Black Seas Rule Review

 

Black Seas is a game by Warlord Games.  Its objective to is recreate Age of Sail combat on the table top.  I will whole hardly admit that I am not an expert in this type of warfare and history it is fun to image being on the high seas at the time the pirates.

My Reviews are going to be graded like classes in College; A,B,C,D,E.  At the end we will get a GPA which will determine if this game makes distinguished honor roll, honor roll, passes or fails.  A good game should at least pass with a C average.

The categories I will be grading are 1) Presentation/Product/Package, 2) Game Rules/Mechanics,             3) Historical/fantasy Cannon Accuracy, 4) Cost/time, 5) Good Time and Memories

1) Presentation/product/package. One of the strengths of a warlord games product is if you buy the starter box you will have everything you need for the game to play.  Rules, miniatures, dice, markers, cotton smoke.  The Ship cards are a high quality gaming piece that looks good on the table as well.  The Rules may have the occasional error in them or put the quality of the pictures is outstanding.  This is where Warlord Shine.

A-

2) Game Rules/Mechanics.  The rules take a bit of getting use to.  Sometimes you need to roll high, sometimes you need to roll low.  There is no real QRS...Thats bad and there are so many different types of dice to keep track.  Though it does produce satisfying Age of Sail Naval Combat.  I have a club at Living Hope Alliance that loves to shout Ramming speed.  So our games resemble more Mediterranean Naval warfare in the age of Greece than Pirates of the Caribbean.

C-

3) Historical/Fantasy Accuracy.  I included fantasy here because this is the one thing that warlord games does with "Black Seas" is expand on the idea of PIRATES and SEA MONSTERS.  Though they are fun rules and gimmicks that rely more on the fantasy than the historical it does give you a cinematic feel.  And if you choose to play a more historical game with the mighty British Navy bullying the poor Navy of Spain you can do that too.  Might not be as much crunch for other historical folks out there but as I said This is not my favorite area of history so that extra crunch doesn't affect me

B

4) Cost/Time.  Warlord has a great starter set, Master and Commander.  Not too expensive on Amazon and gives you plenty of ships to have 2 small navies.  Emphasis on small.  I have bought nothing else for the game.  (I hate making age of sail ships).  So the master and commander set is not nearly enough to recreate the more famous encounters of Lord Nelson.  That will cost a whole lot more!!!  As for time.  The small games we play always resolve in 90 minutes which is a really good conclusive game time.

B

5) Good Times and Memories.  We have had fun playing this game.  It is not special but it will give you a good time.  Our favorite home brew mode is capture the merchant ship where one player plays a sad lonely merchant and the other 3 navies try to take it.  

B

GPA is 2.88

Not a bad game but not the best game to play.  It is worth a try if you like pirates and the high seas.