With Tournament #3 over and a winner declared, it was time for them to face the winner of Tournament #2 in the ultimate competitive matchup. This is about as meta a matchup as I can imagine!
With that, it is clear that most matchups between these fleets will come down to the luck of who goes first.
UPS 2 has proved its mettle as arguably the greatest fleet in Pirates CSG history! Even against the toughest competition it can succeed, and it scored 12 gold in its Game 1 loss – more gold than the GT fleet scored in its two losses combined.
The game and fleet process has been so gamified that most of these “hyper meta” matchups will likely come down to luck more than anything else. As a result, this might be the last competitive series I play for a while. I do have a few more competitive matchups I’d like to play in 2024, but they will probably be 1-off games.
A peek at the setup:
Thanks for reading! The competitive play in the first half of 2024 has been fun and informative, and now I feel pretty much completely satisfied with it. The results speak for themselves, and I think I’ll mostly move on to other game types/formats now. (more fleets, other build totals, some house rules, etc.)
After the conclusion of Tournament #3, I wanted to play some additional competitive matchups. The first was the Finals matchup that we came within one d6 roll of seeing – HMS GT UPS taking on a different challenger, Altar Abuse. I plan to continue changing up the battle reports a bit, so this series has shorter videos with a narrative approach rather than full gameplay footage.
With that, the upset is complete! Being able to beat the tournament winner proves that Altar Abuse can crush just about any competitive meta fleet with enough luck. A nasty combo for the ages!
Tournament #3 (T3) was the third notable Wizkids Pirates CSG competitive tournament I have played. The first two are T1 and T2, which were played on VASSAL with Xerecs. T3 had almost no house rules and was played in physical form, so it could be considered the most “pure” tournament I’ve played so far. I made sure to track all the scores, who went first, and how much gold each fleet collected throughout the tournament. You can see those stats at the end of the final battle report.
Universal Pirate Swan, one of the participating fleets
Each matchup would be a best-of-3 series, with the exception of the tournament Finals, which would be a best-of-5. Each fleet had to come with a standard 40 point build, but their +5 selections could be modified as much as they wanted – by game within a series, and changing from one series to the next. The average ocean was about 37 inches wide, 43 inches long. That is slightly larger than the recommended minimum of 3 feet x 3 feet, but it’s worth noting that the 37″x43″ ocean is not large enough to have all 6 islands at the maximum distance of 6L apart, so if playing a competitive tournament, you may want a larger ocean.
Here are the house rules I used:
-Bonus gold (from +1/+2 abilities) is available for building forts, home island raiding, etc.
-Becalmed doesn’t do anything against ships that can move when mastless – they retain their full (current) base move, as the ability text does not say it is reduced to S.
-Abandoned Crew can be flipped face up on the controlling player’s turn in order to turn them into crew even if their abilities are not used when flipping them face up.
Note about fleet “intelligence”: Fleets have no idea about the other fleet going into the first game of each matchup, but they remember crew and UT’s as best they can for the rest of that series. Fleets don’t “watch” other matchups in the tournament, so every new series matchup is fresh as if the fleets are facing each other for the first time.
I was generally able to play on Sundays from February to April, getting through all 8 series on schedule (including a play-in round since I had 9 fleets I wanted to see get involved, rather than 8).
The final, completed bracket! In between each matchup are the scores by game; the higher fleet of each matchup has their score first (bottom fleet is second score) regardless of who went first. For the Finals, the scores underneath each fleet are the games that fleet won.
Congratulations to HMS GT UPS on a massive tournament victory! They were a dominant fleet from start to finish, going 7-2 overall and scoring double digit gold in every game except one. They have earned their place amongst the most competitive fleets in Pirates CSG history. The combination of UPS strategy with the HMS Grand Temple’s fighting prowess is a devastating combo.
Here is my post-tournament summary. It includes the goals I had when planning the tournament back in January 2024, as well as the lessons learned and some of the things I noticed.
Goals
Are anti-UPS fleets good enough to upend the meta? Not quite, they’re not as good against power UPS fleets.
If so, can they win tournaments overall even against some non-UPS foes? Kill that UPS did beat 2 non-UPS fleets, so it is a very competitive fleet. Just couldn’t beat HMS GT UPS. HMS GT’s durability and firepower proved too much even for a Mycron-powered Angelica.
Determine value of going first (which should equal a worse HI selection): Player 1 had an overall record of 12-11 in this tournament (full stats by fleet at the bottom of this post). Nearly 50/50 and somewhat inconclusive, but overall it seems that it’s a tossup that could go either way. There are really easy ways to get around a bad HI location, such as Hidden Cove and whirlpools.
How much does the island/terrain meta affect results? The terrain meta probably matters more, at least when one fleet wants very little terrain (especially no whirlpools) and the other fleet wants a lot of terrain. Island placement meta matters less with so many Hidden Coves and often lots of whirlpools around. Overall, I was a bit surprised by how little the island placement meta seemed to matter. It can be very inconsequential if either player wants islands at minimum distance (3L apart), since then even if the other player tries to place each of their randomly selected islands 6L away from the (already-most-distant) island, the “close” player can just place their next island diagonally in between the ones 6L apart, essentially nullifying the 6L distance placement. If the “far” player gets to place the last island and pick it as the HI of Player 1, this can just incentivize P1 to vote for at least 2 terrain placed per player, which they can use to place a whirlpool next to their (likely/obvious) potential HI location and at least one other whirlpool near the wild islands for easy and quick access to treasure. They could also vote for a lot of terrain, and just place whirlpools near every island so that P2 has no way to ensure they’ll have to sail a large distance to reach an island.
Are either of those previous elements (going first, and island/terrain meta) as or more important than the luck of the treasure distribution? I don’t think so, treasure distribution is probably the most important factor of the three. Many games were essentially determined by the random distribution of 4 coins per wild island. Some games were lost because of the distribution (finding a devastating UT that kills essential crew on a flagship), and some were easily won because of the distribution (such as a treasure-based fleet finding no negatives, and instead two 6’s that can win the game 16-0 if both get +2’d). The “positive vs. negative UT war” was a major factor as the tournament went on, as it became a “luck fest” of whether or not a high-powered treasure runner or UPS flagship would find a negative with or without a “wipe UT” such as the Kharmic Idol or Pirata Codex. The treasure distribution war probably affected some games even more than the actual fleets involved. A bad first island can spell doom, but if you go first and can wipe the map of negatives with something like Maps of Alexandria + Kharmic Idol, it becomes free reign on the whole map.
Lessons
Play-in round: Fleet that went first won each game. Hidden Cove makes island meta less relevant because you can just teleport a full 6L.
First matchup: Anti-UPS+UPS fleet is too scattered. Neither the anti-UPS or the UPS portion of the fleet can be fully optimized due to the build total restrictions, and both strategies suffer for it (this proved even more true as the tournament went on, as the all-in “anti” nature of Kill that UPS proved quite successful). Best to just go all-in on the UPS strategy or a full-scale counter to it.
Forts were less competitive than I thought they would be. There were hardly any fort plays. In T2 there were less combat-capable fleets, so forts held more sway over endgames. Don’t always want to put treasure back on an island. T2 had a lot of fleets that either wanted to extend the game, “lock” up treasure with a fort, or knew the opposing fleet would have a lot of trouble destroying Paradis de la Mer (sometimes all of the above). T3 had more capable gunships and hybrids – with double actions nearly omnipresent for HMS GT, Angelica, Black Swan, Roanoke and Neptune’s Hoard, there was little incentive to build a fort knowing that it would likely get destroyed. I’d say forts can still be very competitive and useful, but it depends more on the fleets involved and if there’s a gunship in play capable of destroying a fort in a single turn (thus preventing any return fire from the fort, and making the newly-wild-again gold available very quickly after construction).
Tournament felt less tactical than T2 – more luck, less fort plays/etc. Consequence of extreme UT distribution/abuse, and possibly because I’m the only player (vs. playing against Xerecs in T1 and T2). I think I did great not “accidentally” having bias with any fleets or sides, though it may have affected the island meta slightly. However, it’s kind of obvious that a Player 2 is gunning to put your HI far away when they place the last island 6L from any other island and then seed it with reefs/etc. It felt less tactical partly because a lot of games seemed to be decided on luck elements – a great or horrible first island explored, a fleet always getting their terrain roll during the Setup phase, or sometimes some bad cannon luck. Heck, the Finals matchup would almost certainly have included Altar Abuse instead of Kill that UPS if the Isle of Fire hadn’t gone off and eliminated the Altar of the Loa in the rubber match Game 4 of their semifinals matchup. I don’t think Altar Abuse would have beaten HMS GT UPS, but when an entire series can come down to a single 50/50 d6 roll, it starts to make playing the games between certain fleets feel more pointless. In the case of KtU vs. a treasure fleet, it often just comes down to treasure distribution luck – if the KtU negative UT’s mess up the enemy flagship, they can win by a low score. But if they don’t, it can be hard for them to come back since the opponent can usually rack up a bunch of gold quickly (and then win even if they’re eliminated if they’re ahead by enough). It felt like a tournament of extremes – killer fleets, extreme treasure contributions by nearly every fleet in every game, and some shutouts and lopsided scores. T2 was quite different, though we didn’t play by standard rules nearly as much (eventually using a default island+terrain setup every game to save setup time). T2 had more high-scoring tactical treasure games, which was partly a function of having less high-power hybrids and more Hai Peng or Banshee’s Cry flagships. For example, the “Final Four” of T2 had 3/4 fleets of what I would call “extreme treasure fleets”, whereas T3’s Final Four had 3/4 fleets containing a double-action gunship/hybrid with at least 4 masts.
Kill that UPS has a big weakness in basically deferring the initiative. They’d almost prefer going second, but that opens the door to a UPS fleet getting a ton of gold in rounds 1+2. If they go first and explore with Hyena, she might get trashed by their own negative UT’s. Even if she doesn’t, she might find a positive UT like Pirate Globe that then informs the enemy treasure fleet exactly where to go on their half of round 1, leaving the door open for the treasure fleet to get gold fast before Angelica can intervene on round 2. Towards the end, it dawned on me that KtU winning would feel a bit odd – it’s simply a killer fleet. That fleet winning would do away with “gold wins the game” to some extent. It didn’t affect how I played the Finals, though HMS GT UPS did get some luck with the treasure distribution and terrain rolls. For all the complaints about UPS being OP, at least those fleets win games by completing the primary objective – get the most gold. I think fleets like KtU winning tournaments would encourage more deathmatch-style fleets and wonky extreme fleets, where it’s just genocide via blitzing and negative UT auto-includes. I think it illustrates that Wizkids did a great job creating a tactical and balanced treasure game – though there’s a lot of OP or broken pieces in the meta, it can still be very fun and strategic.
Anti-UPS fleets need more than a double-action dragon to combat the “UPS gunships” like HMS GT, Zeus, etc. Ships with 6+ masts can take a full-scale attack from Angelica and either walk away to continue getting gold for their fleet, or return fire with 2+ masts (usually doubled via a second action), which can be enough to cripple or kill the dragon. Even in Finals games where CJS was killed, HMS GT UPS was able to stay in the game and nearly went 4-0 overall in the series. I have a feeling KtU vs. UPS 5 (with the Zeus) would go similarly – Zeus would always be able to return fire with considerable force even if Angelica goes 4/4, and can kill the dragon in a counterattack a good percentage of the time as soon as the dragon starts missing a shot or two. If Angelica only gets 1 hit, the game is pretty much as good as over. Maybe there’s a better hybrid/etc setup than Hyena+crew for the last 16 points of KtU, but it’s hard to get enough damage accumulated on a powerful UPS foe to sway the tide. It relies on the island setup and arguably the UPS player being slightly dumb, but KtU could theoretically put 7 shots on a “power-UPS” ship if Hyena got Hidden Cove’d to the same island (HC instead of her explorer+oarsman), with Angelica still getting Mycron for a shoot action after flying into range.
Superlatives and Stats
Biggest upsets: I did not expect Universal Pirate Swan to go out in Round 1. They crushed Altar Abuse 20-0 in their first game, but didn’t win again. I will admit that I didn’t expect Kill that UPS to reach the Finals, given their gauntlet of impressive foes going back to the play-in round. I thought AP’s 4 would really put them to the test, but KtU still won the series 2-1. Once they reached the semis I knew they had a decent shot at winning the tournament. KtU did have a somewhat rough road to the Finals, losing a game in each of their 3 series on the way there (2-1 in each series for 6-3 overall through the semis), and almost getting knocked out by a lucky Altar Abuse fleet.
Biggest surprises: For a very luck-based fleet centered around a single UT, Altar Abuse came incredibly close to making the Finals. Overall I’d say the right side of the bracket contained more surprises than the left side. Going into the tournament, I think I was somewhat expecting to see Universal Pirate Swan vs. AP’s 4 in the semifinals (the opposite of what happened). I thought the island meta and Player 1 vs. Player 2 stuff would matter a bit more, but it was pretty much upended by the terrain meta and treasure distribution. I was surprised by the lack of fort plays, though for reasons stated above it makes sense that fleets didn’t want to risk them very often. There were more plays to end games quickly via elimination or suicide than there were plays to intentionally extend the game via fort building.
Check out some fun stats for Tournament #3! These count the pre-tournament play-in matchup between KtU and UPS 4.1, but they don’t count the Game 2 semifinals botch between KtU and Altar Abuse.
Bolded stats represent the leader in that category (very fun for me to do, similar to baseball stats with league leaders). We see that P1 had a slight advantage over P2, but it was essentially negligible. In the Finals, P1 was 0-4, so if a Game 5 had been played there, it might even be 50-50 odds of winning going first vs. going second. HMS GT UPS proved their mettle in so many ways. They went 5-1 without the initiative. They naturally have the highest winning percentage of the tournament, by far the most gold collected, and the highest gold score per game at 15.1 treasure per game. They scored double-digit gold in all but one of their nine games, including scoring 11 or more gold in all four games against Kill that UPS, a fleet that usually limits how much gold an enemy can collect in most games. For example, KtU opponents only scored double digit gold in 2/9 games going into the Finals. KtU held AP’s 4 to just 6 gold per game, UPS 4.1 to 6.7 gold per game, and Altar Abuse to 7.7 gold per game. Comparatively, HMS GT UPS averaged 16.8 gold per game against Kill that UPS, barely losing in their only loss of the Finals. KtU essentially dragged down average gold scores per fleet in every series it played in, except against HMS GT UPS. HMS GT UPS winning the tournament also proves how P1 vs. P2 doesn’t matter as much – they were P2 in 6/9 games, presumably getting a worse HI location each of those games.
KtU was the leader in games played and even tied for the lead in wins, mostly due to the fleet getting an extra series via the play-in matchup and due to their inability to sweep any series. In fact, if not for the lack of a Finals Game 5, KtU nearly played the maximum amount of games available to play for a fleet involved in the tournament (going to a deciding game in each series prior to the Finals). Understandably, their gold per game number (5.8) is pitifully low for a successful fleet, given their killer nature and elimination fleet strategy. However, it does look even more pathetic when compared to some of the crazy high-scoring fleets involved in T2. In the T2 semifinals, UPS 2 managed to score a ridiculous 84 gold over the course of 2 games, more than KtU accumulated in 13 games of T3!
Saccing Treasure Traders had a strong showing, coming in second in gold per game and finishing as one of the only fleets with a winning record. Universal Pirate Swan will likely be seen again in 2024, but as for the American Pirates, I’ll probably try out more of the AP’s 3/5/6 variants before defaulting to AP’s 4. The Anti-UPS+UPS and Turn 1 Victory fleets were swept, with major flaws evident in both fleets. As stated previously, Anti-UPS+UPS is too scattered to be wholly effective at either being a UPS fleet or a UPS counter (an increase to 50 or 60 points might make it competitive at those build totals), while T1V was flawed from its creation, as I didn’t know that you couldn’t trade home positive UT’s worth gold with CJS until after the bracket was finalized and the tournament had begun. UPS 4.1 exemplified what will probably happen when any “old-school” UPS fleet faces Kill that UPS – a treasure win when going first, but likely elimination or a very low gold score otherwise (or if encountering nasty UT’s at their first island). For that reason, I might not bother playing fleets like UPS 2 or Hai Peng Fort Frenzy against KtU, because I think it would come down to the luck of being Player 1 and the treasure distribution.
The average gold/game number of 19 is in total (436/23), with the average close score being 10-9, 11-8, etc. Overall the scores were a bit lower than I expected, but T2 set an oddly high bar and was quite different due to the fleet strategies compared to T3’s more offensive and UT-based nature.
This was a fun little exercise – seeing which fleets are better at holding the opposition to a low score. Technically it would be AP’s 4, but that’s not saying much when it’s against a low-scoring fleet like KtU. Rounding up their scores, we see that KtU had an average per-game deficit of losing 10-6. XD They can’t care about the stats though, they’re happy with their 7-6 overall record.
No surprise that the champion had the highest score of any game, though Universal Pirate Swan had an impressive debut. Altar Abuse and Treasure Traders showed their competitive prowess, and I could see them winning some tournaments, especially with the right luck or if it was slightly more casual.
I forgot to mention this in the videos, but one of the typical ocean sizes was 37″ wide, 43″ long. So for a game where at least one fleet (or especially both) wants islands 6L apart, you’d want a playing surface bigger than the suggested minimum default of 36″x36″.
What’s Next?
This won’t be the end of my competitive Pirates CSG games in 2024, though there won’t be a ton more. I have a handful of matchups in mind for the next few months, including the inevitable “winner clash” of HMS GT UPS against the winner of T2 (UPS 2). There is a new challenger! Can HMS GT UPS continue to climb the ranks and be crowned the best Wizkids Pirates fleet of all time? Stay tuned to find out!
Thanks for reading and watching, and let me know if you get some Pirates CSG games of your own going!
Questions of the Day: What’s your favorite fleet that participated in T3?
Which fleet do you think would win in a “maximum fairness” simulation of 100+ games per matchup? (with an even distribution of luck in terms of player 1, terrain, treasure distribution, etc.)
After about 11.5 years of consistently playing Pirates CSG, I found myself realizing that my 500th game was upon me! (3 BR’s will be posted in the future) I knew I wanted to make #500 special, and decided to do a solo effort since I knew my idea was likely to take 8+ hours, not something I wanted to burden my group with. It would be a 6 fleet game with each of the Big 6 factions, where gold on home islands could be used to purchase new game pieces from outside the game and add them to the fleet, the main rule seen in campaign/cumulative games. However, unlike those games where usually the last fleet afloat or points in play decides the winner, the endgame rules for this game would be completely standard! “Gold wins the game!” (as the PDXYAR group would say)
For the most part I used the Seattle Pirates house rules, with the following exceptions:
-All-Powerful functions as normal
-Lord Mycron is not banned
-Each fleet can only place up to 1 oversized terrain.
-10 coins per island (random treasure coins and random UT’s)
-Pure faction fleets. Gold can be used to purchase any game pieces from any minor faction (Jade Rebellion/Barbary Corsair/Viking/Mercenary), but each of the Big 6 must stay within their own faction for launches (ex: Pirates can only purchase Pirate and minor faction stuff, not English/etc).
The build total was 40 points. Here are the fleets in the order of play!
English
HMS Nautilus + RotF Thomas Gunn, Bratley (0LR+5)
Edinburgh Trader + RotF Hermione Gold, explorer
HMS Hermes + helmsman
The English focused on good speeds and an armed gold runner/hybrid in the Trader.
Spanish
El Cristal del Obispo + Inquisitor Sebastian Blanco, Alejandro Malaspina, captain, helmsman, tribal chieftain, oarsman
Santa Teresa + Contessa Anita Amore
Spanish Native Canoes
The Spanish wanted to use Malaspina on the first turn so the canoes could redock and grab coins without having to wait a turn when exploring normally. The Cristal was overloaded, so a rare appearance from Blanco helped make the setup legal.
French
Le Gaule + Jules de Cissey, F&S Lenoir, captain, helmsman
St. Joan + explorer, oarsman, towing Mont Blanc
The French were guns-heavy, looking like one of the most intimidating fleets.
Pirates
Panda + Captain Blackheart, The Hag of Tortuga, helmsman, oarsman x2
Barnacle + helmsman, explorer
Zephyr
Fancy
I went with a “classic pirates” fleet where their ships were small and fast, more similar to true Age of Sail historical pirates. They had multiple treasure running options backed by a nasty Panda killing machine.
Americans
USS Stephens + helmsman, explorer, oarsman
USS Lamon + Commodore Matthew Perry, Captain Montana Mays, helmsman
The Americans looked as aggressive as the French, but only had 2 cargo spaces open for gold.
Cursed
Lechim Namod
Loa’s Justice + Sargasso Nightmare, helmsman, explorer, oarsman
Nightmare + helmsman, explorer, oarsman
+oarsman on HI
The Cursed came in at a disadvantage with no 0LR+5 available, and indeed the only fleet to not utilize one. However, Lechim Namod looked to benefit from having Captain as part of the Sea Monster keyword, and was supported by an L booster on one of the two gold runners.
The map with only islands placed:
Setup notes: English and French place islands farther due to higher speeds in their fleets. Cursed want as close as possible resulting in crowded middle. English and Pirates reef the crap out of the tight archipelago in the middle, due to faster speeds (+Hermes ignoring terrain) and small ships respectively. French add some reefs while Spanish and Cursed go mostly for fog. Americans place all three whirlpools. The Cursed wanted MI’s to take effect but none of the other factions did, and they were eventually outrolled (so no MI effects would happen). I ended up using 30 random UT’s out of the 120 total coins.
The full setup! 😀
The big reef chain in the middle would likely split capital ship combat into the north and south, potentially making the terrain area a haven for small gold runners looking to stay safe.
The Pirates wanted their small ships near the reefs that could barely hurt any of them. The Cursed picked first and ended up lucky that nobody chose super close to them. The Spanish chose their HI based on where they thought their canoes could be as close to home as possible, and where they anticipated the English going. The English picked last but liked their round earth options. The French and Americans wanted to keep their 5 masters away from the reefs, but close to some nearby wild islands. Overall each faction ended up pretty happy with their HI result as the game began.
Here’s a video of the first half of the first round of turns!
The Pirates went next, with the Barnacle finding Missionary, which took out both her crew. They immediately thought about getting the Explosives to the Zephyr, as she had the fastest base move yet lowest cargo of the Pirate sloops, making her an ideal suicide bomber. The Fancy would join her in snagging coins, while the Zephyr headed east instead of west having seen the St. Joan (with dangerous flotilla in tow) make landfall at the island she originally wanted.
The Stephens explores, using Jailhouse Dog to eliminate the Plague UT and save her crew! The 5-4 off the island show they are the coins loaded by the Stephens, while the rest are left on the island (face up so you can see what else is on it). Overall a solid island for the Americans, and I think the only wild island in this game with no 1 coins on it.
The Lamon’s activities were captured on camera!
The Nightmare explored to find some nice goodies, but Message in a Bottle would yank her away from the gold!
It docked her at the “Pirate wild island” that the Barnacle and Fancy had plundered, but she avoided reef damage. The Loa’s Justice (LJ) was off to a better start, loading 14 gold and the Eye of Insanity! O_O (perfect for the Cursed since they could potentially hire Davy Jones/etc and use the Eye to essentially create a duplicate) Lechim Namod (LN) laid in wait, aiming to protect the LJ from harm.
A happy beginning for our fleets today! XD
HMS Hermes explores! O_O It appears to be a lucrative island, with the Cursed Conch potentially allowing the English to control LN….
The Cristal heads home while escorting the gold-laden canoes, S-exploring the sargasso-like island on the way there. The Santa Teresa is stuck with Anita Amore aboard and has no room for treasure, so heads home to stay safe in case the Panda tries to go crazy on the Pirate turn.
The French were next!
The Pirates followed and the carnage spread to the north!!
The Pirates launched the Raven’s Neck with a captain and helmsman for 17 total gold!
The first launch of the game! Time will tell if launching vs. saving is more pragmatic in this tight balance of gold budgeting.
On the American turn the Lamon got another SAT and continued north, this time harassing the English. However, the ram failed and the Edinburgh Trader defended herself well to win the boarding party! For this game I generally used the white GF9 tokens for the English, black for the Pirates, and then faction pennants for the other wild island markers.
The 9 gold brought back by the Stephens is the perfect amount for the Americans to expand their fleet and dramatically increase their gold running capability! The Corsair galley Queen of Sheba is hired, with a helmsman and explorer aboard to make her one of the better runners in play.
The Cursed consider saving for a larger purchase later on, but decide to quickly spend the LJ’s entire haul of 14 gold on the Sea Rat with generic crew. LN has slunk away into the fog bank, hoping to avoid Lenoir’s Gaule for the rest of the game unless the Cursed can get some canceller support via RtSS Papa Doc. The Nightmare has explored the middle island.
The Trader’s 12 gold is used to hire Lawrence and launch HMS Trepassey! The English see Lawrence as a necessary counter to both Lenoir and the Lamon.
The Santa Teresa returns to the S-explored island to actually explore it and finds a game changer: Kharmic Idol! She would have loaded the 3 UT’s in the row underneath it, but the Idol wipes out all face up UT’s in play. The elimination of the Cursed Conch and Eye of Insanity put a damper on nefarious English and Cursed plans. In reality I think the Idol would have also eliminated the turtles, if so a big mistake there. The canoes return home, with their bonuses turning 3’s into 4’s.
The Cristal could get maybe 1 cannon in range of the Panda, so Malaspina decides to return home instead. The Spanish build Fortaleza Dorada with their HI gold! Their strategy is to use the fort to protect gold that the canoes will ferry one by one, getting as many +1’s as possible in an attempt to make up for losing their other 3 canoes. The fort will also provide protection for the canoes, as even the Cristal may not be enough with an additional Pirate gunship (Raven’s Neck) now in close proximity to the Spanish.
The Marksman’s Map eliminated by Kharmic Idol had been on the St. Joan, which the French had used to spy Wolves on the island the Gaule would later dock at. This was part of the French plan – since Wolves would prevent other negative UT’s from affecting the Gaule and her valuable crew, the French felt comfortable exploring the island just to see what else was on it. It was a true hoard, with 22 total gold along with Relics and Rum!
The French decide to make the gold even more inaccessible, building Paradis de la Mer with the St. Joan’s pair of coins! (a 3 and 2) This is a big move on the part of the French and a decent gamble – the French are putting their eggs in one basket, with 27 total gold in the fort. Part of the French reasoning is that even if Paradis gets destroyed, the French will try to quickly rebuild it – their strategy is to just hold the fort until the end of the game, not bothering to try and kill the Wolves to get any gold off of it. With the Gaule ready to protect the fort and LN injured, it looks like a viable strategy against a relatively weak Cursed neighbor. If the French can put some nearby gold into the fort as well, it could become a game-winning kingpin, although risking the all or nothing approach which may see them go from first to last if the fort gets destroyed right before the gold count.
This wide shot shows various other happenings. Clockwise from top left: Lamon rams a mast off Trepassey then uses SAT to go southeast, the Pirates gather in fog banks with severely anti-Spanish plans, the Nightmare returns home with a little gold while other Cursed ships hide in fog, Americans head for more gold, HMS Nautilus picks up the Cross of Coronado UT, and St. Joan prepares to repair now that she is home safe.
The Pirate plan is to blow up the Cristal del Obispo using the Zephyr’s Explosives! Following that, they hope that a pincer attack with the Panda and Raven’s Neck could cripple their fort and/or remaining ships.
At the bottom, notice the Trader and HMS Nautilus linking up via round earth to explore the northeast corner… a journey that eventually would have major implications for some factions….
Warily eyeing the Pirates, the Spanish play it safe and take the Santa Teresa home, keep the canoes docked, and put the Cristal in a fog bank.
With the Cursed turn immediately after America’s, a peace agreement was made. The Americans and Cursed would not fight each other over that island, agreeing to share the gold. It was a bit uneasy given the firepower each escort had, but this was understandable. The Sea Rat and LN came out of the fog, with the Sea Rat grabbing 3 coins.
Further north, the Cursed gold runners resume normal gathering operations after premeasuring the Gaule’s movement potential.
Fleet deckplate area showing each ship’s cargo arrangements:
Similar to other factions on recent turns, the English play it safe. The Trader could reach the island off the Gaule’s bow, but instead goes west to explore the island the Spanish canoes started at. This does allow HMS Nautilus to fully catch up with the Trader, and she has the better cannons of the two. The Trader loads a 2 and the Mines UT. At the top right, you can see the Hermes and Trepassey docked at wild islands in the distance.
The Pirates have been using the Raven’s Neck to spy on various coins throughout the map, and have spotted quite the coin on the island the Trader nearly went for… the Altar of the Loa. O_O They quickly begin scheming on how they can use their knowledge as power, wondering if they should tell the English. The Spanish are next in the turn order after the English, and thus would be controlled by the English if the latter made a sacrifice at the Altar. This could benefit the Pirates, as they are ready to strike Spain hard and have designs on the treasure in Fortaleza Dorada. Upon this discovery I spent a good 5-10 minutes considering the possibilities and ramifications, even just for the Pirates as they are the only one privy to the information as of now. A huge potential weapon that could destabilize the entire game as soon as it’s revealed!
Interestingly enough the French also spied on that island’s coins with the Marksman’s Map, but only saw 5 of the 10 which didn’t include the Altar.
The French tried to pull a fast one on the Cursed!
The rest of the round was uneventful, with all four Cursed ships getting or going home and the Zephyr changing fog banks to be closer to her target (the Cristal).
What an island! The Edinburgh Trader heads south to explore, knowing that Lawrence will cancel Lenoir on the Gaule to allow HMS Nautilus to broadside the French 5 master. The Trader finds a whopping 5 UT’s, with the Altar being the most consequential.
It was definitely a good time for another video! Until writing the report right now I didn’t realize I accidentally cheated with the English briefly, as the Trader can’t normally carry 12 points of crew. However, I think there was a legal way to do it without affecting any part of the rest of the game (ex: drop the Castaway oarsman for the explorer per the free transfer rules).
The English build Ramsgate!! This was a “coup” of sorts, as it would deny all other fleets from using the Altar, as you cannot dock at an island that has an enemy fort on it. In addition, it brought much more firepower to bear on the Gaule, who was now facing up to 11 English cannons in the area instead of 6. Things were getting interesting!
The Spanish kowtowed to English demands to “stop being wussies”, moving most of their fleet towards Fortaleza’s gold. The canoes couldn’t quite make it (1-2mm away), but the Cristal dumped Malaspina to make room for a 4 that she intended to ferry back to the Spanish HI.
The French return fire!!
A brilliant final move segment by the St. Joan to get all of the Mont Blanc’s cannons in range of the Nautilus, coupled with 6/8 shooting overall, smash up the strong English position at the Ramsgate-Altar island.
Here is the long-awaited Pirate combat turn!
Not as epic as the Pirates were hoping for, but still crippling to the Spanish fleet!
A rare view from the northeast: USS Stephens has loaded Barbary Banner from the Queen of Sheba, the Lamon has rammed the Santa Teresa derelict, and the Sea Rat has returned home with gold as the Loa’s Justice repairs.
The French thorn in the English side was growing. If only the Spanish could be eliminated faster, the next player in the turn order after the English would be the French, which would have been perfect for the English. However, for now it would simply be ugly. The English figured they needed to save the Nautilus, and thus the Trader took her under tow while combining with the fort to cripple the Gaule. In addition, Hermione Gold knew she had Mines hidden on the Trader, which could be used to eliminate the Gaule’s final mast. However, it would be another turn sitting in range of Mont Blanc, and another turn not using the Altar of the Loa.
Having accumulated various coins from different wild islands with the Hermes and Trepassey, the English decide to go all-in on spending and launch HMS Hyena with a complement of 5 generic crew for their entire coffer of 17 gold! O_O It will be interesting to see if this cripples the English long-term gold game and costs them a potential win, or if the firepower and sacrificial crew destined to die at the Altar will provide them the means needed to dictate enough of the endgame to ruin other fleets and control the outcome. The English also bought the ship to provide a third ship with which to fight the French and any other Altar hopefuls, with the trio of Gaule-Lenoir-Mont Blanc providing heavy opposition for the English thus far.
As soon as the Gaule started moving on the French turn, the Mines UT was revealed, causing the ship to lose her final mast at the end of the action. However, Mont Blanc shot 2/4 to beat up the Trader.
With the Gaule now derelict and likely in range of Ramsgate’s L+L range cannon, the St. Joan comes over to assist, towing the flagship and warping her behind the fog bank. At the upper right, the Cristal has repaired a mast at Fortaleza Dorada, with one canoe fleeing into fog and another loading a coin from the fort to try and deny the Pirates from ever having it. (Santa Teresa repairs)
Unsurprisingly, the Pirates take control of the situation. The Raven’s Neck sinks the canoe with gold on it and re-dismasts the Cristal, allowing the Zephyr to capture her (one of the Panda’s hits had taken out the oarsman). The Panda has no good sac fodder left and a dangerous path home to pick up new hires, so Captain Blackheart takes her southeast to shoot at the Nightmare over a reef, dismasting the vessel! The cargo wrecking also forced the Cursed to make some hard choices with their cargo, choosing to eliminate the Nightmare’s helmsman and a 2 while keeping her oarsman and the other 2. (this way the Nightmare could row into the fog bank on the Cursed turn, then eventually get home and use the 2 to get another helmsman)
With the Stephens in range of the Fancy, the Pirates duck the latter into the huge fog bank in search of safer treasures. The Sea Rat has lost her oarsman to a whirlpool as she goes north in search of loot. The Americans are bringing home more gold. They have an inkling that they will have to destroy Paradis to win the game, and thus send the Lamon east to potentially meet up with the Stephens where the Gaule is now.
Hermione Gold and Thomas Gunn are extremely relieved to see the arrival of English reinforcements. The Hyena and Hermes are on the scene. Hyena brings needed firepower and Altar fuel, while the Hermes will start ferrying some gold from Ramsgate back to the English HI. The English already anticipate needing to build another fort on the Altar island with gold from their HI if Ramsgate is destroyed.
The Spanish get some measure of revenge, sinking the Zephyr and captured Cristal! The fort also hits the Raven’s Neck, which is actually the only real threat the Pirates have against the fort. The Panda only has L-range guns, and the RN only has a pair of 3S’s that can hit Fortaleza, so the Pirates may need to launch another gunship if they hope to take the fort’s gold.
O_O Mont Blanc shoots 4/4 to sink the Trader and take Ramsgate down to 1 flag standing! HGold and Lawrence go do with the ship, a devastating blow for the English.
The Fight for Fortaleza ends with the Panda and RN moving on to safer objectives. Seeing the RN and Barnacle approaching and not wanting to lose their HI raiding gold runner, the Cursed turn the Sea Rat around, go back into the whirlpool, and return home, desperate to conserve their assets. They’ve played a guarded game, unwilling to lose any units while slowly gathering gold from nearby islands. The Spanish send their final canoe through a whirlpool to the southwest in search of some leftover “English gold”, but the Fancy emerges from the megafog in hot pursuit. The Pirates plan for the Panda to return home and restock sac fodder for just 2 gold, while the RN and Barnacle will get the coins the Sea Rat was headed for. In the meantime, the Queen of Sheba is helping the Americans mount a comeback in the gold race.
HMS Nautilus repairs at Ramsgate, whose last cannon cannot do anything against the Mont Blanc as it takes two hits from the same shoot action to eliminate the flag (and a third hit overall to sink the flotilla). HMS Hyena docks at the fort with crew to spare at the Altar, but the English are in an agonizingly terrible position. They can only control the Spanish through the Altar right now, who are the weakest faction in play by far. So weak in fact, that the English sacrificing two 1 point generic crew wouldn’t even be worth it, as they could only move around a canoe and the Santa Teresa. Much more appealing is taking control of the French, who the English would control if the Spanish were to be eliminated. Thus, the English engage in talks with the Pirates to potentially team up and eliminate the Spanish. The Pirates generally respond that they would like the Spanish out anyway, if the Fancy can hit the last canoe and the Santa Teresa can be captured for a 5 gold Ransom payout. In the end the English are simply frustrated, as controlling the Spanish feels like a waste since they must spend valuable gold and continually ferry sacrifices to the island in order to use the Altar to eventually, someday get at the French.
In the meantime, the Hermes grabs coins to the north. However, the Lamon is coming….
Mont Blanc destroys Ramsgate! The French had unknowingly positioned the flotilla in the perfect spot where all of her cannons were in range of the fort, while only the L+L cannon was in range of the flotilla! Some of the flotilla’s cannons were also sometimes in range of English ships docked there (hence the Trader sinking), meaning the French had accidentally stumbled into a perfect zone control situation where they were slowly crippling English plans! In addition, the flotilla and Paradis served as a kind of “block zone” against the nearby Cursed HI to the west, making Cursed access to the Altar harder. Plus, Lechim Namod was still missing two tentacles, making the Cursed scared to take on Paradis.
The St. Joan arrives home with the Gaule, who is repairing. At the lower left, a mini-conflict is brewing as three ships have designs on the low-value coins the Hermes originally saw. At the top right, the Lamon has rammed a mast off the Hyena. The English still look like a threat to win if they can control the endgame through the Altar and firepower, so the Americans are enjoying harassing them while waiting for the opportune moment to strike Paradis. (although it could be now with the Gaule repairing, the Stephens is simply too far away) The Nightmare repairs and “restocks” her helmsman as the entire Cursed fleet happens to be at home.
A round of relative peace finally ensues, with plenty of low-value gold scraps to go around. The English surge south, having made a weak agreement to attack Paradis with the Cursed on the following round. St. Joan has returned to the area via round earth, but it remains to be seen if she will ferry gold from the Altar island to Paradis, use the Altar, take Mont Blanc under tow again, or none of the above…. The Lamon shadows the English movements, further complicating the situation as the submarine is extremely dangerous to both the English and French forces.
The Pirates then made an announcement: at the conclusion of this round, the Cursed have a total of 27 gold on their home island. The Raven’s Neck had used her ability to spy every coin on the Cursed HI, and the Pirates were telling the truth. This worried the Americans most, who I know had 22-25 at the time and suspected the French to be ahead of them. Factions made some grumbling about capturing the Sea Rat to use her HI raider ability, but no coalition was formed.
The English started off the next round with a ram, as the gold-laden Trepassey dismasts the Fancy. The English saw this as necessary, as they had premeasured that the Fancy would be able to ram the Trepassey on her way home before the latter could arrive with gold. Basically, a game of don’t become derelict first. (neither ship has any crew; Trepassey won the board)
In a very frustrating round of shooting, HMS Nautilus and HMS Hyena both hit 1/2 to not damage Mont Blanc at all! Ruining an opportunity to cripple the English for good, the flotilla misses all four shots on the English gunships to not do any damage as well! O_O
The Panda finally gets home and loads up two new oarsmen as fresh sac fodder for Blackheart. At the right, Lamon has rammed another mast off the Hyena, making it even harder for the English to defeat Mont Blanc. The Cursed think about sending the Sea Rat to raid the American HI while the Stephens is away, but the nearby Gaule on the west side of that whirlpool makes it too scary.
More disaster for the English as Mont Blanc dismasts the Nautilus and the Hyena is dismasted by the Lamon! The Stephens is transferring a coin to the Queen of Sheba so she can continue east soon to potentially interfere with French or Cursed operations. The Spanish are camping out the Santa Teresa in a fog bank next to their HI in order to stay alive in the game. They are rooting for whoever can beat up the Pirates and potentially control them through the Altar (which would be the French as they go before the Pirates in the turn order). Basically, since the English will control the French if the Spanish are eliminated (bad for the French and therefore the Spanish), the Spanish are both anti-Pirate and anti-English. More of these interfactional dynamics were present than I can remember, especially due to the presence of the Altar, which shifted how some factions played based on who went before them in the turn order (and could control them), and who went after (and could be controlled).
By this point the Pirates were spying on the coins in Paradis, and decided to remind everyone that Wolves had been found on the island, making it impossible to get the gold without a Marine or musketeer even after plowing through Paradis. The Americans had kinda forgot about the Wolves, and this would alter their endgame strategy a bit, not wanting to buy anything given how tight the final gold count was looking.
The English experienced a golden homecoming, with the Hyena zooming home on oar power through Jack’s Compass to dock home a 2, the Hermes arriving on the same turn, and the Trepassey not far behind with 4 more gold along with the prize Fancy in tow. However, considerable English expenditures earlier in the game meant they were facing an uphill battle here towards the end, a battle they were certainly not winning as their purchases got hammered by the French and USS Lamon.
The Pirates were getting desperate as well, with Fortaleza Dorada somewhat likely to win a fight against the Raven’s Neck but the Pirates too poor to launch an effective support gunship with S-range cannons to assist the RN (plus, launching a ship at this point might singlehandedly take a fleet out of the running). The Pirates decided to up their chances by hiring SM Calico Cat to lead the RN.
At the top center, the Pirates look to be round earthing the Panda towards the Spanish canoe (trying to get her 1 home, +1 it and use the 2 to launch El Raton lol), but potentially also towards the American ships in the south. Montana Mays redirects the Lamon northwestwards to intercept, leaving the Altar island abandoned for the first time in many hours of gameplay. The Cursed are nearly done gathering nearby gold, which will bring their total to at least 30. Le Gaule has finished repairing, an ominous sight.
It was time for an important French turn!
A massive French move that likely dooms any chances the Pirates had of making up ground in the standings!
With that, the Stephens had an easy target. Finally the big ship was able to loose a broadside, dismasting the Panda. At the top of the frame, the Cursed have sent the Sea Rat through the same whirlpool as earlier, but this time with their sights set on the now-abandoned Pirate HI….
The Cursed absolutely refuse to take the bait of capturing the Barnacle, as LN’s tentacle will be in range of Paradis’ L-range guns if the squid surfaces to ram the Barnacle derelict. At the top right, the Hermes returns to the northeast to scrounge for scraps. USS Lamon turns around again and heads southeast, with a pair of goals: stop the St. Joan from putting more gold in Paradis, and sacrifice crew at the Altar to take control of the Cursed if truly necessary.
The Gaule dismasts the Raven’s Neck!
St. Joan scurries towards Paradis with a couple coins as the fort dismasts the Barnacle:
The Panda is able to row into the huge fog bank, hoping to return to the Pirate HI soon. The Stephens turns her wrath to the final Spanish canoe, easily sinking it and taking another 1 gold out of the game.
With one of their final two units out of play, the Spanish decide to finally suicide. In an attempt to help the French win (knowing there’s not enough in Fortaleza to win and Santa Teresa can’t unload Anita Amore to get more), Anita Amore pilots the Santa Teresa into a whirlpool, emerging right next to the French home island with the teleportation knocking off the sloop’s lone mast. The Spanish have been eliminated! Anita hopes to be captured by Lenoir, who can bring the vessel home for a 5 gold Ransom payout. However, the French also want the Raven’s Neck so they can use her and Calico Cat to hopefully capture the Sea Rat and steal gold to secure a win. The Spanish have cared little about the outcome for many rounds, having been effectively eliminated a while ago. They didn’t tell the French about this plan, doing it on a whim.
Immediately after the French turn where the Gaule captures the Raven’s Neck, the Panda swoops in from the fog and captures the Santa Teresa! This is an embarrassment for the Spanish and the Contessa, who are now in the hands of the despised Pirates! O_O
The Sea Rat raided the Pirate HI for a coin! However, this made the Pirates feel extremely stupid, as they could have spent all their gold last turn on new game pieces to deny the Sea Rat any coins as soon as they saw her approach through the whirlpool. The Pirates are aggravated and annoyed, and know they have just about no shot at winning now. So they go “full troll” and spend their 8 gold on cheese ships – Rover, Mermaid, and Banshee’s Cry + oarsman. Making the situation even sillier is the Pirate desperation to block the Sea Rat from accessing the whirlpool on the Cursed turn – the Panda sacs her helmsman to move out of French waters and back home, with the Hag of Tortuga making sure both ships touched the whirlpool in an alignment that maximized blocking it off from the Sea Rat. XD Compounding the ridiculous situation, I believe Captain Blackheart died in the whirlpool travel while Contessa Anita Amore survived. The French have ruined the Pirates’ endgame schemes, and now they will play spoiler in any way possible.
However, the Sea Rat is able to escape with her Pirate 1 coin into the nearby fog bank. At the top left, the Hyena has finished repairing to full strength. The Americans are getting desperate now too, as the St. Joan has deposited her pair of coins from the Altar island into Paradis. The Stephens round earths to the north, considering an attack on Fortaleza Dorada or simply heading towards the Altar island where the endgame may be decided.
Some interesting developments: HMS Hyena heads for the Altar, the Hermes and Trepassey bring back a couple more 1’s for the English, Gaule gets the RN home to start repairs, the St. Joan retows the Mont Blanc only to be dismasted by a Lamon ram, the Nightmare appears to have designs on the Altar (first Cursed movement towards it), and the Sea Rat returns to Cursed home waters with her stolen coin.
The beginning of the next round saw HMS Hyena dock at the Altar island and sacrifice two crew! With the Spanish eliminated, the English could at long last control the French fleet!! O_O (in hindsight this is not legal, but certainly a worthy topic for a rules debate especially if the player potentially being skipped has no fort (or other unit not capable of movement) in play)
This is the point in the game where the reefings began, and perhaps where the “true endgame” commenced. It was already devolving into silly and strange shenanigans, and now it would ignite in newly bizarre ways. Le Gaule was tossed into a whirlpool and thrown onto a reef in the north, but she only lost 1 mast. The RN wasn’t in range of a reef but was sailed north towards one, with the Hyena’s captain acting as puppetmaster at the Altar of the Loa.
The English use the Mont Blanc to sink the Nightmare! Bow to the power of the Loa!
Feeling the desperation mounting, the Lamon surfaces, docks at the Altar island, and the Americans sacrifice Montana Mays and a helmsman to the Loa!! O_O What has come over these factions??Are the loa possessing their spirits?
The Sea Rat and Lechim Namod are sent through the whirlpool! The Sea Rat suffers no damage, but LN is nearly killed as her sagging underbelly is ground into powder on the sharp coral reefs. The Panda returns the Santa Teresa home to the Pirate HI, where the latter repairs immediately as Anita Amore becomes a permanent capture in a dark grimy dungeon where Blackheart kept his sac fodder. The last of that fodder is the Panda’s oarsman, which gets transferred to the Banshee’s Cry (BC), a ship that already had one. That means she has two oarsmen aboard… enough for a sacrifice at the Altar….
By now ships were almost literally piling up at the only reefable whirlpool, with likely no space left to place any more ships there in sabotage attempts. The endgame was spiraling out of control, with both the Cursed and French being okay with it ending as soon as possible.
The Loa’s Justice sails out to greet Paradis on her own, hoping the guns will send her to the depths. The 5 on the Barnacle means the Pirates have successfully scuttled her.
Seizing an opportunity for yet another scrap of pitiful coinage, the English ram the Lamon with the Hyena, triggering the ship’s ability to kill off Commodore Matthew Perry and net themselves another 1 gold. The Hermes has taken up Altar duties and I think it was time for another English turn of control over the French!
Le Gaule dismasts the Sea Rat. The Cursed did not mind this at all, but the English wanted themselves or the Pirates to steal the Sea Rat and use it themselves to steal coins from at least one of the front runners. The Pirates have mixed success on their turn trying to kill the ship’s oarsman.
The Americans see the game flash before their eyes: the Lamon can load two coins now that her cargo hold is completely empty, and the Stephens can increase the value of Barbary Banner by blasting away at the various English ships in the area! Perhaps the American comeback story is not yet complete? The Stephens also had designs on using the Altar, but the Cursed are already quite weak now and the Stephens can be more useful simply knocking off masts to make Barbary Banner more valuable.
The Hyena rams to steal a coin from the Lamon. The loa party continues as the Fancy arrives on the scene with fresh sacrifices! She sacs her oarsmen to let the English take control of the French yet again!! XD And the English rebuild Ramsgate to deny the Americans (and Cursed) from using the Altar, simultaneously “claiming” the island’s remaining gold for the approaching gold count! O_O
By now things were getting so desperate and short on actions that there wasn’t even much to do with some of the Altar plays. However, the Gaule was moved onto a reef where she lost her remaining masts, while the Raven’s Neck suffered no damage.
The Panda avoids a shipwreck herself and captures the Gaule! O_O LN has shot off the Rover’s mast but the Sea Rat is still under attack.
The Stephens gets to work, taking out three masts between the Hermes and Fancy! Each mast eliminated gets them 1 gold via Barbary Banner, getting them closer to a potential winning score. Can they do it?
However, the Lamon is sunk before she can submerge! (I believe by the Mont Blanc)
The Sea Rat is able to row into the whirlpool for home.
The English sink the St. Joan with Ramsgate, and HMS Trepassey arrives on the scene with fresh crew! O_O In what may have been a fourth consecutive turn of control, the English take over what remains of the French fleet, using Mont Blanc to sink the Loa’s Justice!
The Stephens uses one of the last actions of the game to shoot at the English again! However, it is a major disappointment, as she goes 1/4 to hit the Hyena.
The Cursed are ready to count and dump the Sea Rat’s oarsman on their HI in an attempt to end the game since the ship is derelict (though still capable of future move actions via the oarsman or repairing, so not a proper sabotage). However, it was over, as I was way past my planned “hard stop end time” of 10pm. It was 1am and I was having trouble making proper decisions for the fleets.
It was time to count! Here are the counts in play order!
English: 24 gold
Spanish: 14 gold
French: 32 gold
Pirates: 10 gold
Americans: 32 gold
The Cursed: 33 gold
O_O The Cursed win one of the closest games of all time!! O_O
Cursed: 33 gold
French: 32 (3 units in play – Paradis de la Mer, Mont Blanc, Raven’s Neck)
Americans: 32 (1 unit in play – USS Stephens)
English: 24
Spanish: 14
Pirates: 10
What a ludicrous game and finish! Unfortunately it comes with an asterisk as the game was not played to true completion, but I still went way past the “time deadline” (at which point I believe the Cursed still would have won). This mirrors the insanely close results of the recent PNW Weekend Marathon of multiplayer games, making me realize even more than ever before that winning this game is a bit of a crapshoot (for better or worse). It’s quite likely that any single die roll falling differently in various circumstances throughout the game could have changed the outcome. Not to mention the “French implosion” – if the Gaule had captured the Santa Teresa that turn instead of the Raven’s Neck, the French could have brought Anita back for 5 gold, plenty enough to win with 37 (perhaps the Panda could have rammed the ST to kill Anita and deny such a result, but Lenoir’s cancelling would have helped by cancelling helmsman or Sac). The Americans were ONE hit away from victory – if one more shot had hit the Hyena on that final shoot action, Barbary Banner would have been worth 7 gold instead of 6, tying them with the Cursed at 33 and likely winning additional tiebreakers (I think LN was killed by a shot from a Pirate sloop during the last round, leaving both the Americans and Cursed with one unit each – at which point the Americans would win the points in play AND masts standing tiebreakers with the healthy Stephens vs. derelict Sea Rat).
The Cursed won by playing a very guarded and cagey game, being about as safe as I’ve ever seen them play as a faction. Their sole launch helped them acquire more gold, and they needed every bit of it to win. The Sea Rat’s HI raid against the Pirates even netted them the 1 coin that made the difference, as without that they would have lost both tiebreakers in a 32-32-32 count. The Cursed benefited heavily from the setup, which was something they helped to engineer. The close islands near their HI helped with quick gold runs back and forth, while the terrain nearby made their HI and gold running operations less accessible to some of the nasty gunships wreaking havoc towards the outskirts of the map. They got a bit lucky choosing a home island first and not having anyone really encroach upon that area with other HI placements.
The Spanish get the last laugh against the Pirates, beating them despite being eliminated before the long and crazy endgame really got going. The Pirates felt the need to “spend to protect” their gold after the Sea Rat threatened all of it, but still avoided a shutout when the Panda went crazy with kidnappings in the final rounds of the game (going from 0 gold to 10 gold after snagging two Ransom crew).
The English finished with a better score than I anticipated, having spent 29 gold across two separate turns on Lawrence, the Trepassey, and Hyena with crew. They must have spent at least 4 additional gold towards the end on “Altar Fuel” in the form of cheap sacrifices. They were way too excited to buy things, and probably could have been in very good position to win if they hadn’t blown a lot of their money. However, their purchases did help to keep them alive and net them some gold, but not enough at the end. It’s fitting (and relieving) they didn’t contend directly for the victory, as their turtles (and 10 of the gold used on the Hyena launch) should have been axed by Kharmic Idol.
This was a wild experience for me, and generally “worthy” of being my 500th game despite various frustrations (and tiredness towards the end). I’m so used to saving being a terrible strategy in campaign games where gold can be used to purchase game pieces, so it was hard to shake that mindset even though I knew that most gold would take it going into the game. Although the win comes with various “what if” asterisks, the Cursed played a masterful game of correctly managing their money, not making enemies, protecting their gold, and snagging low values over the long endgame to come away with enough to win.
For posterity and my own future reference if I play more games with this house rule, a few lessons:
-The factions that spent more did worse (English and Pirates).
-The factions that bought gunships did worse (English and Pirates).
-The factions that bought gold runners did better (Cursed and Americans)
-It’s hard to know when a game like this will end, so it’s better to conserve gold and make sure you’re consistently in the running than spend early on and have to make up a large differential in a desperate and chaotic endgame where most of the “readily available” coins are 1’s and 2’s.
-If I play with this house rule again I want to have a longer timeline. I played for about 11 hours straight and it wasn’t enough. I probably needed at least another hour to reach a proper endgame condition, which was likely going to be half or more fleets unable to give future move actions (the Cursed had almost taken themselves out, and any more reefings of the Raven’s Neck likely would have eliminated the French). This was at a mere 40 point build total, so to finish a game like this properly I’d probably go down to 4-5 fleets if using the same build total. If using a higher build total (even 50 or 60), I’d cap it at an absolute max of 4 fleets. Although you could manipulate it by putting less gold out there, less total gold in play disincentivizes purchases even more, and we already saw the big spenders come in 4th and 6th in this game.
-I enjoyed it a lot and recommend trying this style of play at least once! (purchases legal but regular endgame conditions)
Thanks for reading and please comment below your thoughts on the game! 😀
Documenting my hoarding habits from purchases made in the time period of November 2020 through September 2021. Most of it is contained within this youtube playlist, with 18 separate videos showing the stuff I got!
Before it was all unveiled. The 11 boxes totaled 138 pounds!!
Phase 1 Comics and Games order:
The same order at the bottom right. 8 Ocean’s Edge Special Edition boxes from the UK at left, Troll and Toad order at upper right.
Packs of SM, RV, and OE along with some Plunder Packs:
Super awesome to get a set of Revolution from Holofernes himself. (one of the most legendary and complete supercollectors ever, and the main editor behind the Wikipedia page for the game as far as I know)
Finished the boxes with one from Matt L. Quite excited to finally get most of the CC LE’s, MI SR’s, the Independence and HMS Mirage.
This weekend it took quite a while to get everything sorted and organized. My way of organizing ships is by faction (based on a combination of history, preference, and size), then mast count (biggest to smallest), then ship type (ex: 5 masted square rigged before giant squids), then set (chronological), then collector’s number. In this way, English 5 masters from SM would be the first ships in my collection, followed by those from CC and so on until the 4 masters start with SM again.
Here are some in progress sorting pics. The big stack at lower left is 133 Unique Treasures. Left of that are a bunch of Ocean’s Edge megacard ships, with punched deckplates above those. In the middle section are each faction’s ship and crew piles, with the huge stacks at the back being the second stacks of unpunched ships for each of the Big 5 factions.
Sorting English ships by mast count:
Absolutely ridiculous towering stacks of unpunched ships and crew:
This is after I got the Big 5 into a 5000 count storage box. The box can hold over 1000 ships, as it is not full here with 970 unpunched ships in it. For now I thought it would be fitting to store the UT’s in the treasure chest tin. 🙂
I’ve always wanted to have a massive card box full of Pirates stuff after seeing artisturn’s collection, and here it is! Almost 1000 ships! O_O
And now it is time! The full grand pictures!
THE MOTHERLODE
The Numbers
So there you have it. 870 packs, 3109 ships including over 1100 not even in packs, 509 crew, 133 UT’s, and a dream come true.
I think this concludes UNBOXING THE MOTHERLODE. XD I am officially a Hoarder!!
I should be moving to Washington by early September! (near Wizkids old location, some of their Pirates employees, and not far from PDXYAR! Not to mention shortish flights to Vegas and LA to see Captain Randy and Xerecs!)
-Hope to be in Las Vegas for about a week in July if you want to join Captain Randy and I for the beginnings of a PirateCon
This was quite a long turn for me in CG4 – I tracked the time spent and including this battle report and everything else, the turn took over 30 hours to complete. O_O
New Rules:
-Forts can be given repair actions if they have a shipwright in them. They cannot repair and shoot on the same turn unless they have an extra action available.
-Relaunching Rule: Non Big-6 factions (Big 6 being England, France, Spain, Pirate, America, Cursed) can relaunch Wizkids AND custom game pieces without restrictions other than the No-Duplicates rule being applied to their own fleet. (this is to give the minor factions more of a chance if their best ships are captured and not traded in)
The Master Spreadsheet has information on all the Wizkids game pieces mentioned in this report, while the Customs Database has the custom ones.
PirateAJ14 and Xerecs Factions
PirateAJ14’s Americans cashed in metals to launch the Franklin and Ghost Walker.
Xerecs’ turn marked the start of a new round, and it would be the final round for this LONG duration of resource values!
The Spanish launched the Viento Enfermo, while the Jade Rebellion launched the Sea Fang and Tycoon, both from the_grandmaster’s Back to War set.
It was a huge turn for the Conglomerate! Mata-Nui copied the Arcane, and with the help of Helyrex’s reroll ability, got the 6!! Hidden Trove was brought in to give the Conglomerate over 500 gold!!! O_O
The Conglomerate got busy spending and launching, putting 10 new ships into the water. Among these were a pair of 10 masters, the Outbound Flight and Okoto! Among other ability hightlights, the Outbound Flight is a 40 point 10 master with L-immunity moving S+S+S (!), while the Okoto has Treasure Ship and a base cargo hold of 9! Suddenly the Conglomerate look like a real threat, especially in the western half of the sea, which has been a bit less populous and active thus far in the game.
The English launched HMS Howell, a high-quality unreleased ship.
One of the Longest Turns of All Time
First, I was able to resolve the Pandora’s Box chaos from the previous round.
A review of what they demanded to receive:
The Cursed: Nemo’s Plans (done)
Vikings: Antikythera Mechanism (done)
Barbary Corsairs: Mask of Concealment (not complied with-Skull Spiders instead)
Dutch: Runes of Thor (FN)
Americans: Aegis Shield (The Vengeance of the Cadet Captain)
Mercenaries: Nightmare’s Knot (Fiends of the Blood Islands)
French: Garai (Pirates of Spherus Magna)
Spanish: Mask of Valor (Pirates of Spherus Magna)
Jade Rebellion: The Ring (Seas of Doom)
The Conglomerate: Mask of Wisdom (Spherus Magna)
English: Neptune’s Figurehead (CC)
Here are the UT’s the Pirates actually received from the other players:
Dutch: Runes of Magic
Americans: Plague
Mercenaries: Dead Man’s Chest (OE version)
French: Runes of the Serpent
Spanish: Forged Papers
Jade Rebellion: Abandoned Oarsman
The Conglomerate: Nemo’s Charts
English: Bad Plans
THIS MADE THE PIRATES EXTREMELY ANGRY!!!!
Using the Bomb Box, the Pirates threw out Plague and Bad Plans. The Pirates were irked that the Americans and English gave them negative UT’s. However, almost NONE of the factions in the game gave the Pirates what they wanted! We’ll see how that turns out!
With Studding Sails the Gale Force Nine and Blackleaf took off from the home island at L+L+S+S, as fast as the Hai Peng! Some resource gatherers got home with valuable metals, while a lot of ships seem to be making a beeline for that fogpool….
Some ships at the metals island deferred docking for now to allow room for inevitable Pirate launches coming at the end of the turn. Between Hidden Trove, Evenstar, Silverback John, and a likely change in resource values, the Pirates aren’t too concerned anymore with maximizing their metals production.
First the Hera arrived! She sacced an oarsman to broadside the Diablo flotilla and the ship towing it, El Algeciras! She hit 8/10 to sink the flotilla and nearly dismast the 2 master! The Deceit came through next, providing a canceller in the area for the Pirates. She was also using Phineas Bunce’s ability on the Zeus, giving the latter an extra cannon bonus on top of Lord Henry McLean’s regular bonus. This basically made the Zeus have all 1S cannons for this turn! She blasted away at the Joya del Sol and Castigue, shooting 6/9, causing considerable damage.
The Slave Revolt was next, saccing an oarsman to get a move and shoot after arriving through the whirlpool. Her cannon barrage was disappointing, not coming close to dismasting the Castigue as she was supposed to. However, with Capitaine Chevalle’s Cargo Wrecking ability, her 2 hits on the Castigue still took out 2 of her 3 crew.
The Howler was the next ship through the whirlpools, revealing both Grim the Savage (F&S version) and Richard Berry! With a pair of Marines, this submarine was able to shoot a pair of 2S shots while still submerged! One of them connected, causing further damage to the Castigue.
The Pirates were growing frustrated that their incredible firepower couldn’t even take out this relatively simple Spanish squadron, and so they surprised even themselves by sending the Tempest into the fray with an extra action via Elizabeth’s Piece of Eight (EPoE) on the Jolly Mon. She hit 3/5 to beat up on the Castigue, who was now nearly dismasted. The Leviathan warped into the area, using Edmund Cooke’s +1 cannon bonus against the Spanish to help eliminate 2 canoes and dismast the Algeciras. The Harbinger arrived and took a second action via Sac, but my poor dice luck would not stop, with the Harbinger rolling four 1’s and only hitting once to eliminate a single canoe.
All in all the Pirates were very disappointed with the final result of their sudden, brutal surprise attack. Still, they had managed to dismast 2 ships, nearly dismasted another, and eliminated 3 native canoes. This shows a couple interesting things – for one, whirlpool attacks can be limited in scope because ships can only be given one extra action after arriving via the whirlpool on the same turn, so the immediate damage output of a surprise attack is somewhat limited (for example, imagine if the Zeus had 18 shots instead of 9). In addition, the game is still in the very early stages of combat, and this attack showed how huge the 2 hits per mast rule is. If not for that, the Pirates would have had an easier time taking care of business.
At the end of their turn, the Pirates declared war on the Spanish!
This shot shows the battle area in what is being called The Battle of Whirlpool Island. You can see the Spanish home island where most of their masts and firepower is concentrated. It will be interesting to see if the Spanish try to retaliate in the short term.
The Archipelago was rather quiet overall this turn, with the Deliverance docking at Skull Valley to replenish an oarsman. The Stormcloud uses her shipwright to repair a mast. The Black Pearl was the ship to get the Arcane roll this turn… placing Runes of Odin on the Zeus!! O_O
What a sight! Over a dozen Pirate ships strive to reach the whirlpool created earlier in the game by the Tempest. The Pirates show their strength, as many of these ships will be able to support and back up the Pirate 10 master squadron against the Spanish if things go wrong. Ships launched last turn from the textiles military port (MP) simply scatter, with orders to get as far from the island as their turn’s action(s) will allow. This is because the Pirates still have a MASSIVE amount of gold, and they certainly plan to use it….
The Pirates are not quite as concerned with the Barbary Corsairs as you might think. Although the Corsairs have their own super squadron ready to set sail this round, the Pirates have a lot of firepower still in the area, not to mention another megalaunch from the MP after their play turn ends. However, the Splinter and Flying Dutchman (both just east of the whirlpool) are moving into a defensive position to potentially be the first Pirate ships on the front lines if the Corsairs charge and try to block the whirlpool/attack the military port/etc.
At the home island, various small ships (two with flotillas) swarm off the Arcane’s stern. The Osiris got SAT this turn, so she is off and running at 6S speed towards the possible confrontation with the Corsairs. The Corsairs are certainly close enough to see her heading towards them – what a horrible sight it must be, to see your former flagship heading out to fight you while in Pirate hands. 🙁
You might have noticed something abnormal compared to the last few turns – Pirate resource runners docking at the home island! It is the last round for this resource value, so the Pirates wanted to get some extra textiles home. They had been delayed for a while due to all the megalaunches from Hidden Trove windfalls. However, now the Pirates have 4 launch points instead of 2 (starting this turn), and it actually felt really good as a player to just dock them home normally. This is a more normal way of playing campaign games, instead of holding off because of all these crazy massive windfalls brought in by custom game piece combos. It was also nice to dock some of them home because the Akua Lapu and Hades’ Flame have needed repairs ever since the short but intense battle with the Corsair squadron of 4 masters. (which was back in April)
The Pirates wanted to end their turn with a statement. Something so epic and powerful that it would scare the hell out of every other fleet. Something truly god-like. They knew they had the pieces put together to pull it off….
ZEUS IS HERE!!
(these are not my pictures)
THE GODS ARE IN THE SKIES NOW. THEY HAVE BEEN CALLED BY THE PIRATES!
The Zeus has a certain UT aboard from earlier in the turn…
Runes of Odin!!
Load this treasure face down. When revealed, place an iceberg from outside the game anywhere in the play area not within S of an island. If the iceberg touches any ship, remove the ship (and any crew and treasure aboard her) from the game. Then remove Runes of Odin from the game.
ZEUS THROWS ODIN’S ICEBERG DOWN INTO THE SEA!!
The Pirates placed the iceberg just off the Conglomerate home island!!
Then it was time for… Runes of Magic!! Given to the Shadow’s Hand by the Dutch via Pandora’s Box, this UT would prove decisive!
Load this treasure face down. When revealed, move any iceberg L in any direction. Then remove Runes of Magic from the game.
The iceberg was moved directly into the Outbound Flight, the Conglomerate’s brand-new custom 40 point 10 masted junk!!!!!
O_O
With that, the Outbound Flight and all her crew were removed from the game!!
Introducing: The Odin Missile
It’s almost as if the Pirates have direct control over the gods now. It started with Thor last turn, with Runes of Thor being used on the Cursed turn with the custom Flying Dutchman’s ability so the Cursed could place Nemo’s Plans on the Zeus… Zeus! The Pirates got Runes of Odin to Zeus this turn, playing it in conjunction with Runes of Magic to complete one of the most powerful combos in the entire game. The best part is, the “Odin Missile” is reusable. Both Runes are on ships with Nemo’s Plans, so the Pirates retain both elements of this absurdly nasty combo. This means that once per turn, the Pirates can essentially just pick any ship in play (that isn’t in a fog bank), and just remove it from the game. O_O
The order was given. Zeus and Odin eyed the tiny ships below from up in the clouds. Odin creates a massive iceberg and hands it to Zeus, who will throw it in lieu of his trademark lightning bolts. Zeus winds up and hurls the iceberg at high speed down towards the water… thousands of sailors from across the fleets look up towards the sky, noticing what looks like a meteor, something from the heavens coming down upon them. The large new fleet of The Conglomerate navy is peacefully docked at their home island. Many new sailors are excited to set sail for the first time, having only recently joined the service. With horror they look to the sky at a massive iceberg plummeting towards their new fleet.
In a flash it is upon them. With a massive sudden impact, the iceberg comes crashing down amidships on the Outbound Flight, the newly launched 10 masted junk. The ship is split in half, with the bow and stern rising out of the water as the iceberg plummets through the ship and blows up the powder magazine, sending a vast explosion full of wood, ice, fire and body parts flying in all directions. A new Weapon of Mass Destruction is now in the hands of the Pirates.
With that, the Pirates have an auto-hitting precision strike missile WMD capable of knocking out a ship every turn. This brings them one step closer to having a full scale GMS….
The Pirates have been planning to introduce the Odin Missile for some time now. However, recent events accelerated the development of their WMD program. Even if it was a total accident, by giving the Pirates Runes of Magic, the Dutch helped the Pirates eliminate a Conglomerate ship! We’ll see if that leads to any tension between the Conglomerate and Dutch….
Pirate Launch Period
The Pirates raked in 139 gold from resources, adding it to their existing 1596 for a total of 1735 gold! O_O With 4 locations available for new ships to be launched at, it was inevitable that the Pirates would get busy spending big! 😀 The Pirates don’t have a lot to hide with their quadruple megalaunch (!), and so I will provide more detail than usual regarding what each ship has on board. Naturally, some things should start face down. 🙂 (these are from my notes so some things may be overly abbreviated)
CHO=Captain, Helmsman, and Oarsman (C+H=Captain and Helmsman) | WH=World Hater | FPS=Firepot Specialist | CSS=Chainshot Specialist
From Skull Valley: 9 Ships, 308 Points
The Pirates launched my version of the “movie” Queen Anne’s Revenge (from On Stranger Tides) with a big crew setup: Evan Stern (Captain+SAT), Jean Hamlin (Helmsman+World Hater except against the French), Nidiki (transferred from the Branwen), Coconut (Reroll+Explorer), Dinghy (+1 cargo), oarsman. She will be resupplied by Cadet-Captain Mike’s Quedagh Merchant, who is the QAR’s personal support and supply ship.
The Arbiter was launched to provide a new place for Nuva to copy Vesok/Arcane to so the Black Pearl can get back to her regular gunship duties.
Cor’dahk + The Mastermind (EA), Hernán Sanchez (C+WH), helmsman, oarsman.
Freedom Fighter + Captain Archer Rook (Sac+Gold Capture), One-Eyed Bennett (C+H), 4 oarsmen.
Fiasco + Roger Hawkins (C+H), The Headhunter (Sac+World Hater), Volting Junipau (FPS, CSS, crew kill on 6’s), Streamlined Hull, 4 oarsmen.
Victoire + Howard Hook (Sac Captain + spying), helmsman, 4 oarsmen
Albino and Destiny’s Bounty, each with CH, Dinghy and 5 oarsmen.
From the textiles military port: 13 Ships, 397 Points
Toruk + Chen Tianbao (C+H), Trainer (SAT+Dark Hunter), Bessho Kai (used as World Hater), oarsman.
Kingpin + Christopher Condent (Captain+WH+Filching Gold), Cai Qian (EA), Iron-Plated Hull, helmsman, and Streamlined Hull.
Crescent Rose + CHO, Ballista, equipment
Lilac + CHO, Ballista.
Fool’s Hope (LE) + CHO, equipment
Misfortune’s Keep + Le Requin (SAT), El Mulato Grillo (WH+Spanish Massacre), CHO, shipwright.
Red Sky at Morning + Emanuel Wynn (Captain, +S w/in S of enemy ship, +1 to boards against English), helmsman, shipwright, oarsman.
Dead Man’s Revenge + CHO.
Screecher + CHO, shipwright.
Shadow Stalker + stuff
Eclector + helmsman, shipwright, 5 oarsmen, Dinghy, Streamlined Hull.
Pandora (Seas of Doom) + helmsman, shipwright, 4 oarsmen, Dinghy, Streamlined Hull.
Oyster + helmsman, 2 shipwrights, 3 oarsmen, Dinghy
From the metals military port: 12 Ships, 260 Points
Introducing: The Anti-Spanish Squadron!
With their declaration of war against Spain, the Pirates have invested a considerable chunk of points into a new anti-Spanish squadron. Every ship in the squadron gets at least +1 to their cannon rolls against Spanish ships, and some get +1 to all their d6 rolls against Spain. The Fame’s Revenge is the flagship of the squadron, which the Pirates hope to expand to at least 10 ships (7 for now) in the near future.
Fame’s Revenge + Daniel Montbars (arguably the most anti-Spanish pirate to ever live), CHO, FPS.
Muerta de la Corona + CHO, FPS.
Claudia + Guilder (Captain+S-Board), Vincenzo Alessandri (Musketeer, +1 boards), helmsman.
Ranger + Michiel Andrieszoon (Captain, +1 to d6 rolls against Spanish), Jan Willems (+1 to boards against Spanish), helmsman, +more.
Broken Key + John Cooke (Captain, +1 to cannon rolls against Spanish), David Marteen (+1 to d6 rolls against Spanish), helmsman, oarsman, equipment.
La Morte de Yarborough: Jean Thomas Dulaien (Captain, +1 to d6 rolls against Spanish), helmsman, +more.
Batavian Bat + Michel de Grammont (Captain, +1 to cannon rolls against Spanish, +1 to boards against Dutch), helmsman, oarsman.
These will likely be patrol gunships – the first 4 all rather similar and all some of my favorite classics from the original sets.
Executioner + C+H, others
Panda + CHO, Ballista, equipment
Royal James + CHO, FPS
Cutlass + CHO, crew
Zui Quan + Mo Guanfu (Captain+Cannoneer), helmsman, oarsman, Ballista
-Once in a while the Pirates like to just throw something out there in full view to show some might. The Zui Quan can shoot 5 cannons as a 2 master, hitting at L+L range on 6’s to eliminate 2 masts per hit. 🙂
You may notice a trend developing between this and the previous recent Pirate launches… perhaps an “assembly” of sorts….
This Pirate Turn By the Numbers
Ships Launched: 41
Gold Spent: 1,211
Gold Remaining: 524 New Fleet Totals: 148 Ships, ~3,740 Points
O_O
The Pirate fleet was already #1 all-time with their point total from last round, and now they have become the largest fleet of all time by ship count!! 😀
O_O
Just bonkers crazy numbers!!!
A 41 ship fleet for 1211 total points is a nice total for any fleet to reach in a campaign game. The Pirates just added it in one turn! In addition, their fleet size by point total is now larger than almost all other recorded huge games ever played. Their long term vision and plans are rapidly coming to fruition!!
The Cursed Play Turn
The Cursed rolled successfully on both the custom Flying Dutchman’s ability and Davy Jones copying the Arcane! With the FD they brought in Runes of Thor, giving it to the Pirates!! It was placed on the Zeus, who already carries Nemo’s Plans. This meant the Pirates now have two ships that carry reusable versions of Runes of Thor, due to Nemo’s Plans. O_O
The successful Arcane roll was used to bring in Hidden Trove, placed on the Maman Brigitte! The custom ship The Rock copied Davy Jones (and through him, the Arcane) via the Eye of Insanity UT. After failing the roll and reroll, the Pirates intervened! They used their original Runes of Thor (on the Noble Swan) to force a 6! This allowed the Cursed to bring in Evenstar, placing it on the Maman Brigitte!! The Maman Brigitte was given an explore action targeting the home island, unloading both UT’s for a supermassive windfall!!!!! The God of Thunder has spoken. By Thor’s decree, The Cursed will be FILTHY RICH, OVERNIGHT!!!
307 ships in play at the beginning of the Cursed turn means Hidden Trove is worth 614 for The Cursed. Evenstar triples it to 1842 gold!!Add in their existing 617 and they have 2459 total gold!! O_O
The Pirates use their second RoT on a failed Cursed AA! It is used to propel the Chimeratron Legacy towards the Americans! She speeds out from the home island at an absolutely sickening speed of S+S+L+S+L(Python bonus)+S(trade current)(first action)+S+S+L+S+L(Python bonus)!!!! O_O
Video footage of the Legacy’s first turn of actions!
Here comes the superweapon!! Isaiah van Tyne L-boards the Kettering! Between her crew and bonuses, the CL has a base boarding score of 21! O_O This made rolling a non-issue; there was no way this supermassively overloaded maxed out 10 master was going to lose this boarding party! The CL wins and Captain Shamshere captures ALL four of the Kettering’s crew!! O_O How’s that for an entrance!
Then it was time to start shooting. The CL used Bow Chasers to slightly damage the Bonhomme Richard, then shot a grapple shot at S+S range to board the Richard. The CL won and stole all the crew from the BR!! O_O Both American gunships were suddenly devoid of crew, with all 7 now residing on the CL. The CL then managed to finish shooting a mast off the Kettering.
Then the Devil’s Storm turned around and shot up the stern of the Bonhomme Richard, eliminating 2 masts! In more bad news for the Americans: Chimera, Divine Beast of the Apocalypse is on her way. And the same for the Python and Devil’s Frenzy! This shows the Cursed-American situation in the northwest. At the far right, you can see that on their turn, the Pirates got the Stormy Night’s ability and used it to move the Rattlesnake onto the sargasso sea where the Harlequin is still stuck.
Indeed, ships were departing the Cursed HI en masse. Ships generally scattered, all going off on different missions. At the bottom of the frame, the Solenostomus has upgraded Figlar Castle!! O_O The Cursed used Barst (just like Lord Mycron; on the Tomb of Lucifer) to give the Opal Shrine an extra action, which she used to enter the whirlpool and arrive in the northwest corner (you can see her at the top left). There she used her gold to build another copy of Figlar Castle!! O_O This should seem… far more than ominous….
Cursed Launch Period
With a decent amount of room at their home island and over 2400 gold, The Cursed did a megalaunch! For the second turn in a row, they placed as many ships as they possible could at their home island.
Tridax + 3 Crew, Ballista
Call of the Sea + 3 Crew, helmsman, shipwright, oarsman, Dinghy
Royal Feces takes over for The Rock on Eye of Insanity (Davy Jones proxy) duties.
Spiral Chaos + The Sister of Tortuga (Shipwright+can’t be pinned), helmsman, oarsman, Gilded Figurehead
Sargasso Nightmare + Duogoth Vonnagos (Captain+Grapeshot Specialist), Ole Gregory, equipment specialist, helmsman, oarsman, Dinghy, Ballista
Ganon’s Phantom + CHO, Dinghy, equipment
Sea Hag + Crew, CHO.
Cerberus + CHO, equipment
Apparition + CHO, equipment
Hangman’s Joke + CHO, Ballista, equipment
Ghost Wind + CHO, Ballista
Needle + CHO, Streamlined Hull
Alligator + Captain, Streamlined Hull, smokepot shot
The Cursed spent 363 gold on 13 new ships! They completed their fog hopping squadron, in addition to adding some more ships for specific purposes.
The new Cursed totals: (last time at 24 ships, 961 points)
37 ships, 1324 points
The Cursed are expanding rapidly, increasing the size of their fleet (by ship total) by just over 50% in one turn.
Vikings and Corsairs
The Vikings once again couldn’t get Jord’s copied Arcane roll to work even with Shayna Deux’s reroll to help out. However, the Hrothgar returned home with three lumber tokens, allowing them to cash in for 12 gold to get the Timperswayd (from Pirates of the Kraken Sea) with a helmsman. This brings their fleet to 14 ships and 239 points.
The Corsairs sent some of their newest ships (the super squadron launched last turn) west, appearing to aim them straight at the Pirates. It seems unlikely they would actually try to attack the Pirates at such a numbers disadvantage, as a more foolish idea can hardly be imagined. The Corsairs brought home enough resources to launch a bit, but they didn’t get any Arcane rolls to work (all on the Nephila, but 4 total tries between Gilded Figurehead, a 2d6 ability, and Reroll).
The Corsairs launched:
HMB Sayyida + helmsman, 3 other crew and 1 equipment
Great Desert + C+H, Ballista
2 ships launched for 53 points. This brings their totals to 26 ships and 477 points.
Here is a wide view of the northeast, showing (from left to right) the home islands of the Vikings, Pirates, Corsairs, and English. With massive megalaunches happening every turn, the Pirate deckplate areas have been overflowing in all directions lately. At the upper right, notice that a huge percentage of recently hired Corsair crew are face down.
With that, my turn was over! There are now 323 ships in play, with my factions adding 57 this round! Throwing some numbers together, I can also come up with a new point estimate. My factions spent a total of 1644 gold this round (1211+363+12+58). The Conglomerate spent most of their Hidden Trove, which we can estimate at 500 gold now at around 2144 new points in play this round). Some other factions launched but some crew were lost in combat, so we’ll be conservative and not assume a point gain from that.
Using last turn’s point count of 5297 and adding 2144…
~7,441 Total Points In Play
O_O This means that CG4 could be the second biggest game of all time behind only Command the Oceans!! O_O
