Aquitic Miniature Creatures

These miniatures are from Whizkids Pathfinder series. I haven't added any aquatic characters to my collection in a long while and although the price was right I just liked the sculps.

LA Alghollthu, 29 of 44 and molded in 2018. This miniatures is on the larger sized, that is approximately 70mm long 44mm high. I am not sure whether it is molded in PVC so I will not say it is. It has nice texture and is painted in several colors.

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Grodair, measures approximately 30 by 25mm is quite small compared to the alghollthu. Grodair is finely constructed and painted in a dark yellow, has a red toungue and two sets of dark eyes.

A Little 20mm Robot

"This miniature is from the Planets of Peril expansion set of Starfinder Battles produced by Wizkids".

The piece stands 20mm tall and is made of hard grey plastic. It is detailed from the moulding process and as you can see is provided with a few dabs of orenge and black paint.

Map Fragment

I found this map fragment in the packaging of a couple of Mimics, two miniatures from the Nolzurs line of D & D miniatures.

Spell to Dispel Illusions and Correct Wrong Ideas

This is a spell Jonathan Strange used on the King of Britain to try to cure the Kings insanity.

“Place the moon at his eyes and her whiteness shall devour the false sights the deceiver has placed there.

Place a swarm of bees at his ears. Bees love truth and will destroy the deceiver's lies.

Place salt in his mouth lest the deceiver attempt to delight him with the taste of honey or disgust him with the taste of ashes.

Nail his hand with an iron so that he shall not raise it to do the deceivers bidding.

Place his heart in a secret place so that all his desires shall be to his own and the deceivers shall find no hold there.

A Note: The color red may be found beneficial.

Revelations of Thirty-Six Other Worlds, Ormskirk”

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Suzanne Clarke

Pirates of the Spanish Main Card Game Movement Cards

There are 24 movement cards included in the Pirates of the Spanish Main card game and include 8 different scenarios.

Full Speed Ahead! (2)

The player chooses any ship and moves it 6 spaces forward.

Lost at Sea (3)

The player chooses any ship and move it 6 spaces backward

Temporary Alliance (4)

The player chooses any 2 adjacent ship cards and moves them both 3 spaces forward. These ships move as one unit.

Caught in a Rip (3)

The player chooses 2 adjacent ships and moves them both 3 spaces backward. These ships move as one unit.

English/Spanish/Dutch Advance (1 each)

The player moves all 3 ships with English/Spanish/Dutch flag 2 spaces forward in a row. The ships are moved 1 at a time starting with the ship furthest forward and moving back.

English/Spanish/Dutch Retreat (1 each)

The player moves all 3 ships with English/Spanish/Dutch flag 2 spaces backward in a row. The ships are moved 1 at a time starting with the ship furthest back and moving forward.

Sabotage! (5)

The player chooses any 1 undamaged ships card, and flips it to its damaged side.

There Be Fog Ahead! (1)

If this card is played, the current adventure card in not executed at the end of the players turn; the adventure card is simply discarded, and the players turn is over.

The Kraken Adventure Card

With its large and powerful tentacles it can crush smaller craft and easily capsize a ship. Any men who might fall overboard are fair game for the mighty Kraken.

There are two Kraken adventure cards included in the Pirates of the Spanish Main card game.

Cards for the Pirates of the Spanish Main Card Game

All together there are 110 cards included with this game. The major card types are displayed below with a short description:

58 Adventure Cards

Adventure cards describe some situation that the player is confronted with and lists any fame that may have been obtained from this situation. An adventure card is picked after the player chooses an action to perform on their turn. Adventure cards also assign "fame" to a ship. 

9 Ship Cards

The nine cards are laid out in what is referred to as “ship-row”.

9 Pirate Cards

Depending on the number of players each player is dealt a number of pirate cards. These cards are kept hidden from the other players.

24 Movement Cards

Movement cards indicate how a ship or ships are to move through “ship-row”.

Previous Post on this Topic

NECA/WizKids Pirates of the Spanish Main Card Game

The Spanish Main Card Game contains a total of 110 cards and includes the following types of cards: 58 Adventure, 9 ship, 9 Pirate, 24 Movement, and 9 cargo hold cards. Like the art on Pirates of the Spanish Main ship game cards the art one these cards is beautiful. These cards are about the size of a credit card.

The games cards will need to be set up before you  play, depicted by a diagram included in the eight paneled rules pamphlet. The game is for 2 to 4 players and reportedly takes up to thirty minutes to play.

Playing the game requires that a player performs one of the following actions:

1. Play a Movement Card
2. Repair Ships
3. Accuse a Player
4. Pass

After performing one of the actions the player executes the active adventure card. Each of the 58 adventure cards includes a description of the adventure and the number of fame points a ship earns.

The 58 adventure cards are of the following categories:

Ancient Relics (2)

Native Alliance (2)

Island Discovery (2)

Parley (2)

Neptune’s Favor (4)

Treasure Map (6)

Legendary Treasure (2)

Mermaids (4)

Secret Charts (3)

Cursed Treasure (2)

Storm Ahead (2)

Maelstrom (5)

Ghost Ship (2)

Volcano (2)

Kraken (2)

Cursed Waters (2)

Cursed Ship (1)

Mutiny (1)

English/Spanish/Dutch Attack (2)

English/Spanish/Dutch Loot (2)

Pirates at Ocean Edge-Flotilla #3

You might notice that this list only has four "ships" listed instead of the five that had been presented in the past two lists. I broke another ship while it saw under construction. The tabs on the masts are very brittle and easy to break even when I am being so very careful.

Name of Ship:	Shal-Bala
Nation:	Cursed
Point Cost:	20
Masts:	4
Cargo Capacity:	0
Basic Movement:	D
Cannon:	S2, S2, S3, and a L2
Keyword/ Abilities:	Sea Dragon, Fear Once per turn Shal-Bala can fly to any location on the board, land or sea.
Name of Ship:	Pioneer
Nation:	Pirates
Point Cost:	10
Masts:	4
Cargo Capacity:	3
Basic Movement:	L
Cannon:	L3, S3, S3,and a S3
Keyword/ Abilities:	English crews may thier abiliites on this ship.
Name of Ship:	Lusca
Nation:	England
Point Cost:	16
Masts:	5
Cargo Capacity:	0
Basic Movement:	S
Cannon:	S3, SW3, S2, S3, and a S3
Keyword/ Abilities:	Sea Monster: This sea monster get a +1 to its boading rolls. If it seccceds at a boarding party it also eliminates one mast.
Name of Ship:	USS Jame Madison
Nation:	America
Point Cost:	9
Masts:	2
Cargo Capacity:	3
Basic Movement:	L
Cannon:	S3, and a S3
Keyword/ Abilities:	This ship gets a +1 to her boarding rolls.

New Terrain Pieces Offered in Pirates at Oceans Edge

Whirlpools have been added to the list of terrain pieces available in Whizkids pirate’s game. When any part of a ship or sea monster touches a whirlpool, you must roll one die. If you roll 4-6, you may choose to eliminate one of the following: a mast (or segment), a treasure piece, or one crew member from your ship. The treasure and or crew member are to be removed from the game.

The trouble with these terrain pieces is that since there is a repercussion when landing on the terrain pieces why would you steer toward one. There must be a way to effectively make use of these terrain pieces. One idea that I have thought of is use situation cards that would require the card holder to turn their ship five or ten degrees to the left or right. If a terrain piece is within their altered path the ship would have to run into it.

The Zeus is Loose

Imagine a 10 masted ship that will outgun any other ship on the board. The Zeus was a special edition ship once offered by Whizkids. This offer was included in the packaging of their Pirates on Oceans Edge constructible game pieces. To claim you had to send in 12 game pack wrappers and receipts from a non-online retailer. Too bad this ship is out of print.

More Mega Packs on the Way

Pirates on Oceans Edge mega packs have become extremely rare and I have just order two additional packs. As of this writing the supplier only had one mega pack left in stock when I made my order.

I am looking forward to seeing whether I can add another monster to my collection. I already have two sea serpents and I am hoping for a giant crab or fire-breathing dragon. These creatures will add some complexity to the game.

These monsters could be used in conjunction with some special situation cards or be controlled by an additional player. Think of it, a player whose job it is to either protect the treasure on some wild island or harass the other players. Alliances may have to be made in order to fight and kill the monsters before the players are able to fight and collect gold amongst themselves.

Pirates at Ocean's Edge-First Impressions

As I have previously mentioned in an earlier post about Pirates at Ocean's Edge mega packs they come bundled with two complete packs of pirate game materials. Not only that but they also include one large card with a ship or some type of creature.
The packs are normally 2.5 x 3.5 inches, about the size of a credit card. The mega packs include one 3.5 x 5 inch card. The packing mentions the larger pack size and cards will allow for Whizkids to supply larger ships and larger monsters. There are six of these over-sized cards in all.

I was hoping to receive one of these monsters, like a monster crab or a winged fire breathing dragon, but instead my pack included a catamaran. A pirate at Ocean’s Edge brings some new abilities to the table and the catamaran also brings some abilities that might be an asset to player who controls this ship.

I will be uploading the specifications and images of my new fleet of ships and sea monster soon.

Special Rules for Pirates of Mysterious Islands

I am still working on adding the new rules that each edition adds to this constructible pirate’s strategy game. Each game we play, we add few more of these rules into play. Recently we added the two mysterious islands from the two packs that contained these mysterious islands. The mysterious islands are indicated by the addition of two small yellow palm trees and you will find outcomes for your dice rolls on the back of these islands.

The outcomes for the two islands are, as follows:

Mysterious Island 1:

Roll a 1 or 2 you get to eliminate one mast from your ship. Isn’t that just quaint?
Roll a 3 or a 4 and you get no effect (How dreary!).
Roll 5 or 6 and you get to move an opposing ship its base move. I take it; you might want to turn the ship away from the island.

Mysterious Island 2:

Roll a 1 or 2 and on your next Move action you must roll a die. If you roll a 1 through a 5 you don’t move. Jolly ho!
Roll a 3 or a 4 and you get no effect (How dreary!).
Roll 5 or 6 and you get to write your own event. Now you are talking.

Perhaps you see why I haven’t used these mysterious islands. I don’t see the point and I wouldn’t shoot myself in the foot willingly, either, if you catch my meaning. Perhaps I can come up with some other ideas for these islands.

Perhaps I could add some monsters or some events to make it a bit more interesting…We will revisit this topic a bit later.

Pirates at Ocean's Edge Mega Packs

Over the past few months I have order several Pirates game packs. All the packs come packed individually with two constructible ships, eight or nine gold pieces, two to three crew pieces, one island or terrain piece and instructions on how to build your ships and play the game. There are the simple rules and a set of expanded rules. The packs have been running me about $5.00 US per pack; that is with shipping.

Recently while browsing Amazon’s site I found Pirates at Ocean's Edge Mega Packs, which contain two packs of this rendition of Whizkids pirate’s game. That means double the ships, gold, island, ETC. The cost? That is $6.00 with shipping. Not a bad way to bulk up you collection of ships and add some new sea monsters.

I am looking forward to exploring this new edition of the Pirates game, with its new ships, terrain pieces, sea monsters, and embellishments to the rules.

Dozens of Resources for the Pirates of the Spanish Main and other Versions of this Pirate Game

The Board Game Geek has seven pages of what amounts to dozens of resources, including alternative scenarios, and rules, reference and tracking sheets, wind and compass add-on's, cannon range finders, check lists, and guides, ship and crew cards, keyword lists, ETC.

There so many resources here that will make your game, regardless of what version you are playing, more challenging and interesting.

Terrain Pieces for Pirates of Dave Jones Curse and Mysterious Islands

Although I don’t know when these terrain pieces were first introduced or whether they are still available I thought I would include this related link anyway. These terrain pieces from Dungeon Terrain are cast in resin and include six islands and several palm trees. The palm trees will need to be assembled and attached to the islands. The islands, unlike those supplied with the game, are three dimensional and are highly detailed.

Pirates of Davy Jones Curse-Terrain Pieces

The Pirates of Davy Jones Curse game includes three terrain types: Fog Banks, Reefs, and Sargasso Sea. Each terrain type brings with it a set of attributes.

Fog Banks

When any part of a ship touches the fog bank the whole ship must be placed on the fog bank and ships turn ends. Once in the fog bank the ship is considered lost, it cannot fire cannon, be shot at, ram, pin, be boarded or board other ships. A fog bank has the numbers 1 through 6 printed around its edges. On the ships next turn the player must roll a die and exit from the number on the side of the card that matches the roll die.

Using situation cards, I have other ideas for this terrain piece, like being able to enter a fog bank if being pursued by or being fired at by an enemy ship.

Sargasso Sea

This is another terrain piece that will need to be worked into the game, with a situation card. Depending on the roll of the die the player could become entangled in the Sargasso Sea and lose her ability to move or become detangled allowing the ship to continue to make her move action.

Reefs

When any part of a ship touches any part of a reef, the player must roll a die. The result is the reefs rating until the end of your turn. Compare the result of the die against the amount of masts the ship had when it was constructed. If the reef rating is lower than the number of masts, the ship loses that many masts.

If the ship sustains more damage than she has masts she is wrecked and stays on the reef as a wreck. I am not really sure I will work this terrain piece into the game, yet. Perhaps I could create a situation card for this piece.

Pirates of Mysterious Islands Situation Cards, Version 1

I have often thought how I could make Pirates of Mysterious Islands more challenging and came up with the idea of creating situation cards. There are, if you remember three unique actions, a move, shoot, and explore actions.

I created situation actions for explore, and move actions. There are thirteen actions each, for the explore and move actions. I will divide the cards up into red and black desks and tie each situation to numbered card. Ace through 10, the Jack card is 11, the Queen is 12, and so on

There good and bad situation cards for each action. Some situations require a roll of a die or point to the rules for certain game pieces. The cards will be read at the beginning of your turn for these actions and the situations implemented during that action.

Explore Action

1. You meet the inhabitants of the island and they are die hard cannibals. You lose one crewmember. Burp!
2. You search is in vain and you find no treasure on this island.
3. You can dock and explore as a free action.
4. The inhabitants of this island attack your ship and you are unable to explore for treasure on this turn. If you should decide to stay roll die on your next turn. If you roll a four or six you your crew triumphs over the inhabitants, you can now explore the island. If you roll anything else you lose a crewmember to the fighting, but you still can explore and pick-up treasure.
5. There are several crewmembers that have come down with the scurvy; you must stay on this island for another turn in order to nurse your crew back to health.
6. You have fine weather upon arrival, but a storm keeps you from departing until your second turn on this island.
7. You and your crew have no problems. Explore as you would normally.
8. You may choose as many treasure pieces as your ships capacity will allow you. (Turn over twice your ships capacity in gold pieces and choose the highest rated pieces).
9. No impediments here
10. This island has the necessary materials for repairs; you may repair one mast per turn on this island.
11. Upon approaching the island you accidently run aground. Roll a die, if you roll a 3 your ship wrecked and you and your crew are marooned on this island. Anything other than a 3, you sustain some damage (remove a mast), but your ship is still operational.
12. It takes you two full explore actions to discover treasure
13. You can dock and explore as a free action.

Move Action

1. You enter a fog bank. Follow the fog bank rules for your next action
2. You crew mutinies-do a 180’ turn.
3. You are driving into the wind you lose half your default movement
4. You have favorable winds and seas add a Short to your default movement
5. You encounter a strong storm you make no headway at all (do not make your basic movements)
6. Lightning strikes and splinters one of your masts (remove a mast)
7. Because of a storm you find that your drinking water has been contaminated. Travel back to the last island you visited and refill your water barrels.
8. You encounter a sea monster, roll a die and follow the rules for this monster to see what the outcome is.
9. One of your crew hooks a large sea creature while fishing, add a Long to your basic movement
10. One of your crew hooks a large sea creature while fishing, the creature takes you back the way you came. Do a 180’.
11. You are becalmed. You movement is reduced by half.
12. The captain becomes delirious and has the ship going in circles. Turn your ship 180’.
13. You have favorable winds and seas add a Short and a Long to your default movement.

Ships and a Sea Monster from Pirates of Davy Jones Curse

I have added three new ships and one sea monster to my ever growing collection of sailing ships. Here are the specs for the four new pieces:

Name:  Jormungandr
Points:  17
Flag/Nation:  Cursed
Masts:  4
Hold Capacity:  4
Basic Movement:  Long
Cannon:  3 Short (2, 3, and a 3); 1 Long (4)

Jörmungandr taken from Norse mythology is a giant serpent like beast that is sometimes called the Midgard serpent or snake. The Jormungandr is my first sea monster.

Although Sea monsters act just like a ship, with the exception of being able to carry crew, their coils are treated like masts and can fire cannon from each of its coils. In addition they can carry treasure. The treasures are obtained from pinning and boarding a ship and not from explore action on a wild island. If the sea monster succeeds at a boarding party, it also eliminates one mast.

Instead of using this unit in its traditional mode I am thinking about using Jormungandr in response to some situation card that is picked by a player. There will be cards for two of the three basic actions. I am thinking about adding situation cards to the Move and Explore actions. More to follow…

Name:  La Richelieu
Points:  10
Flag/Nation:   French
Masts:  3
Hold Capacity:  4
Basic Movement:  Long
Cannon:  2 Short (3, and a 3); 1 Long (3)

This is my second French flagged vessel. This ships gets +1 to here cannon rolls against the Cursed. This ship is linked to the Jean Desailly crewmember. Desailly brings some unique characteristics and abilities to the ship in which he is on…

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Name:  HMS Caradoc
Points:  13
Flag/Nation:  England
Masts:  4
Hold Capacity:  4
Basic Movement:  Short + Long
Cannon:  3 Short (4, 3, and a 3); 1 Long (4)

The HMS Caradoc is a schooner. Once per turn this ship may reroll any die you roll for the ship. As a free action this ship type can rotate her stern in any direction after she completes a move action.

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Name:  HMS Seaham
Points:  9
Flag/Nation:  England
Masts:  2
Hold Capacity:  2
Basic Movement:  Short + Short
Cannon:  2 Short (3 and a 3)

This ship gets +1 her boarding rolls and gets +2 added if her opponent is a sea monster.