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I got this game several years back and thought it was pretty fun. I don't understand why it was so wildly unpopular.

Well for me, the fact it was a one-off game was my deal-breaker. I was hoping for a relaunch of Man O War....

BTW maybe you should include some other options in that poll, or at least an Other.

I bought it. After reading the rules and checking on each ship. U realise one is wtf over powered and the rest are crap.

I didn't understand the hatred Dread Fleet got. It gave us a glimpse into parts of the Warhammer world that aren't given a lot of attention (the Araby ship, Chaos Dwarf thing, etc). But I think it was a mix of a few things: (1) the sticker shock, (2) combining a lot with #1, at this time there was a lot of anger at GW for various reasons (finecast, controlling sale channels, etc) and DF became the vent for it, (3) it was a one-off game, while each individual ship was interesting, I think we all wanted (or are used to) fully fleshed out whole armies instead of a rag tag group.

Ultimately for me it was the price. I could buy it, paint it, play it, or.... I could use that $ to keep adding to the armies I already have.

I thought it was fun, but really wished they'd made some things less random... I thought it would also have been great if they made some new ships and expansions

Reviews like this probably didn't help.

http://quirkworthy.com/2011/10/08/dreadfleet-review-2-more-ships-more-battles/

Ouch

People expected a tournament level competitive wargame (I'm not sure why as that's not exactly GW's forte) and were upset to get a casual game.

For the top two poll options, I think there was plenty of buzz about it in GW-focused circles. At least as much awareness as 3rd ed Space Hulk. And naval wargaming, while never as widespread as land-based toy soldier armies, still has a bit of a following.

My own pet theory is a little unkind, but I'd guess that a lot of the people who like Dreadfleet and it's randomness, stacks and stacks of rules and modifiers, extreme length, and lack of player input (like some of the commenters in that Quirkworthy blog post) are GW fans who have only really played Warhammer or 40K, and so assume that those kind of... design elements... are the norm for wargaming.

I guess, though. I'd be interested to check and see if that's the case or not. And there are other factors too, especially those that made other WH/40K fans dislike and avoid it. Like incompatibility with those two core games, I expect. I think a lot of people bought Space Hulk, at least partly because of getting some kewl termies for their marine armies*; and as Stegadon says, the price of the DF box was fair amount of money that could be poured into WH/40K armies instead. (Gotta, gotta, gotta buy 'em all. Gotta buy 'em all, four-tee-kay!) Combined with a certain kind of blinkered tribalism particular to GW fans, that prevents them even looking at other games - even those put out by GW. I dunno if you ever saw the kind of savaging that LotR - probably the last good ruleset from GW proper - got when it was released, simply because it wasn't one of the core 2.

*Besides the fact that it's a minor rewrite of a tried, tested and popular game from back when GW knew how to write those.

So Dreadfleet got that kind of savaging from two sides: from fanatic WH fans and from non-fans. Kinda tragic but - TBH - not really undeserved in all cases.


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 lord_blackfang wrote:
People expected a tournament level competitive wargame

I'm feeling a little more inclined to be unkind. Citations please.

and were upset to get a casual game.

Casual games are not GW's forte either. It'd help you to get that notion out of your head. I can't think of many things less casual than spending too much money on an unassembled, unpainted game with a great heap of convoluted rules that holds up even it's play-on-rails style and drags it out for hours. That's why I gave up on WHFB and 40K, myself. They weren't elegant enough to be tactical or casual.

If you really want a casual game, and define the ideal example as going through the motions, getting boosted ahead or knocked back because of the inherent randomness of the game rather than anything you did, I think I'd sooner recommend Snakes and Ladders over Dreadfleet.

We got a set as a group buy in. It's fun as a rare one off, but once you've burnt through the scenarios there's very little reason to replay.

I honestly think if you felt this was a good game, you need to get out a bit more play some more war/board games. This doesn't come even close to the top of the list for me, the one redeeming feature being the nice miniatures.

But, those alone aren't enough to remedy a game that (for me) felt like it had been murdered by committee.

Real shame, if this had done better in terms of sales (and perhaps critically) it might have prompted GW to try some other new ideas, get their design staff flexing their creative muscles for more than just re-hashing stuff that has been done before.

A big part of the complaint about Dreadfleet was that it wasn't Bloodbowl.

There were rumours floating around for a year or more that GW were going to release another all-in-one-box game ala Space Hulk. The word getting around was that it was going to be Bloodbowl, and since Bloodbowl has seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years, that was met with a large amount of anticipation.

Since GW insist on not telling anyone what they are doing until 3 minutes before release, that speculation was allowed to run riot... and so when the release actually turned out to be a new game that nobody had asked for instead, those who had been hoping for Bloodbowl (or failing that, any other of the currently dead Specialist games) were disappointed, and not disposed to like the game regardless of how good it might have been.


The fact that early reviews suggested that the gameplay wasn't great, that people objected to the mash-up fleets, that the models were useless for anything else, and that it was hideously expensive compared to other similar box games didn't help any.

As for the rules, I heard it shared one of the problems of the Maelstrom of War cards in 7th edition WH40K - the cards were too random, and let pure luck rather than the decisions you made influence the game too much.

For the price and the preparation time (assembly, possible painting etc...) it was a random strategy/tactic lite affair. There is nothing wrong with these two design element in isolation, but combined they are dire. Dobble has is a casual strategy lite affair (it is also very fun). I would not buy it for DF price though...

GW hasn't got enough fanatics left that will buy its games to rely on them. I think Space Hulk confused them, they didn't realise that a lot of the people buying no longer had any interest in GW games. I think they thought they hit upon the winning formula - high production values and limited release for guarantied return. The message that people liked playing the game and as a consequence remembered it fondly never reached the high command.

I think it summed up the way GW looked at things, the rules simply didn't feature in their calculations. Other games mostly live and die by their rules as they lack the GW shrinking fan-base.

Without the nostalgia value driving initial sales, no amount of secrecy could hide the game once it was released and the few people who hoped it was man o war bought it.

With the money and effort put into design and presentation, it is damming they couldn't do a half decent rule set or just steal someone else’s. Ok if you hated MoWs counter heavy approach use a variant of BFG. Still little effort involved, but at least people will enjoy playing the game.

And yes as has been stated the SH components could do double duty despite GWs efforts to make them Hulk specific. The mat in DF is great for naval games and indeed was highly sort after by many naval aficionados. The boats are nice little models but have little immediate application despite approaching the size favoured by a resin fantasy ship builder. But overall, what a waste.

The terrain was fairly useful. In fairness as little as we play DF, the mat and islands get used a fair amount for Dystopian Wars.

Ironically I played a guy in DF and SH today and he far preferred Dreadfleet. It's funny cause Space Hulk gets far better reviews

 Waaagh 18 wrote:
Ironically I played a guy in DF and SH today and he far preferred Dreadfleet. It's funny cause Space Hulk gets far better reviews

I would suggest he is the exception rather than the rule in that regard. That's not to say that no-one is capable of liking it but rather that Dreadfleet isn't that strong a game. It was unpopular for a variety of reasons; pretty much all of the reasons you listed in the poll options and given by posters above. The wife and I played the first mission (the shoot out between the two capital ships) and gave up after two hours or so with neither ship sunk. The whole mechanic of relying upon card draws for damage seemed deeply unsatisfying and the random wind direction changing every turn made planning moves a complete guess. Essentially (and from my admittedly amateur viewpoint) I felt the whole game to be vastly over-complicated and bogged down in unnecessary, fiddly and downright badly thought out rules. I suppose you could FAQ or house rule it into shape but frankly, who is going to take the time and effort to do that? You would be re-writing it from the ground up largely.

Problem with Dreadfleet was mainly a too expensive board game with bad rules. The material in itself is good, but its use is very specific - on the opposite of Space Hulk when you could always play the models in your W40k games.

if Space Hulk was more popular, it is thanks to 40k - and the fact the models used were still on the same scale. So plenty of people could actually buy the game not for its rules but just for the models inside (because, let's face it...the rules of Space Hulk aren't especially good for a board game in 2014, there is a lot of silly randomness in it as well).

Dreadfleet, well...not so much. The only "old game" it could eventually be used for would be Man O War or that game from Spartan Games , but then the size of the boats isn't suited. It has even nothing to do with Warmaster (let's not talk about 28 mm Warhammer Battle models). Sure, you could always take it for the skull islands, monsters and battle map, but it's a bit expensive just for that honestly...

The game rules in themselves are simply too random. It takes a silly amount of time to play an actual game with a lot of ships and multiplayer mode isn't really fun. And, yeah, when your victory is just about drawing the right card at the right time or rolling a 3+ on a die, there is no reason to take so much time to have that result.

It was a fail as a game. Fans love it, sure...but that doesn't make it a good game in itself.

 Waaagh 18 wrote:
Ironically I played a guy in DF and SH today and he far preferred Dreadfleet. It's funny cause Space Hulk gets far better reviews

True. Of course some people like it. Some people like things everyone else doesn't, just means their tastes are different to the rest.

Most people who enjoy games though prefer space hulk due to there being a greater feeling of agency and decisions mattering. In the latter the best player typically wins, in dreadfleet, well it takes a lot longer to play and you can't be sure the better player of games triumphed...

He or oval preferred it because he isn't as gifted with tactica

 insaniak wrote:
A big part of the complaint about Dreadfleet was that it wasn't Bloodbowl.

The complaint I heard was that it wasn't Space Marines. Naval game taking place in Fantasy universe had less people interested from the start, and many people accused GW from "wasting design resources to something people didn't want".

I don't recall it was rumoured to be Blood Bowl. There were rumours that GW was releasing a naval/fleet game, and most people assumed it meant BFG. There were Blood Bowl rumours last year though (or was it 2012) and they proved unfounded.

Other people cite random rules or poor reviews (actually more like one poor review which somehow always gets linked here), but that is made up after the fact. It was obvious right from the start, before any reviews rolled in, that Dreadfleet didn't generate much interest compared to Space Hulk. First reason is of course obvious, it was something completely new and didn't have any kind of reference or pedigree like Space Hulk or Blood Bowl etc would have had. With expensive game and no idea whether it's any good, of course people are reserved. In fact, for a "normal" board game, Dreadfleet probably sold quite OK, however within the framework of GW's "limited edition" strategy, it was a failure.

Biggest problem with Dreadfleet was IMO that it was visual mess. Fleets were random collection of ships, each of which is completely different and completely fantastic from any kind of realism viewpoint (in fact, the Ghost ship one is the most realistic looking ship!). People who buy fleet games want to build FLEETS. They want some sort of unitary visual theme so the collection looks good and has internal consistency. Dreadfleet ship selection was designed to appeal to everyone a bit, but when you try to please everyone, you often end up pleasing no one.

Backfire wrote:
The complaint I heard was that it wasn't Space Marines.

That was never floated as a serious complaint. Most GW-centric gamers are more than happy to see GW working on something that isn't Space Marine-related from time to time.

I don't recall it was rumoured to be Blood Bowl. There were rumours that GW was releasing a naval/fleet game, and most people assumed it meant BFG. There were Blood Bowl rumours last year though (or was it 2012) and they proved unfounded.

The Blood Bowl rumours had indeed been circulating for a couple of years. It kept cropping back up. But even when the naval game rumours started coming up (and from what I saw, that had people looking at a Man'o'War re-release rather than BFG) the Blood Bowl rumour kept coming back, particularly when the rumours suggested that it definitely wasn't Man'o'War.

It was obvious right from the start, before any reviews rolled in, that Dreadfleet didn't generate much interest compared to Space Hulk. First reason is of course obvious, it was something completely new and didn't have any kind of reference or pedigree like Space Hulk or Blood Bowl etc would have had.

This, IMO, perfectly highlights the problem with GW's 'Don't tell 'em what you're working on, and they'll buy it by the boxfull!' policy.

Keeping Space Hulk under wraps (as badly as that was actually carried through) still worked out ok simply because people knew the game and so knew what to expect from it. It was always going to do well.

Releasing something brand new without actually telling people about it and giving them a chance to get excited about it? Not so sure to work out.

They should have been hyping this game in White Dwarf for months before release. They should have been playing demo games at Games Day, and in stores during that same time, so that when it finally went up on pre-order, people had some vague idea of what they were buying.

Instead... they didn't.

Of course if they had made something compatible with man o war you would have seen all those players buying multiple boxes... (surprising number left, and ebay still maanges to sell the models off fairly expensively...)

A game, stand alone or otherwise, a bunch of plastic ships matching the Man o War classes and the same scale, multiple boxes sold to each fanatical MoW player.

Or hell, just do bloodbowl. If you want guarentied sales, what stops you? Some cheap, Vinyal mat, some kind of odd ruleset, models that correspond to the actual blood bowl game. If you (shock, horror) keept he rules used currently and by the computer game (Cynides biggest seller apparently, especially when they released people would pay 4 times for the same game...) you can release other teams for further cash injections on a direct only limited basis if you had a sales spike and no corresponding fall in 40k sales (showing your BB fans have no interest in your core game and don't buy your other toys any more, stopping you cannabising your own sales).

It is not like BB models are that hard to sculpt either given what GW's model makers are used to doing for Fantasy. They don't even have any weapons...

Having worked in a store at the time I can say the biggest complaint I heard was that it wasn't called man o war

One of the few GW games i do not have.
And i even have "Trolls in the pantry" and "Oi, that's my leg"
;-)

First off because i have Man O'War fleets and this was not a new Man o'War and the Dreadfleet models are not the right size for anything else really.
Secondly the game itself was just not interesting and also not good enough. I want to play fleets, not ships.

I might buy Dreadfleet one day if it's very cheap, i do like the models and could use some of the scenery.
But the game does not interest me at all.

non-compatible with other IP sources the factions were based on, and not complete enough to stand on its own

Backfire wrote:
The complaint I heard was that it wasn't Space Marines. Naval game taking place in Fantasy universe had less people interested from the start, and many people accused GW from "wasting design resources to something people didn't want".

My complaint was that the tooling that went to making limited edition skull-shaped rocks could have instead given my favourite army a plastic HQ, Elites, Troops, Fast Attack and Heavy Support kit. Pretty much an entire army in one kit OR stupid looking rocks that you will refuse to sell after a week (or a couple of months, given Dreadfleet's mediocre sales).

Limited edition game with models that couldn't be used anywhere else, and no chance of future support.

I did like the models, though.

ComTrav wrote:
Limited edition game with models that couldn't be used anywhere else, and no chance of future support.

I did like the models, though.

And then toss in way too much random chance for folks that want tactics to dig their teth into.

The Quirkworthy reviews pretty much summed it up, I think.

The Auld Grump