March 10th 2024
The final game I played at Dice Tower West 2024.
Thanks for watching! For another DTW 2024 battle report, check out the 2×60 from the day before.
Not every day do you get the opportunity to attack multiple Limited Edition Spanish 5 masters with a crazy switchblade setup!
3/9/2024
The final Wizkids Pirates game between Captain Randy and I on the Saturday of Dice Tower West 2024. 60 point build total, with Randy combining some elements of his 40 and 50 point builds from earlier that day to make a new fleet. We used the Las Vegas house rules (through the “RtSS legal” part), and ended up with a more spread-out map than the previous two games.
In accordance with my fleet strategy, I placed three copies of Mysterious Island (MI) #15. Randy placed one MI as part of his island contributions, one that I hadn’t memorized the effect of based on its shape. Since we were using MI’s, we needed to use a d6 to determine who placed each island during the Setup phase (to make it random). We placed 4 terrain each for 8 total. I had rolled to go first, so Randy chose my home island (HI) to be in a far corner of the map. I considered putting his HI at the MI he contributed (partly since I didn’t know what the effect was), but wanted to keep the MI’s in play for maximum fun/chaos and noticed that by putting him at the final lone non-MI available, he would likely not get ships in range of my native canoes on the first turn (knowing exactly where I wanted the canoes before I placed them). I made sure to place the French native canoes at one of the MI #15’s, which happened to be quite close to another copy of the same MI. 🙂
The fleets in turn order:
Ben – Parley?
Celtic Fury started with her stern S away from my HI, ready to round earth immediately upon moving. An empty L’Intrepide was my +5 selection, as events were banned per the house rules. Princess Auraa, Jules de Cissey, and a tribal chieftain were content to camp out at home all game and watch the treasure pile up. XD
The Cursed native canoes are easy to proxy in for the French ones, since they have the same cannon rank, point cost, cargo space and speed. These were 10 French canoes ready to farm mysterious island effects like their life depended on it!
Captain Randy:
Neptune’s Hoard + Hammersmith (F&S version), 1 crew
La Santa Isabel + Bianco’s Haulers, 2 crew
Bonnie Liz + Genny Gallows (SM version), Powder Pete
Libellule + explorer
We also agreed to use the chess clock, at 30 minutes per player (automatic loss for a player if their time runs out). It was Captain Randy’s first time using it, and my first time using it in a non-solo game.
I immediately started redocking the French native canoes at MI #15. Upon flipping the MI to reveal its effects, Randy quickly caught on to the strategy and we had a good laugh about it. I think only one canoe got the negative effect (marked by the S length straw), but most of them got the 5-6 effect: “Randomly move one treasure coin from this island to your home island.” ??
Unlike the gimmick fleet used in the previous game, this MI effect did not require any exploring of the wild island – it was a simple automatic transfer of a random coin on the island to my HI. A “direct deposit”, if you will. As a result, it works much quicker than even UPS – theoretically you could win the game almost immediately by redocking at least 4 canoes and getting lucky enough with the treasure distribution that the 4 coins sent home are worth 16+ gold!
In this case I only needed to redock 6 of the 10 canoes in order to fully drain the MI of all its resources. All 4 of its coins were sent straight to my HI, netting me 14 gold (6,5,3,0) within the first move actions of the game! The last 4 canoes sped off to another MI #15 just a short distance away, with one of them docking and sending a coin home (which I think was the French Royal Decree UT, lol). For the Parley aspect of my fleet, it would be perfect if the coins sent home stayed face down so my opponent couldn’t see them, but we hadn’t established a house rule where coins on HI’s stay face down even in a 2 player game. Of course, Parley hadn’t been revealed yet…
Celtic Fury and Intrepide both round earthed, eager to participate in the MI farming experiment. I flipped the SS version of Eileen Brigid O’Brien (aka my friend Tiffany, the former Wizkids Product Manager for the game), getting her SAT/Born Leader roll to catapult CF towards the MI #15 that the canoes likely wouldn’t get to. Since the CF had her linked crew aboard, she would get +1 to MI effect rolls due to the Ex-Patriot keyword. Normally Tiffany and her crew complement on the CF would be worried about negative UT’s such as Plague or Missionary, but not in this case. There was no need to explore the island – just redock and trigger the effect until the island is drained of all coins!
Captain Randy was not able to reach any of my ships on his turn. This allowed 4 of my canoes to dock at their second overall MI #15, sending home 1 of its 3 remaining coins (farming efforts were slowed a bit lol, they were getting tired). Celtic Fury also docked at the southernmost MI #15, sending home a coin. Those coins were 5 and 0, meaning that I had already won 19-0 after only a round and a half of play!! ?? However, between this type of ending happening for the second game in a row and wanting to simply play more Pirates that day, we decided to keep playing, essentially just ignoring the “more than half” endgame condition.
An approaching Santa Isabel and Libellule means the canoes will likely have company soon, while Bonnie Liz headed through a whirlpool in search of undisturbed treasure. Intrepide and some canoes head towards the CF’s island, ready to take up duties on the farm in case Tiffany gets too busy fighting to redock constantly.
Neptune’s Hoard got a little too close to Tiffany’s flagship! Celtic Fury rumbled into action, with Tiffany’s SAT helping to deliver a devastating broadside that sinks the ship!
Bonnie Liz managed to get the 5-6 effect at the MI Randy had contributed, and it was one of the wild ones! “When this ship explores this island, replace one treasure coin with a unique treasure from your collection.” He chose Sunken Treasure to try to catch up in the gold race, but the double d6 roll was only 5 total. Santa Isabel reached the canoes and shot 1/2 to eliminate one of them, also docking at the island and sending home a 0 coin (she also found the Celestine’s Charts UT that I had put in, which was inconsequential). This was an unintentional way of actually limiting Randy’s fleet strategy – he wanted to load the 0’s and bring them home so Santa Isabel (or Bonnie Liz) could bonus them up with +2 gold, but the MI effect prevented that from happening by just warping it home! (and you can’t load treasure from your own home island) I believe CF got another SAT from Tiffany, going north to sink Libellule!
CF was on the Santa Isabel’s route home, so Captain Randy decided to simply shoot at her on the way by. It was time to reveal the other part of my fleet strategy – Parley!
RotF Lenoir was flipped at last – she was still face down because I wanted her to be a funny surprise when actually using Parley, and because Tiffany had barely needed Lenoir’s Reroll (this was probably my luckiest day of playing Pirates CSG in multiple years). Unfortunately the fleet strategy didn’t work out perfectly as planned – the random treasure transferred was a 6, the highest value coin on my HI. ? The idea is to warp home crappy coins like 0’s, negative UT’s such as Wolves/etc, and then Parley them to an opponent! (as the frustration and amusement mounts)
However, this still prevented the CF from being shot at, allowing her to return fire with a full broadside and dismast the Santa Isabel on my next turn!
My farming efforts were less effective at this phase of the game, with various canoes being slowed by the negative effect and mostly worthless coins getting warped home. The Charts and Wolves are just meant to slow opponents and not me, as I had no intention of ever exploring an island in this game.
Celtic Fury captured the Santa Isabel. With only 1 mast remaining in play, Randy was unlikely to get any more treasure home. The Bonnie Liz didn’t have enough gold on her anyway to make up the difference, especially with Sunken Treasure decreasing in value each round. In addition, I would have sank the Bonnie Liz before she could reach home, so we called it.
Scores:
Another wild “proof of concept” game. When abused to the fullest extent, Mysterious Island effects can completely break the game. As in the previous game that day, I had all the luck on my side though. The fleets were arguably a bit lopsided, which was multiplied by the luck disparity.
I really like this fleet idea. It’s brutal but amusingly effective when things go right. It’s a way to gamify multiple abilities and combos/effects in a way that destroys parity and can make a mockery of the game. With 10 canoes redocking at an MI #15 on the first turn, it’s reasonably likely that the entire island will be drained right away. The Ex-Patriot linked crew can help CF send coins home on her own, while Coeur could even assist by dropping the extra chieftain and trying to dock or explore a wild island at some point. We saw one of the ideal situations in this game – high-value coins getting warped home early for a very quick win. The other (arguably even funnier) option is that the canoes send home complete trash, such as the 0 and Wolves. Then your opponent comes for CF when you have nothing good on the HI, and Lenoir parleys them the garbage coins before wreaking havoc and dismantling the opposition with up to 20 shots in the counterattack! “One man’s treasure is another man’s trash”… in this case, it would be more shocking to have coins on HI’s face down, so that Lenoir knows what coins will be parleyed out, but the opponent can only respond with horror when they realize they’ve been had.
Feel free to know what you think of this gimmick fleet idea, or the games played at Dice Tower West. Thanks for reading!
3/9/2024
In this 2 player 50 point game, I faced my friend Captain Randy. We were Dice Tower West Pirates, playing three consecutive games on one of the main days of the convention in Las Vegas. We used the primary Las Vegas house rules (through the “RtSS legal” part).
I rolled to go first, with a new fleet I had concocted recently: Canoe Vacuum Farmers. It’s essentially a UPS variant designed to be competitive at 50 points instead of 40 since I couldn’t figure out a satisfactory way to make it work well for a standard game.
Captain Randy went second with a mixed fleet including Neptune’s Hoard, Libellule, and Concepcion.
Randy picked my home island (HI) to be in the southwestern area, and I actually chose one of the Mysterious Islands (MI’s) I contributed to be his HI because I knew about its powerful vacuum “treasure suction” effect (wanting to keep his ships a bit further from the other MI). I intentionally placed my American native canoes at the MI #1 closest to my HI, knowing they would become professional farmers in record time. (“farming” is the term for continually redocking at a Mysterious Island in an attempt to trigger it’s effect(s)) We had agreed to place 3 terrain per player. Ready to set sail!
How about this for game-breaking! “5-6: When this ship explores this island, randomly move two treasure coins from every other wild island to this island, and then choose which to take.”
With the first action of the game, I redocked some of the American canoes. My luck was fantastic as it was this entire weekend – multiple canoes got the 5 or 6 needed to suction treasure from the other wild islands to the canoe island! However, only that morning had I realized that there was a bit of a snag in the strategy – the suction didn’t happen upon docking at the island and rolling for effect, unlike some other Mysterious Island effects. It would only vacuum the gold when the ship that rolled well explored the island, which would be on my next turn. However, I got two of the positive effects and none of the negative 1-2 results.
But that was only one move action. I was still able to go nuts with Hai Peng. She loaded an oarsman from my HI and sacced it with Jimmy Legs, speeding out to reach the center island and exploring it. Captain Jack Sparrow sent home a 5 coin to Coeur du Lion, who unloaded it for +2 gold with Maurice Aristide’s bonus. Captain Randy then took his turn and sent his ships out to the islands, but with no action generators present and no chance of eliminating canoes, there was little hope of catching up to a UPS-style fleet.
The game was as good as over, in a shockingly fast rout of broken proportions. The native canoes explored, vacuuming up all the gold in play. O_O All treasure coins that remained on wild islands were suctioned to the canoe island, making it a “kingpin” stronghold of epic loot. This meant that I had the pick of all the treasure in the game. The canoes loaded all the lowest-value coins, leaving the best for Captain Jack Sparrow to send home for a very quick win. He sent another 5 to Coeur for another 7 total with Aristide’s +2 bonus, then Jimmy Legs sacced another oarsman so he could send home the final 5 I contributed to the Rattlesnake, who was given her only action of the game to explore the HI and unload it. This brought my total to 19 gold, enough for a 1.5 round 19-0 shutout victory. O_O
In addition, I believe this might be the first time I’ve seen a game end so quickly where the winning fleet also had complete control over every treasure in the game – every single coin was either on my home island or on one of my ships. That’s usually quite the rarity in general, let alone accomplished in only 2 turns.
This is a sickening “new” way to win by combining the UPS strategy with a gold-hogging Mysterious Island abuse tactic. The canoes are included specifically so you can always have them start the game at an MI #1, and to give as many redocking chances as possible. At least one MI will always be wild, even if the other two in play are picked as HI’s. The odds are decent that at least two of the five canoes will roll a 5-6 upon redocking, giving them a chance to trigger the suction effect on the second turn. Even if they roll low and send treasure to a different wild island, as long as the last roll or two at the MI is the good effect, they can just warp it back when they explore. By allowing CJS to have his pick of the best treasure, it’s very easy to send home the highest-value coins, which in some cases mean that only two coins will be enough to win. (I will probably change the default treasure distribution of this fleet to be UT’s + 6,6,3 so the fleet can reach 16 on just 2 coins if Aristide adds +2 to both 6’s. 7,7,1 would also work of course.)
Of course, it’s a very luck-dependent fleet. I was only able to execute the combos perfectly because I went first, got the right rolls at the MI, and neither the canoes nor the Hai Peng came under fire in the first round. The HP also didn’t find any negative UT’s like Missionary at the center island. However, another nice thing about vacuuming up all the gold is that when the “kingpin island” is explored, if all remaining treasure has been suctioned, there is a very high chance (100% chance if it’s the first island explored) that the Kharmic Idol or Pirata Codex will be there, wiping out any negative UT’s and allowing CJS to have free reign on sending home the best coins when he arrives. I was very happy that things went right, as this game serves as a proof of concept for the idea.
When things go right, it’s hard to imagine a more game-breaking succession of combos.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more action!
2×40 at Dice Tower West 2024
3/9/2024
Day 2 of DTW kicked off with a 2 player, 40 point game between myself and my friend Captain Randy (twayne1047). This day was a bit of a wild west, as originally there was supposed to be at least one more player attending (who may not have had a fleet, or possibly never have played), but it turned out to be just us. I was also originally anticipating at least one other additional player at the event that is pretty knowledgeable about the game, so my fleets were a bit overkill for this Saturday of gaming. However, I had been really looking forward to testing them out and this was a somewhat rare opportunity to do so in non-solo play. I had also been itching to play some more complicated fleet ideas and whatnot.
We used the Las Vegas house rules (through the “RtSS legal” part) and placed 3 terrain per player – almost all fog.
I went first with The Grim Express.
Captain Randy followed with the Spanish:
La Santa Isabel + RotF Luis Zuan, tribal chieftain, helmsman
Bonnie Liz + Genny Gallows, Powder Pete, 1 crew
Spanish native canoes
I chose the Spanish home island (HI) to be west of mine, as I anticipated whirlpooling into the east. However, I forgot about round earth, partly since it wasn’t used the day before and I haven’t been using it in T3.
I did a quick overview after my first turn:
It felt as though the game would end almost as soon as it had started. Banshee’s Cry loaded a 5 from the first island she explored (Mycron for two actions on the first turn), then she explored the adjacent island in the east so she could soak up any potential negative UT’s before Cassandra went in for some loot. She found the Pirate Globe, which flipped all coins on wild islands face up for the rest of the game. She didn’t load the 5,3,3 on the island, leaving Cassandra to dock and load those three coins. Cassandra then got an action from Mycron/Patagonia to go back home through the whirlpool, not taking any damage. The Spanish explored, triggering the Pirata Codex and wiping out all the remaining UT’s. However, neither La Santa Isabel nor Bonnie Liz would be able to catch Cassandra or the BC to stop them from getting home.
Round 3 saw Cassandra and Banshee’s Cry dock home their 16 gold for a shutout win!
Many times in the past when using Calypso, I don’t get her roll to work on the first turn. Here it was a boon when combined with going first. In addition, I found 16/30 gold on the islands I whirled towards, making it easy to win without having to steal any gold with Grim or deal with the Santa Isabel.
The good news about it being a quick “whirlpool ride” of a game meant that we would easily be able to fit two more games in that day!
3/8/2024
The first Wizkids Pirates game of Dice Tower West 2024 was at 5 players, 40 points! Three of the players were brand new, and I had extras on hand to help them make their first fleets. It would be an introductory game with a few house rules to simplify and streamline the setup.
We placed 3 islands per player, 1 terrain per player, and each player contributed 8 regular coins of any total value (many of which were chosen randomly). We didn’t have room for the standard 3L-6L distance, so islands could be any distance apart. Home islands were chosen in reverse turn order. We did use flat earth rules (edges of playing areas as impassable boundaries), and generic crew could use their abilities on ships of any nationality (partly since we mostly just used paper crew chips).
Here is the setup!
Here are the fleets in play order:
French Corsairs:
Bey’s Revenge + captain
Desert Wind
L’Intrepide
Le Bon Marin
English:
HMS Goliath
HMS Sultan
HMS Granville + captain
French:
La Ville de Paris
Tepant
Cleopatre + oarsman
English Pirates:
HMS Nautilus + captain, 1 other crew
Gibraltar (flotilla)
Bloody Jewel + helmsman, explorer
Lynx + helmsman
Modified version of Guide Grim to the Goodies
-I removed The Hag of Tortuga, both events, all UT’s, and replaced the Banshee’s Cry+crew with El Chico. Also added an oarsman to Morocco to fill out the fleet at 40 points.
Desert Wind got into an altercation with the Granville on the former’s attempt to steal gold from the Sultan, but neither ship could do much damage initially. The Nautilus/Gibraltar combo took a few masts off Tepant, but sailed into the fog bank to avoid a larger conflict with the Ville de Paris. Many ships scattered across the map in search of treasure.
The French Corsairs continued to harass the English, with the Bey’s Revenge getting involved. The “pure French” were the only fleet to struggle with gold collection, as La Cleopatre was sunk by the Nautilus/Gibraltar combo.
The English split up their schooners, with the Granville raking the Bon Marin and dismasting her. Nautilus/Gibraltar hits twice on Morocco, but she has enough rowing speed to dock home her second haul of loot.
Neither Corsair galley took reef damage.
Over the course of a few turns, the French Corsairs managed to dismast the Granville and capture her, while Bey’s Revenge started towing the Bon Marin. Nautilus/Gibraltar took out 2 masts on the Cassandra, but she was able to dock home her 3 coins and start repairing. Morocco has finished repairing from her encounter with the same enemy. At the top of the frame, the slow French attempt a blockade of the English Pirates’ home island. However, Bloody Jewel (just out of frame north of them) would speed through it without being dismasted, netting a couple more coins for the English Pirates.
Both Granville and Bon Marin were towed home successfully by the French Corsairs, and repaired one mast each. Sultan made a move towards Granville, but thought better of it when realizing a failed ram could pin her indefinitely to a docked Granville at her new captor’s HI. At the end of the game, the English and French Corsairs did get into a larger scuffle than their initial battle, with HMS Goliath captured in the fray. As the English HI was closest to Grim’s, this allowed the Cassandra to swoop in and steal 3 treasures. The game ended due to time constraints before she could get it home, but it would still count since treasure on ships counts in multiplayer games. The other final coins in play would also count – one each on Nautilus and Morocco.
Final Scores:
A solid intro game of Pirates CSG at Dice Tower West 2024! All players had fun learning and playing the game, and everyone was able to fire the cannons today (my lone shot was a Jolly Mon miss lol). Grim’s HI hoard netted me 7 from the English, so the only result change if that hadn’t occurred would be the English firmly in third ahead of the English Pirates (25-18).
Stay tuned for more, as more Pirates games are due to be played at the convention!
11/26/2023
Captain Randy and I met up at Sunset Park in Las Vegas for the first Epic Scale game ever played in Nevada! The Epic Scale fleet has a new home after my move from Washington state. We did a draft to make 80 point fleets. As usual, we’d be using the Las Vegas house rules.
Video introduction:
Randy rolled to go first, so I picked my home island (HI) first. Here are the mixed fleets!
Captain Randy:
Revenant + captain, helmsman, musketeer, oarsman
HMS Interceptor + explorer
Crocodile + captain
Grinder + explorer
HMS Sea Phoenix + helmsman
Ben:
Muninn + captain, helmsman, firepot specialist, oarsman
Emerald Rose (custom made by PDXYAR) + Lawrence, captain, helmsman, oarsman
Terror of Gibraltar + helmsman
Fathom + helmsman, explorer
Le Coeur du Lion + helmsman
-I’ve been wanting to change up my fleets and strategies a bit, so here I was looking to run gold with the Fathom by cancelling the Mercenary keyword with Lawrence. He could use his abilities on the Emerald Rose due to her “Free Ride” ability to let crew of any nationality use their abilities on the ship. For the draft, Muninn was my first overall pick as the main warship. Terror of Gibraltar is a bit of an underwhelming ship, but helped keep the minor faction theme and added another oared ship. Coeur filled out the points since I was getting tight on cargo if I added more crew to the main ships.
4 coins per island and we were ready to start playing Epic Scale for the first time in Las Vegas! Ironically there was a bit too much wind for the ships to handle in the first half of the game, but we were able to weigh down the coins and islands/terrain with some objects as the game went on.
My fleet completely scattered away from my central HI location, while Randy had two groups of ships. Revenant, Interceptor and Sea Phoenix headed “west”, while Grinder and Crocodile went south.
I was in the mood for some decisive action! Muninn emerged from fog to blast away at Interceptor and Revenant, but only shot 2/6! She did manage to set the Interceptor aflame. Making matters worse, it appeared that my poor cannon luck would be in full swing today, as Emerald Rose shot 0/3 to completely miss the Sea Phoenix! Overall it was 2/9 shooting on cannons with an average rank of <2.5. The Muninn also failed to do ram damage on the Interceptor, making it a very poor combat showing.
As expected, swift retribution followed! Revenant used her ability to shoot through the Interceptor, and was aided by the English to sink the Muninn.
Fathom docked home a couple coins after Lawrence cancelled her Mercenary keyword as planned. Terror of Gibraltar stole a coin from the Grinder after the latter explored in the east, but took some damage for the gesture. Coeur du Lion is exploring at the outskirts. Captain Randy looks at coins with feigned despair as HMS Sea Phoenix explores for the first time.
What I lacked in cannon luck, I made up for with fog bank exit location rolls. Terror of Gibraltar (ToG) got a perfect roll to dock home her stolen loot. Emerald Rose shot a few masts off the Revenant, with HMS Interceptor struggling to contribute due to her shipboard fires. Fathom dove underwater in anticipation of chasing down HMS Sea Phoenix, who had 3 coins aboard.
From another angle:
Revenant stayed put to not have her captain cancelled by Lawrence, shooting at Emerald Rose. Emerald Rose was crippled, but managed to dismast Interceptor on the next turn. Coeur gets home with a couple coins, while Crocodile struggles to get into action with no helmsman to boost her speed. Fathom and ToG both have their sights set on HMS Sea Phoenix.
Fathom surfaces to ram and board the Sea Phoenix! A 5 is stolen! ToG gets another ideal fog exit roll and does the same, grabbing a second 5! Interceptor is doomed to burn as Revenant is dismasted by Emerald Rose. A turning point in the game (with the benefit of hindsight, and if there were stats such as predicted gold score on each round).
Grinder rams ToG to steal back a 5!
The late-game excitement continued, as HMS Sea Phoenix came to my HI to steal a 3! This marked the second time in as many days that I was robbed at my HI by an English ship! (my favorite faction) Alas, perhaps that’s a bad idea – karma against A7XfanBen doesn’t work too well. 😉 For I had the gold advantage with the goodies that Fathom brought back – her 6 gold (an extra 1 from Sea Phoenix ramming her back to try and steal the 5) transferred to Coeur (who then explored my HI) would make a big difference. Coeur then rammed the Sea Phoenix to steal the 3 back, dismasting her in the process and effectively ending the threat. Revenant was able to row at S+S and shoot her musketeer since she wasn’t derelict, but her and Crocodile couldn’t quite do enough to win the endgame. I think Sea Phoenix stole a 1 as well that got transferred to Crocodile, but I was content to let it slip away, especially with darkness falling on the game by this point.
Scores:
Blackbeard’s descendant showing off his haul:
What a contest for the Epic Scale fleet’s first time in Las Vegas Nevada! This was one of the better Epic Scale games I’ve played so far. It had a good amount of combat and piracy in it, and if things had just gone slightly differently, Randy would have won. I was really happy with how all of my ships contributed to the victory – Muninn didn’t last long but helped neutralize Interceptor, ToG and Fathom both played essential roles exploring and stealing gold, Coeur quietly added to my total and had a clutch transfer (from Fathom) and a ram of Sea Phoenix at the end, and Emerald Rose was a workhorse throughout.
Thanks for reading! If you want to support my efforts with Pirates CSG, feel free to buy from this eBay affiliate link. This site contains affiliate links for which I may be compensated.
11/25/2023
I met up with Stefan (Kogz03) to play at this meetup in south Las Vegas! We were able to teach 2 new interested players, making it a 4×80 game! (4 players, 80 points) We used the Las Vegas house rules. I made a couple quick beginner fleets for the new players. Stefan and I probably had an advantage with our named crew, but we didn’t know if anyone would want to join us (fleets made in advance) and I think it can be best to avoid named crew for a player’s first game. Here are the fleets in the order of play:
Marco’s Frenchmen
La Ville de Paris + captain, helmsman
Tepant + captain, helmsman, oarsman
Cleopatre + captain, helmsman
L’Intrepide + explorer
La Courageux + captain
Le Bon Marin
Ben’s Spaniards
El Corazon Dorado + Victor de Alva (F&S), helmsman, Contessa Anita Amore (23)
El Neptuno + captain, tribal chieftain (24)
La Santa Ana + Dominic Freda (LE version), captain, helmsman, oarsman (22)
Concepcion + helmsman, explorer, oarsman (16)
Spanish native canoes
Coins: Rats, Fireworks, Weapons, 5 0’s
-My strategy was to bump up the 0 values with my gold bonus ships, which works better in a 1v1 game due to the 0’s taking up a greater percentage of the total coins in play. Rats would hopefully make it an even more low-scoring game that I could benefit from while hurting an opponent. Fireworks would be quite useful on any of my captained ships (especially Neptuno!), unlike something like HMS Gallows that already has essentially perfect cannons. I’ve always loved the high-cargo Spanish 4 masted square rigged ships, which evoke themes of Spanish treasure galleons from the Age of Sail. I often like to use them in tandem, with the Neptuno acting as a third galleon of sorts, but with some armament as well.
Spice’s English
HMS Goliath + captain, helmsman, oarsman
HMS London + captain, helmsman
HMS Sultan + captain, helmsman
HMS Lady Provost + helmsman, explorer, oarsman
HMS Bletchley
Stefan’s Cursed
Divine Dragon + Davy Jones (OE), captain, oarsman
Flying Dutchman + El Fantasma (OE), helmsman, oarsmen x3
Grinder + crew
Sea Duck
We were ready to set sail!
The English draw first blood! HMS London blasts masts off the Concepcion after she loaded some loot.
Fleets scattered about, with L’Intrepide snagging coins from the middle, leaving a 0 coin for HMS Bletchley to find. The Lady Provost has explored for 4 coins, denying the Spanish native canoes that island as HMS Sultan also round earths to provide escort protection. The Divine Dragon starts her night by shooting poorly, but eventually manages to dismast the Courageux.
The Tepant wades into the fray, deepening the Franco-Cursed conflict:
Both of my “bonus galleons” got home with 3 coins apiece, while the Neptuno explored for 3 coins of her own. El Corazon Dorado had her hands full watching both the London and Sultan. My canoes scattered, unlikely to get any gold with how fast it was flying off the wild islands. In the east, the Cleopatre takes a third mast off the Flying Dutchman while Intrepide docks home her coins. The Cursed have Grinder and Sea Duck explore.
With the nearby Spanish 4 masters all docked at home, HMS London heads east to continue her cannon barrage! She shoots 3/4 to sink two canoes and dismast the Bon Marin!
Victor de Alva didn’t give his Corazon Dorado an extra action all game, but that didn’t stop him from blasting 2 masts off the London. Concepcion is looking to “plus up” a 0 she left behind on her first gold trip. Neptuno is looking to offload her gold to Freda’s Santa Ana (to get the +2 bonus on at least one coin) and receive the Fireworks UT in return, potentially setting up a deadly weapon where Neptuno could hit on 4-6 at L+L range. HMS Lady Provost gets the English on the board, while the Goliath searches for treasure of her own. The eastern firefight has calmed down slightly – Tepant shot masts off the Divine Dragon, who explores rather than continue the bloodshed. The Cleopatre raids The Cursed home island (HI) of a coin, but is staring down a bunch of 2L cannons on the FD and Grinder.
Unfortunately time was running out, so we had to call for a last round – Stefan would get the final player turn so all players could have an equal number of turns. With this knowledge and the multiplayer rule that gold on ships counts towards victory, it got more desperate in a hurry. The following picture shows the second to last round of play.
London pivots to starboard and shoots at Corazon! Lady Provost makes a beeline for my home island, with a raid imminent! That would wreck my plans of having a gold factory and getting Neptuno set up for firework carnage (since I wanted to offload the gold but also stop Lady P if possible). Maybe the combo will work another time!
On the final round, the Spanish desperately tried to maximize their gold score while denying Lady P from stealing anything. However, Corazon only shot 1/3, and Neptuno missed all 5 shots at L+L range, with no 6’s rolled. She did dock home her 3 coins, while Santa Ana sped north to load the final coin from her previously explored wild island, in case it would matter in the final count. With 1 mast standing, Lady P was able to sneak around Corazon at S+L+S speed and steal a coin, which would count for the English in the scores.
The carnage continues out east! Cleopatre was dismasted by a Broadsides Attack from the Flying Dutchman! This allowed Grinder to capture the Cleopatre, but Tepant and Ville de Paris were on the scene to make sure The Cursed didn’t get their stolen coin back. Both ships were shot to the ocean floor! Overall the French had very good cannon luck in this game – lots of their shots hit, while a lot of enemy shots against them missed. Alas, they had only explored one island and it wasn’t very valuable.
Nearly at an end:
On their final turn, The Cursed broadsided the Ville de Paris and had Sea Duck pick up a final coin that would count towards victory.
Scores:
A rousing adventure to start two new pirate careers! This 4×80 game featured shooting, stealing, and plenty of good action! The gold bonuses proved key, as I believe they accounted for at least 6 of my gold. Stefan also found the Rats UT, which took a couple gold off his total. The Lady Provost’s raid only stole a low-value coin – if she had snagged the 5 instead, it would have been a very close 22-21-19 Cursed victory! However, the Spanish made up for their lack of EA and cannon luck with a big gold haul. I feel like a bunch of recent games have seen UT luck not go my way, so it was nice to have that strategy pay off a bit – I might even use a similar fleet in the future to try the Fireworks combo again. Neptuno using it could be spectacular, but Santa Ana or Corazon Dorado could have made good use of it as well.
Thanks again to all who played! For anyone reading that wants to play, let me know if you’re in Las Vegas! 😀
11/17/2023
Kogz03 and I met up at Dangerous Dave’s Vegas Board Games Meetup for a pair of 60 point games. We used the Las Vegas house rules. We both had English fleets in the first game. Kogz rolled to go first.
Kogz03 English
HMS Titan + Thomas Gunn (RotF version), Lawrence, Administror Scott Bratley
HMS London + Hermione Gold (RotF version)
Aberdeen Baron + helmsman
HMS Hound + explorer
Ben’s English
HMS Phoenix + Admiral James Norrington, helmsman, oarsman (20)
HMS Lord Kenyon + captain, helmsman (15)
HMS Rye + explorer (10)
-towing Gibraltar (7)
Honu Iki + explorer (8)
(for a lot of battle reports I just paste my fleet notes from a document into the BR, which is why sometimes there are point totals for me but not opponents)
Due to the limited table space available, it would be a tight setup. However, this promised to make the games fast and furious, and made it far more likely we’d be able to finish a second game before the Panera Bread closed at 9.
First turn carnage!! Hound and Aberdeen snag 7 coins between them, but I had to pounce to stay alive in the game. Rye snagged the final coin from the southwestern island, with Gibraltar dismasting the Hound! (I intended to capture for her gold) Phoenix (who redocked to stay safe), and Lord Kenyon (LK) teamed up to nearly dismast the Titan! Norrington’s cannon bonus was irrelevant against a fellow Briton, but LK was devastating, eliminating the maximum 3 masts from her shoot+ram barrage.
Honu Iki has explored the southeastern island.
Aberdeen couldn’t quite reach home, leaving her open to a cannonade from the Gibraltar flotilla, which knocked out 3 masts but wouldn’t prevent her from docking home her booty on the next turn. HMS London dismasted the Honu Iki, while the Titan docked at home.
Rye captured Hound after dropping her tow of the flotilla. LK risked getting a 1 on her ram roll of HMS Titan, but the gamble paid off. The Titan’s final mast fell overboard from the concussive impact, allowing Phoenix to capture the ship! (I was also gambling that the final face down crew on the Titan was some kind of captain, not an oarsman, which proved to be Thomas Gunn)
Aberdeen Baron docked home her coins. HMS London arrived on the scene to contest my capture of the Titan, but couldn’t get all cannons in range of Phoenix and took out 2 masts. This allowed Phoenix and Gibraltar to dismast London my turn, with Titan firmly switching sides with a double repair after getting towed home. Bratley would be worth 5 gold to me, but I wasn’t finding any good values even with my capture of the Hound. Since Rye had no helmsman but LK did, LK took up towing duties of the Hound while Rye went off to get meager loot from the southeast and possibly rescue Honu Iki.
With the English being my favorite faction, it felt strangely cathartic to capture some of my favorite ships in the game (Hound and Titan) and nearly snag London as well. However, the gold race was not in my favor, with Kogz finding the 6 and 4 he had contributed, among others. Hound and all the southeast gold was mine, but Aberdeen was able to get the northwest island’s gold home in just a couple short turns, with LK not wanting to dismast and end the game since I would prematurely lose. (almost nothing on my HI until the final round)
What an interesting game! I’ve had games similar to this in the past where one player can dominate the combat but lose the gold race, but usually it’s not this lopsided. (usually either a closer gold score, or the combat winner is able to control the endgame and win)
For our second game, Kogz switched to an all-Guichuan setup. I only brought one fleet and would be running the same setup. I answered a few questions about Kogz’ fleet beforehand; both players knew the entire crew setups of the other fleet before the game began.
Kogz’ Guichuan
Guichuan + The Headhunter, Davy Jones (DJC version), El Fantasma (OE version), helmsman, shipwright, explorer, oarsmen x3
We redid the island setup and actually remembered to add terrain! I rolled to go first this turn, and tried to pick a home island that had quick access to 3 of the 4 wild islands.
I did reach 3 islands on my first turn, but could only explore 2 of them since LK had no explorer. However, Fantasma was ready for slaughter, saccing to dismast Rye and then round earthing to dismast the Phoenix!
I made sure to have a huge homecoming party and all-out attack on the Guichuan! Rye rowed into position where she was within S for cancelling, but also got all of Gibraltar’s dangerous cannons in range. Combined with LK, 3 masts were shot away. Honu Iki dropped off 3 coins, while Phoenix rowed for home at S+S but couldn’t quite hide behind LK and was likely doomed.
Sure enough, Guichuan stayed in the fight and sank the Phoenix. Fantasma sacced another oarsman to repair and shoot, with Gibraltar’s flag being shot off. Fear affected both Rye and LK (6’s to limit their base moves to S on my next turn).
The English spent another turn blasting away, taking the Guichuan down to 3 masts. Fantasma sacced again to explore the northeast island and then round earthed to deposit the coins. This allowed Rye to dock home her coin and repair, while LK looked to get the rest of the gold that the Rye had found on turn 1.
Guichuan repaired two masts in a double action. LK and Honu Iki have drained the southern islands, while Rye has designs on round earthing to the northwest to snag the best coin from the final unexplored island!
Rye was able to grab a coin while Guichuan was busy copying Extended Range to blast away at the LK. We took a look at how much gold each of us had, knowing that we had contributed the same 38 total gold between us as the last game. I calculated that I could just edge out the win if I held steady with the gold currently in my possession, thankful I wouldn’t have to risk going back to the northwestern island again.
Guichuan cleaned out the NW island and LK and Rye managed to make it back with their loads!
A very close finish! I think going first and being able to divert my ship resources across the map made up for the early loss of the Phoenix and not having any extra actions available in my fleet.
A nice pair of 60 point games! We both won, and got to use some pieces we’d been looking forward to playing. Catch us soon in Vegas for more adventures!
PS: A quick heads up that we’re planning a big Pirates weekend at Dice Tower West from 3/8-3/10/2024. Let me know if you’d like to attend and hope to see you there!
11/5/2023
Today marks the 15th anniversary of the final set’s release! Savage Shores came out on November 5th 2008, so Captain Randy and I decided to play a quick little 2 player 60 point game to celebrate, using almost exclusively SS game pieces. It would be the first of many games we’ll play together in Las Vegas!
We used standard rules with the exception that whirlpool rolls would be bad on 1-3 instead of 4-6. The only non-SS game pieces permitted were terrain, and generic crew from any faction or set.
Randy rolled to go first with this mixed fleet:
Valeroso + captain, helmsman
Libellule + Capitaine Baudouin Deleflote
Speedy Return + tribal chieftain, oarsman
American native canoes
I followed with a Cursed American fleet:
Soul Crusher + Wraith, captain, helmsman
Frontier + tribal chieftain, helmsman, oarsman
American native canoes
We placed 3 SS mysterious islands each, then 3 terrain each. I put Randy’s home island (HI) in the far west, while he put me in the northeast. His canoes are on the far right, with mine just southwest of them.
I recorded Randy’s first turn:
Randy had a canoe head west, while Frontier loaded a big load of booty from the first island. I unintentionally was using game pieces that would effectively bypass the mysterious island docking criteria, since Frontier’s hoist arm and the canoes already being at an island when the game started made docking less important for my fleet to get gold.
Soul Crusher got in action and took on the other Turbine! However, all my shots missed, and only after winning the boarding party (which would normally massacre the Spanish crew) did we remember that Valeroso has Crew Protect built in. However, the ram damage took out a mast.
Various ships explored, with my canoes finding the Necklace of the Sky and Manawa no Kowhatu (which was ignored with no crew on the canoe of course).
Randy took two of his canoes with two coins each through the whirlpool to arrive in home waters. Valeroso was unable to escape Wraith’s wrath (which could be a fun ship name), with Soul Crusher ramming off her final mast. True to form, my cannon d6 rolling was abysmal as usual, as I believe I went 0/6 with Soul Crusher. I used the American native canoe ability to transfer a 7 from one canoe to a different canoe that had Necklace of the Sky, warping to the east to get away from Randy’s approaching canoes.
Valeroso was able to whirl home on turbine power, with Libellule and the canoes also returning to make for a gold-laden homecoming. However, Soul Crusher was busting up some canoes as Frontier unloaded another coin for me. Speedy Return was not living up to her namesake with no helmsman aboard.
Soon afterwards the final coins were unloaded!
Final scores:
A solid quick 15th anniversary game to get us started on what should be a great year+ or many years of playing Pirates CSG in Vegas! It only took about an hour to play out, which might be a theme we experiment with over the long haul. We’ve got plans for a wide variety of things, including using timed turns, playing scenarios, and playtesting customs. Thanks for reading and we hope you stay tuned for more seafaring adventures from the desert! If you know anyone in Vegas that likes pirates and/or this kind of board game, feel free to let me know!
Lastly, feel free to grab some Savage Shores from eBay – affiliate links like that and my Patreon are some of the best ways to support my efforts to keep this game alive and hopefully revive it as well.
9/5/2022
Circle of Blood! This scenario from Riz is one I’ve played a few times before, and this time it would be in Las Vegas against my friend Captain Randy. We also used these house rules, and all game pieces can be found in the Master Spreadsheet. Randy rolled to go first with his Pirate fleet led by the Zeus.
I went with an evil themed fleet full of chaos:
Divine Dragon + OE Davy Jones, captain, helmsman, Sir Edmund, oarsman
Cassandra + RotF Crimson Angel, Grim the Savage, helmsman
Locker + tribal chieftain, helmsman
Cursed native canoes
Banshee’s Cry + Jonah, Calypso, explorer
Coeur du Lion + Desailly, Auraa
The mega iceberg was a gift from Captain Redgoat while I was in Portland. The sea monsters were picked at random out of Randy’s tray with our eyes closed, while the forts were neutral with 8 3L cannons each. With a whopping 60 coins in play, it promised to be a doozy!
There is also some raw video footage of the game! (it does contain some spoilers for later in the report)
A dramatic first turn! Randy settles a great turtle as his home island, with his other ships docking elsewhere. I redock the 3 canoes remaining from the Zeus assault, flinging coins towards the Divine Dragon, who uses her second action to explore the island and claim the gold as mine! I somehow roll a 6 with the Lost UT, yanking in a bunch of terrain to blanket the map with trade currents and strategically placed fog banks to help me get away with home island raids. Which was the next step! The Cassandra started the game right next to what would become Randy’s HI, flipping Grim the Savage on the first turn to home island hoard immediately!! O_O My early game luck was so dominant that it looked like it should be an easy win for me. However, we were in for quite a long game….
Although my Banshee’s Cry and Calypso were eliminated by Gog-Clocthoth due to the Bad Maps UT, I put the Coeur (with L-mover Desailly on board) into a fog bank so she was safe from the Zeus. Then I used the great turtles as a suction/vacuum effect, saccing move actions from the submerged Locker and fogged out canoe to suck both a wild island and Randy’s home island toward my own home island!! This would make home island raids in the future even easier, with the goal of having the Cassandra able to raid Randy’s HI for 3 coins and then deposit them on the next turn. For now the Cassandra hid in fog on her route to my HI, which was quite effective since she could stay safe while at sea in between robberies.
Both flagships had All-Powerful, which would prove to be quite the matchup throughout the night (and early morning…). Emperor Blackheart on the Zeus vs. Davy Jones on the Divine Dragon. Randy’s fort-immune Windjammer plinks away at an English NPC fort in the northeast quadrant, while the DD round earths to blast masts off the Akua Lapu. The Cassandra docks home a bunch of Randy’s initial gold from his HI, and Randy’s HI is looking dangerously close to my own.
At the top right, Emperor Blackheart thinking about round earthing the Zeus back to Randy’s HI:
The creatures moved around haphazardly throughout, but other than Gog-Clocthoth sinking the Banshee’s Cry, none of them really affected the game much.
In a shock to me, the Zeus leaves herself somewhat open to attack, with Davy Jones taking advantage in a hit-and-run where the Divine Dragon shoots 3/4 before using the extra action to return home. I could have gone for the dismasting but I don’t trust my cannon luck, which would have had to be above average to win an all-out slugfest. At the top of the picture, the submerged Locker rams a mast off the Akua Lapu, leaving her with just one remaining.
A few big plays were made before showing this next picture! Randy sacrificed a move action to move his home island within docking range of the Coral, who unloaded gold in preparation for his next play. Randy built The Devil’s Maw at the island the Akua Lapu was docked at, mostly to siphon gold off his home island knowing it would be safer in the fort from Grim the Savage. However, I had a play of my own to make, using a 6 from Davy Jones to reef the Zeus!!! This left her mastless, but Randy was able to row her home. Knowing she would be repairing two masts per turn and that I would inevitably get pinned if I rammed her at all afterwards, the Divine Dragon took the opportunity to strike. With no masts on the Zeus, the DD had a boarding guarantee (my lowest roll being 7 against Randy’s highest of 6) and no way to get pinned even after Randy started repairing on his turn. So the DD used her two actions to ram and board twice, eliminating the Zeus’ explorer and oarsman and leaving her with just Emperor Blackheart and F&S Hammersmith (for captain+helmsman). Capturing the Zeus was definitely a goal of mine, especially seeing her so vulnerable. By this point in the game Randy had found a second Eye of Insanity UT (the first was eliminated super early by the Pirata Codex), which allowed a crew on his Neptune’s Hoard to copy any Cursed crew in play, which inevitably became Davy Jones and All-Powerful every turn. So in essence, I was now at an “All-Powerful deficit” at a 1-2 ratio. However, if I could capture the Emperor, I would be up 2-1 in the arms race. XD
The Locker turns her attention to the Windjammer. The flagship junks have a boarding duel with pirate casualties.
Randy was using the Neptune’s Hoard to ferry a ton of gold into The Devil’s Maw fort, as I had cleaned out his HI and made it nearly pointless to bring gold back to it. The great turtle I had moved towards my HI earlier in the game was moved by Randy towards his fort. The Zeus was repairing quickly, but her absence from combat allowed the Divine Dragon to easily capture the Windjammer (only after the Windjammer had blasted the final flag off the English NPC fort, and therefore a blow to Randy’s morale as it seemed like the long attack on the fort was all for naught). I was seeing my path to victory: if I could just destroy The Devil’s Maw right before eliminating Randy from play, I would win easily. Knowing this (and being really tired lol), there was no point in going for the rest of the gold on wild islands or attacking the NPC forts needed to get it. All I cared about was wiping the fort off the map and then triggering an endgame condition immediately afterwards, even if it meant suiciding my own ships which would be incredibly easy between all the hazards in play (iceberg, reefs, forts and monsters that automatically shoot at targets in range).
However, destroying the fort wouldn’t be so easy! Randy dealt a huge delay to that goal of mine when he got a 6 with All-Powerful, reefing the Divine Dragon! With the worst possible roll of 1 she lost 5 of her 6 masts! Like the Zeus she returned home to repair, and I was careful to dock at a location where one S+S+S move action would not be in range of any reefs.
Randy’s mid-game success continues, with another All-Powerful 6 used to reef the Cassandra where she lost all but 1 mast!! O_O She was then captured by the Zeus! The Akua Lapu hits the abandoned fort one final time, destroying it and opening its gold up for exploration and claiming. Randy seemed intent on putting as much gold in The Devil’s Maw as possible, which slightly amused me since I didn’t think it would help him much (in hindsight it makes sense though to make sure there was more in the fort than on my HI).
Losing the Cassandra was a big blow to my morale (if Randy could repair her and use her against me to raid my HI, I might lose big in a huge blowout), but I recovered quickly with a clutch turn. A lucky 5 from Davy Jones was intriguing at first, and turned into one of the biggest rolls of the game. I surfaced the Locker, ramming twice to dismast the Zeus! With no oarsman left she was finally ripe for capture!! The Divine Dragon swooped in and snagged her, netting me a second source of All-Powerful and making it extremely difficult for Randy to win any future battles on the sea.
The Locker dived below and rammed the Cassandra derelict, as I wanted to recapture her. I rolled a 6 with All-Powerful, and got overzealous. I didn’t realize how quickly Randy could end the game by suiciding, and forced the Neptune’s Hoard towards an NPC fort with the intent of weakening the ship. It did take 3 masts off (would have been 4 without the Cross of Coronado triggering), but I quickly realized I had been too hasty, since Randy clearly had more gold in his fort than I had on my HI. He had no incentive to continue the game and would be able to suicide before I could destroy The Devil’s Maw. This made my capture of the Zeus feel slightly in vain since I probably wouldn’t even have time to repair her.
Captain Randy’s gold mountain:
Suddenly Randy only has 2 masts standing, with self-sabotage options aplenty and every reason to do so.
Now it was a race against time. What would happen first – Randy ending the game by eliminating his own fleet from being able to get future move actions, or me securing a gold advantage by destroying The Devil’s Maw and making all of its gold not count for anyone?
The Divine Dragon dropped her towline on the Zeus, sprinting south to round earth for a fort assault. The Locker headed there as well for any firepower support she could provide. Randy crashed the Neptune’s Hoard into the megaberg, but Desailly L-moved her away from it (which in hindsight didn’t help much). I believe a 6 from All-Powerful let me move the Akua Lapu into the fog bank west of the fort, making it harder for the AL to drive onto the reef on the east side of the fort.
Randy reefed the Akua Lapu but rolled too high! The DD swooped in and started blasting the fort, with the Locker surfacing to assist.
But in the end the Pirates hadn’t taken everything into their calculations. Although Randy was able to successfully turn the Akua Lapu into a shipwreck on his next turn, he still had an oarsman left in play on the Neptune’s Hoard, who was fully capable of rowing at S+S with future move actions. Randy contended that using the Eye of Insanity with the NH’s oarsman to copy Davy Jones’ All-Powerful meant that the Oarsman ability was not technically present on the NH. In a huge rules question that would basically determine the game’s outcome, Woelf said that the Eye of Insanity cannot trigger the “no future move actions” endgame rule. With that drama hanging in the balance (I was convinced I was right, and insisted the game wasn’t over), I took my next turn, destroyed the fort and sank the Neptune’s Hoard to end the game at last!!
What a finish! This certainly felt like the closest finish of any of the 7 games I played with Captain Randy on my Vegas trip, and easily could have gone a lot worse for me. If Randy had been able to wreck both of his ships before the fort was destroyed, he would have won 62-29! (as there was 62 gold in The Devil’s Maw)
This game was characterized by HUGE momentum swings. I looked unstoppable after the first round or two, with Randy in complete despair as a long week of pirating came to a crushing head. However, my mid-game was an absolute disaster, as Randy accumulated a ton of gold, worked around his horrific HI situation (I basically stole his HI), nearly wrecked the Divine Dragon and captured the Cassandra. In the end though, my penchant of often having a strong endgame won me the day. We both had a lot of lows in this game, with a few massive highs as well. We were tired and the game probably ended around 1:30am on Tuesday morning, with me having to get up at 5am for a flight that same day. I think fatigue led to the gaffes on both sides. However, even if it was a really brutal game to play, it’s always much more satisfying to play it out and have a memorable outcome.
With that, I ended my 2022 Las Vegas trip with a 5-2 record, far better than I could have expected going into it (including a trio of 3 player games). Here’s to hopefully next year!!
