What was your original collection?
Originally posted to Miniature Trading on June 29th, 2016
I got into this game back in 2005 (soon after CC came out I believe, but I only remember SM packs in the store), and I purchased a small amount of stuff from the first 6 sets, excluding SCS of course.
This is my original collection of 49 ships that I hold dear to my heart, and these ships are the truest veterans in my entire collection of ~800 punched ships. They’ve been involved in the first-ever Historical Fantasy Scenarios I had, as well as numerous regular games. This was all I had until 2010 or 2011.
English:
HMS Gargantuan x2
HMS Lord Walpole
HMS Birkenhead
HMS Nautilus
HMS Bath
HMS Frolic
French:
La Magnifique
La Possession x2
L’Amazone
La Danae
Le Mercure
Le Republicain
Tiger (always thought she was French for some reason lol)
Le Courageux x2
Spanish:
Santo Columba
La Trinidad
Asesino de la Nave (first 2 packs)
La Bahama
El San Jose
El Pulpo
La Repulsa (first 2 packs)
Americans:
Enterprise
Concord
Louisiana
Boston
Jarvis
Swamp Fox
Dark Fox
Pirates:
Broken Key
Black Diamond
Dark Pact
Batavian Bat (first 2 packs)
Greyhound
Selkie
El Dorado
Muerta de la Corona (first 2 packs)
El Ladron x2
Cursed Blade
Raven
Carrion Crow x2
Coral
Lightning
Algiers
Griffin
The first and biggest ship(s) of each faction were the flagships. The battles between the two Gargantuans vs. the Enterprise and Magnifique were legendary, with the Lord Walpole and Birkenhead often giving the English a victory late in the battle. The amount of Pirate ships sometimes led to a coalition between all the other factions to take them out. The Raven and Mercure were overly fast scout ships that no other fleet could match. In the end, my love of the English usually made them prevail, but it was a fun time indeed.
Of course, your original collection may be quite different than mine, especially if you bought hundreds of ships at once to start out. It could even just be the first pack or first 5-10 packs you opened, or like me, the first batch you had for quite some time before acquiring more stuff much later on.
So, what was your original collection?
My other posts from the thread:
Imagine the gaming experience a player would get if they received an RV pack with Banshee’s Cry, Santa Isabel, and Don Pedro Gilbert! They would forever be disappointed with everything else….
If I had to pick “my” flagship, it would have to be HMS Lord Walpole. HMS Lord Algernon is technically my favorite ship, but more because I wanted it so bad back in the day. That being said, HMS Birkenhead was always right up there with the Lord Walpole, while La Magnifique or the Broken Key would be my top non-English flagship back then.
@Xerecs: Your post reminded me of something I meant to put in my first post of this thread.
How could I forget the “lost 3”?
La Belle Etoile
L’Eroica
Straw Man
The Belle Etoile was simply lost as far as I know. I believe L’Eroica was lost as well, though she may have been badly damaged during construction, after which point I may have thrown her out. The Straw Man was not so fortunate… I had a really bad day and decided to take out my wrath on what I considered my worst ship (from a gameplay, HFS, and artwork perspective). I crushed it in anger, sitting and possibly stomping on it, which I later regretted. I have since acquired another one, but I don’t think I’ve used it and I don’t think I will. With those 3 it would have been 52 ships.
Also, we have some similarities – we both got a Santo Columba, Swamp Fox, and others very early on. I’ve talked extensively about how my collection has grown in a Pojo thread. Ironically that thread was posted 5 years ago yesterday. It also confirms that I did indeed come back from my long hiatus in 2010 rather than 2011. I may have lurked here longer than I thought (perhaps more than the month that I recall), but I don’t remember much of it haha. I bought 55 ships from Strikezoneonline for $10 (+ $10 shipping) in order to get as much quantity as possible. This was literally just to have as many ships as possible for my Historical Fantasy Scenarios. That purchase is also where my 8 Mayfair’s came from.
To think I played HFS’s for almost an entire year (on and off of course) before I joined Pojo… you should have seen it. My room was completely different back then, between then and Century of the Empires (2013 – the first game I took pictures for). There was a lot of what do you call them… “natural obstructions” which made for deep harbors and interesting interactions between fleets. The only thing I specifically remember is a very low circular table that made for a sort of cave/overhang with at least one or two harbors attached to the supports beneath it. Ships would sail from these harbors in lines of battle to engage each other in epic battles on the high seas… it was only around 6 years ago, but when almost everything in your Pirates CSG career has happened since then, it becomes quite nostalgic. For a week or two now I’ve been thinking about recreating that atmosphere for another “flashback” opportunity… I don’t know how epic I can make it, but it will certainly shed light on the sheer scale of it all…
First page of the original thread on Miniature Trading