Dreadfleet: More Progress

The Dreadfleet progress has been slow, but steady. I have finished all of the shipwreck scenery bits:

 

 

I have also assembled the next batch of ships: On the Dreadfleet side is the Curse of Zandri, and Skabrus. These should be straightforward– no sails to paint, just the ship and a single top bit. They are open enough that I could assemble them and paint them as (mostly) one piece.

 

On the Grand Alliance side, we have the Seadrake and the Swordfysh. These will be the first of the sailed ships. I chose them because of their easy-to-assemble hulls and because the sails look like the simplest to paint– a black background for the Swordfysh sails, and solid blue sails without any elaborate designs for the Seadrake. This will allow me to see how fiddly the design work on the sails will be to paint.

Once I get these ships finished, I'll have three per side, including some sail ships so the wind gauge will have a definite effect. That will allow me to play a more involved test game.
 

I tried a little one-on-one fight with Grimnir's Thunder and the Black Kraken. I used a small portion of the map and it was a quick affair. Two turns worth of volleys was enough to sink a ship. I wasn't using the wind marker and I disregarded any Fate cards that referred to things I didn't have available, like the sea monsters. As the ships closed to firing range, the first few turns were spent building up game effects like fog that incurred command penalties, random attacks on ships, etc, all generated by drawing Fate cards. I have read some reviews of the game that said the random Fate events ruin the game. I can definitely see how that could be the case. It seems that a simple solution would be to draw fewer Fate cards (or no cards at all). We'll see once I put together a larger skirmish.

In other news, I'm nearly finished with the graveyard terrain that I teased a couple weeks ago. I have a big announcement to drop in the coming days.

'Til next time!