Every fighting ship needs a Captain crew of some
kind. Luis isn't extraordinary in any way, except he
costs one point less than the usual Captain. When
you're trying to squeeze the most value from your
points, that can make a big difference, especially
in small games like the forty points that the rules
recommend. All you have to do is use a Spanish ship
(which you'd likely do anyway), and avoid using
Pirates (which you might or might not do anyway),
and you get a Captain for 67% of the normal cost.
Don't you just love a bargain?
This Is The Best Gold Crew Ever. No exaggeration, no
half-truths, and no bias (I rarely play the
Spanish). Do you use Spain and want gold? You need
this crew. Period.
Freda combines the two most useful crew abilities
for a gold ship, the Explorer and the extra cargo
space. Most combo crew save you one cargo space;
Freda not only takes up no room, he _gives_ you a
space, and you still get your Explorer. Put him on
any gold ship; he can turn an ordinary ship into a
go-getter, or an above-average ship into the Master
of Wild Islands. He'd be absolutely devastating on
La Monarca.
If Dominic Freda cost one point less, he'd get
perfect marks for value.
He's still a superlative value, and he has no equal
for running gold. I have nothing bad to say about
this guy.
Hi
everyone! As we near the end of RotF Spanish week,
(sob sob) we will now review two of their crew in
the patented, mom-tested, kid-approved...or was that
the other way around...Crew-Fer-Two-Fer!
-applause-
First of all, we have the pirate-hater Luis Zuan
that was first introduced in Mysterious Islands...(I
hated that set.) Then, we have Dominic Freda, who
was first introduced in Barbary Coast.
Luis Zuan, 2 points, Spanish
Abilities: Hostile:Pirate; Loyal: Spain. Captain.
Flavor Text: Luis Zuan spent his youth living down
the reputation of his uncles, both anti-Spanish
pirates. He knows that the only way to repair his
family's reputation is to take the fight to any ship
flying the Jolly Roger.
If you can recall in the very first set, Spanish
Main, there were two
brothers: Gaspar and Fidel Zuan. We haven't seen
them since. Although, we were introduced to their
nephew in MI. He was a captain, and a worldhater for
7 points. Now, why use this one? Simple. It's a 2
point captain. Now, captains introduce the extremely
powerful mechanic of moving and shooting. This is a
necessity on a gunship. For example, the San
Cristobal which we reviewed earlier this week. Luis
Zuan is undercosted, but for a good reason. Pirates
have the largest ship and crew base in the game, and
being hostile to them cuts your options down
drastically. But does this matter if you play single
nation? Not really, you just get an underpriced
captain. I cannot stress this enough, but if you
play Spanish, you MUST get this crew. If you play
Spain and don't want this crew, please rethink the
decision. There is no reason to not use this crew,
unless you play multi-faction, in which case you
start to run into problems.
Is this a Spanish staple crew? Yes.
I know that others, myself included like to use this
phrase a lot, so bear with me. If you're playing
Spain, you're playing this.
Luis Zuan receives a 4.5/5..
---
Dominic Freda, 4 points, Spanish
Abilities: Explorer. This ship gets +1 cargo spaces.
This crew takes up no cargo space.
Flavor Text: Italian by birth and a merchant by
trade, Dominic was recruited to open up new ports,
establish new trade routes, and discover pockets of
gold hidden in the jungles of newly discovered
islands.
If there was an award for most random crew comeback,
it would have to be Freda. First introduced in BC,
he sported the popular "+1 to cannons rolls vs.
Barbary Corsairs" and "once per turn, roll a d6. On
a 5 or 6, this ship may be given the same action
twice." However, now he has become a completely
gold-oriented crewmember, which is a good thing for
Spain. A very popular combo in the future would
probably be Freda, a helmsman, and La Joya de Sol.
This means you have 8 spaces for treasure, and move
S+S+S!!!
Talk about a nasty treasure runner. Of course, the
combo costs 18, so be careful. A problem with this
crew is his cost-4 points is a hefty price to pay
for a single crew that will spend his days on a
treasure runner.
Of course, this crew is the single greatest treasure
running crew that I have ever seen. Just awesome.
His combination is very cool, very innovative. Why
did they never think of this before?! They come out
with crud crew ALL the time. And then stuff like
this.
Dominic Freda receives a 4/5.
Oh, and don't ask why the spelling of his name
changed.
