Hi there!. Exams are over (last week has been the busiest week of the year for me) and I am back.I also had to look after my two little nephews for two days, so go figure...
First of all. I want to start with the "rescue" of all the work and effort I have put on the Sky Pirate Card deck, by copy- pasting them from the Spartan Games forum before it gets deleted.
SKY PIRATES STAR CARD DECK (cards 14-26)
Syntax:: Card number - Card type (S,T,A and/or R) . CARD NAME: Card text -- card icons ( C=Creatrure, F=Fortification, MC=Magic card, CC=Counter Card)
14- S - KELPOR MARKSMANSHIP: Models in the Squadron can target an enemy model within Range Band 1 during the Combat Phase; Submarines, Flying or Submerged models CANNOT be targeted; Roll 1D6 for each targeting model. on a 5-6 the target loses 1 crew point (CP) -- F
15- T - UNEXPECTED REEF: Place a "Reef" terrain feature aanywhere on the board, except within 3" of an enemy model or over any other terrain feature.; The reef must be between 4" and 8" in lenghy /width to be valid.. The reef will stay on the board for the rest of the game and all rules regarding reefs do apply to it. -- CC
16- A - SPLINTER ROUNDS: Play after any Attack Dice (AD) are rolled; If the enemy model is damaged, then in addition to normal damage, the target will lose an extra crew point; If the enemy model takes a critical hit then in addition to normal damage, the target loses 2 extra crew point; Can be used with Linked Dire OR Split fire.-- -
17- T - SUMMON MIST. If Mist rules are in effect, this card can be played to turn "Mist" into "Fog" and apply Fog rules instead ; If no Mist rules are in effect, then for the rest of this turn ANY Attack Dice (AD) rolls made against ANY target (friendly or not) within Range Bands 3 and 4 only hit on 5 or 6 -- M, CC
18- A,R - SULPHUR HANDBOMBS: Play on an enemy model when boarding it or being boarded; Any enemy melee attack rolls during that boarding action will reduce the to hit modifier by -1 (a roll of 4 becomes 3 and so on); Only NATURAL roll of 6 counts as 2 hits and an additional roll on the opponent´s rolls; Melee dice rolled by other enemy models are not affected -- F, C
19- T- PREDICTED WIND CHANGE: You may change the wind direction indicartor by 2 points in any direction; If card is played by both players in the 1st Turn of a game, simply dice off using a D6 to see who affects the wind first; you may add or subtract 1 from your result -- -
20- A - SOUL SEARING: Play when prizing a model after a sucessfull boarding action; You can restore a number HP on the model that took the prize; The HP restored depends on the pirzed model: small 1 HP, Medium 2 HP, Large or Massive 3 HP; The HP restored cannot exceed the model's initial HP, and any exceeding HP are wasted and may not be used in other models -- M
21- S - SOUL PUSH: Play on an activating squadron and choose one of the following: All models within a squadron can turn sharper by using a Template ones size smaller than it normally uses; Has no effect on models that already use the small template. OR All models within the squadron increase their MOVE value by +1" -- CC
22- T - SUMMON FOG: If "Mist" rules are in effect, this card can be played to turn "Mist" into "Fog" and apply Fog rules instead ; If no Mist rules are in effect, then for the rest of this turn ANY Attack Dice (AD) rolls made against ANY target (friendly or not) within Range Bands 2 and 4 only hit on 6 -- M
23- A - TRAPPING NETS: Play ONLY when INITIATING a boarding action with one of your non-creature models; Roll a dice depending on the current crew value of your ship: 3 or less: 1 dice, from 4 to 6 crew: 2 dice, 7 or more: 3 dice; The boarded ship loses 1 crew point on a roll of 4 or more. Natural results of sixes ARE NOT re-rolled and only count as one crew point being lost.-- CC
24- S - CARRIED BY THE WINDS: Choose one of the following: During the Movement Phase the squadron ignores medium sized or smaller terrain features and the model counts as Large models when determining LOS during the following Combat Phase. PR The model´s MOVE value is increased by +2 until the end of the turn.-- M
25- T - WIND JAMMING: Play this card next to the wind direction indicator, then you may change the wind direction indicartor by 1 point in any direction; After the above mentioned wind change and as long as this card is in play the wind direction CANNOT be changed BY ANY means; Discard this card at the beginning of the next turn -- M
26- A - MASTER SLAUGHTERSMITH: Choose one of the following: Restore 2 crew points OR Repair 1 hull point. No value can exceed the starting values of the model.-- -
Cards In red have been revisited and correcter since the last playtest. Those cards are mostly getting effects from other factiom´s cards (one of them (Splinter rounds) is a direct copy from the common deck, except it doesn´t has the fortification icon) . The exceptions are the card that help you "summon" mist and fog which are already game rules, and the "Trapping Nets"card that has been mande more balanced.
In general Sky Pirates are good at boarding but not as good as other boarding-strong factions. Instead of getting bonuses to boarding, they use "pirate dirty tricks" to de-crew enemy ships before board them. The other card effects are about increasing the meaneuverability speed and the skimming abilities of their ships to their advantage. There is also room for their mastery of weather and wind control which is nearly undisputed with other factions, so as you can see I did my best to do a balanced and "fluffy" card deck for them.
Special mentions are, of course about the cards that summon mist and fog, and also the card that lets you place a piece of terrain (reef) in the board. I wrote to Spartan Neil about that, and had no answer yet, but I have to say I participated in the playtesting of the Uncharted Seas new magic system. I won´t write about how it worked until I get an answer from Neil, but I can write about some of the sky pirate spell effects, and they were related to the summoning of fog and sand bars. So those effects are actually very close to what the game designers had in mind for the game. During the playtesting I saw those effects a bit OP when using the new magic system, but I am finding them ideal for the STAR card system, because they are more balanced and only last 1 turn and you have to be lucky enough to get those cards in your hand ath the beginning of the game to do a noticeable effect (but still usefull for flanking maneuvers). If you achieve the feat of pulling one of them in the first or second turn you deserve to win (wise opposing players will keep a counter card for that) as those card will help the extremely short range of the sky pirate have on most ships (battleship and flagship being the exception, and ofcourse the cards will affect their range too)
Finally I will write about the strenghts and weaknesses of the cards.: as a strengh there are several cards with dual effects. The player has to choose between one or other, giving some versatility. The main weaknesses are about the turn cards: Sky Pirates have a lot of turn cards (you can only use one of those per turn), and just one reaction card (besides the ones in the "common" part of the card deck), so they need to discard and renew quickly the turn cards they are not using this or next turn to get the reaction and other more playable cards. Overall I think is OK because this mean the card itself is as "fast" as the Sky Pirates are.
And that´s all. next I will be painting the IH battleships and then will work hard on the SP card deck to make a printable PDF so yoiu can have your card SP deck ready quickly.. ;)
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