I met up with Pirates veteran collector DJesse19 at Mugu Games in Everett Washington! We played a 2×40 Revolution sealed pack game. We used the usual PNW/Seattle house rules. We each opened 2 packs of Pirates of the Revolution, getting nearly exclusively American ships and named crew! Jesse had pulled 2 of the Jarvis, so I traded the Julius Caesar I pulled for one of them.
We set up for a basic game, Jesse’s first in quite some time. He rolled to go first, fielding Jarvis and Julius Caesar with 2 crew on each ship. I had Bonhomme Richard + firepot specialist, Jarvis + explorer, and the Rattlesnake. It would be an all-American showdown!
We were ready to set sail!
Ships headed in all different directions, meaning that each island was likely to be explored relatively quickly. Kikowa helped Jesse’s Jarvis reach land slightly faster.
Neither of us had pulled any captains, so it felt like one of those old-school “newbie fleets” matchups in a way. Julius Caesar (JC) and Bonhomme Richard couldn’t get close without losing the first strike advantage, so they both docked at a wild island instead.
JC shot a mast off the Richard instead of exploring the island, with Richard exploring the island and finding 11 gold and the Neptune’s Trident! In the meantime, Jesse’s Jarvis was home with a pair of coins and my Jarvis and Rattlesnake were busy exploring.
JC kept busy, shooting another mast off Bonhomme Richard, then ramming to knock down a third mast and boarding to take the Trident! I mulled whether or not Bonhomme Richard should ram and board back to try and steal back the UT, but knew I needed the regular gold more. Bonhomme Richard docked at home, while Jarvis (who had deposited a load of 10 gold the previous turn) headed out to play some offense. However, the boarding party resulted in a tie.
This left my fleet wide open to a devastating tidal wave attack!! O_O Jesse unleashed Neptune’s Trident, knocking out 8 of the 12 masts that had been standing moments prior! With one blow, 66% of masts in the game are decimated. Luckily my Jarvis was intact, while Bonhomme Richard could soon repair.
Jesse’s Jarvis rammed my Jarvis, making her derelict. Bonhomme Richard repaired, keeping my hopes alive. However, I had a feeling I was up on gold, so I wasn’t worried if I got knocked out of the game at any moment.
Jesse’s Jarvis touched the JC, who explored to receive a shipwright from the Jarvis. However, this began the second “swing” of the game, as Bonhomme Richard swooped in to capture the JC who immediately repaired as a member of my fleet. The first swing was the Neptune’s Trident play, where Jesse stole it and used it to nearly eliminate my fleet in one go. With the capture of Jesse’s derelict and associated shipwright, I suddenly had the numbers advantage again, which only grew larger on the following turns.
With likely no way to win the current situation, the Jarvis headed back west to pick up some of the final coins in play. I set to work getting my fleet healthy again, with the JC giving the shipwright to the Rattlesnake and my Jarvis getting towed home. After a repair, Rattlesnake was able to dock her loot at my home island. Eventually all 4 ships in my fleet were sailing again (some still in various states of disrepair), as Jesse’s Jarvis sped over to a southern island in hopes the Bonhomme Richard might abandon it. However, I had already explored it and grabbed the 1 that still remained, with Jarvis and Bonhomme Richard going home to unload the final treasures.
Ben’s Americans: 31 gold
Jesse’s Americans: 18
A fun sealed pack game! I got better pulls overall and was able to explore 3 of the 4 islands in play. Hard not to get pulls from Revolution that are at least decent, as we both were able to use some good ships. The Jarvis catch-22 was a funny one to think about during the game, as the ships could only really engage each other by ramming.
We each used something we stole from the other to swing the game in our favor. The Trident blast devastated my fleet, but through the captured shipwright I was able to re-establish a numbers advantage.
It was finally time to debut the Maelstrom map that my friend Gino got me for Christmas! 😀 Two games at 60 points would be played, both using the Maelstrom house rules. The first was a Maelstrom of Gold, with the second being a quick deathmatch before we ran out of time. We played at Laughing Dragon MTG in Issaquah Washington. It was a really fun meetup – I got to see Luke for the first time in a while, with Xerecs (Billy) and Kyle getting the opportunity to play against Luke for the first time. This was also the second day in a row where Xerecs got to play a fellow PNW pirate for the first time. This was the first test of the Maelstrom house rules, so it was a bit of an experimental “wild west” game, with a couple small clarifications needed during the game. However, I was pleasantly a little surprised by how well it went overall.
We still used the Seattle house rules for any non-Maelstrom stuff. Here is the setup! (fleets are below)
If you’d prefer to check out parts of the game in video form, here is all the footage I recorded:
Here is a quick peek at the fleets in play order – all game pieces found in the Master Spreadsheet.
Xerecs was using Le Gaule, Longshanks+Calypso, and HMS Cordwainer (unreleased ship)+Lord Mycron.
Kyle went all English, with HMS Oxford, HMS Durham (FN), and HMS Granville among his ranks.
I felt it had been a while since I used a fleet with only minor factions in it, so I went with a relatively basic Corsair Mercenary fleet (alternatively called Barbary Mercs/etc).
Wicked Kareen + captain, helmsman (15)
Queen of Sheba + captain, helmsman, explorer (12)
Tasmanian Devil + captain, helmsman, fire shot (20) (should not have had fire shot due to only 2 cargo)
Shaihulud (13)
Luke had the Americans, bringing the Intrepid, Carolina towing Minuteman, and Rattlesnake.
After Xerecs passed giving actions on his first turn, the counterclockwise movement of fleets began. My Queen of Sheba and Wicked Kareen explored on the first turn, loading up a bunch of valuable gold.
Looking from the southwest, you can see the English have split up. Intrepid stays at home.
I was seated in the east, so most of the pictures will be from that perspective. Intrepid got a second action, whirling “backwards” after one move action to slam the Oxford! She took the English schooner down to 1 mast, but they were quickly ambushed by Le Gaule, who received an assist from Calypso to whirl into the combat area. OE Jordan Dumas was aboard to let Bonny Peel captain the ship, and she was ready for action. With the help of Lord Mycron and S-boarding, Bonny Peel managed to nab both 7 point crew from the two ships – Hermione Gold from Oxford and Montana Mays from the Intrepid! We were in for a swashbuckling adventure, with things just getting started. At the right, Queen of Sheba has explored another island and exchanged her lowest value coin from the previous island for the best coin of that island. Wicked Kareen has emerged from fog, not getting the 50% chance roll that she would end up on the wrong side of the fog bank and therefore “stuck” in the fog bank with no way to sail against the strong counterclockwise current. However, Kyle was making some good points about intentionally staying in fog until the coast was clear, since there was a lot less freedom of movement emerging from fog banks than usual.
The Americans have explored two islands. Intrepid returns home for repairs, while Le Gaule returns home for repairs and to unload Bonny Peel’s valuable hostages.
With two 7’s aboard, I was desperate to get the Wicked Kareen home (especially with no visible HI raiders present). She emerged from the fog bank and took a whirlpool shortcut into home waters, losing a mast in transit. In the northeast (far right), Tasmanian Devil and Shaihulud take up escort positions surrounding the Queen of Sheba. I believe the galley had even more gold on her than Wicked Kareen (I think 7,6,4). Intrepid and Gaule repair, while Kyle continues playing a very patient game.
Minuteman shot a mast off Wicked Kareen on Luke’s turn. He tried to position Rattlesnake to block incoming shots from hitting the Carolina/Minuteman.
Le Gaule takes center stage once again! She whirls into action, dismasting the Wicked Kareen and capturing her captain! Wicked Kareen rows S+S towards home but cannot reach it. HMS Durham got an extra action from Admiral Morgan and has switched fog banks, sinking the Rattlesnake on her way there.
Carolina ditched Minuteman to whirl home, with the flotilla shooting masts off Le Gaule. HMS Durham sank the Wicked Kareen! Intrepid is now fully repaired, but Le Gaule will have to pull into port for another repairing session. At the top, my close trio is making full sail towards the whirlpool in the northwest.
I was being way too aggressive with the setup, sending my trio of ships through the whirlpool towards home in an eager attempt to get Queen of Sheba’s gold unloaded safely. However, Kyle used HMS Durham coming out the back end (normally suboptimal) of a nearby fog bank to shoot and sink the galley! At this point I knew I was out of it, with only a loaded Mercenary ship and a 0-cargo sea monster in my fleet.
Luke was using the Intrepid to look for gold, using his amazing “schooner swing” tactic to move pseudo-backwards in a clockwise direction.
Le Gaule ended up aflame from a brutal engagement near the center, but Xerecs managed to come away with the Intrepid from it!
In the background, HMS Oxford is home repairing, the Longshanks has sailed out on her own, the English 3 masters have returned to a familiar fog haunt, and my Mercenary pieces are now out to hunt rather than escort.
Le Gaule became a full inferno, but the Longshanks managed to save her with the help of Lord Mycron giving an action to allow Longshanks to tow the Frenchman home. HMS Durham has captured the Carolina, while the Tasmanian Devil engages the Granville.
By this point, Luke was out of the game. Kyle (and the rest of us) wanted to get the second game in (we were approaching less than 45 minutes until the store closed), and sent his final ship through the center of the Maelstrom to become the second player out and end the game!
Scores:
Luke: 21 gold
Xerecs: 17
Kyle: 5
Ben: 1 (from taking out a Ransom crew)
Congrats to Luke on an interesting victory! Xerecs had a gold capture worth 5 gold on Le Gaule when the game ended, so he would have won if the game had gone on much longer. However, this was Luke’s first game in a while and possibly the last game I’ll play with him that I’ll be able to document, so it was somewhat fitting.
The second game had to be played at absolute mach speed, with players picking up their area in between turns. The Maelstrom of Death awaited!
Luke went first in this deathmatch, with some proxies in his fleet. The flotilla represents Death’s Anchor, while the other 1 master is the Lizard’s Sting.
I couldn’t resist using one of the ships involved in the movie battle. 🙂
Golden Medusa + Hammersmith, Anamaria, Eternal Gus Schultz, F&S Lenoir, oarsman (30)
Black Pearl + captain, helmsman, firepot specialist, stinkpot shot, oarsman (22)
Fancy + captain (8)
Kyle went with the same 60 point fleet from the last game. Xerecs went with HMS Grand Temple and the SCS Santa Ana, both with large crew complements of course.
The fleets began the process of circling each other, with Kyle and I not getting closer to the center except for the mandatory 1 ring closer at the end of each of our turns.
Xerecs caught Luke and crushed his main ship. My Fancy was sunk by Luke’s Fallen Angel/flotilla combo, but the others were fast enough to stay out of range.
Once the ships entered the center 3 rings, the game quickly devolved into an abrupt shooting match. Various ships were sunk, with the Black Pearl doing heavy damage to Kyle’s fleet once she caught up. Gus Schultz’s Eternal triggered on the Golden Medusa, sending the ship to the outer ring. The problem was, nobody else had Eternal, so it was kind of hard for me not to win. :/ (I figured at least one other person would bring something with Eternal, and didn’t realize it would be such an auto-win if they didn’t, due to the “countdown” nature of the maelstrom sucking ships towards the middle) We didn’t really have time to play the rest properly but I won since I had a fresh ship that would take many turns to “re-sink”.
I’ll rework at least one of the deathmatch rules, namely Eternal. Perhaps the ability gets “transformed” into something else that costs a similar amount of points, such as +1 or +2 to boarding rolls. In addition, there is a pretty severe incentive in the deathmatch rules to stay on the outside and avoid conflict as long as possible, letting aggressive players burn out and hit the center before you do. It would lead to everyone just biding their time and never approaching the center on purpose. Perhaps a more free deathmatch scenario would work better, where ships are not forced towards the middle and certain death every turn.
In addition, I’d like to experiment with opening up the movement around the maelstrom to go in either direction, especially for a regular game with gold. However, I’d say that the house rules generally worked pretty well, especially in the first game. Thanks again to Gino for the map, and thank you for reading!
Xerecs was in town for BrickCon, which is where he got the hat from!
Lastly, please consider supporting my efforts with this game by buying through my eBay affiliate links whenever you would normally buy Pirates CSG stuff from eBay. Purchases made through the links will give me a small commission which helps out the website and the things I do to help keep this game alive. Thank you!
In this fun night of pirating, I met up with former Wizkids employees and players from both Washington and California! We played the evening of September 9th, though this is being published on Talk Like a Pirate Day 2023. We met at Uncle’s Games in Redmond, with not a single table at Mox Boarding House Bellevue available due to what looked like multiple tournaments happening on a busy Saturday.
As usual, we used the Seattle house rules. Phillip rolled to go first, followed by Xerecs, Chris, then me. Here are quick snapshots of the fleets in play order.
Phillip went with an all-Junk Cursed fleet. Among others, Guichuan had OE Davy Jones and Divine Dragon had OE Fantasma.
Xerecs and Chris happened to bring fleets with similar strategies. Xerecs had Intermediario, Behemoth, and Seleucis along with the San Cristobal, Le Superbe, and Paradox. Paradox carried multiple chieftains, with Xerecs bringing in 15 native canoes! That included the Cursed canoes, along with the unreleased sets of English and French canoes from Return to Savage Shores.
Chris also had Intermediario, Behemoth, and Seleucis! However, his supporting cast was different, composed of Pequod, L’Intrepide, Gog-Cloctoth, El Toro (OE), the 2 masted Nightmare, and 10 native canoes!
After enjoying the success of the kraken cancelling in Tampa after Gasparilla, I wanted to try them in an even larger game, knowing that a ton of crew would likely be in play. However, Behemoth’s copy ability would allow me to have not two but THREE sources of kraken cancelling, making it quite likely that I would be able to shut down crew every turn. O_O
The Kraken (24)
Kray-Kin (21)
Behemoth (19)
Frontier + OE Montana Mays, RotF Gus Schultz, Wayne Nolan, helmsman, oarsman (29)
Plague of the South + helmsman, explorer (13)
Le Bon Marin + helmsman, oarsman (9)
Banshee’s Cry + Jonah, Captain Davy Jones, navigator (12)
Le Coeur du Lion + Princess Arii Auraa, Capitaine Baudouin Deleflote (11)
Bloody Jewel + Calypso (12)
UT’s: Curse of Davy Jones, Jack’s Piece of Eight
The Plague of the South was a fun combination of some cool stuff I’ve gotten from friends – the deckplate was made by Gazerbeam543 (who features in some of my 2022 battle reports), while the model was 3D printed by PirateCaptainAndrew.
I also got to meet Jason Mical for the first time! He was one of the primary flavor text writers for the game, and you can learn more about that in the podcast we did together. Mike Mulvihill was there too!!
Mike also brought along Seth Johnson, who mostly worked on other Wizkids games back in the day but did a little bit of flavor text and playtesting for Pirates. A full pirate crew!
The former Wizkids folks stayed to watch a few rounds and then headed to dinner. The four of us were ready to set sail! There was a fun little prize pool for the winner too – Xerecs’ brother JW Darkhurst put up a Crimson Coast pack as a reward, while Jason put up a Bloody Throne + Scrye the Explorer pack!
The San Cristobal wipes out some hostile canoes as Xerecs’ canoes round earth towards his home island (HI):
Fleets headed out, but the kraken cancelling slowed them down.
Both Xerecs and Chris would be using Seleucis as a kind of “monster Mycron”, often giving the squid’s move action to Intermediario or Behemoth.
8 of Xerecs’ canoes are in fog. Kray-kin surrounds Sea Rat, while Plague of the South and Le Bon Marin explore nearby islands. Frontier gets a double action via Deleflote to go through a whirlpool, load gold with her free action hoist explore, then return home via whirlpool.
I had found both UT’s I contributed, but between the krakens and 3 of my ships already carrying gold, I knew I would be a big target.
Rules gaffe on my part: I’m still getting used to how the krakens and their cancelling works, so I forgot that although you can select which players’ turns you roll for the cancelling on, if it works (on a 5 or 6), it still cancels the abilities of ALL crew in play, regardless of player. Kraken cancelling hit on the very first turn (Phillip), which affected all the Jonah-type abilities in play, meaning that ships overloaded on crew/equipment would have to toss people overboard to make setups legal. As a result, by the time this picture was taken, Deleflote and Captain Davy Jones should have already been out of the game (they would soon be tossed). Sorry! However, I don’t think this affected the results much if at all, partly because of what happened next. Next time I make a kraken fleet, I will make sure that no ships are overloaded with Jonah/Auraa/Robinson/etc helping out. 🙂 The early-game crew chaos also affected Xerecs’ fleet, since Paradox had to toss chieftains which restricted his ability to move canoes throughout the rest of the game.
Phillip’s crew are able to function on round 2, allowing Divine Dragon to go nuts! She sinks the Frontier (revived with Gus Schultz’s Eternal) and dismasts the Plague of the South. This took out 3 coins when the Frontier’s treasure was removed from the game.
On the next turn, although Plague of the South wasn’t able to reach home, Frontier got her gold home via hoisting it to land. Kray-kin sank the Sea Rat.
Long shot of the ocean:
This was a game filled with tentacles. 3 Behemoths, 2 krakens, and additional squids. At some points, this area of the map looked like a sea creature party!
Delusion gets some gold home as the west settles down:
The Kraken was able to chain over and eliminate one of Xerecs’ gold-carrying canoes. San Cristobal heads home for repairs. As expected with this many points in play and still only 8 coins contributed per player, the loot was drying up quick. The Pequod had some of the last available coins in play, prompting me to get Kray-kin back in action. To the right of them, I believe that’s my Behemoth that has been nearly killed after surfacing to sink a canoe carrying a coin. As the endgame began, it became more and more worth it to risk big assets in an attempt to influence the gold race. Ships and crew became more disposable as the gold dwindled. Remarkably, there were no home island raiders in play, meaning that gold was safe once on HI’s.
Phillip was eager to get into more fights with The Cursed, sending the Guichuan and Divine Dragon further and further east in search of targets. He got one of his main wishes, killing Kray-kin! With a perfect 5 roll, Fear cancelled the beast’s Kraken keyword, allowing Guichuan to send it to the depths! DD has captured Pequod, but they will face further challenges if The Cursed want to get any of her coins home.
A Behemoth rams the Guichuan head on!
Between Sunken Treasure and numerous coins getting +1 to their value by his Spanish canoes, Chris was looking like the clear favorite to win.
Carnage intensifies as Chris and Phillip go at it. Guichuan loses masts to El Toro and Behemoth, while Intermediario rams the Divine Dragon.
From very early in the game, Xerecs still controlled one of the last coins in play – one coin on a Cursed canoe.
The Cursed were eventually crushed, with Guichuan going into a fog bank and Divine Dragon dismasted.
Intermediario had stolen a coin or two from the DD, prompting The Kraken to surround the squid! A tentacle battle!
More shots ring out, with my creatures taking injuries:
As we approached the end of the game, Xerecs massed nearly his entire fleet in the far west in anticipation of escorting his final coin home from the canoe-heavy fog bank.
With little else to fight over, the area quickly became popular again. Gog-Clocthoth has rammed San Cristobal, while other ships and creatures begin flocking to the scene.
The middle area is a confusing debris field.
With his heavy escort providing cover, Xerecs was finally able to get the double action he needed to yank the coin from the canoe and get it home!
Scores:
Chris: 40 gold
A7XfanBen: 21
Xerecs (Billy): 19
Phillip: 7
That concludes the 4×150 game! It was an interesting game, with some good lessons for the future.
-Krakens should probably not share fleets with ships that use point reducers for crew overstuffing.
-I think with build totals this high, the game could use maybe some additional coins in play, or possibly more islands. No players were close to being eliminated, and various ships didn’t really see as much usage or play interaction as one might like. However, both of those things would make the game take longer, something that players could discuss in house rules well in advance of the game.
-The game’s results felt static throughout the game – this was probably partly a fluke and partly because there were no HI raiders in play. However, it felt like only the first third or so of the game mattered – I think the standings were basically static for the entire second half of the game, with limited chances for each player to move up or down in the gold race. I think 100 or 120 might be a good upper limit for games where the setup is mostly standard (3 islands per player and 8 coins per player). Once you get to 150, it’s a lot of points for maybe not enough gold. The longer length of the game could be mitigated by limiting the player count (ex: 2 or 3×150 with more gold), or changing up the parameters a bit. (ex: 4×120 with 5 or 6 coins per island, or 4 coins per island but 4 islands per player instead of 3)
I actually haven’t done much game theory thinking about point totals compared to islands/gold in play and the ratios for each. However, this game got me thinking about it and I’ll probably try to do more analysis of that kind of thing in the future. (for reference, 4×100 is a personal favorite of mine, so perhaps it’s a good guide for the ratio of points in play to gold available. Similar ratios would be 5×80, 6×60, 3×150, etc.)
I did record a few combat situations, though just a little bit of raw footage.
Lastly, please consider supporting my efforts with this game by buying through my eBay affiliate links whenever you would normally buy Pirates CSG stuff from eBay. Purchases made through the links will give me a small commission which helps out the website and the things I do to help keep this game alive! Thank you!
3×60 Wizkids Pirates CSG game in Tacoma WA – Ben vs. Phillip vs. Chris
Fleets
Ben: Ultimate Saber Attack Combo (Bonny Peel, Decatur, OE Jordan Dumas, helmsman)
Libellule + Jules de Cissey, explorer
Le Triton
Phillip:
Guichuan + The Headhunter, Davy Jones (OE), Cavendish, Grim the Savage (FN), helmsman
Chris:
HMS Apollo (RotF LE) + Thomas Gunn (RotF), Sir Christopher Myngs
Maui’s Fishhook + Hermione Gold (RotF), Trevor van Tyne
HMS Patagonia + Bratley, Mycron, Robinson
Wizkids Pirates game with Mike Mulvihill, Tiffany O’Brien, Becky and Jared Wilson!
8/19/2023
This was one of my favorite opportunities with Pirates CSG thus far. A Wizkids Pirates game with some of the original crew! With my friend Tiffany O’Brien helping to coordinate, I was able to play a game with Mike Mulvihill (lead designer and game piece creator for the majority of the sets!), Tiffany (former Wizkids Product Manager when Pirates was being made), Becky Wilson (former Wizkids Marketing & Communications Manager in the last chunk of the Wizkids Pirates era), and Becky’s husband Jared! O_O Huge thanks to them for playing, and to Tiffany for being so awesome and helping to bring us all together! 😀 We met up at Mox Boarding House Bellevue, one of my favorite venues for playing. A video version of this battle report is at the very bottom of this page if you prefer that style.
They hadn’t played in quite some time, so I made fleets for all the players – therefore, all crew started the game face up for simplicity and because I knew what all the crew in play were. The fleets were made mostly based on the player’s faction preferences that they sent me beforehand. We played almost purely standard rules, with the exception of picking home islands in reverse turn order (rather than picking each others), and having some islands less than 3L-6L apart due to space constraints with 15 islands on the map. We placed 3 terrain each, with a few within S of an island. We simply used random coins, with no UT’s. No forts would be used either. Flat earth rules with the border being an impassable boundary.
Tiffany rolled to go first! She was stoked to be playing as her own character in the game, created by Mike. Eileen Brigid O’Brien! Tiffany was truly “in” the game! It was truly a remarkable thing to witness – one of the original Pirates contributors playing in a game with her own character 15 years after the game went out of print.
Ben’s Pirates Cannibal King + Hammersmith (F&S version), explorer, oarsman (20) Skipping Stone + Gentleman Jocard, Genny Gallows (SM version), Genny’s Red Rampage, explorer (20)
-I had been wanting to use the Cannibal King for a while ever since I got a new one from generous PCSG community veteran Ve1m. My original copy in New York is broken to some degree, so it was cool to get an intact CK for use in Washington. That ship started the fleet, and then I figured I would complete it with another Pirate catamaran, the Skipping Stone. Cannibal King would try to rob opponents of gold after perhaps one trip to an island, while Skipping Stone would mostly gather gold in the traditional way. However, Skipping Stone still had some bite between her 3L cannons, +1 boards, and Reroll ability. She had 5 cargo total w/+1 and link, 3 that take up space for 2 total open spaces.
Jared’s Cursed Corsairs Bey’s Revenge + captain, explorer (17) Pestilence + captain, helmsman, oarsman (23)
-Jared had only played a few times but is an experienced gamer, and wanted something with more flair or complexity. He had the option of that Pestilence setup or a 23 point combo of Royal James + explorer and the Lechim Namod squid, choosing the former. That way he had some ship type keywords, Reverse Captain, and the Scorpion/Fear keywords to play around with.
With that, we were ready to set sail on the seas of nostalgia!
Ships mostly scattered to different islands in search of loot. Tiffany’s Nene-nui was the first to explore. The Algeciras whirled into the northwest to join the Cannibal King in the hunt for gold, but lost a mast in transit.
Hammersmith couldn’t resist the tempting Spaniard prize. He led the CK’s gunners in a brief broadside off her starboard quarter, leaving the Algeciras derelict. In the meantime, one of his explorers ran off onto the beach to snag some booty. Skipping Stone has explored the southwestern island and loaded the best two coins from it. Bey’s Revenge and Congress are exploring, while Nene-nui gets Tiffany/Eileen on the scoreboard.
A few rounds later, showing Hammersmith’s capture of the Algeciras as the CK returns home via whirlpool. The French are busy exploring the southeast, while Tiffany prepares to transfer her gold to the Nene-nui due to her Ex-Patriot keyword preventing her from docking the Congress at home.
Now the gold piles started to accumulate. A few ships were headed out for more.
The Cursed attack the French! Pestilence does battle against La Ville de Paris, but the French get the better of the encounter in the long run. The French gunners respond to being pinned with a powerful broadside that sinks the scorpion! Intrepide and Cleopatre return with gold, while the Congress is spotted near their HI.
The Congress gets in action! La Cleopatre is dismasted!
The Americans captured the Cleopatre with the Nene-nui, netting them a valuable home island raider for the late game. In the west, Skipping Stone and Concepcion have both docked home their second loads of treasure, netting Ben and Mike a pair of +2 gold bonuses each. More combat was brewing in the east, with Cannibal King shooting, ramming and boarding the Bey’s Revenge. A shot landed, but Hammersmith lost the boarding party, meaning one of his generic crew was killed in action.
That delay meant L’Intrepide was going to reach and be able to explore the northeast island before CK, so she went into a fog bank to wait until the gold had been loaded. Hammersmith wanted to steal it with the ship’s Hoard ability. Congress was headed northeast as well, and despite earlier American-French tension, Tiffany and Becky made it quite obvious they were likely working together for the rest of the game.
Nene-nui has whirled into the northwest to snag one of the lone remaining wild coins. With Cleopatre fully repaired and Becky and I both encouraging Tiffany to rob the other’s home island, Skipping Stone returned home to protect my gold. Mike’s Concepcion takes the center whirlpool to the southeast in pursuit of one of the other wild coins, but is immediately set upon by the Ville de Paris, who punishes the Spanish for encroaching on French territory. Intrepide and Congress are taking coins from the northeast island, while CK and Algeciras head towards fog to lie in wait for an ambush.
Jared wasn’t out of the game either! Down to one ship, he still played a role in the endgame phase. Bey’s Revenge slammed into the Congress and shot off two masts. Intrepide can take the last wild coin in the east with ease since the French have already explored that island. My ships are eager to influence the final coins in play, but a relatively healthy La Ville de Paris is a monstrous presence this late in a 40 point game.
Having lost her helmsman to the Congress earlier in the game, Cleopatre was only moving L. Skipping Stone shot off one of her masts as she approached my home island to steal gold. In the east, conflict erupts once again. With the Ville de Paris protecting the Intrepide, my Pirate raiders set upon the weakened Congress, taking out masts and crew (including Eileen! Tiffany is alive and well). Algeciras boards to steal one of her coins, but won’t be able to carry any more. Nene-nui and Concepcion return home, the former with a coin.
With such momentous players participating, I had to get some kind of video footage from this special event. 🙂
The typical desperation of the endgame in full swing! La Ville de Paris smashed up CK, blasting away her outrigger defenses and a mast. The Bey’s Revenge unsuccessfully boards the Algeciras, while Congress rows away at S+S, still with one coin aboard.
La Resolucion was approaching. She hadn’t seen combat yet, but the hyper-accurate Spanish warship could loom large against this cluster of weakened ships. Critically, Intrepide has docked home all her gold.
Cleopatre managed to steal a coin and start sailing away until the Skipping Stone’s gunners were finally awoken by a furious Genny Gallows rampaging through the gun decks. 2 more shots found their mark, leaving the raider derelict. However, Nene-nui was there to back up the schooner.
Nene-nui towed Cleopatre so as to keep her out of Skipping Stone’s cannon and ramming range, frustrating Jocard and Gallows who did not like seeing their booty stolen. The eastern battle has continued, as I decided to stand and fight, with little chance of escaping home with the stolen coin on Algeciras. CK went after the Congress again while Bey’s Revenge dismasted Algeciras.
Nene-nui was able to tow Cleopatre home on the American turn, completing a somewhat unlikely home island raid made more possible by the Skipping Stone’s combat futility and lack of captain ability. The Algeciras was sunk, and CK dismasted. The last coin or two were resolved soon afterwards, and the game was over!
Scores:
Becky’s French: 26 gold
Mike’s Spanish: 25
Ben’s Pirates: 21
Tiffany’s Americans: 18
Jared’s Cursed Corsairs: 13
A close finish with tons of gold collected! Congrats to Becky on the win! I thought it was cool how we all had a solid pile of gold at the end – everybody was easily into double digits. It was quite a good Wizkids Pirates game. Thank you again to Mike, who gave me some extra busts he had. Thanks again to everyone who played, and thank you for reading!
Ahoy mateys! I met up with Kyle for a pair of epic scale games, as we were Seafair Pirates for a day! Seattle Seafair is an annual tradition featuring hydroplanes and the Navy’s Blue Angels, and we figured it was a great event to showcase an outdoor game in the beautiful summer of the Pacific Northwest. We played at Aubrey Davis Park on Mercer Island, getting a good view of the jets on numerous occasions. It was also a great opportunity to get more attention on the game, and I handed out about 9 OE packs to about 5 interested parties throughout the afternoon.
When I play epic scale it’s usually a very casual game, so although we used a few of the usual house rules, they were mostly confined to the terrain changes. We did a draft to pick our pieces, with 80 points for the first game. Most of the past epic scale games have seen a crazy mishmash of factions for most of the fleets, so my goal with the draft was to have a bit more of a faction theme this time around. I rolled to go second, so I drafted first. I ended up with Revenant, Emerald Rose (a custom 3 master made by PDXYAR, the originators of the epic scale fleet), Grinder and A Fearsome Creature for a Cursed Pirate fleet. I was tempted to pick the 11 point Flying Dutchman as my final ship as the more pragmatic option, but couldn’t resist using a kraken in epic scale for the first time! That meant I had 23 points to spend on crew, so I got Emperor Blackheart for the Revenant, who would also have a captain. Emerald Rose had a captain and helmsman, with helmsman and explorer on the Grinder.
The Emerald Rose is a really nice looking ship! At some point I’ll have to repair her port quarter main deck area, but it works fine for now with the quarterdeck attached to hold the port side in place.
Kyle drafted HMS Interceptor, President, Nautilus and Proud Tortoise for a wide variety of ship types.
4 wild islands with 4 coins each; we placed 5 terrain each.
On the second turn, Emperor Blackheart got a 5 with All-Powerful! He sent A Fearsome Creature through a whirlpool, then used the second action to move away from the exit whirlpool to surround the Proud Tortoise!
So close to the gold! But the turtle ship is likely doomed.
Kyle flips Mercer to give HMS Interceptor a Sac action coming out of a different whirlpool!
Emerald Rose is dismasted and her captain killed in the ensuing boarding party!
Proud Tortoise scored a hit, but was no match for the kraken.
The turtle ship was ripped apart by the giant tentacle arms, with wreckage strewn about.
Grinder had picked up a couple coins from an island near my HI, but the whole island was only worth about 4 gold (I think the coins were 2,1,1,0). She hid in nearby fog on the way back home to avoid the dangerous President, but more action was brewing in the east!
Blackheart brings the Revenant through the whirlpool and uses his extra action to move and shoot, taking advantage of the ability to shoot through ships. However, she only goes 1 for 5! (even with some interested little kids providing their “newbie luck” and rolling some of the the dice for me heh – they rolled better when Kyle attacked lol)
I filmed the second action of the Interceptor’s counterattack:
Blam! Just like that, most of the Pirate fleet is decimated.
President sails out of the fog bank and sinks the Revenant!
Interceptor captured the Emerald Rose but dropped the tow to search for treasure. President and Nautilus began setting up a blockade of my home island, which in the past has sometimes signaled that I will win the game….
A Fearsome Creature guards the whirlpool to let Grinder collect more gold in peace.
The remainder of my fleet whirls home with 2 coins on the Grinder, who loses another mast to whirlpool travel.
However, the President sinks the Grinder and her coins!
With only the slow kraken left in play, my best hope was to surround the HMS Interceptor and sink her gold before she could unload it at home, or just end the game as soon as possible. Interceptor was moving L+S (rather than L+L+S) with a mast missing, which helped a bit.
Incredibly, on the first attempt to dash the poor kraken on the reef next to Kyle’s HI, I rolled a 2! This eliminated all of A Fearsome Creature’s remaining segments, killing the beast and ending the game!
Cursed Pirates: 3 gold
Mixed alliance: 0
It was a bit of an odd game and abrupt ending, so we decided to play another. This time we’d have 60 points to make a fleet using mostly only the stuff we had already drafted. The setup would have 3 wild islands instead of 4, and 4 terrain placed per player instead of 5. The kraken and submarine were removed from the fleets, with a few small crew edits as well. Kyle had a ton of room for crew so he took Lawrence and an oarsman (latter proxied by Fitzgerald as we were already using the rest) and put them on his HI.
This time I rolled to go first.
HMS Interceptor provided some deja vu on Kyle’s first turn, saccing to dismast the Emerald Rose! This second sacking of the cool custom made by PDXYAR angered the Cursed Pirates, who vowed revenge!
Indeed, retribution came swiftly. Blackheart whirled into action once again, with his Revenant much more accurate on the cannon volley this time around. Revenant moved to tow the Emerald Rose out of the way of Grinder’s aft gun, so I had all 8 available cannons in range between both of my shooting ships. Grinder hit 1/2 on the President.
Mercer threw the Interceptor’s captain overboard to propel the ship home via the whirlpool (Sac needed to reach the whirlpool with 2 actions at S+S speed). President followed, but Emperor Blackheart’s rage was not satisfied. He followed them back, determined to win a conclusive engagement. President survived, but Interceptor did not.
Carnage all over the park today!
President began repairing, Proud Tortoise headed home with gold, and Revenant headed away from danger and toward a new island.
Grinder was towing the Emerald Rose home for repair, with the Revenant whirling back to home waters.
Proud Tortoise raced northeast to try for more gold, but would be looking at facing the entire fleet of dangerous rank-2 cannons in the Cursed Pirate fleet on the return trip.
The game ended soon afterwards – Emperor Blackheart got a 6 to toss the President into harm’s way, where the Emerald Rose finally got some personal revenge, blasting her apart and sinking her with help from the Revenant. On the next turn he got a 5 for All-Powerful, allowing the Grinder to corner the Proud Tortoise and shoot away her shell panels. At this point Kyle conceded, with no way of getting the PT home alive. I knew I had 7 gold on my HI and Kyle couldn’t have more than 6 (he had one coin and I mentioned to him that PDXYAR didn’t make any 7 coins for epic scale), so I didn’t need to keep the PT alive and collect more gold to ensure victory.
Cursed Pirates: 7 gold
Mixed alliance: 5
The pictures don’t show it but there was quite a crowd by the time we left!
We also had a great view of the Blue Angels throughout the games – pictures don’t do it justice but we saw some really cool low flyovers as well.
Although I’ll only be playing VASSAL Campaign Game 4 on the Fourth of July, I was able to get a “finishable” game in over the holiday weekend. One of my friends happened to play the game as a kid, and another learned how to play today in their first game. We played a 3 player, 40 point game at Moon Dragon Games in their Egyptian Room – a cool and unique nook of a game store if you ever find yourself a bit north of Seattle.
We kept it simple with no named crew, terrain, forts or UT’s. Flat earth rules with only 3 wild islands and 5 coins per island. Here are the fleets in turn order:
The Frenchman
L’Amazone + captain, explorer
La Mezquita + helmsman, explorer
Morgawr
The Cursed Pirate
Executioner + captain
Lady Newport + helmsman
USS Sea Tiger
The Americans
Constitution + helmsman
Hannah, towing Minuteman flotilla
Hannah is quite a strange ship, being quite fast for a “cheerleader” and one of the most expensive two masters in the game. For a while I’d been wanting to pair her ability with a flotilla, combining the extra firepower with the fast towing speed. An undercrewed Constitution was a good way to fill out the points while paying tribute to the Revolutionary War, especially given that July 2nd is the date of “The Resolution for Independence”.
We were ready to set sail!
2 rounds in: The Amazone, USS Sea Tiger and Executioner all headed north for treasure. Morgawr submerged and escorted La Mezquita southwards, though they were shadowed by the Lady Newport. Both American ships dock at a wild island, to explore next turn.
The Frenchman and Pirate explored, with the Americans breaking for home. However, they were cautious to stay out of Morgawr’s ram range, not wanting to get pinned with gold aboard a few yards from home. Minuteman took a few 4L+L potshots at Mezquita but missed.
Amazone returned home with 2 coins, while Executioner and Sea Tiger headed back with their loot. The Americans docked home their 5 coins between the 2 ships, with Minuteman blasting masts off La Mezquita. The early stages of this game saw quite a few ships changing headings often – more than I usually see.
The Frenchman and Pirate strike a deal to team up against the Americans, but there is a clause where the Pirates can’t take the last coins from the north. Negotiations quickly run awry, with the Spanish miffed that the Executioner sailed into her path home for repairs. The Americans are feasting on Minuteman’s Extended Range, blasting off half the Executioner’s masts. The latter is probably the only ship in play that can realistically make a run at American firepower by her lonesome, but now she is damaged.
With Morgawr lurking and the Amazone having a captain aboard, the Americans were content to sit and wait until the northern gold (the last available coins) inevitably came southwards. Minuteman blasted a mast off L’Amazone and sank La Mezquita. The Lady Newport explored in the north, with the French trying to revise the deal so they could still team up against the Americans as the Pirate brought gold home.
However, as PDXYAR always said, “gold wins the game”. Lady Newport and Executioner loaded up, and it was time for some late-game havoc. The Americans surged east, with Minuteman hitting 3/3 to sink the Sea Tiger. Constitution departed the home island as well, with her crew confident in their abilities to defeat Morgawr.
L’Amazone repairs as carnage erupts in the center. Morgawr sets Constitution alight with its fire breathing attack, but the American crew are in full hero mode, putting it out on the ship’s very next action (the white 6). Hannah rams Lady Newport and steals her 3 coin, though the Minuteman fails to dismast the schooner even with Hannah’s cheerleading bonus, meaning Hannah is still pinned.
The Amazone sails out and is able to get some shots off, hitting the Constitution once. However, American guns are winning the multi-player battle, with Constitution pouring in a heavy fire against Morgawr. Serpent guts are blown everywhere as shots ring out at a rapid pace. Hannah gets lucky and dismasts the Lady Newport with a 4S shot, while Minuteman makes the Executioner derelict.
L’Amazone captured the Executioner, with the latter transferring her coins to the Frenchman with an explore action. However, Minuteman sent the Amazone to the depths and Constitution killed the beast Morgawr to end the game!
Americans: 11 gold
Cursed Pirate: 10
Frenchman: 8
A close-fought and action-packed intro game! After last year’s strong showing by the English, the Americans are back on top in what has become nearly an annual summer tradition. Perhaps next year will see the return of the Anglo-American rivalry of old!
My friend and I played a relatively basic 2 player 80 point game yesterday, 5/7/2023. It was a tight game with some fun moments.
The Fleets
I rolled to go first with the following fleet. Empty Sky was a recent acquisition from my adventures in Tampa. She was on my short list of ships to try out, with this being the first time I’ve used her. As always, the game pieces can be found in the Master Spreadsheet.
Empty Sky + Commander Albert Crenshaw, Gus Schultz (RotF version), captain, helmsman
Black Pearl (SR version) + Wesley, captain
Soul Crusher + helmsman, explorer
Fancy + captain
I wanted to include non-Pirate crew to use the ES’s ability, specifically crew whose abilities don’t show up in the Pirate ranks. Thus, extending all the S-range cannons to L range, and using one of the cheap Eternal crew to keep an American privateer theme. I also thought about Commander Temple but realized I’ve used him and other ship stealers a bunch in recent years. Wesley was also included solely because I’ve never used him. Soul Crusher and Fancy were a convenient pair of ships to grab to fill out points and add some gold running capacity.
My friend has a small Franco-Spanish collection, and I let them borrow a few named crew:
El Toro + The Mask, helmsman
La Catedral del Mar + captain, helmsman, oarsman
La Cazadora + captain, helmsman
Pescados de Plata + Dominic Freda (RotF common version), helmsman
Le Mercure + explorer
Both fleets happened to have S-boarding crew, but the weirder oddity was that 4 of the 9 total ships used had the Fear keyword! Perhaps not the scariest fleets, but with some unique stuff out on the ocean. 🙂
Round earth, 3 terrain per player, 4 random coins on each island (no UT’s), crew face up since I made both fleets and didn’t want that informational advantage.
Gameplay
Soul Crusher and Fancy headed for different islands, with Black Pearl and Empty Sky escorting them. Pescados and Mercure drain the eastern island, while possible confrontations await near two of the other islands.
A round and a half later, and Wesley uses the Black Pearl to engage the giant crab! The Pirates won the S-boarding party 10-9 (!), but I mistakenly retconned it due to not reading the whole Pirate Code entry (no boarding). Shooting well, BP blows off 3 of 4 arms. Soul Crusher lost a mast to the reef in her desperation to reach home with 9 gold on my second turn, and here braves the reef again (this time taking no damage) to snag the last two coins from the contested island. More Spaniards are approaching….
El Toro rams a mast off the Black Pearl! La Cazadora advances to within range of Soul Crusher but out of the BP’s current range, shooting 2/2 to dismast the turbine.
Black Pearl rolled for Fear, getting a 5 to disable abilities on the Cazadora. She then killed El Toro and damaged the Cazadora. Soul Crusher then rolled for Fear, getting a 6 to slow the Cazadora on her next turn! I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen both effects of Fear apply against a single ship in the same turn of a regular game. It may have happened in one of my campaign games, but definitely a rare occurrence. It actually helped my plans too, as I had originally considered taking the Soul Crusher back over the reef to get home, even with no masts.
However, as much as I liked the thought of my first-ever Turbine shipwreck, a slowed and captainless Cazadora would not be in range of anything if SC just moved southeast with her L+S total movement (Turbine keyword preventing dereliction, so she was capable of full movement).
During this major scuffle, the gold runners had been making trips to and fro. Pescados, Mercure, Fancy and Empty Sky all dropped off coins. Empty Sky temporarily dropped Crenshaw and captain in order to do so, but at the top of this next picture you can see she’s gone back to the island to pick them up again. Soul Crusher got home with her gold as well, having survived both the reef and a Spanish pest.
The Catedral has engaged the Pearl, shooting 2/3 before losing 2 of her own masts in the counterattack from a shot and ram! Wesley uses S-Board against the Catedral but is slayed by the Spanish inquisition sailors for his efforts! With the other 3 islands empty, it looks like the SW island will be the final fight of the game.
Fancy sped east but missed her L+L range sniping potshot against the Pescados. Empty Sky returned home as Soul Crusher repaired. The Spanish closed in on the final coins, with three ships converging on the SW island. La Cazadora was one of them, but her job was to finish off the Pearl, which she effectively did with a ram, winning the boarding party to eliminate the BP’s captain.
The Spanish have been weakened, but most of their ships can outrun the relatively slow Pirate fleet.
Indeed they did, with the Pescados carrying home the final coin via round earth to avoid the approaching Empty Sky and Fancy. As you can see from the coins, the scores made for a tight game!
