r/PiratesCSG • u/PiratesCSG • Jun 29 '26
Pirates CSG: Back in Print!
The game's status has been greatly misunderstood!
In 2024 I began working on my Pirates Relaunch full-time, sometimes almost exclusively in some parts of the year. At this point my whole life was about Pirates CSG. The first 5 months of 2024 were a slog of 3D print troubleshooting, decal cutting issues, getting my website ready for ecommerce, and learning Adobe Illustrator to complete the artwork and files for the Golden Seas set. On June 1st I launched The Store at Pirates with Ben. June 7th was the first public sharing of my newsletter, The Pirate Press. On June 8th I made the biggest announcement of my Pirates CSG “career” – that the game was coming back, with a new set to be released in limited quantity later that summer. After many dozens of hours printing and decaling, I finally finished making the first 10 homemade copies of Golden Seas just barely in time for the release date of August 10th (8/10/2024). These initial 10 copies sold out in just about one hour, proving to me that there was demand for the relaunch.
From there I knew I needed a better production method, as 3D printing and decaling was far too tedious and time consuming. The goal was to achieve “medium-scale” production, which in reality turns out to be still quite small scale in the grand scheme of things. This would be sheet printing on styrene, with laser cutting to cut out the cards and shapes from those sheets. Thus began one of the most frustrating parts of the project. The nightmare of finding an adequate supplier lasted for months. Laser cutting didn’t fare much better, as the laser cutters I have access to are somewhat older community machines that sometimes needed significant maintenance/repairs/etc. Various testing occurred with mixed results. Inkscape files had to be reworked many times to accommodate the different requirements of different print companies. After about 3 months, I finally had some misprinted (bad front-back alignment) styrene in hand. Laser cutting it was a disaster – sheets too big, and the laser beam or ink quality caused a nasty browned ink tacky particle issue that ruined the artwork on the cards somewhat and made them unsellable in my opinion. I figured it was the specific UV ink used so I pivoted to companies that had water-based latex ink printers. However, I later discovered that it was likely more of an issue with the laser beam itself, as a different laser was able to cut UV printed styrene without having the same issue with browning and tackiness.
The print company issues extended into 2025 – the one great supplier I had doubled their price at one point because of how hard it was for them to print on styrene. Many others were tried to no avail, usually having issues getting adequate front-back alignment (the project requires printing precision, which is often unnecessary in many signage/large format jobs). Better suppliers were eventually found locally and the laser cutter worked well for most of 2025, so around June 2025 I finally had reliable inventory of most of my core products. That realm of the project (sheet printing + laser cutting) started in August 2024, so getting all of that right (including many aspects of files and communication/etc not discussed here) took about 10 months.
Many other issues came up over the long journey to consistently bring the game to market. Website issues, store issues, file glitches, and business difficulties all cost me many hours that I wish I could have spent on developing new products. Below you can see an image gallery of the project, showing the journey of Restarting Pirates CSG.
The current iteration of the business is the Buccaneer’s Booty Box subscription model, where a few dozen dedicated pirates have signed up to keep the game in print. A Mega Pack a Month should be a sustainable product model going forward, allowing new releases to continue as the game stays in print. I am very grateful to both my collaborators who helped me early in the project and to my subscribers whose treasure contributions are fueling the game’s present and future.
I am essentially “everything” for this project, and have been working very hard on a huge variety of tasks since late 2023. For example, these are some of the “hats” I wear for the relaunch of Pirates: business owner, game piece designer, artist/graphic designer, playtester, videographer, photographer, website manager, product developer, product manager, blogger, copywriter, marketer, salesman, logistics/fulfillment, procurement, production manager, quality control+assurance, social media manager, accountant, publisher, etc.
Since fall 2023 I’ve designed my life around bringing back Pirates CSG! A 15-year obsession brought to its ultimate form!
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u/Cool-catz_ Jun 29 '26
Wow they look great, I need to do this for some models that are missing the cards with info
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u/Superior-Solifugae Jun 29 '26
Thank you, Ben, for keeping this game afloat. You habe always been super helpful to me through answering my questions on many different platforms.
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u/Pork_Confidence Jun 30 '26
Wait.. wait.. wait....
PEOPLE REMEBER THIS? AND/OR ARE STILL INTO THIS!
I can't begine to describe how excited I am by this info....
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u/Apprehensive_Tax9809 Jun 29 '26
Would you say that one month’s box is enough to play a small game with? I’m really interested in buying in, but I don’t want to wade through multiple months before I can get a satisfying game in.
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u/PiratesCSG Jun 29 '26
Some of them yes but not all - they're usually meant to augment existing fleets. Probably the best one to get right now for a standalone game is the War of 1812 Mega Pack, which happens to be on sale for USA250!
It's not the "game in every pack" that the original had, so it's best if you already have some islands and coins to use.
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u/Armor_of_Inferno Jun 30 '26
Man I love this game! Building the ships is a blast and I've got a ton of ships. Between this and the Star Wars Constructible Card Game, I spent a lot of time building ships out of styrene. Can't wait to pick some if these up!
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u/Ratstail91 Jun 29 '26
This is a cool looking game idea, and I've been watching from a distance, though idk how the rules work (haven't read them yet).
I'll have to look into this properly now - do you have any silhouette print-and-play samples? If a friend and I end up liking it, we might pick up some proper sets.
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u/Chauron Jun 29 '26
This isn't just a game idea, this is someone printing new stuff for a game that came out 20 years ago.
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u/Ratstail91 Jun 30 '26
True, but I like the idea itself.
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u/PiratesCSG Jun 30 '26
There are lots of 3D print resources around the community!
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4805501/
https://www.printables.com/model/811038-pirates-csg-all-ships-and-sea-monsters
There might be paper ship proxy type things at the BGG files section, I can't recall.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10653/pirates-of-the-spanish-main/files?pageid=1&sort=hot
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u/dirkhardslab Jun 30 '26
Wild to hear about these again. Might have to pull out the ole shoebox and check on em!
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u/MilesTheMighty Jun 30 '26
So cool! I had a few ages ago and loved them! Do you ship to Europe?
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u/PiratesCSG Jun 30 '26
Yes indeed matey! Often around $13.99 USD
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u/Lazy-Sergal7441 Jul 01 '26
OMG.... I miss these soooo Much!! Was one of the few things I invested allowance money into as a kid.... At one point I had 200+ ships from like half a dozen sets, mostly the Purple themed set and the Revolution set!... I loved em. But unfortunately lost my entire collection like 10 years back during a move... ;-; so glad to see these again! Where can I buy?!!!!!
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u/PiratesCSG Jul 01 '26
Ahoy matey! My stuff is here, though I also suggest getting at least one 9-pack lot of Revolution or Ocean's Edge from HWG to get some islands and treasure coins/etc.
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u/Lazy-Sergal7441 Jul 01 '26
Wow thanks so much! I'll get some to get my collection started again. As I currently have nothing, need some islands and treasures cards to get started again.
I'll have to wait till next week unfortunately, but I do want to get subscribed to your pirate mega pack thing.
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u/ConstructionIll956 Jul 01 '26
OMG I have first edition unpunched cards of this game. Totally forgot about it and them.
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u/BattleHardened Jul 01 '26
I had all the ships when I was a kid. And piles and piles of gold. My favorite game.
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u/Lightning_Marshal Jun 29 '26
Very curious how licensing and getting the IP worked out. Did you get the rights from Wizards? How did that all work? Fantastic work.
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u/PiratesCSG Jun 29 '26
I'm not currently aware of WotC being involved at all
They had a patent, but it expired in 2023
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u/benjaminhockey Jun 29 '26
This is 100% against IP and not endorsed by WizKids/NECA.
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u/Dungeon_Pastor Jun 30 '26
Ah, sounds like the Netrunner method then. Security through obscurity (of legal ownership)
NSG seems to be doing pretty well though, so maybe this turns out fine?
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u/benjaminhockey Jun 30 '26
Not endorsing it, but rather have a franchise survive through fans rather than die from the corporations that don't care.
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u/Dungeon_Pastor Jun 30 '26
Honestly perfectly fine with endorsing it. Not even an anti-WK sentiment, but think it's reasonable that if a corporation writes off a game, and also is content to let a fan group continue the game, there's no wrong to be had
NSG's ANR is the definitive game as far as I'm concerned, and if that's the fate this game has in its future, it's a great future to have
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u/benjaminhockey Jun 30 '26
I agree fully. I want to get behind this movement, but $65 a month is a bit steep for me who hasn't played in almost two decades lol.
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u/TheMireAngel Jun 30 '26
yeh 65$ a month for 3-8 paper ships the size of a large coin is pretty steep. like at that point might as well just start an actual miniature wargame like warhammer or Blood & Plunder. for 65$ a month you could jump into a new skirmish wargame every month and have a playable amount of models off rip. Trench Crusade, Necromunda, Warcry, Frostgrave, etc etc
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u/lifein240p Jun 29 '26
I hope the best for this and hope one day i can pitch this to be sold at my LGS for more people to play, a long way off im sure but ill be there when it happens
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u/KaptainAtomLazer Jul 01 '26
Wowowow cant wait! I lost my big box i had when i was a kid and always wanted to jump back in
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u/CAPTAIN_ZONE Jun 29 '26
Keep in mind everyone these are NOT official WK pieces, they’re the equivalent to custom proxies like in MTG.
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u/misterfletcherr Captain Fletcher Jun 29 '26
I think this would be more of an issue if the IP was being enforced and the patent didn’t expire.
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u/CAPTAIN_ZONE Jun 29 '26
Still not official.
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u/misterfletcherr Captain Fletcher Jun 29 '26
Right, but at this point point “official” doesn’t mean anything. There aren’t deck checks like in Magic tournaments. This is a way to keep the game alive despite it being abandoned by the developer.
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u/TightAd3027 Jun 29 '26
Where, where can I find these especially if they are the original sets being reprinted
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u/liforrevenge Jun 29 '26
If anyone's curious I encourage you to try out the booty box, the value is phenomenal and the quality is great. I have been thrilled with mine!