Several of the Rise of the Fiends Limited Edition ship have been showing up in the Pirates of the Cursed Sea Treasure Chest
First up is the Grinder: point for point one of the best ships that the Cursed have. And I’ll tell you why. Continue Reading »
Arr!
The most recent Pirates set, Fire and Steel, has introduced a couple of new, more expensive Flotillas. Where all of the Flotillas in Rise of the Fiends cost 7pts, several of these new Flotillas cost 9pts. This is actually a good thing, because the new Flotillas have abilities beyond just double-range cannons, and because now you have room to put more expensive crew onto them. And, there is one new Flotilla that just costs 6pts, for you point-pinching Pirates. Continue Reading »
The basic idea for this fleet is hit-and-run: pop out of the Fog Cloud/Smoke Cloud when it dissipates at the beginning of your turn, shoot at anything within range, and then duck back into a new cloud.
Here is a sneak peek of a new Sea Dragon from Fire & Steel, the Raptor Maw! Continue Reading »
Another of the new ship types in Pirates
One of the new ship types that has me excited in the latest Pirates of the Cursed Seas: Rise of the Fiends sets is Flotillas. These stationary gun platforms are meant to be used to protect your trade routes/gold runners, and are cheap at only 7pts each. But, the pros and cons of these units need to be weighed carefully before adding them to your fleet. Continue Reading »
This past week, I played Pirates
This was the fleet I ran at last week’s “Rolling Hurricanes” Pirates game. It didn’t work out like I had planned, but I still had fun.
Pyre (14pts)-Submarine. Ghost Ship
Tabatha McWarren(3pts)-Crew of any nationality can use their abilities on this ship
Olof Linstrom(6pts)-Marine
Lawrence(5pts)-Once per turn, one crew or ship within S of this ship cannot use its ability that turn
USS Mercury(16pts)-Submarine. This ship ignores the first hit she takes each turn as long as she has all of her hull pieces.
Christian Fiore(6pts)-Ex-patriot. Once per turn, one crew or ship within S of this ship cannot use its ability that turn.
Helmsman(2pts)-+S base move
Commodore David Porter(7pts)-Broadsides Attack. This ship may move and shoot using the same move action.
Wayne Nolan(0pts)-Limit, Ransom. Choose one American crew during setup; this crew is linked to that crew. Once per turn, you may reroll any die roll you make for this ship; you must use the second die roll result.
Raft(1pt)
Last Wednesday, we had a special scenario for our weekly Pirates game: Sea Monsters Attack. It was a normal 50pt game with treasure, but 2 “Place Kraken” and 2 “Place Sea Monster” tokens were mixed in with the treasure. When you found one of the tokens, a Sea Monster or Kraken was placed near the island the token was on, and 3 gold were immediately placed on the discoverer’s Home Island. If you were able to destroy a Sea Monster or Kraken, you also got 3 gold on your Home Island. After your turn, the Sea Monster or Kraken becomes part of the next player’s fleet.
The Sea Monsters and Kraken worked like this: on the turn they were discovered, they became part of your fleet. You rolled a die to see what actions they could be given: either move, attack, or move and attack. On a roll of a 1, the Sea Monster or Kraken would submerge and be removed from the game.
Here’s the fleet I played:
Early in the game, I took the Banshee’s Cry out to a Wild Island. Unfortunately, I found one of the Sea Monsters, and although I tried moving it away from the Cry (since it was a very small ship), the next player moved it back and before I could do anything, the Monster had killed the Cry.:(
Through the rest of the game, I found the other Sea Monster(the Mist Walker, which luckily moved over and killed another small explorer ship), but I was also able to get quite a bit more gold back to my home island. By the end of the game, I had more gold than anyone else, and I won!:)
Next week’s game is a 60pt Rolling Hurricane scenario, which should be fun.:)
Last night’s game was “Battle for the Spanish Main”, a 100pt, no-hold barred gun battle. The winner would be the fleet with the most remaining points at the end of the night, or when one fleet was eliminated from the game.We had 6 players, including the Privateer, so we split into 2 games of 3 players each.
My fleet consisted of 4 Sea Monsters, plus some crew:
My original fleet was an American war fleet, with the Franklin and Blackwatch being the key ships. But I figured that would be easy to build and play…and boring. So, I built this all Monster fleet as a challenge.
The privateer, myself and another player squared off around the play area. I had my 4 monsters, he had 5 4-5 masted ships, including the Franklin. The Privateer had loaned her fleet (a Viking Longboat wolf-fleet, which we will see later was very effective) to someone else. Instead, she bought
At the start of the game, my sea dragon, Shal-Bala, attempted to attach a long ship in the Privateer’s fleet. But, I rolled my attack badly, and underestimated the speed of her other ships, and the Sea Dragon died. 
My two Titans (giant crabs) did ok for a while, but Brachyura got wounded during an attack, and instead of moving it away, I stayed in the fight too long, and it was destroyed also. But, before it died, I was able to derelict one of the Privateers ships.
While this was going on, the other player’s war-fleet was lining up in a standard fleet maneuver, but no one was crazy enough to attack the line, so he had to break up the line, sail closer to the other fleets, and re-line up.
While that was going on, I was able to get Behemoth (the giant squid) positioned up and attack another of the Privateer’s ships. I rolled badly again, and was only able to knock off two masts. The attacked ship returned fire, and I lost 2 tentacles. Choosing better know, I submerged Behemoth and moved it away from the fight.
The war-fleet player started to move the Franklin (a pretty effective gunship) in to take on the Behemoth, but realized that he couldn’t attack me while I was submerged. Instead, he went past me and sank the derrilict Privateer ship.
That player also lined up the rest of the fleet behind Behemoth (submerged), so we ended up with the Great Squid Conga Line! 
The Privateer’s Longships were in range of the gun-fleet, and so she rammed the ship at the head of the line. A bad series of rolls didn’t destroy the attacked ship, and the return fire only slightly hurt the Longship. So, I took advantage.
Behemoth, which had spent 2 turns copying the Shipwright ability to repair, rose up from the watery depths and attacked both boats. I used Behemoth’s ability to copy Raninoidea’s “This ship eliminates two masts with one hit.” ability, and was able to sink both ships in one attack. It was glorious! Unfortunately, it also left me on the surface, and vulnerable to attack from both fleets, and the squid didn’t last long after that.
Raninoidea, meanwhile, had made a quick attack against a ship, had taken two hits, and had moved behind the Privateer’s Home Island to repair for a couple of turns. I moved it out to take on 2 of the Privateer’s vessels, but only damaged both. The gun-fleet moved in a sank the remaining ships of the Privateer’s fleet. Once one player had been eliminated, the game ended.
The final standings were that I had one ship with 34pts remaining. The gun-fleet had 3 ships, I think, with around 64pts left, and so he won. But it was a great fight!
At the other table, the Longship wolf-fleet did pretty well, I hear. The one ship of the fleet was able to sail up and pin the Zeus, while the rest of the fleet moved in and sank the big ship in one round!
At the end of the game, I heard that one fleet had stolen 2 ships, and ended up with 120-ish points on the field, while a second fleet was in the 110s or so.
Overall, it was a fun night. Next week’s scenario is “Treasure Island” which I have never run before, but should be fun. wi