So I found out there are Pirate Turtles...

The title sums it up pretty well. In my continued journey to learn Poxnora, I have stumbled across Pirate. Turtles. I am more than intrigued, but have never really done FS. In fact, my entire FS experience: The free deck. Which I despise. I'm awful at using the frog people, which is why I haven't looked into FS until now.

But...Turtle Pirates. I'm in.

What do those more wise than I recommend starting out FS/Turtles!?

(Also dig the Voodoo Alligators.)

 

They are tortoises!

 

I actually went back and checked each one...Yup...Tortoises! That's so much better though! Got fed up with being terrestrial creatures. Looking out at the vast open Sea and thinking "Oh, to venture further. Oh, to see and taste and smell that world which for so long we've forbidden! TO THE SEAS, MATEYS!"

 

Anyway, as far as getting to work on Tortuns...

In my opinion (others may disagree) some of the better ones (and why) are as follows:

Privateer Captain (EXO): Privateer Captain is an interesting one, with some useful abilities with Slam and Deploy Land Mine, which also happen to go rather well together, as using Slam is a way to trigger the Mine forcibly on your own turn.

Unfortunately, Deploy Artillery Marker is at present too expensive nora-wise as an upgrade in my view. It is also more difficult to use as, IIRC, it costs AP to deploy unlike the Mine. The other upgrade choice is either Weary or Change of Plans. Both have their uses, though Weary is the cheaper upgrade, resulting in a 78 nora package with Deploy Land Mine.

I've also made use of Privateer Captain simply on it's own in some BGs, as I feel it is that good of a general unit. Bonus points for specifically being a Pirate rather than merely a sea-fairing Tortoise.

Tortun Captain (EXO): Tortun Captain is an AP generating machine. With Vigorous Cries and Tortuns Trade, he can provide a lot of AP to your units. With the Ready upgrade, he can also be a solid way to run for fonts, and Tortuns in general, with their general access to the Turtle ability, can be very good at font harassment. The AP generation can also help make up for the main weakness of Tortuns: Ponderous, by allowing you to squeeze a little more out of them than normal, particularly since there is no way to raise (or lower) their base SPD.

Pin Down can also be a reasonable upgrade, if you want to set up for other effects, such as Artillery Strike from a Tortalleon Gunbattery, or to make the most use out of a Knockback Effect to get extra damage, such as from the Slam on Privateer Captain, Explosive Attack from various Tortuns, and so on. Restrict allows for a slightly cheaper Captain, at 71 Nora than the 74 of the other two options. Restrict limits your ability to Equip things as well, so if you plan to use Equips (in particular Horn of Order) keep that in mind, but it can be useful to disrupt opposing strategies surrounding Equips as well.

Tortun Corsair (R): Tortun Corsair is one of my favorites. A strong, solid melee unit though a little on the expensive side. Banditry can make up for this somewhat, and Pistol gives him a "sometimes" ranged capability, though still fairly short. The main benefit other than the great stats, is his first Upgrade options. Resonance can be somewhat situational, as it depends on your opponents actions more often than not, but it can result in huge amounts of damage when it is relevant. More commonly taken, Tariff is a great way to deny Nora to your opponent (and maybe sometimes get a little extra Shrine damage in). Pilfer can be a powerful anti-Equip option, but I personally don't care for it as I feel there are plenty of ways to deal with it, and also it cannot easily remove negative equips in many situations. Given that it pushes him over 80 Nora as well, and it's not my thing personally.

Tortun Fishkisser (C): Tortun Fishkisser is crazy. He's got decent stats, Tough, and Manic. Manic can make getting early Fonts frustrating in some cases, but it generally more than makes up for it with the extra damage output/threat-range it provides. Learning how and where Manic will move a unit takes some practice, but it's consistent and you'll be able to figure it out eventually. Once you do, it can be a great melee unit, though it's of a siilar cost to the Corsair (79 with Tough 1, the cheapest upgrade option).


Tortun Galesinger (U): Tortun Galesinger is an interesting unit. Though it's DMG and RNG are unimpressive, especially for Torts, it brings interesting utility, and is fairly cheap. Windstriker or Wind Aura can both mess with Flying units, and make the Galesinger very cheap at 66/67 Nora, but I think the best bet is to get Gale, at 73 Nora. Gale can be used for a variety of useful things. It can "cliff" (push into a chasm to destroy) units with 0 AP that aren't flying. It can be used to push friendly Units into/out of range, or get that last bit of movement into a Font. It can help to trigger a Land Mine, cause KnockBack Damage with Pin Down, etc. It's just got a great deal of utility both offensively and defensively.


Tortun Grenadier (C): Tortun Grenadier is a solid ranged unit with high DMG, though not greatly impressive RNG. It is, however, reasonably priced, and more importantly has Fire Bomb, a strong AoE ability. Since the unit has fairly high DMG and reasonable cost, I recommend you go with Bomb rank 3. For Explosive Attack, I don't personally feel like there's much value in the Higher ranks. You only get a bit more damage, rather than any other benefit, and for 3 extra nora per rank I don't feel it's worth it. With Bomb 3 and Explosive 1, you get a nice 75 nora package.


Tortun Groundpounder (C): Groundpounder looks slow at first, but he's actually not. With Opportunistic, he won't get in the way of early Font capturing, and has even higher DMG than his already impressive stats indicate, provided you can get that first swing in. The groundpounder is also one of the cheaper melee options, and Banditry, even with Ponderous as a limiting factor, can emphasize that even further.

Charge is the cheapest upgrade, and extends his threat-range considerably. However it may still be worth considering either Tremor or Crushing Blow. Tremor can be a solid way to bypass high DEF, and applying Lumbering to enemy champions can be very frustrating for them. Crushing Blow is more expensive, and thus not taken that often, but if you can land a hit on a target, the debuff is immense. Though it's not as useful if the opponent has easy access to Cleanse.

Tortun Hawker (U, Newest Set): A solid unit with Detection, and Hawk Attack provides a sometimes ranged attack at a significant range. Alternatively, you could try to go with Call to Arms, to further advance the Nora returns, but I think Detection is likely more important overall. Declare Target can be a very powerful way to gain AP for multiple Tortuns, and keep in mind that it works for the unit that used it as well (provided you have enough AP left to land a hit afterward). Declare Hunted can offer a cheaper option, and isn't really bad, but I think Declare Target is the superior choice.

Tortun Mortar (C): The Mortar is one of the most powerful units available. It is slow and cumbersome, and it's AoE effect: Artillery Blast, can damage your own friendly units. However, it's range is immense, and Burn and Siege add a lot of damage to Champions/Structures respectively. At 72 Nora it's a great unit.

Tortun Portalmage (R): Portalmage is a very impressive support unit. Though slow, relatively squishy, and unable to cause any damage by itself, Charged Heal with Charged Deploy 2 can provide impressive resilience for your army, and you'll probably still get enough Charges in order to pull off the occasional Charged Summon. This Charged Summon is one of the most powerful summons in the game, and possibly the most powerful.

You could also opt for Charged Portal in place of Charged Heal, for additional mobility and a cheaper cost. It might be worth it in some cases, but I feel that Charged Heal is still the best option. Finally, for the "cheapest" upgrade in slot, you could go with Tortun's Trade for additional AP generation. It's not a bad option, and would allow you to probably go with Deploy Charged 1 as well, for a 62 nora package, but Tortun's Trade costs nora to use, so keep that in mind, it might not end up "cheaper" for long.

Tortun Repeater (R): The Repeater is a solid ranged unit, with a fairly wide variance in nora cost, from 72 to 82, depending on your upgrade choices. For the most part, you'll probably want to go with Fire Trap 1, for the cheaper Nora. Traps can be useful, especially if you've got a Galesinger, Privateer, etc. to forcibly knock the opposing Champions into them, but they are also difficult to use, and the extra Nora from the lower rank is probably more useful unless you're very confident in your Trap use.

The main choice here is between Sentinel and Suppressing Fire. Sentinel is the cheaper option, and again likely easier to use, since it mostly involves solid positioning of units. On the other hand Suppressing Fire can be more difficult for your opponent to work around. Also, with Knockback effects, it is possible to trigger it during your own turn as well as the opponents.

In either case, the Repeater can get a surprising number of attacks out, and well earn it's name. With either option, you should easily earn your nora investment. However I'd probably stick with Sentinel if you don't have that much Knockback effect, or if you need to lower your Nora curve.



If you choose to run Torts in a Split BG (15 of either KF or FS, and 15 of any other faction), you gain the option to run either Tremir Craghide or Mangleshell. Traditionally, Mangleshell has been preferred, being a powerful Ranged champion with some cool unique abilities. Mangleshell also the quintessential Pirate, while Craghide is of the more "respectable" sea-fairing Tort-kind. Both are Exos.

Craghide has the benefit of Cannon Barrage, which effectively replicates the FS/KF Spell Tortun Cannon Barrage, and can be fairly powerful, but is not necessarily reliable. Craghide also has access to Tortun's Trade, should you wish to have yet more AP generation.

Mangleshell as mentioned is a solid ranged unit, and has Banditry, which is generally quite good on solid ranged units since they can more freely attack, even considering Ponderous. Pirate's Treasure is an unreliable but powerful means of Nora generation, but ideally you won't have the opportunity to collect on it. For the Upgrade options, he's got three solid choices. Tariff, along with Banditry, can really mess with an opponent's stores of Nora. Frightful Blows can be a strong debuff to apply, and helps keep Mangleshell in particular safe from other units. And finally Vindictive can give situational Multi-Attack 3, which very much more than compensates for Ponderous. While Vindictive might be the most expensive upgrade option, weighing Mangleshell in at 84 nora (compared to 81 and 82 in the order mentioned above), it is likely the best one for a Tortun-focused BG, particularly since it works so well with Banditry to make it's cost back easily.

There are plenty of other good Torts that I haven't mentioned, as well as discussions on good Spell and Relic options (which can get expanded quite a bit if you go with a Split build of some sort) as well as Equips.

It is worth mentioning specifically Horn of Order (R) for it's AP Generation abilities, as well as the effect of removing Ponderous from any Tortun which equips it. Also the equip Thunder (R) which can give 3 ranks of Explosive Attack to anyone that equips it, as well as Cull to any unit that has "Attack: Gun" or "Pistol Shot" which allows that unit to deal 50% more damage to units that have 0 AP. (Several Tortuns have Attack: Gun and/or Pistol Shot, and in fact both Equips were originally designed to be especially good with Craghide and Mangleshell respectively, though it's changed slightly since then.)


Good Luck, and Have Fun.

 

@Ohmin "Ohman!" Haha, wow, that's a crazy amount of insight! Thanks so much for that! Are there any spells/relics you'd recommend? I'm doing FS/KF right now. After I test some of that killer advice out, I shall return! Likely with more questions haha.

 

horn of order:it removes ponderous and is an excellent source of ap

 

I also have a profound fetish for pirate turtles. Though I believe my IS/FS turtle deck is pretty shitte now a days.....

So I strongly recommend, if you are going to further your adventure with them, to go the route of FS/FW pirate turtles. FS/KF turtles are meh, FF KF turtles got nerfed, and SL/FS turtles are probably, but don't quote me, not as good as FS/FW turtles.

 

What would you advice, @Skullferno to go into FS/FW Pirates? What FW stuff would I need in addition?

 

Tuttles used to work really nice with SL.

 

note bokor is now fs/fw

https://poxbase.com/deck/ChYCawCg1CyOCyDcyACivCyUcixs4Ispsgs12snS5ar2Pr2IrWr8E1we20

 

The fun thing about tortuns is that there are actually several solid ways to play them.

My favorite is based on knockbacks/mines/supressing fire and cannon barrages. The bg ends up not having very long range and is somewhat expensive(several 75+ champions), but their comeback potential is insanely high. With one Repeater, a KB source and a mine you can deal 40-50 damage easily.

 

i kinda trying out a banditry deck with them....don't really know what faction to split them with for that tho...was thinking ash bandit prince (well bandit is in his name) and split with UD...but looting bag seems almost too good to give up....is this viable?...or some weird concoction i made in my mind to steal peoples nora by smacking them.

 

Looting bag is one weird equip. Not sure you should build a bg around it.

 

lol...it's more of a OMG i should have it rather than building around it....more making one where like almost every guy steals nora from autos....then having a looting bag for multi attack opportunities would be rad

 

What you need to make sure is that you actually get back the money you spend on it, because as far as damage increase goes you're only getting multi. Not to mention that the champions that do allow you to get multi are pretty squishy.

 

hmmmm......should see the options...may or may not be a good idea lol

 

If you go SL, battle fatigue might be your friend.

 

hmm...how so?

it does remove most of their ap.....isnt it a good include in most decks?

 

so.. why would you run split fs/fw? for risen grenadier?

 

risen and bokor....they seem cool...also because i always wanted to have "evil turtles" haha