Lets talk Dreadfleet

There's a bunch of factors - Uncharted Seas did give players another option but I don't think that game is supported anymore. There's time where people who knew/played MoW either leave the hobby or obtain all that they're after decreasing demand. There's also recasting which ups supply and that's what I feel put the biggest downward force on price. And that people are more accepting of proxies or alternate models these days.

But, overall I've been buying MoW for about a decade now and back then I'd pay about $15-25 for a ship or squad of three which I think is pretty consistent with today's prices. I bought fleets for $100-125 during that time. And back then, in the age of $40 retail Arkham, it seemed like a lot. Now, it's about equal to the $100 retail Imperial Assault. So I think the prices have been flat (with fluctuation along the way) but seems cheaper as things around it has gotten more expensive.

How long do y'all figure the legs are on DreadFleet? I mean it's not an open scenario, point based system like ManOWar, but limited to scenarios (like Space Hulk).

Has anyone actually played through all of the scenarios? Are any of them fun to play repeatedly?

Haven't played them all myself...So just a bit of an educated guess here...
But each turn cards are drawn from an event deck which can have things like sea monsters popping up, this deck also controls the flow of the wind. So though the scenario and ships stay static the game state is varied.

I can pull my copy out later tonight to get you a better idea as to what's contained in the event deck and refresh myself on exactly when they're drawn. The wind shifts alone can prevent patterns from forming. That said though these altered game states can work against you and pitch the battle in your opponent's favor, could be a short term could be longer.

VonTush wrote: Haven't played them all myself...So just a bit of an educated guess here...
But each turn cards are drawn from an event deck which can have things like sea monsters popping up, this deck also controls the flow of the wind. So though the scenario and ships stay static the game state is varied.

I can pull my copy out later tonight to get you a better idea as to what's contained in the event deck and refresh myself on exactly when they're drawn. The wind shifts alone can prevent patterns from forming. That said though these altered game states can work against you and pitch the battle in your opponent's favor, could be a short term could be longer.

this sounds too random. I want to control the wind with influence.

You bastard.

i've only played 3 or 4 scenarios.

There is plenty of replay in each scenario and you could easily make new scenarios up. Its more a question of whether the experience wears off for you. It is as random as it comes so theres not going to be much evolving strategy. Eventually you will see most of the ship combos and cards in the deck, so there will be fewer surprises i guess, but thats a good dozen or two games away.

So, games like talisman and dungeonquest are also very random and you eventually see it all. Seeing everything doesn't seem to be a knock against those games.

Is this different because card play patterns may emerge?

I doubt you'll see any patterns. There is a bit of surprise in some of the cards the first time you see them. For instance, there is one card that causes a giant spear to thrust in from one map corner killing everything in its path (on a roll of some sort). Cards are drawn randomly. Some you can hold but more occur immediately. I would say replay is comparable to dungeonquest.

It's really stupid fun, and I mean that in the nicest way. There's no balance, there's a lot of "oh shit, why can't I have that card right now!" situations, but all in all it's a great game to play with a bit of a buzz and some cool folks.

ManoWar is more strategic and I like the fact that each model doesn't require 40 hours to paint.

So, I'm thinking about this game a little more and it seems that the big complaint is that it's too random. This seems to be an easy fix though.

What if some of the more powerful, random cards were removed from the deck? I understand there's 5 or 6 that may cause you to roll a bunch and a ship just blows up. Much like the explosion cards in the Wings of Glory deck...why not just remove them?

How about the wind direction changing all the time? Seems like you could simply have it change direction less often. There's many possible ways to go about that.

So, if the random deck had a little less impact on the game and the wind didn't fluctuate as much...could Dreadfleet be saved?