Goblin Pirate Strategy
Goblin Pirates by Eric Greer
Booty's Bilge is the new goblin box for the dominion faction.
The swarthy green skins bring a new playstyle to the goblins and introduce the new pirate trait. Whilst they lack some of the raw output of other goblins currently available, they make up for this shortcoming with a toolbox of abilities which plays well into their hit and run melee orientated game. Using pistols, punching and energy manipulation this troupe should be able to run rings about the opponent whilst systematically assassinating and evading more problematic enemies.
El Capitano
The captain of the Goblin pirates is sure to be the linchpin of all goblin pirates list. El Capitano brings a selection of quintessential abilities to help enable hit and run tactics and also brings piles of energy to enable more combos and options for other pirates. Whilst not the most breathtaking ability or accurate at 3 arcane, El Capitano's pistol can start to soften up enemies at range so that other models can potentially finish them off later with one good hit. The pistol also provides an option for El Capitano should his other skills not be required this turn and has the obvious quality of being usable from range. As El Capitano is such an important model for the troupe being able to contribute to a fight from far back is a great quality as being the linchpin of the troupe will paint a huge target on his head from turn 1. This is further compounded by El Capitano's lack of any defensive tech such as armour of any kind of evade. With 0 evade, a 1" melee and only 7 health El Capitano will go down very quickly when focused on. So whilst he can achieve many great feats by getting in the thick of combat, he will then assuredly die during the opponents next activation.
If a safe opportunity comes up though, El Capitano can deal some serious damage to isolated targets without too much fear of reprisal, dead models generally don't put up a great fight. This should, however, be a last option with El Capitano to preserve his support abilities for as long as possible as losing these abilities can be very detrimental to the goblin pirate game plan. If the moment does arise though, El Capitano can prepare himself with 'hit' to deal an extra 2 damage on top of any other damage the captain deals with his next attack. Whilst the ability to deal additional damage from the first attack has always been available to goblins in the form of agendas, 'Suckerpunch' on McBoom and charge on Doug, El capitano will be able to make greater use of this damage buff compared to his predecessors. Unlike Doug and other Goblins before him, El Capitano brings a signature attack with no ∅ damage. This allows for this damage to more reliably be brought to bear and not blocked by a well-timed guard at the last second. The 'Jolly Roger' also cuts through all armour so plate mail, tough skin and all other armours are useless to defend against it. This can also be augmented with McBooms 'SuckerPunch' to reach crazy amounts of armour ignoring damage on Capitano's first attack of the turn. Should this fail, a pistol shot to finish off a wounded enemy or a 'Run' on El Capitano will ensure his best chance of survival.
Whilst these options are all great the crux of El Capitano however will still be his support he lends to other pirate models. Firstly 'Ye scurvy dogs' provides pirates within 4" of him +1 energy at the start of every turn. Assuming that Swigarty Swooty, Crusty Balboa and Seasick Stu are all present this will equate to +3 energy every turn for free! Whilst more energy is always undeniably good, more steps, more harvests, more attacks, etc. this bonus energy will prove especially valuable for the 2 new pirates as it will unlock further options in their turns, most notably allowing Crusty Balboa to unlock his 'Pinch', 'Punch', 'First of the month' combo. Whilst 'Run' has earlier been mentioned as a get out of jail free card for El Capitano to use on himself if an attempt at a kill goes wrong, 'Run' will most often be used behind the front line on other models. Most notably to re position friendlies and to help them escape after the hit part of their hit and run attacks and harvests.
Mainly what El Capitano will be trying to achieve throughout the game then, is sitting back and staying alive to offer his support abilities. This will mostly be using 'Run' for optimal positioning of your models to either get them out of danger or to open up new lanes of attack. While this isn't an option though, El Capitano can sit back and pepper the enemies with pistol shots to weaken them up before the rest of his troupe goes in. Finally when the opportunity arises, or you get desperate, the captain can torpedo into the enemy in an attempt to kill a valuable or isolated model. This is of course, as said previously, is a situational or last resort manoeuvre. El Capitano should usually be devoting his energy to helping out models such as...
Swigarty Swooty
Swigarty Swooty, unlike his mostly support based captain, blurs the lines between support and output. Like El Capitano, Swigarty brings a pistol with the same arcane stat of 3 to boot. With a +1 energy (from El Capital's 'Ye scurvy dogs') Swigarty can open the game by pumping 2 pistol shots into an enemy alongside his captains 2 shots also. Against some models lacking armour and with bad evasion, the duo can inflict serious damage together potentially killing a model off, or forcing an early heal. Much the same as for El Capitano's pistol, Swigarty's pistol gives a ranged option so he is always able to commit to a fight, even when he needs to hold back.
The first part of Swigarty Swooty's support package is the fantastically named 'Luv's da booty'. Much like the captain's passive ability, this lends energy to friendly pirates. Unlike El Capitano though, this energy is conditional and stacked onto only 1 pirate for making a melee attack near the squid toting goblin. Swigarty is also required to hold at least 1 moonstone for this ability, which means Swigarty will often forego pistol fire at the start in order to pick up as many moonstones as possible to better support his team for the future. This extra energy will commonly be spent adhering to the pirates hit and run policy. Melee attacking an enemy once, then spending the newly acquired energy to flee or sometimes buy the extra attack/pistol shot to finish off the enemy, then run away. Swigarty can also, in a pinch, make the melee attack himself to generate the energy for his own use, although with no inbuilt damage modifiers or armour you may struggle to initially commit him to a fight. Coincidentally, being able to trigger his own pirate synergy means that Swigarty can slot into non-pirate based lists quite comfortably too, unlike El Capitano.
Plunder' is the final piece of support Swigarty Swooty brings and could warrant an entire article itself on its possible uses, but I'll try to be concise here. Plunder allows Swigarty to temporarily borrow passive abilities off of other friendly or enemy models for the rest of the turn. Whilst Swigarty's base damage output is not too impressive with no weapons and only 3 melee, it becomes a lot scarier if Swigarty is able to 'Plunder' an enemy Fritz's greatsword or a friendly Gotchgut's 'Brute strength'. If Swigarty manages to achieve this much bonus damage or gain any other large buff, making a melee attack to generate more energy to get further use out of the temporary buff may prove fatal to an off guard opponent. As well as buffing Swigarty this can also be used to support other models with uses including (but certainly not limited too): Stripping armour off an armoured model like Baron Von Fancyhat before Stu starts to attack him, removing slow off the Firespitter in order to speed him up, removing midget from the Vicious Midget so his falling swings cause more damage...
Whilst Swigarty Swooty undoubtedly lends a nice mix of support and output, El Capitano lends mainly support, the final pirate of Boot's Bilge is far more skewed towards pure output rather than any support. This pirate is more than happy to receive any buffs from his fellow Goblins and will be sure to put them to great use.
Crusty Balboa
Crusty Balboa poses a bizarre stat line and set of abilities for a traditional goblin. With a positive evade stat Crusty isn't going to be dodging nearly as many arcane abilities as other goblins. However between the barnacle encrusted shell, 9 health and energy skewed heavily to the left of his health bar, Crusty Balboa will be able to keep taking hits and keep fighting in a way most other goblins struggle to do. 'Look out!' provides very limited support for a faction that mostly revolves around buffing each other, but this does give something for this melee orientated model to do first turn. However, past the first turn, this will see limited use as Crusty is far better suited to receiving buffs and being a mostly output piece for the troupe. Balboa is also able to circumnavigate a lot of the terrors of melee combat with an esoteric selection of close-range abilities, which can let him potentially survive or kill where other more traditional beat stick models may fail.
The main combo for Crusty is 'Pinch', 'Punch', 'First of the month!'. Unfortunately, with only 3 base energy this combo will ordinarily be impossible. However, between 'Ye scurvy dogs' on El Capitano and 'Luvs da booty' on Swigarty Swooty, Crusty is able to 'Pinch', 'Punch', 'First of the month!' and still have energy left over. With this extra energy, Crusty will be able to flee, finish off an enemy, or throw out more 'First of the month's' in order to lock down and damage more enemies. 'Pinch' is the first part of the combo and is unfortunately very situational. It is rare to see front line fighters carrying moonstones so this ability will often be used on someone not carrying a moonstone or a friendly model in order to set up for 'Punch' and 'First of the month'. When a moonstone carrying model does stray near crusty though it can prove to be suitably punishing to the opponent who will now have to hack through Crusty before reclaiming their lost treasure. 'Pinch' can also be used on a friendly model facing certain death to transfer the moonstone to this healthier and tankier goblin before the original carrier perishes, but this is even more situational. As mentioned before though, the main use of 'Pinch' will be to set up the rest of the combo, which often means 'Pinch' will burn up 2 energy to no effect, but this 2 "wasted" energy will often be worth it for 'First of the month' payoff.
'First of the month' can afford Crusty huge levels of protection later in the turn. This is as unlike contemporary big melee threat models, Balboa need never fear retaliation from the enemy he just attacked when it activates. With an end step effect that causes wound rather than damage, Crusty also has an effective method to punch through armour and cause damage as well as sneak additional damage in against signature moves which reduce melee damage. As well as not fearing retaliation during opponents activation the lobster rider can also avoid taking too much damage using 'Punch' instead of melee actions against scarier targets during his activation. This can be used to avoid counter attacks from big-hitting models such as fritz, or to circumnavigate other traditional defensive tech, such as the faeries ever-persistent 'Can't hit me!', as you cannot counter-attack an arcane ability!
However, from here, Crusty Balboa doesn't commit much else. He can tank and output large amounts of damage for a goblin but lacks support options and flexibility. Losing Crusty therefore is never as bad as losing El Capitano or Swigarty, so Crusty will often be the first to go down as the most exposed and easiest to hit pirate. This isn't too much of a problem though, as any attack directed at Balboa are attacks not directed at your squishier support models and whilst Crusty is relatively linear for goblins, the things he does do well, he does very well with pirate support. Our final goblin pirate though will be familiar ground to all and does things very differently to the last 3 pirates.
Seasick Stu (now with pirates!)
Seasick Stu has been around for a while but with a new card now and support from his pirate friends he'll see a new role in the goblin and pirate troupes. The first change to his card is the inclusion of a once per turn clause on 'Bawdy jokes', which means Stu will now no longer be able to move other goblins around whilst depositing half his energy on them. Although 'Bawdy jokes' is now more limited, Stu will still be able to help the mobility of his troupe just fine as 'Rough tides' can still push friendly and enemy models alike around the board. Stu's melee stat has also dropped further now so he will only be drawing 4 cards on the attack and just 2 on the defence, this change will make a lot more sense in a minute. Overall these changes will round Stu out more to a jack of all trades model, master of none and will encourage him to play in such a style.
Stu is fated to sit in an odd place with the pirates, being designed long before Booty's Bilge and the pirate keyword, which shows in how he works with the other pirates. Stu will struggle to conform to the hit and run doctrine of other pirates with his pathetic melee stat which will whiff frequently. What Stu does bring to the pirates in the melee game however is a 3" melee which comfortably outranges most models in the game. The other trick Stu brings to melee is a base energy of 4, which will increase to a 5 with El Capitano. This can commonly be further augmented by Swigarty carrying some moonstones nearby, which will cause Stu to gain even more energy for making a melee attack. So unlike the other pirates, Stu is perfectly suited to a long-winded fight as opposed to getting one big hit off then running away. With 4 melee cards many attacks will miss or cause only 1 damage, but with a 3" melee this shouldn't be a problem as Stu should normally be outside the defender's melee range and so can attack with impunity. Whilst death by a thousand cuts is usually hard for Stu with a weapon with weak damage for most types of damage, the pirates can aid him further here too. 5 or so attacks with a harpoon against a plate mailed Baron Von Fancy Hat will normally yield nothing, but 5 attacks when Swigarty has 'Plunder'ed Stu's harpoon and Fancyhat's plate mail might be a different matter...
Otherwise, Stu can fairly easily switch between this combat role or a support role, using 'Bawdy jokes' and 'Rough tides' to retreat models from combat. 'Bawdy jokes' whilst now limited to once per turn, can still be used to pull models into more convenient positions and give them energy to boot. The lack of multiple 'Bawdy jokes' per turn doesn't hurt the pirates as much as they rely less on stacking an individual model with energy, rather every model gets a decent amount of energy and performs quick hit and run attacks. 'Bawdy jokes' can still give a goblin that 1 more energy it needs to just dig up that moonstone, or just finish that combo, or move a goblin just out of combat or just into position. So whilst the jokes are less frequent now, they are no less potent for the pirates. Finally 'Seasick' can be used to stagger an enemy which is just too tough to deal with, long enough for your other pirates to get away with kills and the moonstone loot!
