Dreadfleet open box review

Having the good fortune to get my grubby little mitts on a copy of Dreadfleet a little early, I thought I’d share my opinions on Games Workshops most recent publication.

 

The box art is, as expected, excellently printed and easy on the eye. The main image is by John Blanche and it is clear it’s his work, as is the majority of the art in the rule book; all 96 pages feature incredible imagery. The artwork follows through on the game cards.

Three packs in total, two packs of small cards and one pack of larger cards. Around the sides of the inner box are the instructions for building the models and various game accessories.

The box, unopened, weighs in at a little over 2.5 kilos. Yes, I weighed it! Lighter than Space Hulk and a smaller box.

 

 

On to the models, everything that isn’t card or paper is the bog standard grey plastic, those who enjoy painting and building their models are in for a treat. GW has designed the kits along the same lines as Assault on Black Reach, Isle of Blood and Space Hulk so it’s all click fit. The level of detail is easily up to the standard we’ve come to expect from GW plastic and once built and painted you’ll need to pack the models very carefully or masts, flags and other fragile components will end up looking like the wrecks before too long.

The majority of the Warhammer Fantasy Battles races are represented by a ship and the rulebook, rather obviously, has a detailed entry for each of the ten models which includes a background story and details of special rules. Stat lines consist of 6 attributes, Speed, Hull, Crew, Broadside, Handling and armour. I won’t go into detail for the stats; I think I’m pushing it a bit having the game already. The twelve dice are average and there’s nothing special about them, you get 11 ivory coloured and a red one.

It would have been nice if the dice were a little larger and perhaps had a nautical theme, but oh well, maybe there’ll be a limited edition dice set available?

Finally included in the box is the game “board”. Not so much a board as a table cloth, or at least that’s what the missus called it. I don’t think the photo does it much justice by way of showing the design, but you can see where they were going with it. The missus describes it as having the feel of cheap nylon, I think the intent was to give it the look and feel of an olde worlde silk map, I wouldn’t say they failed, that would be harsh, but it definitely doesn’t have a silky feel to it. but it does feel very durable which is the important thing. At 5 feet by 3.5 it’s large but it will fit on a fair sized dining or gaming table, assuming your gaming table isn’t themed, that would make for very rough seas.

Personally I’m looking forward to putting the models together and getting them painted, I’m also keen to start playing. Whilst the rules do look a little complicated I’m sure that it will only take a couple of games to grasp them and blasting your enemy out of the water and sending them to Davy Jones’ locker.

Of course the main question is what are the negatives? As I mentioned above, the dice, I think a little effort could have been put into them, maybe an anchor where the one should be or perhaps a skull & crossed bones. My second gripe is the amount of work involved before you can actually get to play. Of course you can simply snap the kits together and get on with it. But, for me anyway, part of the enjoyment of collecting these games is to paint the models. It’s so much nicer to see painted models in play rather than the dull boring grey of the plastic. The other thing that’s missing, in my humble opinion, are more detailed building and painting instructions. It’s all well and good putting a quick guide on the outer edge of the inner box, but they’re not particularly clear and there’s not a great deal by way of a painting guide. A four page guide would be handy. The only source available is the small photographs in the rulebook or the images on the GW website.

My favourite model in the box? It has to be the Black Kraken, those chaos dwarves and their engineering skills, it’s submersible, can’t wait to learn how that works in the game. I also think GW could have done some of the work for us, with so many models to build and paint, some of the counters and other gaming accessories could have been better presented by casting them in multi coloured plastic, but maybe that’s just me being lazy.

Despite the few negatives I like what I’ve seen and I’m glad I have a copy. I strongly recommend it and I’m sure that it will give you great pleasure both from the hobby side and the game.

Enjoy it me hearties, hoist the main sail and prepare to catch the wind and have your timbers shivered and your buckles swashed.

I’m sorry, but did you really think I’d get through this post without the ubiquitous pirate reference?

Something else I picked up today was liquid green stuff. This is most definitely a WTF moment. Apparently it sets hard and can be worked once set. Sanded, drilled and cut just like the two part putty. To be honest I’m dubious, it looks and smells like extra thick green paint. GW also have a “now you’re taking the p*ss” release this month, a set of files specifically designed for the finecast range. For file read fine emery board, blokey types may not be too familiar with the product, basically it’s finely ground glass/grit/sand glued to a flat wooden stick. They can be bought in a budget priced outlet, the type where stuff costs a pound or less and you can buy about twenty for a quid rather than a possible three for £4, they’ve also bought out a second prep kit that contains two items, one looks like some form of tool for removing flash from finecast models, the second tool in this kit can only be described as an over sized toothbrush, because you clearly haven’t thought of using your girlfriends toothbrush to clean your models.

I’ll post my view on Liquid Green Stuff when I get a chance to use it. My main concern is that it may have a very limited shelf life.

 

Special thanks for this post go out to my secret supplier for the early provision of the game, and to the missus for holding up the game board cloth so that I could take the photo.

Lordy lawks, what a bloomin’ week!

I haven’t been keeping up with blogging, to be honest I haven’t been able to put my mind to it. I should have done a post last Sunday but I was too knackered and sore so I thought I’d do it on Monday instead. bad idea as I was in more discomfort than Sunday. Why, I hear you ask, was I  so ache ridden. Well the reason is that on Sunday I went back to the Western Heights in Dover, this time there were more bods coming along and I had set myself a personal goal of accessing a part of one of the places we saw on our previous visit.

On arrival at Saint Martins car park we learned that some of the chaps were already in the deep shelter, this was a relief as I was sure that it would have been sealed by now. We spent some time exploring the shelter and accompanying Gun batteries before heading down to the Grand Shaft. Whilst exploring the gun placements it was noticed that Saint Martins Battery was running alive with the most annoying creature known to man, a beast so foul and toxic that the mere thought of them sends a shudder down my spine, my hair stand on end and my stomach churn. What vile animals could promote such feelings of dread and repulsion? Children! Don’t get me wrong, not all children are evil minions from a hell dimension, I actually do know a handful that are quite pleasant to be around and I can stand more than ten minutes of. The children that were out in force on Sunday however were the worst kind. CUBS, I assumed that they’d been taken there for a day of history, it seemed as though they’d actually been handed blue smarties and cheap cola on arrival and told to run free like little apes released from a zoo. There were some adults who were alledgedly supervising the little “darlings” by supervising I mean sitting on the floor scoffing cucumber sandwiches and nattering about who’s doing what to who and when*, whilst ocaisionally shouting things like “do be carefull” and “mind you don’t fall”. So wanting to put distance between us and the horrors we headed down to the grand shaft. After walking down a 200 year old flight of steps our ears were assaulted with the yelps and screams of yet more cubs. It transpired that the walk down may not have been in vain, the gates to the Grand Shaft were open, Woo Hoo! We made enquiries about the possibility of going down the shaft, only to be told, by a very glum adult cub that the shaft was only open for the cubs. I looked around at the 40+ kids who were running here and there in a pattern that could only be explained using the chaos theory. It seemed clear to me that they were more interested in playing “hit the small kid with a stick” than the history of their surroundings. So having no luck with Captain Grumpy we headed away from the Grand Shaft and I led the party in search of a Tunnel that I half remembered, sadly my memory painted a better picture of the tunnel so we  made our way towards the engineers tunnel via a route that was last trodden by Raptors, or so it seemed. Fortunately it turns out that badgers are excellent path finders and he soon had us back on track. As we were walking through the early Cretaceous forest I noticed that an access door to the Drop Redoubt was open, my heart stopped. I absolute do not condone vandalism and I would not damage a property to gain access, but if someone else has chosen to make access possible, I would certainly take advantage of it. I mentioned To the Badge that if we could get in, we would go for it. Further along our walk we saw a group from the WHPS (google it) on one of their work days. When we got to them we enquired about the chance of a walk round the redoubt, we were politely told no as there was already a tour in progress and the next one, at 2pm would probably be full, of cubs, and Health and f*****g safety wouldn’t allow us to just wander around on our own. We decided not to wait and headed off to the North Entrance. After scrambling through a very small hole into the drawbridge mechanism pit we tried to find a way of getting up to the top of the fifteen feet wall to further explore the place. We managed to get a fair few of our number up and it was so very worth it. during the explore of the system I took a picture of a hole that I fell down in my now distant youth and we eventually headed out and on to the Detached Bastion where we finished a brilliant days exploring.

That’s about it, no painting or astronomy this last few weeks as Smiffy’s been away with work and family commitments and the sky’s been rubbish.

Hopefully there’ll be something a bit more exciting over the next few days. but before I go I would like to bring something to you attention.

Please visit the website below and read the info then sign the petition. Lets work together to save the little chaps life.

http://www.savelennoxpetition.co.uk/

Thank you

Tournament 2011

This weekend saw the gaming clubs second tournament, I set off Saturday morning to help out. The lads who were attending started to arrive all keen and eager to set up and get on, I, on the other hand, was not at all prepared, since I wouldn’t be playing I didn’t bother to take along any models, this also meant that I didn’t have any templates, dice I had aplenty, but with out templates certain things would be a bit hard to work out. Oh well we just had to get on. The rules for the tourney were fairly simple, for day one each player would play two games using an army of 500 points. the games would be annihilation and the winner would be the player with models remaining on the table there would be no turn limit and play would continue until one clear winner was determined. this all went rather well until two players had a minor falling out when one claimed the other had been cheating. It was decided between the moderators that a third game would be played and that it would follow exactly the same rules but this time it would be supervised from the onset and the the moderators decision would be final. eventually a clear win resulted and the lad who initially claimed his opponent, and brother, had been cheating won the game. The other lad was given a good sportsman award for taking the whole thing really well. personally I don’t think that there had been any cheating, it was more a case of the lads not playing exactly to the rules and interpreting them how they saw fit and when it all went wrong for the other chap he got a bit upset. the thought of losing to his big brother irked him somewhat and he wasn’t happy, so there was probably a bit of sibling rivalry involved as well.

Sunday was the 1000 points event and the games were seize the objective with a minimum of 5 turns, these games went without a hitch and a clear winner and runner up were awarded, the winner was in fact the lad who received the good sportsman award an Saturday, and his win was well earned and deserved. the only upset from today was one of the lads who had two clear losses and claimed that it was unfair because both of his opponents were fielding metal models. I explained to the chap that I failed to see how the other players having metal models had an effect on his gaming, maybe the magnetic resonance of the metal had an influence on the dice! he argument was that metal models are heavier, again I saw no relevance on that and had to fight back the urge to tell him he was being ridiculous.

On the whole the lads taking part behaved brilliantly and I cannot fault the way they were with each other, aside from the two brothers and annoying whiney boy, they had fun and there was no malice toward any of the lads from each other. That’s one of the things I like about the hobby, the way that it generates a strong sense of camaraderie with the players, we share advice on painting and modelling and most of time we will point out if our opponent has missed something out or forgotten something tactical, I say most of the time as I tend to lose a lot and if I’m playing against a horde army like Tyranids I don’t tell my adversary that he’s forgotten to roll for reserves, especially when he’s just taken out half my army in two turns. you know who you are!

I’ve been told that I need to learn how Warhammer Fantasy Battles, I also need to paint the models, and that will be done by mid 2012 at the current rate I’m painting models. so over the next few weeks I need to have a major push on getting the Tau finished. Oh dear, this may be about to turn in to another moan about how much painting I’m not doing, so before it falls in to that pit of tedious monotony I’m going to close. In closing I would like to say well done to the lads that won in there categories and also to all the lads for their brilliant behaviour, as a club we could ask for a better group of members. you are all brilliant. most importantly, I would like to thank Sue, every week she hands over half of her shop floor space to a bunch of noisy lads who probably scare off customers and make a mess, but without Sue there wouldn’t be a Saturday gaming group or the monthly grown up day, so the biggest thank you is for that wonderful and fantastic person.