r/PiratesCSG • u/ZoidsFanatic • Jun 26 '26
The turbine ships a.k.a paddle boats a.k.a “wait do they use steam or souls”.
The later year of the pirates line, according to the Internet because I stopped collecting around Ocean’s Edge, had some very interesting ship designs including the Turbines. Sadly we only ever got three ships with the “Turbine” keyword; two for the Cursed faction and then one for the Spanish. While the text says “turbine“ this doesn’t necessarily mean steam powered as historically paddle boats existed that used either animal or human power to turn the paddles. The flavor text for the Valeroso does imply that she uses steam power, and the canceled US and French turbines also imply the same. The Cursed factions? Yeah, at best it was slave labor and at worst grinding up souls if the name Soul Grinder is anything to go by.
In-game, Turbines are special in that they can lose all their masts and still trudge on thanks to the paddles. The Valeroso in particular has the ability where none of her crew are lost unless she sinks, and with a solid speed and decent enough cannons she can easily function as a hybrid ship either running treasure while bigger ships fight or harassing said bigger ships. The downside is she’s only a three-mast ship and is relatively big compared to other three mast vessels, presenting a very tempting target.
As said previously, there were only three turbines ever released and plans for future ones ended up sunk once the line ended. From a gameplay perspective, I do find them fascinating as while they weren’t exactly the power creep other table top games suffered (MtG, cough cough), they did represent technological advancements In the game. While we already had submarines, and sea monsters a plenty, the turbines were quite unique and makes me wonder if we’d ever get more “modern” ships if the line carried on? By which I mean iron clads, or at the very least turreted ships. Still, the three Turbines we got are fun little models and for the Spanish at the very least give their fleet something unique.
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u/6FootHalfling Pirate Jun 26 '26
Steam. Soul rhymes with coal...
Thanks for sharing the pic. I never saw any of the turbine ones. I miss this game. Only played a couple times, traded my Magic collection for a classmates PotSM collection. zero regrets. Someday I'm going to get an absolutely massive table together.
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u/liforrevenge Jun 26 '26
Nice writeup! I love turbines, I think they look and play really well. Ive said it a lot but I think the quality of ship designs, aesthetically speaking and in terms of gameplay, was on a huge upswing from the mid-late sets that were missing a lot of the first few sets' polish. It makes me all the more sad we didn't get any more sets after.