Miniature Trading

NOTE: Woelf has issued a ruling on the HMS Yardbird/Bianco's Haulers ability which significantly effects how the Gold Factory works. You can no longer unload treasure to your home island "for free". A ship with this ability requires a move or explore action to unload within S. Scroll down to the bottom for the complete ruling.

I was glancing through the miniature reviews, checking to see if my favorite ships had been given proper write-ups, and I stumbled across something about the HMS London that flummoxed me a bit:

"The Special Ability doesn't seem very useful..."

I was stunned. An ability that works against Pirates, one of the most popular factions in the game, the faction with all the best treasure runners, not very useful? An ability that isn't limited to once a turn or one single treasure? Not to mention it allows one of the most abusive combos in the game? If you're not aware of how broken the HMS London can get, allow me to enlighten my fellow buccaneers.

I did not come up with this idea. The first I heard about it was when - hmm, apparently his username triggers the profanity filter, but it rhymes with "Dockroach" - posted his original "Gold Factory" fleet on the WK forum. As far as I know, he discovered this combo. I've tweaked the treasure runners in an attempt to optimize them, but any collection of Pirate treasure runners should work just as well.

The Gold Factory

There are several crew or ships in the game with the ability: "One of this ship's treasures is worth +2 gold when unloaded at your home island." Some players have attempted to abuse this by parking a ship with this ability at their home island and loading gold from the rest of their ships, one coin at a time, so each coin is worth +2 gold. There are several problems with this strategy, however.

First, treasure is unloaded automatically when you dock at your home island. If you're already docked there, it doesn't automatically get transferred off the boat unless you leave and re-dock, or if you use an explore action to unload cargo. So transferring 4 coins from another ship would require at least 5 explore actions, which gives your opponent plenty of time to break up the combo or win on his own.

Second, when you dock at your home island, you have to unload all of your treasure at once. You can't choose to only unload one coin, keeping the rest on your ship to unload later. Everything worth gold is automatically unloaded at the same time, and only one of those coins is worth +2 gold.

The HMS London solves the first problem. "When touching a Pirate ship, this ship may load as much of that ship's treasure as she can carry." This doesn't require any explore actions, and can be used multiple times in a turn.

To solve the second problem, we load up Bianco's Haulers: "This ship may unload cargo at your home island if she's within S of it." Again, this doesn't require any actions, so it can be used whenever the ship has treasure and is within S of your home island. Only one minor caveat, that thing about all available treasure unloading at the same time, but that's easily fixed by making sure the HMS London only has one cargo space available. After we load up Brother Virgil (who allows Bianco's Haulers to use their ability on an English ship) and your favorite +2 gold crew (Maurice Aristide or Ralph David, but not Genny Gallows, she has a slightly different but problematic wording), you'll notice that, conveniently enough, there's exactly one empty cargo space left on the HMS London. 11 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 20 points, which leaves you 20 points (or 25 with a +5 crew) to fill out the rest of your fleet with fast Pirate treasure runners.

Now, park the HMS London somewhere within S of your home island, and send out your treasure runners to strip a couple of wild islands. If you're worried about the HMS London getting shot at, you can just leave it docked, but moving it out a bit shortens the distance your treasure runners have to go to get the treasure back home. Besides, with four rank-2 cannons, most folks won't want to get near the HMS London if they can avoid it. As soon as a Pirate ship comes back and touches the HMS London, the Gold Factory kicks into gear:

1. Use the HMS London's ability to load one gold coin from the Pirate ship.
2. Use Bianco's Haulers' ability to unload the gold coin to your home island. Maurice Aristide adds +2 to the value of the gold.
3. Rinse and repeat.

If your Pirate ship brought back four coins worth at least 2 gold each, then you've won the game. 2 + 2 x 4 = 16 gold.

For a 40 point fleet, I prefer to use:

Banshee's Cry 3

Bloody Jewel 6
- Explorer 1

Longshanks 6
- Captain Jack Hawkins 4

The first two are your primary treasure runners, and in theory at least, only one of them needs to get back home for the win (assuming you find four coins worth at least 8 points total). The Longshanks is there to run interference for your treasure runners, and if one of them runs into some bad luck, can pick up the slack as a back-up treasure runner. If your opponent is throwing an armed-to-the-teeth Harbringer or HMS Titan at you, then the Longshanks has enough cannons to slow it down for a turn or two. Just keep in mind, so long as the HMS London is still floating (it's abilities should still work while derelict... at least I don't see anyting explicit in the rules that says they won't) and you have one treasure runner left, you can still win.

For a 45-point fleet, I'd recommend replacing the Longshanks with the Darkhawk II or Eagle with a Captain, Helmsman, and the Hag of Tortuga.

Treasure selection

Your ideal treasure selection might look something like:
3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 2, Barbary Banner, Spices

If you don't have any decent UTs, then this should work fine:
2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 1

Shutting Down the Factory

One single shot on the HMS London with a crew- or cargo-killer ability will shut it down.

A canceller with S of the HMS London can shut down Brother Virgil for a turn, but unless the canceller is submerged, the HMS London is a pretty powerful gunship in it's own right, and could quickly reduce any ship within cancel distance to splinters in fairly short order, even without a captain. A submerged canceller such as Mobilis is the best way to shut down this combo, since this fleet has no way to deal with submerged ships.

A Fallen Angel-type ship with the "can't be shot by ships within S" could give the HMS London some trouble, but it would have to work fast to sink a 4-masted ship before the treasure runners managed to get back. A Fallen Angel-type ship with a Canceller on board would be ideal... and a fairly powerful combo for about 15 points. It would still be vulnerable ramming, or one L-range cannon on the Longshanks or Bloody Jewel. Captain Jack Hawkins might be able to eliminate the canceller with a pin.

This combo is even Mermaid-proof. I checked with Woelf, and he said (via email): "Abilities that don't require any actions to function can still be used."

Becalmed might slow down one or two treasure runners for a turn, and unique treasures that attack or slow down your more fragile treasure runners could make things difficult, but so long as you've got one ship able to empty out a wild island, you still have a good chance of winning quickly.

Variations

There are several other ships with a similar ability, but the HMS London + Brother Virgil + Bianco's Haulers + Maurice Aristide is the most cost-effective. The two Spanish ships, El San Francisco and L'Aguila, don't quite work because there's no +2 gold crew for Spain and no easy way to get non-Spanish crew on either ship under the points limit. The USS Atlanta won't work for the same reason. England has two other ships, but the HMS Dunlap requires Countess Diana Doone and Ismail to work (an additional 5 points). The HMS Caledonia, which might work with Jade Rebellion treasure runners, doesn't have enough cargo space to get it to work without Ismail, and not enough points to fit Ismail on board (not enough points for the Countess to help, either).

Le Marseillais does work, but requires at least an additional 5 points:

Le Marseillais 14
- Jordan Dumas 5
- Maurice Auristide 3
- Bianco's Haulers 3
(Total: 25 points)

However, with a higher point cost, some creative tweaking, and Master Bianco's help, we can squeeze a Silver Explorer on board for an additional +1 gold ability:

Le Marseillais 14
- Jordan Dumas 5 (4)
- Maurice Auristide 3 (2) [Link1]
- Phillipe du Brissac 2 [Link1]
- Bianco's Haulers 3 (2) [Link2]
- Master Bianco 3 (2) [Link2] (doesn't take any space, so +2 cargo total)
- Silver Explorer 3 (2)
- Vicomte Jules de Cissey 0 (+5 points)
(Total: 31 points)

This leaves you 14 points for treasure runners... I'd recommend:

Bloody Jewel + Explorer
Longshanks + Explorer

Or:

Banshee's Cry
Bloody Jewel + Explorer
Carrion Crow

So, there you go... everything you need to know to get pummeled into a bloody pulp at a tournement without using Extra-Action crew.

WOELF'S "NO MORE GOLD FACTORY" RULING:

“This ship may unload cargo at your home island if she's within S of it.”
Bianco’s Haulers – Fancy – HMS Yardbird – Mistress Ching
Q: If this ship is already within S of my home island and treasure is transferred to it, does that treasure unload immediately and automatically?
A: No, this ability lifts the requirement that a ship must physically dock with your home island to unload cargo, but it does not allow a ship to unload treasure spontaneously. This ship must still be given an action to unload any treasure onboard; either a move action that ends within S of the home island (which triggers the automatic unload), or an explore action that targets the home island.
(NOTE: This ruling is designed primarily to combat the “Gold Factory” exploit. As far as actual usage is concerned, this changes little if anything for the majority of you that have been using this ability the way it was intended to work.)