Miniature Trading

This started out as a way to fit a new flotilla tech into a gold running game and turned into an extra action extravaganza. When I played it, I discovered it tended to amaze my opponents with its unpredictability.

Unfortunately what I also discovered was that it was almost no fun to play. The only fun match I had with it was one where the two main ships were sunk almost immediately and I had to run across the board. This is why I have no problem sharing it here as more of a tech demo than a "for fun" fleet. Hopefully others can see the techniques here and use them in their own fleets.

The Premise

60 point games are fairly common, so it should be easy to fit a fleet like this (or similar) into a regular game. 5 ships with a max of 2 masts means that they will have to be packing some speed if your planning on avoiding your opponents gun ships, and with the amount of actions you'll be able to give the HMS Gibraltar and the Gibraltar (the flotilla it's towing), you should have little problem sinking most of their fleet before they have a chance to respond. There are 2 gold running ships, but only as backups and for the late-game scenario.

How it works

The HMS Gibraltar will be towing the Gibraltar flotilla everywhere it goes. It's stacked with a 5-6 SAT crew, and a SAC crew in Jimmy Legs. And with the oarsman onboard, and Cameron the Cabin Boy allowing you to get another Oarsman onboard before SACing Cameron to Jimmy legs, you can get a solid 3 straight turns of SAC actions before running out of steam, which should be more than enough. The flotilla is equipped with it's own SAC crew thanks to First Mate Ismail adding a cargo space for Mercer. And a single Oarsman will allow the flotilla to get 8 shots off in one turn.

HMS Patagonia is the support ship, dumped with two 0-point crew (Robinson and Bratley) and the most important crew, Lord Mycron. Patagonia will be sitting at home for the entire game (unless things go awry), letting you use Lord Mycron to give another ship a guaranteed action each turn.

Le Bon Marin and Banshee's Cry are your backups. Should things turn out not like you expected, you'll be using them to run gold. Le Bon Marin can go out first turn and start racking up gold. Should your opponents fleet be just as fast as yours, you'll need some gold on your home island to guarantee a win after you sink their ships, lest they have more than you and they win. Banshee's Cry should hang back as long as possible. Equipped with El Fantasma, it'll be your surprise maneuver and ultimate backup. Your opponent may be able to out maneuver your, and should they start chucking gold at their home island, you'll be needing to steal it to keep them from winning. It becomes more effective when you setup the map to the optimal layout.

And events are events. Divers in case you shoot down a gold-runner, hidden cove to make the HMS Gibraltar that much faster, and Favor of the Gods for it's usual purpose.

How to Win

The way to win with this fleet starts before the first move, during setup. When you play with this fleet, you want to make sure an island is sticking way out, 4-5L in the middle of nowhere. So when you and your opponent are placing islands, placing last is your optimal position. When putting down the last island, stick it in a far corner 4-5L away from a single island, and hopefully further from any other. If they get the last placement, they'll either be timid and place another island 3L from some place else, or even out the map and place another one 4-5L away from another island. "Oh No, what happens if they choose the single 4-5L island to be your home island, won't it be bad for you?" Absolutely not. For this fleet, it's win-win at that point.

Let's say they win the roll-off and choose your home island first. They have a choice of picking a 4-5L island as your home island, and being guaranteed a closer gold running spot than you have. If they don't pick it as your home island, they know that you will. Logically, they'll choose it as your HI. This is perfect, so now you can stick their home island right in front of you, at the next closest island to your HI. With the amount of movement (and hidden cove!) that this fleet will have, you'll be able to track them down quickly, and stop them most of the time before they get gold back to their HI (usually in the first two turns). And should it run to the last game, Banshee's Cry has a short run to their home island with it's L+L movement and El Fantasma aboard (and picking up two gold a turn if needed, thanks to Mycron).

If YOU win the roll-off that's another win for you, as the obvious spot is the 4-5L away island. They'll have some huge gaps to overcome before they can get to the first gold island. Then when they choose yours, they're forced between putting you close to them at the next closest island, or in the middle of a series of uncontested islands are the fartherest end of the map. They might choose the former if they think they have the guns to fight you off, but it will still work to your advantage. If they bring the fight to you, you can sit at your home island until they're in range, and then fire away.

After island setup, things get a bit murky and I can't tutorial you through the fleet, but it should basically work the same way most of the time. It's a mostly responsive fleet, so you'll often wait to see how your opponent moves before making your own moves. Once they're in range (simply: once they're anywhere in the map almost) you can go on the offensive.

HMS Gibraltar moves S+S+S on it's own. With a 5,6 from Dampier that's another S+S+S. With a SAC, that's another S+S+S. With Lord Mycron that's another S+S+S. The actual shots come from the Flotilla Gibraltar. 4 from the main action, and then another 4 from the SAC action from mercer. Or, Mycron can always give the Flotilla another action for a total of 12 shots. So the basic chart of moves is like this:


With a 5,6 from Dampier
HMS Gibraltar (Mycron) - (S+S+S)+(S+S+S)+(S+S+S)+(S+S+S)
Gibraltar - 8 Shots

With a 5,6 from Dampier
HMS Gibraltar - (S+S+S)+(S+S+S)+(S+S+S)
Gibraltar(Mycron) - 12 Shots

Without a 5,6 from Dampier
HMS Gibraltar (Mycron) - (S+S+S)+(S+S+S)+(S+S+S)
Gibraltar - 8 Shots

Without a 5,6 from Dampier
HMS Gibraltar - (S+S+S)+(S+S+S)
Gibraltar(Mycron) - 12 Shots

So you're guaranteed an S+S+S+S+S+S with 12 shots per turn, with things only getting better from there. Combine that with hidden cove, so you get a jump of at least 3L before even moving, and that's some pretty good movement. Every shot on the Gibraltar is 2-rank, so with this many actions, you're already doing better than any 10 mast. And unlike a 10-mast, most people won't see this kind of play coming from a tiny 2-mast and a flotilla. If you follow the island setup I suggested above, your opponents will almost always be in opening-move range. And if they're not, you have a huge upper-hand in running gold.

Weaknesses

Cancelers, and a faster moving fleet. "Short-range can't hit" ships would also be an annoyance, but could be easily susceptible to a number of rams, and with lord mycron you could ram from far out with each ship before they could get a shot off. It really depends on how they pilot their own fleet.

FAKE EDIT: The database says the GC-001 El Fantasma from Spanish Main is 4 points, but it's actually 3, 1 less than it's non-promo counterpart, just enough to squeeze in.