Bonhomme Richard (#067)
Card Type: 5-masted ship
Nationality: America
Rarity: Rare
Cargo: 5
Base Move: S+S
Cannons: 3S,2L,2L,2L,3S(fore to aft)
Point Cost: 15

Rules Text:
This ship gets +1 to her cannon rolls against English ships.

Background:
From the deck of the Bonhomme Richard, John Paul Jones shouted to the English captain of the Serapis, “I have not yet begun to fight!”

Additional Notes:
The Bonhomme Richard is a ship that holds an important historical position in U.S. history. As I said about the Constitution, we can’t really do it justice in our game. But that’s okay: Sometimes we just like games, and we don’t want a historical perspective on everything. The Bonhomme Richard is John Paul Jones’ ship—one of the first American ships that took the fight to the European coast. Its battle with the Serapis is one of history’s great naval battles. In fact, the people on the French coast actually applauded the ships when they broke off their engagement. Using this ship so early in the war with England was the first step in creating a navy that the new republic could be proud of.

Like most 5-masted ships, the Bonhomme Richard is a combat vessel, a bit fast with an S+S base move. Her cannons are very good, especially against English ships. Her fore and aft cannons are short range with a rank of 3, and her mid-ship cannons are all long range with a rank 2. Her 5 cargo spaces allow you to crew her up. She is linked to John Paul Jones, so you can really max her out for the ultimate war machine.

Because the Americans are new to Pirates in this set, their ships and crew don’t have the depth that the other nations have. So you’ll have to experiment to decide which crew you’ll want to use and what kind of game you’ll want to play using this new faction.

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Fruit (#104)

Card Type: Unique Treasure
Rarity: Rare

Rules Text

If this ship loads Scurvy, it has no effect; remove it from the game. Fruit takes up two cargo spaces and cannot be unloaded.

Additional Notes
Fruit—it was the savior of many a sailor. It kept them alive. It stopped scurvy and rickets from spreading. It gave the English their “limey” nickname. And it was as valuable as gold. In Pirates of the Revolution, it also has another twist—no crew will part with it, and it takes up two cargo spaces!

Fruit can be a powerful way to stop a player who lives and dies by cargo spaces. Fruit limits a ship’s cargo capacity, giving you an advantage against ships with multiple cargo spots. Because your opponent will have to load Fruit, he or she may have to leave some crew behind in order to make room for it.

Of course, like all unique treasure—you may end up with it. If you do, don’t get stuck with the same fate you tried to visit upon your opponent: Make sure your other ships have enough room to gather treasure.

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John Paul Jones (#089)

Card Type: Character
Nationality: America
Rarity: Rare
Point Cost: 7

Background
A hero of the new revolution, but considered a pirate by the English, John Paul Jones took the fight directly to the king, even sinking ships within European waters.

Rules Text
Once per turn before you give this ship an action, roll a d6. On a 5 or 6, this ship may be given the same action twice. This ship’s crew cannot be eliminated unless she sinks.

Additional Notes
John Paul Jones is a privateer—a sailor (that is, a legal American pirate) with his own ship and crew. Attacking ships, plundering their cargo, and possibly bringing the bounty to American ports if they felt like it, the main job of privateers was to harass the biggest fish out there: England.

Because the Americans were willing to grant John Paul Jones a letter of marque, he took the fight directly to England—sinking ships within sight of the British coast. His crew was primarily composed of experienced seamen who fought for booty and glory—not so much for the ramifications of the new America. The oft-repeated phrase “I have not yet begun to fight” is burned into the American mindset, and we owe that to the “American pirate”: John Paul Jones.

At 7 points, Jones is expensive, but his ability to give his ship two actions and to keep his crew on board (so an opponent has to board if his ship becomes derelict) is worth it. Add him to his linked ship (the Bonhomme Richard) and for 22 points you have five open cargo slots, two actions per turn, and +1 to hit English ships…just perfect for those who like to take the fight directly to their enemies.

The Bonhomme Richard looks like it will be a really nice ship for the price good movement, good cannons, and a nice number of holds, with a useful ability.

I see alot of people checking islands with ships with one hold to avoid the fruit in the future.

John paul Jones, is nice, but I can't figure why he should cost 1 more point than Jack Hawkins who has the identical ability?

Hawkins is a Pirate, which has been traditionally cheaper.

its an interesting point about availibility and points cost. for example i play Pirates and one of my good friends, Admiral Greeves, plays English. whenever we play i will almost always out number him, sometimes as badly as 2 to 1. and i complain bitterly that whilst we've been collecting i have only ever come across one pirate captain. where as he has several English captains.

we almost always have the same arguement where i complain that its not exactly fair that i only have one captain in my fleet, where he has one always. and i make this point for a very simple reason, where he may take three ships in a fleet i might take six, meaning his one captain enables a third of his points cost to be used more effectively, whereas i can only get a six of my fleet covered by the same amount of crew.

when you look at it like this, pirate crew suddenly becuse quite drastically hampered in comparison to crew of other nationalities. so to make it easier to fit named crew into a pirate ship, and to make them more cost effective, they have to cost slightly less.

Fruit is going to cause all sorts of "fun" rules snarls. Woulda been so much simpler if it read "Fruit takes up 2 cargo spaces, or however many you have left open when it is loaded, whichever is less." Or something along those lines. Requiring you to boot crew to make room for it opens up a whole can of worms. (What if your only crew is a ransomee? What if you boot your explorer, thus ending the explore action? etc.)

---Dave

Fruit is one of the deadliest treasures yet. I can see fruit fleets in the near future. A treasure you have to load but can't unload and kills cargo space, ejecting gold or crew. Wow. What in the blazes were they thinking? I'm sure it'll be errata'd soon after the release.

Why not play with 4 fruits and 2 sixers while running gun boats?

BTW: I love that American Ship! Absolutely grand. JPJ I was hoping for something different...don't know what, but different. 7 pts is too expensive.

-Q

Dear lord, Friut is a rules disaster! The point's both Dave and Q bring up are great. Also what if a ship with one cargo finds furit, can it just leave it there? The ship is pretty, good, altough it is just a Daphlin Royal clone. John paul Jones is too expenive for what he does! Plus he again is just a clone! Get some new abilities already!

exactly ... there is no way a treasure fleet will be able to make it back in time with 4 fruits in play ... potentially 3 islands clogged up with abundance :) if you're lucky ... maybe 4

the way to get around this would be to have a scout ship with explorer on top , and tag the island to see how many Fruits it has , and then scoop them up with a bigger ship ...

it totally screws up Fort Builders though ... imagine how much you'd need to devote to grabbing that 3 essential gold ...

Fruit is nasty, but hardly a killer. There are several "randomly trade a treasure with another ship within S" ships/crew. Fruit says you cannot unload it, says nothing about trading it.

L'Artesien is the perfect fruit bomb delivery vehicle. I only have one right now, I think I need another.

The only problem I see with a "treasure-trade" strategy is that the person who's planted the fruit is going be running a hunter-killer fleet, with fruit thrown in to mess you up. In that circumstance, they won't have any treasure to trade with you, and they probably won't be pleased about you trying...

the only way to counteract a Fruit fleet is a Rum/Mermaids fleet . Rum is to make up for the loss of cargo space while Mermaids stalls the hunter/killer fleet for about ... erm , 5 turns ? (which is 2 game turns with Blackheart and Cat in play) .

This in turn will drive up the cost of Rum(on eBay) , and make a 5 point Black/Arathiel a must in order to get to the island on turn 1 , to minimize turn loss ... in effect , causing the fleet archetypes to shrink (as if they havent yet) :)

Bear in mind that a Mermaid affected ship must have already had a turn at the beginning of the game, because the ship that you play it on must be undocked. Also, it says that the ship may not be given an action...Therefore a ship with three crew cannot move, shoot, explore for three turns. Killing a crew with Blackheart after Mermaids has been used would be pointless.

Totally not true. You can also counteract fruit with 4 scurvys (which can bite you HARD if there are no fruit in the game, but I'm just trying to make the point that rum/mermaids is not the only defense vs fruit).

I forget who mentioned it, but yes, the typical person playing fruit is gonna most likely have a hunter killer fleet and they don't usually have any cargo to trade off with. However, L'Artesien is a good choice for a treasure runner regardless of fruit, so it really doesn't cost you anything to take her. If you get a chance to trade off fruit, do it, otherwise no. I also understand that trading with a hunter killer fleet is gonna leave the trader within easy gun range. I like to put Arathiel on L'Artesien, so theoretically I can have fruit, Arathiel and a sac crew aboard when I start lobbing fruit at the enemy, with a turn to run after I make the trade. Of course, if L'Artesien visits an island that has /2/ fruit on it, Arathiel and company get stranded.

I'm just tossing out ideas here, not saying that any one is necessarily better than the other.

Doesn't Fruit stop scurvys? How would using 4 scurvys help in any way?

It has been ruled that the transfer can take place during the move, so you can get close, lob the fruit and run in the same action.