Pirates of the Revolution – Saratoga #073

Name: Saratoga

Set: POR

Card #s: 073

Type: Ship

Cost: 14 Points

Masts: 4

Cannons: 2S, 2S, 3S, 4S

Cargo: 4

Movement: 1S+1L

Faction: American

Ability: “Schooner. This ship gets +1 to her boarding rolls.”

Flavor Text: “Captain Oswald "recruited" his crew from the Baltimore jailhouse and gave them one law: when you hit the deck of the enemy ship, the survivor goes home a free man.”

This ship has great flavor text.  Unfortunately great flavor text doesn’t necessarily mean a great ship.  Saratoga is sturdy, if underwhelming.  For 1 more point than the Roanoke, you get worse guns, 1 less mast and a cruddy ability in my mind, but she is faster and she’s a schooner. Not the greatest ship to include in your fleet.  BUT if you’re playing a non-standard point game (i.e. more than 40 points) she can be a good dual purpose ship.  Strong enough to battle it out with all but the five masters, would work well with Marines and as a ramming machine, but with limited cargo room you’ll be hard pressed to find a use for her in standard games. 

So why did we choose to review her in COTD?  Well, for these initial reviews we’re trying to get a decent sampling of all the ships and abilities across the board.  The +1 to Boarding Rolls ability is quite common in the game, and for some reason, it’s an expensive ability cost wise.  If you look at other ships with similar statistics and different abilities, you’ll see that Saratoga is slightly over-costed.  Still, the American faction is lagging in choice of ships, so you might find yourself in need of her. 

And you’ll probably pull her easily enough too, since she’s an Uncommon.  And I just LOVE the design of the 4 masted Schooners that WK introduced in Revolution.  Fortunately you shouldn’t have to pay more than a couple bucks on the secondary market.

My Ratings

Playability 2.5 of 5

Saratoga POR #73

Schooner. This ship gets +1 to her boarding rolls.

This is the kind of ship that can use both Commander Albert (though I don’t recommend it) and King George. This ship can definitely move being a schooner and have S + L movement. Low cargo space is a bit of a bummer but this ship will be mostly stealing gold and taking out other ships up-close and personal. For this reason the all short range cannons are alright with me. At 14 points and having 4 masts and 3 cannons that can hit effectively (the 4S is more of an extra life) This is definitely a good ship for plundering.

Constructed 4/5 with King George, 3.5/5 without

Limited 4.5/5 Speed is important in this game and very much so in limited. Against 5 masted warships you’re screwed, but versus treasure ships and smaller warships this thing is a beast.