Two 3 Player 120 Point Games in Los Angeles
February 12th, 2022
Ahoy there! I met up with JW Darkhurst and Gazerbeam543 at Gazerbeam’s house in LA for the final two games of my time in SoCal!
The setup was quite simple – round earth rules, no terrain, with a build total of 120 points.
I went with Calypso on the Floating Stone once again, this time with the Divine Dragon as the primary gunship. The Frontier would be the main gold hauler, but the inclusion of the Coleoptera (a gold version produced by Vulkan) and Slipstream promised to change things up a bit.
Gazerbeam’s fleet was led by HMS Endeavour, with other fine ships accompanying her to include the Neptune’s Hoard, Virtuous Wind and Algeciras.
JW’s fleet had another Frontier along with a trio of large competitive vessels: Enterprise, San Cristobal, and 025 Black Pearl.
We were all loaded with plenty of face down crew!
Calypso’s roll didn’t kick in on round 1 so I kept my non-submergeable ships docked at the home island.
Gazerbeam’s fleet was quickly revealed to be heavily reliant on Sac, with the Neptune’s Hoard and Virtuous Wind easily exploring wild islands because of it. JW’s fleet splits up, with the San Cristobal shadowing the NH.
Seeing an opportunity to potentially capture a second Frontier, El Fantasma sacs an oarsman to send the Divine Dragon into battle. She dismasts the Black Pearl but uses all her firepower to do so!
Negative UT’s have been a real thorn in my side lately and I’ve gotten pretty sick of it. In this case Jail warped the Frontier’s somewhat impressive crew complement to my home island, while Maps of Hades could prove annoying if the rolls went poorly. The submerged Coleoptera is mostly sitting there as a deterrent.
In the meantime, Calypso creates a whirlpool, but the Slipstream is too slow to reach it. This was partly due to a fleet building error on my part where I had to dump the Slipstream’s helmsman last minute due to exceeding the point limit of the ship.
With help from a double action and LE Griffin, the Endeavour sails over and blasts the Frontier, dismasting her! In an attempt to salvage the situation, the gold is unloaded back to the island and into a newly built Paradis de la Mer.
The Black Pearl was able to row home to safety, but the San Cristobal bore the brunt of the Divine Dragon’s next attack. However, JW’s Frontier was free to grab some cargo from the SC. The Virtuous Wind has Plague aboard and it looks like she will team up with the Algeciras+Diablo combo to harass some enemies.
The San Cristobal also had a helmsman and oarsman just like the Black Pearl, and so was able to quickly row home to safety. The Enterprise gets an EA to blast away at the Divine Dragon, hitting consistently to cripple the junk.
The Divine Dragon sacs to reach a whirlpool that carries her nearly all the way home. The Slipstream rammed the Virtuous Wind, giving the submarine the Plague. The Endeavour is not willing to assault Paradis de la Mer, at least not alone. The fog banks are actually trade currents created by a navigator on my Coeur du Lion.
Lots of repairs were carried out at home islands late in the game, but we called it soon afterwards.
Scores:
- Gazerbeam: 24 gold
- A7XfanBen: 14
- JW Darkhurst: 11
We agreed to play a second game with the same fleets. However, the setup was changed substantially, with a new cardboard “castle” of sorts being placed in the center of the map. It could only be docked at where the black marks are (the westernmost area), and it contained a little extra gold. We added terrain with the stipulation that it had to be placed in chains of at least 3 terrain each. This led to some long strings.
Such a pretty game!
As could be expected by now, Gazerbeam and I quickly came to blows battling over the center island’s contested beach. The Cassandra was blasted apart, but I knew HMS Endeavour would come calling soon enough.
At the upper right, Gazerbeam’s gold runners have sacced to wild islands. At the lower right, JW pairs the SC and BP while the Enterprise may try to sail around the castle on her own. Up top, notice the Coleoptera has round earthed near Gazerbeam’s home island….
Gazerbeam brought many guns to bear on my forces, sinking HMS Lady Provost and damaging both the Divine Dragon and Frontier. I scooted home to repair, disappointed that he was able to extricate the Cassandra from the chaos. Various details have been forgotten in these recent reports, as battle reports written on the same day as the game is played is much more optimal than trying to describe things weeks later.
My plan is revealed as the Captain Villanueva surfaces the Coleoptera to steal a coin from Gazerbeam’s home island! He’d like to stay and take another next turn, but this is likely suicide with the Neptune’s Hoard docked only a few yards away. Instead, Lord Mycron sacrifices the Patagonia’s action to send the Coleoptera back through the whirlpool she came from, upon which she is near Calypso’s initial whirlpool by my HI and within hoisting range for the Frontier to take and then deposit the stolen loot onto my HI all in one turn!
The Endeavour continued sailing, going south to dismast JW’s Black Pearl. The latter gets home as she did last game, with the San Cristobal also escaping. Up top, the Enterprise may be looking to crush the Neptune’s Hoard, but possibly just missed her chance.
A battlefield developed around JW’s home island, with the Frontier coming through a new whirlpool that allowed canceller DNT to cancel Lawrence on the Endeavour! The Divine Dragon was next, with Fantasma saccing an oarsman to blast away at the Endeavour and finally sink the legendary flagship for good!
Alas, it was too late, as Gazerbeam had earned another victory!
Scores:
- Gazerbeam: 32 gold
- JW Darkhurst: 15
- A7XfanBen: 5