine.  I would love for a LOT of useful information to be had here at Pirates with Ben.  In fact, a giant “information” page is one of my priorities for a new page that was never part of my weebly site.  That said, a lot of work still to do!  Let me know if there are things you’d like to see here on this site, or what I could improve on!  a7xfanben@gmail.com

Deal of the Day: Long gone. Current eBay options. This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

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

Pirates CSG Card of the Day

Set number: 7 – Mysterious Islands

Collector’s Number: 078 – Le Rocher Noir

• Collector’s Number: 078
• Faction Affiliation: France
• Rarity: C
• Type: Ship
• Point Value: 11
• Cargo Space: 2
• Base Move: S+L
• Cannons: 3S-3S-3S
• Number of Masts: 3

This ship can shoot at submerged ships within S of her.
Flavor: Capitaine Nash has nerves of steel, and what sometimes seems like a death wish, as he insists his vessel carry only the most dangerous cargo in the Mysterious Islands.

The Rocher Noir is not a bad ship, but she’s not exceptional either.  You’ve got very good speed and average cannons, with a niche ability that really narrows down her role, which is hunting for underwater targets.  If you don’t think your opponent will be using sea monsters or submarines, I wouldn’t recommend her.  However, as a sub-hunter she’s certainly fit for the job.  With very little cargo, that’s pretty much it – a fast midsize gunship that should be used to attack underwater threats.

Standard 40 point games: At least a captain, and probably a helmsman to ensure you catch whatever you’re hunting.  (14 or 16 total points)

Medium size games (50-100 points): Same thing, but definitely with a helmsman here.  (16 total points)

Large games (over 100 points):  Hmmm… with the cargo filled up quickly there’s not a lot of exciting things you could do…  I suppose an S-boarding captain would be fun, but you won’t have much margin for error.  France’s only world-hating crew is not combined with the captain ability, but you could add him and forego the helmsman.  I’d probably save him for a larger ship and just keep it simple with captain/helmsman/oarsman.  (16+ total points)

Game Piece Rating: 6/10.  The speed is the only true standout attribute that saves this ship from mediocrity.  There are better ways to deal with submerged “ships”, and the Rocher Noir is quite limited to her niche role.

Picture of the Day

Here’s a little preview of sorts for what I hope is to come in some weeks or months.  Yet another piece of cardboard molding I have acquired as part of the plans for Ocean Terrain Contest #3 and beyond.  All will be revealed in due time….

What could it be?

A lot of things have taken my attention away from OTC3, though for good reason.  This site has become one of those things.  Ultimately I care far more about promoting and “saving” the game than making custom islands and terrain, and thinking about the dangers of foam and spray paint don’t really get me enthused to work on stuff for the contest.  XD  That said, I’m glad I made a bunch of stuff last year (most of it unveiled in the Command the Oceans game), but there are still a handful of things I hope to work on (if not complete) before the deadline on August 1st.

It’s a Pirates’ Life for Me.

Ben

PS: Songs of the day – No Woman Has Ever Handled My Herschel + That Black Bat Licorice

My custom set: Age of Sail (ships and crew)

Some players of Pirates CSG enjoy making custom game pieces – for example, ships and crew that they come up with on their own that were never released by Wizkids and will likely never be “official” for playing purposes.

As some of you may know, I am currently engaging in a huge long-term project for my custom set.  Over the course of many years I will be making customs (used as a broad blanket term to describe custom ships/crew/etc) based on history.  The Age of Sail has always fascinated me, especially the naval warfare aspect of it.  As a result, it comes naturally for me to make historical things come to life in the game.  I always thought Wizkids should have included more historical stuff in the game, but legal problems may have gotten in the way.  I love the thought of being able to play full games and campaigns of Pirates with all-historical game pieces.  Hence, my desire to create the customs I make.

Pirates of the Age of Sail is my main custom set.  A few things to note about it:

• The set is permanently “in progress”, meaning I will likely never truly finish it. (due to the sheer amount of historical game pieces that can be created.
• All game pieces are open to revision, especially if it is based on playtesting. (actually using the pieces in a game)
• I am currently engaged in a “Historical Custom of the Day” series at Miniature Trading that can be found here.  That is how I intend to make consistent progress on the set.
• According to the spreadsheet I already have around 500 game pieces created for the set, with many more eventually on the way.  O_O  In theory the only limit to the set’s size is how many historical ships and crew can be created.  In the long term the set should contain multiple thousands of game pieces for use in Pirates games.  O_O

I also have another custom set, called Pirates of the Epic Seas.  That set was made mostly in February and March of 2018, contains around 200 game pieces, and is mostly finished.  However, it is also open to revisions and additions.

It’s likely I’ll be talking about customs and historical customs a lot more in the future.  Feel free to browse my customs at your leisure.

Deal of the Day: Long gone. Current eBay options! This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

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

Card of the Day

Set number: 10 – Caribbean

Collector’s Number: 007 – HMS Adventure

• Collector’s Number: 007
• Faction Affiliation: England
• Rarity: R
• Type: Ship
• Point Value: 7
• Cargo Space: 3
• Base Move: L
• Cannons: 3S
• Number of Masts: 1

Crew of any nationality can use their abilities on this ship.

Wow, keep getting Caribbean for the set!

HMS Adventure pales in comparison to her sister ship from this set, HMS Trepassey, which is a nice English gold runner.  Her slow speed and 3 cargo means she can’t really be optimized for gold running, as 2 cargo at L+S speed for 9 points (with a helmsman) doesn’t really cut it.  I actually just got the Adventure, and haven’t used her yet (including on VASSAL I believe).  However, I could see a niche usage.  I like the thought of Calypso coming aboard and providing her services to the English, in which case you could add a 0LR reroller as well to help get the required die rolls to make whirlpools.  Not a great idea perhaps, but an uninspiring ship like this is tough to use in the first place.

Standard 40 point games: Empty gold runner.  No need to spend precious points on a ship that could easily be rammed out of the game.

Medium size games (50-100 points): Calypso + 0LR reroller and optional oarsman for some measure of protection.

Large games (over 100 points): Possibly the Calypso setup, or go crazy with international crew and experiment with something like an L-mover (something the English never got) while parked at the home island.

Game Piece Rating: 3/10.  Besides her reasonable cargo and intriguing ability, there is not much at all that makes the Adventure stand out, let alone usable.  The English aren’t known for their 1 masters like the French and Pirates are, but even they have a lot of better options.

Picture of the Day

(Campaign game spoiler alert)   Today marks the two year anniversary of the end of VASSAL Campaign Game 1, one of the greatest games I’ve ever played.  Click on the picture to read the battle reports, though unfortunately it may take some time to load since the originals were wrecked when the image hosting site changed their url’s.

My goal has been to add one new blog post and one new page or feature to this site each day, but lately some computer issues have been bogging me down a bit.  It seems like time goes fastest when you’re doing what you want to do, and slowest when you’re doing something you don’t want to do.  Ideally we can all be doing what we want, as often as we want.  A good goal indeed.

It’s a Pirates’ Life for Me.

Ben

The most passionate ever?

By the title of this post, I mean as a fan of the game, not someone directly involved with production and whatnot.  Sometimes when I look around the online community and think about past fans, it starts to dawn on me that I must be one of the most passionate fans of Pirates CSG since the game was released back in 2004.  The biggest problem that has led to for me, is expectations of others that are too high.  However, I have started to really accept the limitations of things the past few months.  Instead of getting annoyed when someone doesn’t respond to a post I made (that I felt they should have responded to), I’m letting things be as they are.   This relates to the concept of “seeing the world as it is, not the way you want it to be”.

I do realize and accept that others will never have my passion for Pirates CSG, and the level of dedication required to amass some of the pure contributions and statistics that I have accumulated.  As a result, I can’t expect other members of the community to post as much as I do, to give feedback on things as much as I do, or to play as much as I do, especially on the VASSAL module.  I just can’t have the same expectations of others that I have of myself, at least in regards to “piratical activities”, which has become one of my favorite sayings over the past handful of months.  XD  Gary Vaynerchuk talks about this a bit in some of his videos, which can be motivating.

Anyway, just kind of spewing my thoughts on how things have gone and changed of late with my mindset.  I just need to keep being understanding and more lenient with how people are going to do what they’re going to do and I can’t change that by disagreeing with them.  It wasn’t always one or the other for me; from 2011-2014 I was learning a ton and still a relatively new member of the community.  Starting in late 2014 and throughout 2015-now, my activity and posting rate exploded, but unfortunately so did my investment in the community you could say.  This year I have been better with not expecting things in return, and really just accepting that my actions can’t change what other people will do.  Let It Be, I guess.  🙂

Deal of the Day: Not available anymore. Current eBay options. This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.

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

Pirates CSG Card of the Day

Set number: 10 – Caribbean

Collector’s Number: 062 – Captain Barbossa

• Collector’s Number: 062
• Faction Affiliation: Pirate
• Rarity: C
• Type: Crew
• Point Value: 7

This ship can move and shoot using the same move action. This ship gets +1 to her cannon rolls against non-Pirate ships.
Link: Black Pearl, Hai Peng

Barbossa is a great crew, reminiscent of his excellent performances in the movies.  A world-hating captain, his abilities are perfect for the many great gunships the Pirates have in their huge fleet.  I personally would probably pay 5 or 6 points for the WH (world hater) ability, as it’s one of the best offensive abilities in the game.  He also links to some of the best Pirate ships out there, 4 total when you count all three versions of the Black Pearl.

Setups/combos: Put him on your main gunship in any game size.  Remember that the more cannons a ship has, the more cannons you get the +1 bonus on.  In that case, the Zeus is arguably the best ship to use him on, as he turns her 10 3S guns into 10 2S guns!  O_O   Any versions of the Black Pearl could make good use of him in a thematic movie tie-in, but I’d recommend using him on the damaged version or the Super Rare version, since the first version can be pretty much optimized with a regular captain.  (no need for world hater with two cannons already at rank-1 from just having a captain with the ship ability)

Game Piece Rating: 9.5/10.  Barbossa is about as good as named crew get – two awesome and rather necessary abilities that pair fantastic with any large gunship, good links, very fair cost, and a cool integration with one of the most beloved characters of the biggest pirate media franchise in history.

Picture of the Day

After what I talked about in the main topic section, I thought it would be fitting to include my posts per month numbers from Miniature Trading.  I joined the site in June 2011, but didn’t start going crazy until late 2014-early 2015.  Then there was an even bigger surge in my activity in late 2015-early 2016, when I had a crazy run with 7 consecutive months with over 150 posts (equating to about 5 per day!) after never topping 113 prior to that.  O_O  I do find it interesting that 2 of my highest 3 post counts in a month happened in June, and we’re nearly to June again… XD.  It’s funny to see the average posts per month jump from the teens to the hundred-teens in a year.  I do wish I had been more active in 2014, but now I’ve got a solid 6 months in a row of 120+ posts and the most posts on the site.  Not so much bragging as much as proof of my consistent activity, feedback for others, providing value, and stimulating the community with new topics and posts.

Posts per month at Miniature Trading.

As a side note, this whole WordPress thing is going alright but somewhat frustrating.  XD  It feels like I have to download a new plugin for every single thing I attempt to do, and then either the plugin doesn’t work the way I need it to, or I have to look up a tutorial on how to get something the way I want.  Even for things that should be simple.  As a result, the process may be even slower than I thought to make this site better than the Weebly site.

It’s a Pirates’ Life for Me!

Ben

Origin Story – How I got started with Pirates CSG

Hello again.  Thank you for reading my blog.  I’ll explain how this obsession and fanaticism came to be.

From an early age I was interested in both pirates and nautical themes.  One of those beginner reader books I learned from was about pirates!  In it was a reference to Oak Island, which has turned into a mildly disappointing tv show called The Curse of Oak Island.  Anyway, things really got going in 2003 when I was 8 and the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out.  The Curse of the Black Pearl was and still is the most perfect movie I’ve ever seen.  It captured my imagination and inspired me.  Then of course, Wizkids released Pirates of the Spanish Main in 2004.  I’m pretty sure I got into the game in very early 2005, when the unlimited version of SM was in stores, before Crimson Coast (the second set) came out.

At first, I simply opened some packs and was in awe of how cool the ships were.  I didn’t pay much attention to the rules, as I had more fun using the ships as part of “Historical Fantasy Scenarios”, where I would simulate naval battles and campaigns.  There weren’t many rules, but I was quickly becoming a fan of the Royal Navy and they naturally won a lot of the wars.  🙂   In 2005 I randomly found and purchased War at Sea in the Age of Sail by Andrew Lambert (get it for less than $5!), which became an extremely important foundation for me.  I read the book 3+ times as a kid, and really loved it to the point where my focus shifted from piracy to naval warfare between the great nations of the Age of Sail.  This shift completed my change of heart, going away from the evil pirates and embracing the dominance and glorious nature of Royal Navy history.  To this day England is my favorite faction in Pirates CSG, but I enjoy playing as all the different factions.

With that, the trifecta of influences was complete.  Things only got more intense afterwards, with the original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy completed in 2006-2007, and many new sets of Pirates coming out each year.  However, after Davy Jones’ Curse came out in 2006, I got away from Pirates and focused on baseball heavily from 2006-2010, as it was my biggest passion in life at the time.  This was more due to loving baseball than DJC being disappointing as a set due to the fantasy elements introduced, but it’s still telling that even as a kid I was not in favor of Wizkids going away from the historical nature of the first 5 sets.

In 2010 or early 2011 I began doing some HFS’s (Historical Fantasy Scenarios) again, marking my return to the Pirates CSG world.  In early 2011 I made a few purchases to expand my collection.  Strikezoneonline doesn’t have Pirates CSG stuff anymore, but I purchased from them and Dave and Adam’s Card World.  After briefly lurking on the forums, I joined the main trio of Pirates sites in June 2011, becoming a member at Miniature Trading, Pojo, and BoardGameGeek, though the subreddit and Facebook group have surpassed Pojo in terms of activity.  From there I have truly taken off, as the numbers show:

After 6 years at Miniature Trading, I’ve done a LOT!

Check out the youtube video I made on this topic, which explains my story as well.

Deal of the Day: Gone now, but eBay still has options.
*Disclaimer: I will be using affiliate links with things like this, so if someone buys from it, I could make money that helps support the site.

Pirates CSG Card of the Day

Set number: 10 – Caribbean

Collector’s Number: 004 – Grand Barnacle

Grand Barnacle

• Collector’s Number: 004
• Faction Affiliation: Pirate
• Rarity: R
• Type: Ship
• Point Value: 13
• Cargo Space: 5
• Base Move: S+S
• Cannons: 4S,3S,3S,3S,4S
• Number of Masts: 5

Crew of any nationality can use their abilities on this ship.

This is a pretty good ship the Pirates got, though it’s arguably a slightly lesser version of the Black Swan.  The tough part is how to figure out her best role.  I see her as a hybrid ship, a little bit better than the Pequod from yesterday.  Nothing truly wows you, but everything is at least decent.  The speed allows her to outrace most other 5 mast ships, while the cargo is enough to make her a hybrid ship.  Since the Pirates have the best selection of crew in the game, her ability is largely unnecessary.

Standard 40 point games: Hammersmith (captain + helmsman) + Coconut (explorer + reroll) (22 total points)

Medium size games (50-100 points): You could go nearly all Spanish with Master Bianco, Bianco’s Haulers, Dominic Freda and a helmsman.  (25 total points, moving S+S+S with 4 cargo open and a host of great treasure abilities)

Large games (over 100 points): Go crazy with international crew if you want.  For example, Duncan Rousseau is one of my favorite crew.  Parley could help keep the ship alive, while the reroll allow the ship to be more effective with shooting and potentially boarding enemy gold runners.  Either way, you’ll want a captain and helmsman to take advantage of the 5 cannons and to boost the speed to a competitive S+S+S.  (~23 total points, depending on crew used)

Game Piece Rating: 7/10.  The Grand Barnacle can be a decent hybrid, but lacks the star quality present on many ships of her type (Pirate 5 masters) and cost (Franklin and Santa Isabel also cost 13 points just for starters).

Picture of the Day

This was exactly a year ago today, on May 12th 2017.  A game played on the VASSAL module using my Large Fry – Spanish Swarm fleet.  Not only did my fleet win the game, it also won the The Large Fry Fleet Challenge at Miniature Trading!  A successful fleet indeed.  Check out the fleet and its description to see my process of building a winning fleet despite some important restrictions.  5 masters have always been my favorite ship type, so I was happy to win a challenge that was fitting for me to win.

As I continued to build on this site, I’m excited to add both content and new features.  My schedule doesn’t allow me to make a ton of progress all at once, but as a result I’m going to focus on consistently improving things day by day.

Thanks for checking my origin story and the blog features!

It’s a Pirates’ Life for Me.

Ben

FIRST BLOG POST!!

Hello everyone!  This is A7XfanBen!  You can simply call me Ben if you want. This is the first blog post here!

Welcome to the NEW Pirates with Ben!

This brand new website is the continuation of my journey into the online world.  It is the first domain I am paying for, and something I plan to eventually develop far more than the original Pirates with Ben, which I will admit is about where I wanted it to get.  However, I want to do even better. This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated. Feel free to buy from eBay to help support the site!  Thank you!

I have begun using WordPress instead of Weebly.  This is for a variety of reasons.

1. The hosting I’m using has WordPress as the default system.
2. WordPress is better than Weebly.  That seems true according to just about everything I have read during the past month as I considered whether or not I wanted to shift my Pirates site.  Weebly is more friendly to beginners, but I plan to learn WordPress over the long haul and would prefer the best system possible.
3. I really wanted to have a non-weebly domain name at some point.  The free options at Weebly are great but I want to commit to more of a grand Pirates experience, and nowadays my Weebly site is stagnant and sometimes it feels like a chore to edit.  The pricing and features of upgrading within the Weebly system pale in comparison to the better pricing with my current host and the features of WordPress.
4. I want more security for the future.  By going to the most popular and most-used website platform (WordPress), AND paying for a full standard domain name that is not directly under Weebly’s control, I hope to secure my online Pirates presence for the many years to come.

Now.  A word about how bare this site is.  EVERYTHING is a work in progress right now (as of May 11th, 2018).  I have just begun learning WordPress and often need to look up tutorials in order to figure out how to get things the way I want.  A few weeks ago I began the LONG process of hopefully transferring everything over from the Weebly fansite to this new and improved site.  It could even be months before this site rivals or surpasses the Weebly site, which I understand.  I’m flattered if you spend time at either of them!  However, all new content will go here from now on.  The transition will likely be difficult and lengthy.  I have already looked into various ways of transferring a Weebly site to WordPress, and quite frankly none of them have worked for me.  As a result, it is time to move on from the “easy” “solutions” and build things up again from scratch.  There is no telling how long the process will take, but as a general plan I would like to make progress every single day.  Ideally I will be moving all of the pages from the original site over to here, with some adjustments.

The idea of writing about Pirates every day in blog format appeals to me.  It allows me to keep my potential audience up-to-date on things and also allows me to remember things I forgot from the previous day.  I am excited to begin this journey of piratical fandom and share my experience and adventures with you!  This is just the beginning.  There are so many things to work on.  Just today I added a feature that allows people to register on the site.  The amount of plugins within WordPress is crazy.  I already have around 15 with this site and don’t understand some of them.

Finally, I really want to expand the scope of piratical operations.  A solid bunch of people have given me props on my website in the past, and I hope to eventually do even better with this one.  I’m hoping to really promote and provide awareness to the game.  Through more content, daily posting, and lots of value provided, I’m hoping to do well with SEO/Google rankings and whatnot.  I would love to expand the operation as much as possible, and possibly bring more nostalgic fans of the game back into the fold.

Introducing: Daily Blog Features

-I hope to have these for every single blog post.  At various times, some features may go and new ones may be introduced.

2023 edit: These deals are long gone, but you might be able to find a Baochuan on eBay. **Disclaimer: I will be using affiliate links with things like this, so if someone buys from it, I could make money that helps support the website.

Deal of the Day: Baochuan for $44, with Best Offer an intriguing option.  This listing only has 2 left.  The Baochuan is a special ship, the first 10 master ever released and one of the best hybrid/multipurpose ships in the entire game.

Pirates CSG Card of the Day

This is directly inspired by both the old Card of the Day reviews on Pojo.com, and by the Random Pirates Piece Discussion at Miniature Trading.  These will function as mini-reviews, and with well over a thousand game pieces released, I’ll be going for quite awhile!  To find a game piece, I will use a random number generator and go from 1-14 on the set # (including Return to Savage Shores!) and then from 1-### for the number within the set.  With that, here is the first Card of the Day on Pirates with Ben!

Set number: 6 – Davy Jones’ Curse
Collector’s Number: 089 – Pequod

Pequod

• Collector’s Number: 089
• Faction Affiliation: America
• Rarity: U
• Type: Ship
• Point Value: 14
• Cargo Space: 5
• Base Move: L
• Cannons: 2S-3S-3S-3S
• Number of Masts: 4

This ship gets +1 to her boarding rolls. She gets +2 instead if her opponent is a sea monster.

Link: Jerky Johnson.

The Pequod is a solid ship.  American fans will likely be slightly disappointed because they can have superior warships like the Franklin and USS Hudson for a lower price.  However, the Pequod still has her uses.  I see her either as a slow hybrid, or a gunship with enough cargo and point capacity to make into a formidable foe.  For example, try giving her a firepot specialist (almost “assigned” to that 2S cannon at the bow for maximum firepower – literally!), a cannoneer, and a musketeer or another specialist crew.  This turns her mostly average guns into an intimidating armament.

With each ship, I’ll do my best to detail how I would use them at various game sizes.  I will recommend one setup each, which will be what I consider the “optimal” setup.  Of course, everything depends on your play style and preferences.  I will be detailing my own later.

Standard 40 point games: Captain + helmsman (19 total points)

Medium size games (50-100 points): captain, helmsman, explorer OR oarsman (20 total points)

Large games (over 100 points): captain, helmsman, firepot specialist, cannoneer, + your choice of musketeer/specialist crew (~25 total points)

Game Piece Rating: 6.5/10.  The Pequod is a nice ship for beginners, but doesn’t stand out to American players who have large collections.

If I’m able to, I’ll try to include a picture of the game piece in question being used!  (though, mostly just for ships)

Here she is getting double teamed by two sea monsters!  This was a game where I was able to test out my Monsters, Hoists, and Canoes fleet, which I’d like to use again sometime.  It did well and I won the game, but I’d like to use it in a different ocean setup.  The Pequod was a favorite of my friend from college, who put his pennants the opposite of how I place them nowadays.  I used to put them like they are shown here, but to me it makes more sense for them to be blowing forward with the wind (hopefully!  XD) behind the ship. (as you can see on my ship at the bottom of the pic)

Want the Pequod? Click the picture!

Picture of the Day

It’s only fitting that I begin this blogging journey with what I believe is the first picture I ever took of anything Pirates-related.  Here is the outset of my Century of the Empires game, played in June and July of 2013.  Almost 5 years ago!  It’s funny to me since it actually feels like longer ago, but 2014 and 2015 don’t feel all that far away.  Likely due to the college vs. high school divide I suppose.  This game featured a unique circle-shaped play area, so I could sit in the middle and spin around to play the game!  XD  The Cursed Corsair permanent alliance is gathering gold.  At the upper left, Paradise Island lies where the American deckplate area was for both Economy Edition and Command the Oceans.  (more on those later)  If you want to read about the game, click the picture.

The beginnings of an epic….

Disclaimers

I am NOT trying to compete with the various Pirates CSG sites already out there!  This website is a continuation of my journey that started at Weebly.  Pirates CSG is one of my favorite things in life and I want to have my own personal presence on the web that I own and have complete control over.  In fact, I will likely be linking to the existing community sites all the time.  Unfortunately, Miniature Trading has shut down since I made this site.

Thank you for reading.  As I said, this site is in the beginning stages and will be much better and more fleshed out as I go about expanding it.  Stay tuned for MUCH more!

It’s a Pirates’ Life for Me.

Ben