The Mad Hatter
10-26-2013, 09:10
I played my first game of SoG at Flatcon yesterday evening (thanks again to Eric), I thought I'd post my review having seen and handled the ships and played two games.
First the models as that's a big draw to the game for me. They really are very good, especially for pre-paints! I'd give them a 8.5/10 overall. These seemed to be pretty close to final production models as far as I could tell. So what keeps them from being 10/10 I guess would be the question? Well, when I look at them in comparison to some of the 1/1200 stuff, the detail isn't quite as good. The biggest thing I would have like to have seen is the deck to have actual decking on it. It's done in 1/1200, should have been doable in 1/1000 was my thought. I also noticed the painting on the decks and in other parts isn't super clean and has what looks to be like maybe overspray potentially? Those are really the ONLY two issues that jumped to mind!
I have seen a few people talk about the plastic between the masts and the sails, but honestly, didn't even really notice it? Because you're always looking down and at some sort of angle, it very much blended in with the sails from my perspective. It's only when you pick it up, look at a straight side profile that you really notice it. If you added rigging and netting to the sides, this would easily disappear - and I can't wait to get my ships in my hand to do this (note two of the ships we played with had rigging done, I believe they may have been the exact ships Hajj rigged in the modeling threads).
Colors themselves were really well done. The ships REALLY come alive! The colors weren't super bright colors but looked more realistic and I might say weathered? It would have been easy to make the blues a bright blue, the reds a bright red which would have made the ships look very plastic and toy like, but I think they've achieved the opposite - because they have muted colors the ships look much less like plastic toys, more like painted wargaming models should. The sail colors were a bit different on some ships versus others, some had a very greyish and dirty looking sail type, others had a more bright white look to them. I personally preferred the grey looking ones, as I felt historically sails would very quickly turn grey or brown and never be truly white.
I can't say enough about the models themselves - as soon as they become available, I'll be buying even more ships to repaint just slightly to give even more variety.
Onto the game play then. The game played quite well and was INCREDIBLY fun! We didn't start with all the mechanics, first game was basically just moving, shooting, and reloading for the most part. It was a lot of fun with only those rules, not using anything more complex than that. I really like the fact that two enemy ships can't ram into each other, but two friendlies can. You might say that makes no sense, but these ships (unlike ancients galleys) weren't really meant to ram each other and I think including that would have led to some less historical gameplay. Having said that, running into friendly ships can HURT! A LOT! I think it helps capture the atmosphere of the game as you really have to be planning ahead, thinking about how all your ships are going to maneuver, and one mistake can really put a dent in your plans.
You do have to remember a lot of things in this game and I can see it taking a lot more pre-thought than something like WoW. We didn't play with wind changes, but that can create even more havoc for you and is another "future" variable you have to consider. You do have to remember/check a fair number of things from turn to turn. Checking the wind gauge, remembering what each ships sails are, remembering you have this thing called veer rating that affects what cards can/can't be played, number of crew and what actions you can/can't take based on crew remaining, etc. We didn't even play with all the advanced options, these just add more and more detail to the game (a positive, not negative). I think once you get into bigger games, a strict turn policy should be enforced to make sure you don't miss things. One thing I'm also wondering is, when using all the rules, how many ships can you effectively control?
We learned quickly that frigates versus ships of the line was bad, REALLY bad! SoL have the capability to tear frigates apart, mainly due to throwing out more damage tokens and the frigates having less burden. You combine those two things and the life a frigate captain can be rough! I really like the concept of burden which sort of reflects durability of a ship and how Ares has implemented this. The whole damage box burden mechanic works so well to really give the game a great dynamic feel to it.
Movement, while similar to WoG also feels very different - mainly because of the wind, and the potential to being caught in a bad position or wind change which could and does leave you not always where you expected to be. Even thinking you'd be orange, only to find out you're green in terms of wind can have drastic impacts, or as we found, getting stuck going into the wind for multiple turns and continuing to be pushed backward. I know some people feel there should be a third card being planned, but honestly, the game doesn't need it and it would just complicate things further without making the game feel like you're sailing a very large ship any more than it does now. Just one man's opinion though.
Overall, the game is incredibly fun, for me, maybe more than wings (although I don't play a lot of wings as many of you do). Overall game rating, call it a 4.5/5. I think we've got another winner with SoG.
First the models as that's a big draw to the game for me. They really are very good, especially for pre-paints! I'd give them a 8.5/10 overall. These seemed to be pretty close to final production models as far as I could tell. So what keeps them from being 10/10 I guess would be the question? Well, when I look at them in comparison to some of the 1/1200 stuff, the detail isn't quite as good. The biggest thing I would have like to have seen is the deck to have actual decking on it. It's done in 1/1200, should have been doable in 1/1000 was my thought. I also noticed the painting on the decks and in other parts isn't super clean and has what looks to be like maybe overspray potentially? Those are really the ONLY two issues that jumped to mind!
I have seen a few people talk about the plastic between the masts and the sails, but honestly, didn't even really notice it? Because you're always looking down and at some sort of angle, it very much blended in with the sails from my perspective. It's only when you pick it up, look at a straight side profile that you really notice it. If you added rigging and netting to the sides, this would easily disappear - and I can't wait to get my ships in my hand to do this (note two of the ships we played with had rigging done, I believe they may have been the exact ships Hajj rigged in the modeling threads).
Colors themselves were really well done. The ships REALLY come alive! The colors weren't super bright colors but looked more realistic and I might say weathered? It would have been easy to make the blues a bright blue, the reds a bright red which would have made the ships look very plastic and toy like, but I think they've achieved the opposite - because they have muted colors the ships look much less like plastic toys, more like painted wargaming models should. The sail colors were a bit different on some ships versus others, some had a very greyish and dirty looking sail type, others had a more bright white look to them. I personally preferred the grey looking ones, as I felt historically sails would very quickly turn grey or brown and never be truly white.
I can't say enough about the models themselves - as soon as they become available, I'll be buying even more ships to repaint just slightly to give even more variety.
Onto the game play then. The game played quite well and was INCREDIBLY fun! We didn't start with all the mechanics, first game was basically just moving, shooting, and reloading for the most part. It was a lot of fun with only those rules, not using anything more complex than that. I really like the fact that two enemy ships can't ram into each other, but two friendlies can. You might say that makes no sense, but these ships (unlike ancients galleys) weren't really meant to ram each other and I think including that would have led to some less historical gameplay. Having said that, running into friendly ships can HURT! A LOT! I think it helps capture the atmosphere of the game as you really have to be planning ahead, thinking about how all your ships are going to maneuver, and one mistake can really put a dent in your plans.
You do have to remember a lot of things in this game and I can see it taking a lot more pre-thought than something like WoW. We didn't play with wind changes, but that can create even more havoc for you and is another "future" variable you have to consider. You do have to remember/check a fair number of things from turn to turn. Checking the wind gauge, remembering what each ships sails are, remembering you have this thing called veer rating that affects what cards can/can't be played, number of crew and what actions you can/can't take based on crew remaining, etc. We didn't even play with all the advanced options, these just add more and more detail to the game (a positive, not negative). I think once you get into bigger games, a strict turn policy should be enforced to make sure you don't miss things. One thing I'm also wondering is, when using all the rules, how many ships can you effectively control?
We learned quickly that frigates versus ships of the line was bad, REALLY bad! SoL have the capability to tear frigates apart, mainly due to throwing out more damage tokens and the frigates having less burden. You combine those two things and the life a frigate captain can be rough! I really like the concept of burden which sort of reflects durability of a ship and how Ares has implemented this. The whole damage box burden mechanic works so well to really give the game a great dynamic feel to it.
Movement, while similar to WoG also feels very different - mainly because of the wind, and the potential to being caught in a bad position or wind change which could and does leave you not always where you expected to be. Even thinking you'd be orange, only to find out you're green in terms of wind can have drastic impacts, or as we found, getting stuck going into the wind for multiple turns and continuing to be pushed backward. I know some people feel there should be a third card being planned, but honestly, the game doesn't need it and it would just complicate things further without making the game feel like you're sailing a very large ship any more than it does now. Just one man's opinion though.
Overall, the game is incredibly fun, for me, maybe more than wings (although I don't play a lot of wings as many of you do). Overall game rating, call it a 4.5/5. I think we've got another winner with SoG.