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OK,

For those that have received and tried out dreadfleet, what are your thoughts? Personally, I thought it was pretty fun and enojyable. While I was initially turned off by the "alliance of races" fleets, each ship having a unique ability adds to the fun. Shockingly, we have already found some holes in the rules in a GW game. (I know right, who saw that coming?)

So, my first question is regarding wind strength. The rules tell you to roll two dice (one white, one red) in order to determine where on the board to place the wind marker. That's great, but what direction is the arrow supposed to be in? We looked through the book and found 2 pictures of it pointed inwards and 2 pics pointed out. We could find nothing that addressed that matter. We played a few games and used it two different ways.

1st - the wind marker always pointed towards the center.
2nd- the wind marker started pointed towards the center, but as it rotated around the board, we rotated the arrow the same number of clicks.

Any input would be appreciated.

Thanks.

How long do average games take?

The wind just blows from that direction. It's not aimed at the centre of the playing area. The key factor is which arc of the ship the wind token is in. If it's in your front arc, you're "In Irons". If it's in your rear arc, you have to move forwards a distance at least equal to the wind speed, but you can add the wind strength to your ship's speed. If it's in one of your side arcs, you must move forwards a distance equal to the wind strength, but don't add it to your overall speed.

morgendonner wrote:How long do average games take?

Boardgamegeek says 'about an hour', but I think that's a generic filler answer. It would be really hard to give you a good answer, because the scenarios move up in complexity.

Scenario 1 uses 2 ships and ends whenever either one has 8 damage cards. That's going to be pretty quick.

Scenario 12 uses all 10 ships, and runs until all the ships on one side are destroyed (which is really open-ended). That could take a LONG time.

Any average would have to be calculated per scenario, then averaged over the twelve scenarios. That would necessitate some assumption about how often each scenario was played, and I don't see them all being played equally. Plus, that average would be way long for some scenarios, and way short for others.

However, and this may or may not be useful, I am confident that (once you know the rules), there are several scenarios you could play from setup to completion in an hour. Not all of them, but also not just the one with 2 ships.

Narked,

So, you are saying the arrow on the wind marker has no bearing whatsoever? It is just a matter of what arc its in. Hmmmm.

Also, are you sure on the mandatory movement? It makes sense, but I don't remember if I read that or not.

Yup. The arrow is just aesthetic. The mandatory movement is in there. Any "Sail" class ships must move a distance equal to the wind strength as a minimum, unless the wind is in their front arc, thus putting them "In Irons". And if the wind is in your aft arc, you gain the wind strength as extra speed. Would quote page numbers, but my copy is in work at the mo!

narked is spot on with this.

It is a great game, though our group found it better to play a team game with the objective simply to clobber the other team; some laughs.

Have to say The Flaming Scimitar is by far my favourite (Heldenhammer can't count because it's broken as hell).

OK. Another question that came up the other day:

When you cast the order "Fire as she bears."

If this order goes off, do you get one broadside (i.e. 1 roll of the die) or one round of broadsides based on the number of shots the vessel has?

Thanks.

1 full round of broadsides