My girlfriend kicking my butt at Dreadfleet :-)

My girlfriend, Edina, recently expressed an interest in trying out Dreadfleet. She got to watch me and another teacher who games play out one of the scenarios of Dreadfleet. While it confused her quite a bit with the language (she's trilingual but hasn't read up on nautical terms in English) she said it looked like fun.

I decided on to play a simplified game with her so that she could get to grips with how the game works without getting overloaded. In our first game, there was no wind, no fate cards, no captain duels in boarding actions and no special ship actions. We just kept it to the basic stats, the mechanics of moving and shooting, and the skill in positioning your ships to fire at the enemy. She took the Heldenhammer and Grimnir's Thunder, against which I had the Bloody Reaver and the Curse of Zhandri.

Edina moves up the dwarf ship Grimnir's Thunder

Now, while she may not have spent a lot of time wargaming, Edina quickly figured out that she could get my Flagship between her two ships and....well....blow it to pieces.


This is the result of her first volley

I'll point out for the above picture, that we're not using any hit modifiers so in the full game it would be worse since you get a bonus on the first broadside of the game. Still, ending up with being set ablaze twice, having a fire on deck (which can add more set ablaze cards, losing my rigging and taking hull damage is a big bit of pain, even for my notoriously resilient flagship.



"Pete, I want to shoot you with that one now!"


Playing with the funky turning tool. This game is really quite easy to get used to.



Repositioning to chase down the Bloody Reaver



Come on lucky red dice. Let me set Edina's ship on fire. Note, this is before the Curse of Zhandri died a briny death at the hands of the Heldenhammer's massive broadside.


Sad face as the Bloody Reaver is pinned in the corner of the game board by Edina's ships. They were wounded but I didn't like my odds of surviving.


The last sight seen by the crew and Captain of the Bloody Reaver


After my unceremonious drubbing, Edina was keen for another game. We decided to switch up the ships and this time I introduced the special mechanics for each ship (getting an extra order, rerolls etc.). In short order though, this game turned into a brawling, multiple boarding action and her dice came up hotter than mine, again leaving me defeated.


Me when the game was still in the balance. ***Not shown, Pete's sad face at losing shortly afterwards.


We've since played another game including wind and fate cards, which Edina handled well and we enjoyed. Naturally she won again, so her wargaming record is now a perfect 3-0 and I've now had four losses in my four games of Dreadfleet. Still, it's a fun game so you won't hear me complaining about getting to do something enjoyable with people I like.

Next on our list is a bigger game on Saturday, perhaps one of the scenarios, and some painting of the ships. We're also looking into other board games that we might be able to play together as it's a lot of fun and fits into our schedules nicely.

All the best folks,

Comments, criticism, advice, questions and merciless mocking will all be appreciated ;-)

Pete