Heya folks! I am new to these forums, and to the game in general. In fact I played my first game immediately following my demo at Gen Con on Saturday two weeks ago. Although I am new, I have managed to trade into some decent stuff. Basicly I traded my way into what I thought was a good Fleet while I was at Gen Con and do not have much left to trade with now, not that there are many opprotunities to trade locally. I am one of only two players locally, the other being a friend that went to Gen Con with me, and we share our collection together so trade between us would be futile.

We know of a store not far from here where they play, and we are thinking about making a trip out there this weekend for a few games. Before I head out there I wanted to see what advice I might get about my fleet and any strategy tips I may not be aware of due to my limited play experience. Right now I am playing a Pirate Fleet with The Revenant and The Zephyr. The Revenant is my Flag Ship and she is crewed by Captain Blackheart, Calico Cat, and a Helmsman. I have mostly been playing against my one local friend who runs The HMS Titan with Myngs, a Captain, and a Helmsman on board, with a Zephyr as a support / treasure running ship.

I tend to win more than I lose, which from what I hear is pretty good when playing against super Titan. Unfortunately I am pretty sure the only reason I win as often as I do is poor dice luck on my friend's ability to take consecutive actions, and because I have a bit more experience in miniature combat.

Basicly I have been playing the game as a combat game, but with the new end game rulings I have been reading about I have my doubts as to the validity of this tactic. I have found in my games that the winner is usually the first person to shoot at the enemy's Flag Ship. So, I have been playing with the Zephyr as a Treasure Running ship, and I also use it as a wall from time to time because I can shoot through my ship, but it can help to absorb some of the return fire, but most of my strategy lies in rolling up on the enemy and firing as many cannons as I can in his direction. Ideally I will sink his HMS Titan and then grab as much treasure as I can while his Zephyr brings in one coin per trip.

With these new rules, I wonder how well a combat based fleet will do. Does anyone have any advice they could share about that? Can combat fleets work? If so, how should they be played? If not, what kinds of things should I be looking for tradewise when I am at this other store to make a fleet which would be competitive in this environment? While I do not have much for Pirates stuff to trade, I have LARGE collections of other games that I can barter with.

Thanks for any help and/or advice you may be able to offer.

Well, just stating the obvious:
If these new end-condition "rules" (which really aren't "rules" yet, IMO - just the way one tournament with extreme conditions was run) take hold, than any fleet that relies on "combat" (a big 5 master) is utterly unlikely to do well against a fleet of smaller, faster ships that can take advantage of this ridiculous rule.

Why fight the 5 master on the open sea, when you can pin him, while your super-fast smallboats are cleaning out islands?
If you play the Venture, you can even sink yourself once you get some gold home.

I meant Carrion Crow instead of Venture. The Venture makes it so he can't derelict you without sinking you.

Want to win with the new tourny rules? Get 6 or 7 Carrion Crows. If you use only 6 put 2 helmsmen and 2 explorers onboard a few.

Send 2 or 3 immediately after your opponents ships, their goal is to pin, delay, and fight and die. Send the others directly to the islands for a treasure run. The moment you get any type of gold avantage on your home island over your opponent, you main goal in life is to swarm your opponents fleet with all remaining ships and pin, fight and die. The beautiful part here is that if you managed to pin his ships when he had less gold on his island, it doesn't matter if all your ships get blown to bits, or if you get lucky and blow your opponent away with your Crow swarm, you win.

By the way, I am not saying I like this sort of play style, I think its stupid, but this is one of the best ways to win considering the tournament end of game rules. Combat based fleets in this environment are simply not viable, and are just fighting against themselves, they lose for winning.

That's what I was afraid of. I was so happy to have got my hands on some of these very nice pieces, Revenant, Zephyr, Blackheart, and Calico Cat are not easy to get from what I understand. Now all of those very nice pieces are worth much less because the strategy for which they are best suited is less viable. It's very frusterating, but I guess I will have to just **** it up and start looking for a new fleet.

Maybe something like this...

Zephyr (5)

Zephyr (5)

Carrion Crow (4)
Explorer (1)

Carrion Crow (4)
Explorer (1)

Carrion Crow (4)
Explorer(1)

Carrion Crow (4)
Explorer(1)

Use the Zephyrs to chase down and pin ships, and use the Carrion swarm to gather as much treasure as possible. Of course that means I will have to trade for everything on that list save for one Zephyr and two Carrion Crows, but do you think a fleet like that has potential to win under the new rules?

By the way, thanks for the feedback to all that replied. I much appreciate it. Hopefully the rules folks will come around and make some corrections to make it viable to play more than just one cheesy strategy, but in the short term I will work on gathering the pieces for this silly pin to win strategy.

Bah! Apparently creating a vacuum is something the word filter protests.

what are the new rules?

Arrrrh!

What are the new tourny rules or where can I read them? Not knowing the rule, makes it a little difficult to understand this thread. :confused:

-invalid

@dev_pirate
i really like the setup of your swarm fleet, even against the mighty titan, this will do VERY well against the titan, and other 5 mast ship fleets like harbringer or revenant, just hands down very stunning to me

Another swarm option I've seen posted somewhere:

Longshanks, Helmsman, explorer x2...18 points
Venture/Carrion Crow..some combo of 3 ships...12points

5 ships, 2 can move 2S+L, explorers, and 3 more ships to scoop up gold that Longshanks cannot take due to its special ability. 12 masts vs Titan's/Harbinger's 5.

</GaymBoi>

Very lame to me. :rolleyes: