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RiTides wrote:

I'm not sure why expandability is being pointed to as a big drawback, though- given the price concern, the two seem somewhat incongruent.

To me expandability is only a drawback in relation to the price of the game. I'd be more inclined to invest a larger sum of money into a game that I believe I'll still be playing in a year. A game that offers expansions gives me the expectation that even after I bore of the core game, I can invest a little more money and get a fresh experience.

I agree that the value of the contents of the DF box are worth the asking price, but that price is to high of an entry to me for a game I probably won't play longer than a couple months. In that sense, I'd rather the game came with lesser quality pieces and at a lower price point. That way, I'd feel justified spending $60-$80 for a game that I'll enjoy for a couple months.

JOHIRA wrote:

RiTides wrote:I'm not sure why expandability is being pointed to as a big drawback, though- given the price concern, the two seem somewhat incongruent.

Not exactly. Basically, if I buy "Dread Fleet", I can only get a certain set of ships. I don't like many of the ships at all, and others I see as an okay design but are limited in appeal because of how exaggerated the GW imagery is on them (ex: the Empire ship, with a GIANT HAMMERMAN on the prow for no good reason)

If I was able to spend the same amount of money on whatever ships I wanted, I'd probably be all over this game. If I could get a fleet of various High Elf cruisers and escorts, I'd be in pointy-hat hog heaven. Or if the game had a cohesive look, like with all Imperial ships on one side and all pirate ships on the other, I might consider it. But with their current "wacky grab-bag" model, the game is just too expensive and gives me too little of what I want.

Good point, and I would've been all over that, too. I like what came out as I don't see GW supporting BFG-for-fantasy and making ships for every race, and I'm happy to have what did come out. Also, as I mentioned before money is a little tight and I'm having to prioritize projects, so starting a new system, rather than a one-off game, would've been a little much for me. I probably still would have done it, though

@ augustus- I definitely see your point as well (similar to the above, I think).

@ plastictrees- It's a 2-person game, but the video mentions you could have up to 10 people play if each just controls one ship!

Not exactly. Basically, if I buy "Dread Fleet", I can only get a certain set of ships. I don't like many of the ships at all, and others I see as an okay design but are limited in appeal because of how exaggerated the GW imagery is on them (ex: the Empire ship, with a GIANT HAMMERMAN on the prow for no good reason)

Don't forget the giant hammerman can actually swing down and smash enemy ships, if I understood Phil correctly in the video...oh, and there's a giant cathedral on the back.

But yeah, I think that's what bothers me the most about the models, I don't like the rag-tag look. I like that each ship is personalized, that's cool, but at the same time the ships are just way too different and seeing each fleet lined up side by side looks like an incoherent mess. A fleet that looked a little more cohesive while still having personalized ships would be better in my opinion, but then everyone would complain because their favorite race isn't represented...speaking of which it seems pointless to even try and represent every race when they inevitably have to leave some of them out anyway, especially when they leave out Dark Elves, who are the sea-faring pirate race in WHF and really deserved a ship more than freaking Tomb Kings or Skaven did (I'm assuming the giant undead angler fish thing is a Skaven ship anyway).

I also hate how each and every island is a skull. Seriously, I'm getting tired of the "Hurr durr skulls everywhere it's our 'trademark'!" thing. It's not cool, it was never cool, it's fething stupid and the only people who actually like this crap are 9-year-olds (either physically or mentally 9-years-old). Sorry if anyone finds that offensive, I wasn't aiming it at anyone directly at Dakka, but still.

I'm not sure why GW didn't have their cake and eat it too, on this one. I will be buying it anyway, but how sweet would it have been to do this:

Release the game in the same scale as Man-o-war.

Make the rules compatible with a new edition of Man-o-war.

Release the game as a stand-alone board game, and inform people that if they liked the game, you could also expand your fleet and play different scenarios, using the Man-o-War rulebook and new, Finecast Man-o-war miniatures available from GW.

Sell both a Man-o-war rulebook and Man-o-war miniatures, and package each ship with the cards needed for that ship.

Then you could sell to both one-off board gamers, and people who wanted expandable armies. You could get old Man-o-war players to buy new models and new rules, and you could attract people from the board game into an expandable game.

You could have also gotten older Man-o-war players buying the box game just to get the naval terrain and sweet new sea game mat, as well.


It might well have been more trouble than it was worth, but it seems like developing a new game and developing a new version of an old game wouldn't have been too much different in practice. I don't know how much trouble it would have been to prepare the old Man-o-war sculpts for resin, either, but I think you could have done it, especially if you focused on key ships immediately, and rolled out some more ships every few months. Don't sell them in stores, or anything; just offer them through Direct Sales, too.

Da Butcha wrote:I'm not sure why GW didn't have their cake and eat it too, on this one. I will be buying it anyway, but how sweet would it have been to do this:

Release the game in the same scale as Man-o-war.

Make the rules compatible with a new edition of Man-o-war.

Release the game as a stand-alone board game, and inform people that if they liked the game, you could also expand your fleet and play different scenarios, using the Man-o-War rulebook and new, Finecast Man-o-war miniatures available from GW.

Sell both a Man-o-war rulebook and Man-o-war miniatures, and package each ship with the cards needed for that ship.

Then you could sell to both one-off board gamers, and people who wanted expandable armies. You could get old Man-o-war players to buy new models and new rules, and you could attract people from the board game into an expandable game.

You could have also gotten older Man-o-war players buying the box game just to get the naval terrain and sweet new sea game mat, as well.


It might well have been more trouble than it was worth, but it seems like developing a new game and developing a new version of an old game wouldn't have been too much different in practice. I don't know how much trouble it would have been to prepare the old Man-o-war sculpts for resin, either, but I think you could have done it, especially if you focused on key ships immediately, and rolled out some more ships every few months. Don't sell them in stores, or anything; just offer them through Direct Sales, too.

You sir, are a genius. Now, do you have any ideas about how to settle that little squabble over in Israel/Palestine?

Sidstyler wrote:

Not exactly. Basically, if I buy "Dread Fleet", I can only get a certain set of ships. I don't like many of the ships at all, and others I see as an okay design but are limited in appeal because of how exaggerated the GW imagery is on them (ex: the Empire ship, with a GIANT HAMMERMAN on the prow for no good reason)

Don't forget the giant hammerman can actually swing down and smash enemy ships, if I understood Phil correctly in the video...oh, and there's a giant cathedral on the back.

But yeah, I think that's what bothers me the most about the models, I don't like the rag-tag look. I like that each ship is personalized, that's cool, but at the same time the ships are just way too different and seeing each fleet lined up side by side looks like an incoherent mess. A fleet that looked a little more cohesive while still having personalized ships would be better in my opinion, but then everyone would complain because their favorite race isn't represented...speaking of which it seems pointless to even try and represent every race when they inevitably have to leave some of them out anyway, especially when they leave out Dark Elves, who are the sea-faring pirate race in WHF and really deserved a ship more than freaking Tomb Kings or Skaven did (I'm assuming the giant undead angler fish thing is a Skaven ship anyway).

I also hate how each and every island is a skull. Seriously, I'm getting tired of the "Hurr durr skulls everywhere it's our 'trademark'!" thing. It's not cool, it was never cool, it's fething stupid and the only people who actually like this crap are 9-year-olds (either physically or mentally 9-years-old). Sorry if anyone finds that offensive, I wasn't aiming it at anyone directly at Dakka, but still.

Tomb kings have a legitimate reason. Zandri has a death fleet, the pride of which is the king (or kings, as in many different kings) funeral barge.

Da Butcha wrote:I'm not sure why GW didn't have their cake and eat it too, on this one. I will be buying it anyway, but how sweet would it have been to do this:
Release the game in the same scale as Man-o-war.
Make the rules compatible with a new edition of Man-o-war.

Man'o'War wasn't a commercial success at its time (AFAIK, at least nobody cared in my local FLGS). The models were ugly and very expensive.
Now with Spartan Games, the prospects are even worse.
That said, the gaming mat is usable for Spartan games AND Man'o'War, the ships and terrain seem to be same scale as Spartan Games.
So now you have a better Man'o'War (Spartan) AND a boxed game with terrain in the same scale. That seems better than what you prosposed.

What are the dimensions of that mat? It looks a little too small for Spartan Games to me, though there's not much to scale it too.

As answered several times, the mat is 5ft x 3.5 ft.

I realise that some of spartan minis are not the best, their older stuff. but the new stuff is all Computer designed. Check out the Ralgard fleet. Its a big step up.

new info about the flag ships up on gw


http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=18300010a

The rules, from what I can make of the descriptions at that link, sound pretty cool .

Also not harboring too much hate towards the hammer. You can see the idea, there's a pivot point at the bottom and chains near the top, so it can be released to swing downwards onto another ship.

Not that practical, but hey, this is a fantasy universe. There's a metallic octopus and a floating ghost ship and what-have-you, too

Also, it seems they did plan this for national talk-like-a-pirate day somewhat! Pretty funny

GW site is saying that 25% of web stock has been sold in 2 days.

This is either not bad going or clumsy sales techniques. YMDC!

4oursword wrote:Would anyone play a Fantasy Naval expansion if there was one?

Judging by the General's Compendium rules?

No.

So, after perusing the "What's New Today", two things stuck out at me:
1) Noctilus is seemingly not affiliated with Sartosa. Intriguing to say the least, maybe they flesh out Sartosans being "pirates" but the Vampire Captains are considered persona non gratis?
2)Noctilus gets to freaking control undead sea monsters. Excellent. Conversion opportunities for my VC army grow...

Good news is they're at least fleshing out a piece of background that many have wanted fleshed out. Yay, Sartosa!

I thought the "pirate battles in the warhammer world" tag line sort of gave that away.

I read that GW stuff today and once you got past the ads and the pirate day silliness the capital ship stuff was quite interesting.

notprop wrote:I thought the "pirate battles in the warhammer world" tag line sort of gave that away.

Doesn't necessarily mean they had to do Sartosa though.
Marienburg, Araby, and more all include pirates within their regions.

I'm really excited about this game. IMO, the value of the game at $115 USD is apparent. You get a ton of high quality plastic miniatures--I personally like the aesthetic, others may not, and that's fine-- and, despite how you feel about the aesthetic, it's hard to argue that you don't get a good amount of value out of the box. Further, the gaming mat, were it made by GF9 or a comparable company, would be, at the cheapest, $35. Given that, the minis are actually only $80. Again, to me a good deal.

I'm a bit amazed at all the complaining about the video. I thought it was really well done and, quite frankly, no other gaming company outside FFG produces anything similar to them. GW is so far and away better at updating their website than any other wargaming company. I wish Privateer updated theirs half the amount that GW does. I keep checking in to see some Trollbloods Battle Engine previews, only to be disappointed. I'll keep going, though

I think, also, people need to look at the fact that GW is doing another boxed game as a very positive thing. Sure, releasing them as limited editions allows them a nice big surge of capital, but that's only good for their other product lines. Additionally, it shows us that they're willing to do these boxed sets, paving the way for future ones (Blood Bowl 25th Anniversary Edition, anyone?). For all of us unwilling to shell out $400 on eBay for Warhammer Quest, this is again a good thing. I want Warhammer Quest. You want Warhammer Quest. The simple matter is that there are a lot more cost variables to include with Warhammer Quest. With the cards that Dreadfleet is using, it appears that this may be a baby-step towards that. I think we all realize that if they were to redo Warhammer Quest, it's going to be expensive. Probably $150 expensive. Releasing this at $115 could be a good gauge for that.

Anyway, I'm excited. I can't wait to paint em up.

cincydooley wrote: GW is so far and away better at updating their website than any other wargaming company.

For anything relating to immediate sales, at least...

Anyone who has waited 3 or 4 years for an FAQ would question GW's awesomeness at website updates.

And ignoring PP's daily blog posts that show things going on along with a couple previews of new releases every week.

notprop wrote:GW site is saying that 25% of web stock has been sold in 2 days.

Interesting! Where did you see this?

Also, the fact that Count Noctilus can control sea monsters is very cool, assuming he can control the 3 or so that look to be included in the set and actually use them in-game.

RiTides wrote:

notprop wrote:GW site is saying that 25% of web stock has been sold in 2 days.

Interesting! Where did you see this?
.....

What's New today page wrote:+++ Message in a bottle: With only 48 hours gone, we're already over 25% of the way through our web allocation for Dreadfleet. Don't find yourself marooned without a copy - advance order today! +++

Certainly it's still on the UK page, just below the first silly picture

notprop wrote:GW site is saying that 25% of web stock has been sold in 2 days.

Interesting, so they've sold 3 copies already then?

12thRonin wrote:And ignoring PP's daily blog posts that show things going on along with a couple previews of new releases every week.

Dude. They hardly update daily. You're smoking some dank if you actually think that.

Also not harboring too much hate towards the hammer

What you did there, we see it RiTides!

Here the mmore interesting pics of the article:
https://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/blogPost.jsp?aId=18300010a&_requestid=79743

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:

Also not harboring too much hate towards the hammer

What you did there, we see it RiTides!

It was coincidence, honest!

Really liking the pic of the open box above...

Indeed.

It's nice to see a box crammed to the brim.

I think you mean crammed to the gunnels.

Context dear boy, context.

Well I think GW missed a trick and should have packed it in a pirate treasure chest


and when you buy a set instead of them giving you the game, they give you a map where marks the spot.