Lets talk Dreadfleet

The components are ridiculous in how gorgeous they are though. I wish someone would make a decent ruleset utilizing them all, even the sexy range rules and such.

If I had more time and less projects on my plate, I would try tackling a PotSM engine amalgam using these components.

Personally, I don't want another ruleset to go along with the minis, I feel it is perfect as is.

I was seriously thinking about getting into DreadFleet because I was big into ManOWar in the 90s.

ManOWar was a mess, but it was glorious. At the time, I couldn't afford a Warhammer army proper, but I could get a few fleets. The cool thing about MoW was that they packed so much of the army's flavor into the fleet lists...it was also what made the game bit goofy. It was cool that you can put rat ogres and such on your skaven ships...they made nasty work of boarding parties...however, skaven (rat people) building boats and sailing the seas...wha???

I also really enjoyed how each ship had a unique card with sections portioned out. You tracked damage for each part, could see where fires where going to spread, etc. Just a lot of fun.

All of this did create quite the narrative, but took up a good amount of table space.

Once my group got into BB and it's league format though, MoW simply couldn't compete.

Besides BB, my favorite of the older GW systems were (well, MoW, one) Warmaster and Dark Future. Warmaster is a great system, but the armies just cost to much and were a pain in the ass to paint. I _really_ wish I had bought that all in one Battle of Five Armies box set GW released with the Warmaster rules. That had to have been over 10 years ago now. Dark Future, didn't have a lot of variety game to game, but converting up matchbox and hot wheels cars is fun and CHEAP! Easiest GW minis game to ever get into. The rules were standard GW fare at the time...lots of charts, but again, we enjoyed the narrative they told. It was cool to roll up that I had fluids spraying into the cabin and the windshields were cracked. At one point, I had nearly the entire range of DF pedestrian minis (rules for them in WD...or was it the White Line Fever exp?). Having almost all of it at one point, prevents me form going back and getting back into it. I don't think I could reach that goal again. Still, my favorite auto-dueling game.

ANYWAY, I _may_ still give DF a look. There seem to be plenty of unwanted copies around. I assumed it did poorly because 1) it wasn't MoW - nor are the minis to scale to even use for MoW and 2) The minis couldn't really be used for anything else. Space Hulk models can obviously be used for other games. Whadda do with some randomly scaled fantasy ships? I feel even the converters stayed away.

Warmaster is amazing. I have a Dwarf, High Elf and Undead army. Almost a complete Skaven army but missing a few things...And Clanrats. What's a Skaven army without Clanrats? I owned that BotFA box, but traded it years back. Partially regret it...But to be honest I'm glad it's gone because they did release blisters to go with it and I'd be trying to hunt those down and paying way too much. The talk was that it was going to be a series games contained in a box focusing on some of the battles of Middle Earth. That would have been an amazing series if they kept that up.

And funny you mention Skaven in MoW, yeah they were odd. But if I recall the story correctly the Chaos Dwarves are stranger because they are from a land-locked area, and the only path to sea requires them to go UP a waterfall.

Those ship cards were both a blessing and a curse. On one hand they were awesome to keep records on but on the other hand they were a pain in the ass and were sprawling. They took up space and practically prevented large scale battles because it'd require one table for the game and the other for the record sheets. That's one thing that DF does a bit better, the ships are very limited on each side with no Ships of the Line. And they've cleaned it up a bit where you get some of the flavor and slow destruction of the ship but in a more focused way.

One of my favorite MoW moments though (and actually the moment my friend decided that he no longer wanted anything to do with the game) was when I flew up a Dwarf War Balloon and dropped a bomb onto his Dark Elf Death Fortress. I rolled and randomly hit the fortress, he failed is save, the sea dragon then went crazy and dove to the bottom. My other friend decided that MoW wasn't for him when he rolled on the captain chart, his captain got drunk, fell overboard and the ship had to delay to go rescue him.

The former I never even tried DF with him. The later it turned out to be the flavor text (not the result) that he didn't like and harped on so as it turns out he enjoys DF. To me it sounds like since you didn't have a problem with the stuff that could happen in MoW then DF would be a good choice, especially since it is pretty cheap to obtain (I actually picked up a second set cheep for replacement parts and MoW scenery).

One thing that should be mentioned is that the game is scenario based. It isn't a "Spend X points" and then run a meat-grinder. There are 10 (?) scenarios I think and each details what ships get ran and what the objectives are. And this is where I feel the randomness helps the game. Despite the pretty rigid scenario structure and specific ships the events, wind, et al makes it where you're games are going to vary quite a bit.

VonTush wrote: And funny you mention Skaven in MoW, yeah they were odd. But if I recall the story correctly the Chaos Dwarves are stranger because they are from a land-locked area, and the only path to sea requires them to go UP a waterfall.

Don't the CD have an access to the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean equivalent (let's call it the sea of doom-laden adjectives)?

Edit: They could totally go down the River Ruin to the Sea of Dread and thus around the world.

No eBay APP ID défined in Kunena configurationNo eBay APP ID défined in Kunena configurationAny idea if DreadFleet's poor reception has soured the public's opinion on ManOWar as well?

Last I checked (several years ago) MoW went for a pretty penny....so, what could explain these?

IIRC, the things that really go for a pretty penny are decent shape boxes of the fleet miniatures that weren't in the main box. Did the base game ever go for that much? Honest question.

No eBay APP ID défined in Kunena configurationNo eBay APP ID défined in Kunena configurationNo eBay APP ID défined in Kunena configurationNo eBay APP ID défined in Kunena configurationMaybe, but I also found a lot of items like these:









Not terrible, and definitely not what I expected to see.

No eBay APP ID défined in Kunena configurationDaaang. Buy this Jeff, I promise I'll play with you.

I thought the release of Uncharted Seas (and Dystopian Wars) by Spartan Games deflated the Man-O-War secondary market a bit? Both of those are well done games that scratch that same itch (although they are a lot less wacky than the GW stuff).