Having played Uncharted Seas rather heavily sometime ago I was more than happy with the mechanics of the game and was more interested in what had been added. Having been run through a game of DW a while ago I was aware of some the extras but not all.
To keep things simple we kept to fleet boxes, minus the tiny flyers, on the wide open seas of a Dreadfleet sheet with nothing to hide behind.
There are photos but I've somehow managed to loose the USB lead and I'm sure none of them aren't anything too special. Stewart's Brittanic fleet was fully painted, my French weren't even built though my set is missing pieces so that's some excuse at least!
So over multiple mugs of tea we discovered that there's a lot more going on with DW than US. Unsurprisingly there's quite a bit more but I didn't realise quite how much more mainly little things but all that add up.
Primary and secondary weapons was bigger than I thought especially when one vessel has multiple primaries and the ability to link fire between them. I found, about halfway through the game, that I needed to pay much more attention to what I was firing at who rather than just Ship A blats Ship B.
The new weapon types, torpedoes, rocket, mines etc are a nice variation on a well proven mechanic without being shattering along with various defensive generators and the like.
This along with the expanded flyer rules, from tiny to zeppelin sized, means that there's potentially a lot more going on. Hopefully not too much once I've played a few more games as I always liked US's simplicity.......or maybe it liked mine!
On that note in a couple of hours we only managed three and a bit turns and we weren't even playing with all the bells and whistles. nor were we playing with any cards which both of us forgot / were too tight to buy. Must get round to that as I remember that they add quite a bit to the game.
I was surprised that Morale suddenly featured but quite liked it once it was explained to me and put into practise. Between that and cards being generated per squadron I can already see various competing battle-tactics coming to mind!
Unsurprisingly I played tactics that I'd learnt in US and quickly discovered that though they translated across well enough I need to pay attention to the greater variations that have been added. I originally ignored Stewart's heavy flyers only to have them chase after and slowly decimate my battleship which was a lesson all in itself even if they did roll some consistently jammy dice.
So in brief more of the same but with more, several layers of more in fact and some particularly lovely models to boot. You can see how Spartan and the game itself have kicked on over the last few years. After initial scepticism I'm on the road to conversion.
Just need to get the replacement bits, then build and paint the little buggers. I'm feeling a blue and white scheme coming on with a little bit tricholore for good measure......it's vaguely like sado-masochism via paintbrush :)
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