Miniature Trading

[Statistics]  [Discuss]  [Rate] 

Ah, those oh so Mysterious Islands... which brought us the Mercenary and Ex-Patriot Keywords (which should really have been combined into a single keyword). As some have already noted, the biggest disadvantage of Merc fleets is their inability to dock at their home island usually prevents them from winning the game: if you can't get gold back home, you can't win. There are two primary ways to get around this: cancel the Mercenary keyword, or using Bianco's Haulers to unload within S.

The Disney PotC set introduces a third method: use Captain Jack Sparrow's treasure/crew swapping ability to transfer gold to a ship already docked at home. Ahura Mazda is good at this (and not much else), but here I've used L'Intrepide + Maurice Aristide because I can pile on more crew... it either makes juggling crew back and forth easier or more complicated, can't quite remember which.

As a pirate crew, however, Captain Jack Sparrow can only legally use his ability on the Slipstream, which allows any nationality to use their abilities. This is actually a good thing, since we can link up Thane Hartless for a reroll and one other slightly more devious trick...

Now, dig out your Mysterious Islands rulebook and read the Ex-patriot keyword. Here's the link to the PDF:

http://www.wizkidsgames.com/pirates/documents/PPMI_rulebook.pdf

Miss anything? What about that last sentence:

To date, I have never seen anyone attempt to take advantage of this in a fleet. And, sure, to be fair, the Mercs faction was so badly designed as far as crew abilities and ship abilities that it was nigh impossible to ever use this ability... All the Ex-patriot crew were expensive, none of their abilities helped with exploring islands, and very few Merc ships (what with their slower-than-frozen-molasses speeds, crappy cargo, and high costs) could ever be considered effective treasure runners.

On top of that, most players avoid or outright refuse to use the Mysterious Island effects. Which is a bit of a shame, because there are a couple that are quite powerful... and combined with an Ex-Patriot on a linked ship, you have a 50% chance of getting the "good" effect. Now, most of us didn't bother collecting these MIs, but here's a post from Holofernes as a reminder:

http://forum.wizkidsgames.com/showpost.php?p=1587923&postcount=3

In particular, take a look at MI#6 or MI#14:

6: Low: The next time you give this ship a move action, roll 1d6. On a result of 1-5, she can't move. High: You can add an event from your collection to your fleet.

14: Low: Roll 5d6. For every 4-6 result, eliminate one of this ship's masts. High: You can add an event from your collection to your fleet.

An event. Like, say... False Treasure? 50% chance to bring in a 10-point event. Or how about Mermaids... and after your opponent plays Favor of the Gods, bring it in *again*. Or keep bringing in Foul Winds to batter his ships against terrain.

And if you add Nemo's Charts (via MI#4 or MI#12 if need be), your odds of getting a High result go up to 83% with no chance of getting a Low result.

Now, consider MI#1 or MI#5:

1: On docking, roll 1d6. Low (roll of 1 or 2): Randomly move two treasure coins from this island to another wild island. High (roll of 5 or 6): When this ship explores this island, randomly move two treasure coins from every other wild island to this island, and then choose which to take.

5: Low: The next time you give this ship a move action, roll 1d6. On a result of 1-4, she can't move. High: When this ship explores this island, randomly move two treasure coins from every other wild island to this island, and then choose which to take.

So, consider: Explore a MI, and use Captain Jack Sparrow to send a coin home. You can keep doing this, moving away and redocking as often as you like, sending a coin home each time. And if you roll High twice, every single unclaimed coin will be moved to this island. Build a fort (sadly, the MI effect stops working) and it all counts towards victory.

Anyway, back to Thane Hartless and the Slipstream. Naturally, if we want to take advantage to this +1 on MI rolls, it would help if we had a reroll ability... and Thane's already good to go. The Slipstream allows any nationality on board, so we don't have to do anything fancy to get Captain Jack Sparrow aboard. However, there are some drawbacks to the Slipstream that will need to be addressed.

First, it only moves L so it's slow, and we don't have quite enough room for a helmsman without a little bit of crew-wrangling. We can fix the speed issue with Hidden Cove, which also allows us to specifically target whichever MI effect we need.

Since it's likely that you may be the only one putting MIs into play during setup, make sure you place three or more identical copies of whichever MI you need. This means if both MIs become Home Islands, there should still be an MI in play that you can HC out to. If you're going to focus on Events, you'll need three copies of MI#6 (Thane can help avoid the movement penalty with a reroll, or if you're not afraid of losing masts, go with MI#14). If you're hoarding coins, you'll need three copies of MI#1 (losing two coins isn't much of a penalty if you can just bring them back the next time you dock).

Once you've used Hidden Cove, you need to explore the island, but unfortunately you can't use an explore action unless you began the turn docked at the wild island. And while you can just move away and redock, the Slipstream only moves L. Important: Make sure when you dock the Slipstream with Hidden Cove, you place it in such a way that there is a portion of the island within L that you can re-dock at with only one movement section. On the inside of a curve or indentation is ideal, but just be aware that you might not have much control over which side of the island your ship will be on, which may make you vulnerable to an enemy home island or a nearby gunship.

Move and re-dock. Roll for the MI effect first, and use Thane's reroll if need be. Once you've dealt with the MI effect, use Captain Jack Sparrow's ability to trade a coin for the Helmsman on Le Coeur de Lion. Use Le Coeur's action to unload the coin to your home island for +2 gold. Now that we no longer need the Explorer on the Slipstream, dump him off onto the wild island as a free action. He and the Helmsman can hang out for a bit, we don't need them quite yet.

On your second turn, move and re-dock, roll for the MI effect, and use Captain Jack Sparrow to trade another coin for Philipe du Brissac. You can now load both of him and the Helmsman onto the Slipstream as part of your explore action. This allows the Slipstream to move L+S, which means you can now move away and re-dock from any point on the island, even if there isn't a curve or indentation.

Rinse and repeat. Add an Oarsman to the Slipstream, and you can still move S+S when derelict (which may happen if you're really unlucky with those "roll Xd6, eliminate a mast" MI effects). If you already have all available coins on your island, build a fort (St. Pierre will give you an extra action if you unload 4 gold, Paradis de la Mer is harder to destroy). By the time you have traded your second Oarsman, you should have enough gold on your home island to win the game (four coins worth at least 2 gold + 2 gold from Maurice Aristide = 16 gold).

Le Coeur and Jolly Mon should stay docked at your home island. I originally had L'Intrepide working as the dumpoff point, but the point cost of the Slipstream was wrong in the database, causing me to go over, and I had to shave another two points off somewhere. Both these ships are vulnerable to ramming, so keep a fogbank nearby in case you need to hide for a bit.

The Longshanks is there mainly to run interference for the Slipstream. Before you leave your home island, however, remember to dump your two oarsman off so they can be loaded by Le Coeur de Lion. Lucky can stay on board if you like, or drop him off as well. Without a captain the Longshanks isn't exactly an offensive threat, but it has three masts and should at least slow down some of the bigger gunships for a turn or two. It's also not a bad treasure runner in its own right... if your opponent is leaving the Slipstream and Longshanks alone, you could transfer Captain Jack Sparrow to the Longshanks and send it to another wild island to transfer gold home while the Slipstream focuses on rolling MI effects.

Strengths:

Nobody plays with Mysterious Island effects. You should have the element of surprise on your opponent, and even if he knows the MI effects will be in play, it's unlikely he'll have a fleet optimized to take advantage of them.

If the Slipstream gets in trouble, she can submerge. Jack Sparrow also has the Captain ability, and she can fight if she needs to.

Weaknesses:

Very crew-dependent. Crew-killers and UTs like Plague and Missionary could be devastating against this fleet.

Other than rolling an MI effect to bring in Favor of the Gods, no defense against Mermaids.

Cursed Zone could also be effective, making beneficial MI effects difficult or impossible to roll.

Cancelers usually work well against submerged submarines. Actually, they work really well against just about everything.