Hey, welcome back everybody to the Panic Command Podcast.
Today I've got two very special guests, guests of mine that are
on our Discord group and who are actively part of our Manawar
community and that's Chris Snyder.
How you going, Chris? Good, Good, Good.
Excellent. And Karen Fletcher, how you
going, man? Yeah.
I'm good. How are you?
Very good. Thank you.
Yeah, I'm really glad you guys can come along and chat with me
today. And it's going to be all about a
game that we really enjoy. It's one of the specialist games
that games which were released in 1992.
Is that right? Cameron, 92?
Right. Yeah, it's a.
Right, 93. It's my my copyright date says
93 right on in the book but I don't know that could be no I'm.
Thinking about right, mate, I'm thinking about right.
I think about 93. Sorry, I should have checked
that. But you can check out Cameron's
YouTube video we talked about last in the last episode or two
episodes ago, when Cameron just went through the whole history
and basically everything about you.
All you need to know about the game on his YouTube channel,
which is Kraken's Wave. Wake.
Wake Kraken's wake.
Yeah, yeah, which will be a link in the show notes here in the
description of the podcast. So you can go and check that out
and learn all about the game. But today it's our discussion
based on the fleets that we like to take and bring to the table
of Man of War and why we like to take them.
And maybe we'll talk about later about Chris and Cameron's
involvement with our Discord remote games too after that, but
let's get to the meet of the discussion guys.
Which fleet do you like to take in, Man of War and why?
Chris, would you like to start? Of course not.
Let me give you a little disclaimer right up front.
OK, so though I own everything from Man of War, I still only
stuck with the base set. I haven't branched out at the
base set yet. Part of it is because I like to
only play with what I have painted and that's really all I
have painted so far. And I still am really enjoying
all of the content in the main, the main base man War game.
And you know, for anybody who's interested in getting into the
game, you know, unlike some other games like like I wouldn't
play Blood Bowl without the Death Zone expansion and I
wouldn't play, you know, 40K without the Darth Millennium.
But I think there's enough in Man of War just to keep you go
and keep you happy. You don't have to go outside of
that if you don't want to. But anyway, having said all
that, I've only played the fleets in the main set and I
think my favorite has got to be the elves.
I'm gonna pick the elves. I think that the elves.
Similar to Warhammer Fantasy, they are better than everybody
at everything. They're like the elite, They
excel in movement, they can move better than anyone.
They excel in shooting in close combat, well, that's a different
story. They're not.
They're not happy in the boarding phase.
They would rather be keeping a distance.
And yeah, so just like looking at the the ships that make up
the Elf fleet, there's only three the Elf Hawk ship, the
Eagle ship, and the Dragon ship. That's the that's the the man of
war. And really the Hawk ships are
the only ships of the line. So you're gonna get a solitary
Dragon ship. You got, you know your Eagle
ships are functioning as independent or not independent.
They're not independents. They're they're they're not in a
a group of three. And the Hawk ships are the only
groups of three that you're gonna get Looking at the Hawk
ships, they're unique because they have a unique turning
template. They can turn on a dime.
And the other thing that's unique about well, all of the
elf ships, the fact that they can move twice.
So some sailing ships will have, you know, sail rating and then
they get bonuses if they the wind is with them.
They the elves do not get any bonus if the wind is with them,
but they can always move twice. Another thing to point out, all
of the ships are they're all sailing ships.
They're all affected by the wind.
However, I believe that the elves are not hindered by that
because of the fact that they can move twice.
So let's say for some reason you begin your turn and the wind is
against you, whether you voluntarily moved into the wind
or the wind changed, and you find yourself with the wind
against you because you can move twice, you can spend your first
move to get out of the wind, to turn out of the wind, and then
move your use your second move to then move normally like a
normal ship would. So really, I don't think there's
any circumstances where you have to be hamstrung by the wind like
other sailing ships are, If that if that makes sense.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other great thing about Hawk
ships, so while I'm talking about those, the fact that they
have two forward firing weapons, I am a fan of forward firing
weapons because you're going in there that direction, you're
shooting in that direction. It's I find forward firing
weapons easier to deal with than broadsides and the other of
course big thing that the elves have going for them they they
have a 12 inch range instead of a nine inch range.
The only I don't even consider a downside, but there are no
saving modifiers for short or long.
The downside is you don't get a a save modifier at short range.
The upside is you you don't have a negative modifier at long
range, but you don't want to be at long range.
I think with the LS you want to be at that 9 to 12 inch range as
much as you can so that you can shoot you know the the enemy
ship and and they they can't shoot back without moving.
Another thing I kind of like about the Hawk ship, even though
they are see How do I explain this?
Most of the ships of the line have some kind of a range of
what they can be hit on. It can be like A3456 or A456.
In this case it's a 3 three up but they have a four castle or
sorry an aft castle which is like a like like a dummy
location. It's a location.
It doesn't actually have any effect.
If it's hit and and you lose it. As far as your sails go, the
first hit has no effect, so you have to get hit twice, but so
that is. A downside is if you get hit
that second time and you lose your sails, you are dead in the
water and that's that's definitely a risk that's there.
The fact that they have two weapons and that they're at two
different locations is nice because you have to be hit at
least twice to be able or to, you know, lose your offensive
capability. They only have one crew, so that
makes them susceptible to some spells that will do an instant,
you know, like an automatic crew wound.
Same way with the below the water line, you only have one
point of that. So they're susceptible to
certain spells in that regard. But yeah I classify the the Hawk
ship as like a glass cannon. It's really gonna pack some
punch. But if it gets hit too many
times or you know in one of those, you know, crew below the
water line, it it's done Eagleship that's has, you know
all the all the the benefits that I mentioned with the
movement, it's got some broadsides, it's got some
forward firing. I think it's just a good all
around ship only has three crews.
You're probably not going to want to get into any kind of
boarding. Both of these ships are they're
like hit and run and I like that 'cause I'm I like playing games
where movement and maneuvering is important.
I don't like playing armies that just want to go full on to the
to the enemy. I like to kind of dance around a
little bit the the oh, I'm sorry, I just I I'm sorry I was
looking at the wrong thing as far as the shooting goes for the
eagle ship. It has three broadside, 3
broadside eagle claws. Now I I didn't mention before
these eagle claws, 12 inch range, but they cannot repel
borders. That's fine.
You don't want to be you getting boarded anyway, so it's no big
deal. So the fact that they have three
like 3 concentrated shots in one in one arc, that's I that's
really good. Moving twice, they can really do
that. Hit and run.
If you can move, get in between two ships, fire six shots both
sides and then move again to get out of the way, that's amazing.
OK, it's the Dragon ship that has two forward firing and one
broadside on either side, The thing that makes the Dragon ship
unique, It has five crew, which means it's definitely potential
for boarding. And it's got this weird
Dragonblade ram. And I kind of have mixed
feelings about it because it's not a ram in the sense that
you're moving, you come in contact and then you go right to
the, you know, right to the like ram phase.
It's not, it's not a term I'm gonna say, it's a fav term.
You know, ramming and then boarding.
Instead, the dragon blades function as part of the
movement. So if you during your movement
come in contact with the ship you like, pause, check for below
the waterline. Save, deal damage, and if you're
able to sink the ship in, in the course of that you can continue
on with your movement and, you know, plow through into another
one. It is, it sounds awesome, but
it's like super risky because if you don't sink that ship then
you're like stuck. You're impaled on that ship and
then you know you better hope that you're going to win the
boarding action, which with five crew, it's, you know, decent
odds if you're going against the smaller ship.
But then you have to waste a turn, like scuttling that ship
at the end. You know, to to try to, like,
get it out of the way, 'cause it's not like, you know, other
other ramming actions where you know, you just kind of hit it
and then you can skirt along the side to get away from here, like
literally impaled on it. But if you can pull it off and
sink a ship, it's it's really awesome.
Josh, didn't we play once Elf versus Bretonians and I think in
one in one move, could I not sink two ships and maybe hit
into a third or something like that?
It was really nice. Do you remember that?
I think I I think I remember it in one of our remote games.
Yeah, I think, I I think it was the first time I ever took I
ever took Bretonians as a fleet. Yeah.
And yeah, I know that you
completely destroyed me in the end.
So. But I think it was it was might
have been because of the Dragon Blade and it could have been
because of the broadsides on the Eagle ship.
I think you started tearing into me on one flight it.
Was it was the fact that I hit a bratonium buck in the air and
they only have one below the waterline damage, so anything's
going to sink them and they only have a 5 up below the waterline
saved. So it was a juicy target and
that would work. I wouldn't want to do.
I wouldn't want to try using dragon blades against dwarves
because it's that's just going to not end well.
Oh well, but saying that, there was a famous game we had with
Max, and if Max listens to this, he'll know exactly what I'm
talking about. He was kind enough to come up to
my place to play Man of War and we'll we actually recorded it,
but unfortunately I lost all the footage out of us, just just
stupidly deleting it without realizing it.
But I took elves and he took his dwarf.
He had his own dwarf fleet and I rammed his ironclad with the
with the dragon ship with the Dragon Blade and took it out in
one hit. So that's how devastating it was
against that dwarf. He was unlucky with his roles
and I was lucky getting a six and sinking it and one shot but
yeah that you know the potentially very dangerous and
you know they have very you know because you see you've got 5
crew plus if you equip with with one of the war dancer a cruise
on there you can re roll your boarding roll dice which is just
insane So yeah it's amazing and the fact that that.
Dragon that Dragon Blade, that Dragon Blade Ram is rule of
cool, I think. I feel like you got it.
You got to try and use it. Oh.
Yeah, it's spectacular back results because if you, if you
do manage to slice through a ship and sink it, you can just
keep going. So that's that's a that's a
wonderful thing. So I can just go straight
through the debris and just go out through the other side.
So yeah. One other thing I just realized
about the Dragon Blade that makes it unique is with the
Dragon Blade you can move through wreckage at no cost to
your movement. So.
That's almost like you can, you know, normally a wreckage or
debris is like a it's almost like a piece of terrain, you
know. It blocks line of sight and it
blocks movement so you can like for you it's it's not that you
can, you know you can pass through it and take that to your
advantage. I never realized that until I've
read it just now. Yep.
So it's slices and then just go straight through it.
So yeah, it's a really potential devastating blow if it does get
into contact because it can move twice as well.
It's really, really nasty. But the other ships can't ram.
So your Eagle ships and your Hawk ships cannot ram other
ships, which is good. They shouldn't be able to
because they can move twice and and shoot shoot in their face.
So that makes them very powerful and very, very maneuverable.
All right. OK, Well, Chris.
Yeah, Good mate. I'm yeah, really glad you you
chose elves. I think it's a good pick and
we'll have to line up your Elves against the Bretonians again at
once at some stage in a remote game to have a rematch, I think.
OK, Cameron, how about you? And what did you choose?
Yeah, I I just wanted to say what Chris was saying about the
ships. The elf ships being able to move
forward is definitely a big advantage.
Just what makes the Imperial Wolf ship such a good such a
good ship because I mean they got 3 cannons fire for it.
Anything that fire that you can fire as you approach your enemy
is is pretty big advantage. So I get that my my favorite
fleet is the Orcs and that's because I think, I think it's
because yeah they're probably the worst fleet in the in the
game. But when I first discovered Man
of War in the local game shop, the I remember seeing the box
set of Drilla Killers and the Hulks and I was just like
instantly I was like knew that I had to get that game, had to get
into that game. And so that's why I still love
playing the Orcs and I I don't and I think you know most of us
are all not super competitive. So as long as I'm having fun,
you know, I don't mind no not winning the game or whatever.
I still pull off a win every once in a while, not very often,
but that I would say. After the Orcs though, my
favorite fleet is probably the Dark Elves, and they were not a
fleet that I liked when I initially started playing the
game, but I had so much fun painting them that I like
putting them on the board. I think they just they look
cool. They're they're very different
from the other fleets because they're using monsters and I
know they they the the Black Ark is a very tanky ship.
But the rest of their rest of their ships in the Dark Health
fleet are glass cannons as well, similar to the some of the High
Elf ships. Both the Death Fortresses and
the Doom Reapers have a hit location that if you damage it,
they're gone. They're immediately removed from
the game, so, but the Black arc is usually what can swing the
game into the Dark Elves favor. But yeah, the the orcs on my
Orcs of my favorite, they were the first fleet that I painted
and the first fleet I I fielded. I suffered a a devastating loss
to some High Elves back in the 90s that I still remember to
this day. But yeah, still like them.
I haven't, I haven't actually seen you guys play high elves in
any of the remote games or I can't.
I I can't remember it. Did you do a battle report, Josh
with the High Elves? I'm sure we did, mate.
Yeah, I think. I'm pretty sure Paul took the
High Elves in that one. Yeah, I should go back and and
find that one or watch your games.
That's. It's been a long time since I've
since I've played them and it's the only fleet.
Even though Man of War is the pretty much the main game that I
play nowadays, I haven't finished painting all of my
fleets and high elves are the only fleet from the base game,
but I haven't finished painting so I need to get them painted
up. But yeah, they were not they
were not my favorite fleet cause for that beating.
I took from them well when I was playing Orcs that one time and I
guess that's why I've put them on the back shelf for so long.
They I think the aisles would probably be a pretty good fleet
to field a Chaos fleet Slenesh against a Slenesh Plague fleet
against because the the Slenesh fleet has those hell slicers
and. Those ships are pretty much
useless against a lot of different ships in the game.
Like you can't. I don't think you can even use
those against dwarf monitors, because the health slicer only
only hits, it only hits high locations.
So it's great to use against Plutonians or or high elves or
great ships or something like that with sails.
And it'd be especially good against the High Elves, since
they move by sail only. Yeah, that's a good point.
The the Slynes ships, we're talking about the Plague Fleet
expansion that came after the main box of Man of War, which
brings the forces of Chaos to the the old world with Scaven,
Chaos Dwarves and then the Plague fleet and all the four
different gods. You can play them within theme
or just play a sort of generic play fleet and in that they had
these wonderful looking, beautiful looking design ships
for Slanache, but they're absolutely, they're pretty
ordinary compared to Corn and Apple and to Zinch.
You know they've got really nice special looking and really
attractive looking ships too, but they have really interesting
effects and and how they play in the game.
So some really interesting choices.
I'm really surprised you chose Orcs, actually Camerons, but I
actually got to play Orcs with you for the very first time
because I really wanted to try them out.
So I just remember that one Driller Killer of mine who
survived just racing around the, yeah, the ocean there and trying
to trade. I think it was trying to catch
one of your I think there's empire ships you're playing I
think might have been one of a wolf ship or something like that
who had the treasure or something.
I think that's what we. Played.
I think we're, I think we're playing plutoniums.
You came in on the rear, yeah, yeah, you came in on the rear.
I had a treasure on a course there and you swung the drill
kill all the way around and came into the rear where he's got no
cannons. So yeah, it works pretty good.
Yeah, because I think they move. They move on a 2D6 or 3D six or
something like that, I think from memory.
Yeah, 3D6. So yeah, it's really
interesting. So yeah, I I I yeah, for the
time I played the Orcs, I enjoyed them.
I do have some orc ships that have never fielded here, though,
but I just need to finish, finish off my Driller Killers.
And I've got the Wyvern Rider, so I've got that to add to the
fleet. And I might add some Norse ships
or something like that, just to bolster up the points because
they are quite cheap. Because the big chuckers are
absolutely useless, because they can't move and shoot and they
have to have line of sight to their enemy ship to shoot at it.
So they're just like at this, you know, instant, sort of.
OK, just Chuck them in front because they're gonna get shot
to pieces and then we'll follow up with the Drilla killers and
our hulks. The hulks are fantastic.
I think they're brilliant. Yeah.
Yeah, there's a There's
something else Chris didn't mention about the IELTS.
They've got one of the most powerful Flyers in the whole
game. It's.
The. Right.
Yeah, yeah. Those are great setting, setting
ships on fire like nobody's business.
Yeah. So that that come that came in
the Flyers and everything came in as the the Sea of Blood
expansion which was the final expansion box set that came out
for Matter War. So that yeah, introduced the
Flyers. It introduced monsters to the
game. We haven't really discussed
those. We should really do like a Sea
of Blood kind of show. I think it, I think it deserves
an entire show plus play flake, we haven't really covered that
either because they're they're both excellent expansions.
They changed the game quite dramatically in some some
respects. I think they try to break the
game in some respects. I think Chris just playing
out-of-the-box, the the original box is a really good way to go
because I find that all the fleets are really well balanced.
They all have their unique racial traits inbuilt into the
fleets. The other expansions do that as
well. And Chaos is a really
flavoursome fleet and I really love playing Chaos.
I almost chose it as my favorite fleet, but I'm going to go with
my dwarves because that were the first things I latched my eyes
onto in that I actually bought a painted fleet from Richard
Gunson, my store manager in the UK at the time when I was
working there and I played it on the floor of of the the room I
was staying in. I was renting a room from a guy
who was a customer at the store there at the Oxford Plaza and I
had to move out of my then accommodations and then he
allowed me to stay with him and then he showed me how to play
Man of War and I and I play with that fleet for the only one time
in the 90s and then later sold it before I came back to
Australia. So yeah, they're my sort of love
I think first love and yeah, I think they they work very
differently from any other fleet.
They're just like dwarves. They're fully encased within
these steam powered engines, vessels which are impenetrable.
So if you if you want to board them, you can't unless they take
damage, which is great. They've got a lot of turrets on
them, which means they can swivel around.
Because the general firing procedure for ships with cannons
on their broadsides or front and rears of the ships, you got to
place a template template directly in the direction
they're facing. But with dwarves they have a lot
of ships with like the monitors and the naughty lists have.
And the dreadnoughts and the ironclads have turrets, which
means you can fire in three, sometimes mostly in 360°,
especially for the naughty lists, for example, And the
monitors is a good example for that.
The Dreadnought which was released as part of the Sea of
Blood expansion that is now your main Manor warship.
You've got the one of you have to take one of those before in
the base set. It's it's the ironclad that was
your main metal war which is an excellent ship.
I've you know I love taking those as independence and the
Dreadnought is just the name says it all.
I mean you know it's everything that's on the box.
It's a big big bloody ship it you know it takes loads of
damage. I has four crew sadly I wish I
had five like the Hulk the Hulk. Hulk got 5 crew, I don't know
why we got we've got four. We don't have any special crew
we can take unfortunately. So we just got our dwarf
sailors. But what the dwarves do have,
which I really love, they have engineers and and there's an
engineer in every single ship. So when you take damage in the
game in Man of War, the engineer can scuttle around and try to
fix it in the end phase. And you roll the dice.
And if you roll A5 or six you you, you can choose one location
that can repair that one location, which is a completely
unique thing because no other fleet has it unless you have a
spell and a magician that can allow you to do that in the
game. So that's really cool.
And they've got a rune Smith, so they can't use magic, but they
at least get that sort of instant to spell because magic
works very differently than, you know regular Warhammer.
So you don't have to spell cards as such.
You have magic cards, which can counter certain types of College
of magic, but usually if you don't have that, you've got no
way of stopping it. So the dwarves have a natural
the spell of six on AD 6, which is very handy, and they move
under steam so they don't care about the wind.
I don't care if the wind's facing towards me or, you know,
directly into my ships. We don't care.
We just keep, you know, steaming and sailing straight through it.
We can spit on the spot, we can turn 90 for half, 180 for four.
We can move backwards. We can ram a lot of these ships
apart from the from the little naughtless and talk about the
Nautilus. It's one of the coolest things
about the entire thing about Man of War because it can actually
dive like a submarine. It can fully submerge
underwater. It can go, you know, totally
silent like in this you know like I don't know what do you
call it like like sort of I don't know Seafarer espionage
and then release its torpedo and then the that's the coolest
thing because it's got a separate template.
You got to roll the dice and see which direction that that just
Pete till Peter goes. I don't know why it just can't
fire the way you want it to but you got to you got to it's all
random. And that's the thing about Man
of War. It's a very random game.
So if you let random fun and like Cameron said, if you're not
in a competitive mindset you're going to love Man of War for
what it is. Would you guys agree?
Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Dwarfs are a fine fleet. I usually I I often say that I
think the Dwarfs in the Empire are probably the two best fleets
in the game just because of how, because of their utility they've
got so many options in terms of their movement and firing.
I I I'd say that maybe maybe Nergal might be the most
powerful fleet in the game but yeah or the hardest to beat
fleet in the game. But Empire and Dwarfs, Those are
both both fire and fleets. Yeah, especially I I play a lot
of remote games with Marcel in Germany there when he played
Nergal as a fleet and I played the Empire and I loved Empire
because of the wolf ships. The wolf ships are just like the
the best and that that's why it was difficult choice for me
either Dwarves, Chaos or Empire because they're they're sort of
my go TOS whenever I get to play man of War.
And the wolf ships are just devastating, you know once
you've got like potentially nine shots raining down you from
those three ships, my goodness, they just tell you to pieces.
Nergal's a really interesting one as well especially that
Nergal's rock counter you put on the crew and you can really ruin
someone's day with that just you know constantly being there and
killing off your crew 1 by 1. So that's really interesting as
well. So yeah, each fleet has
something really cool about it and we should go and cover more
of the fleets, maybe more detail in future episodes.
So that's really good. I think we're going to take a
quick break guys now and then when we come back, we're going
to talk about the remote games you guys been playing on a
Discord and hopefully encourage more people to come and give it
a go. So we'll come back in just a
moment. All right.
OK. So welcome back, guys.
So now we can talk a little bit about the remote games you guys
have been playing on the Discord And have you been playing any
games recently, Chris? Have you been playing any games
recently? Oh my gosh, I did.
And I can't remember, played me who I played with.
Or did I play you with you? That's right.
It was you. Yeah, I played Bretonians
because I'm still trying to figure out how to play them.
Yeah. And you played the Dwarves, of
course. Oh, and we played the Treasure
Fleet scenario. That's right.
And I somehow won. Yeah 'cause I I think.
I won yeah, 'cause you Yeah, I yeah, I.
You had your treasure chests on your the smallest ships in the
fleet. I forget what they're called
now. They're Buccaneers.
Buccaneers. That's right.
And I stupidly didn't put enough ships on that flank to screen.
That and I just ran. And then at some point I
thought, oh, it'd be OK because I I took out two of your two of
your ships already on that, on that flank with the naughtless
and the ironclad moving up there.
And I thought, OK, I've got it covered.
But then yeah, it that's the beauty of man of war.
Things change. And when you oh, my luck's down,
I I, you know, I think, I think your luck was not that good or
something or whatever. You made a lot of saving throws
or something. Like I made it.
Incredible. Every single time I shot you and
you made that saving throw, it was.
I don't think I took a single bit of damage on any of those
corsairs, which is bad because they hit all over the place.
Yeah, the the corsets were just just just ran through the other
flank. They just, yeah, they just
steamrolled everything. So it was luck, Bit of bad luck
on my part maybe, you know, and and good luck on my part as well
in some cases. So it was really fun.
It sort of swung back and forth, back and forth, and then managed
to get that little Buccaneer off my table edge and get you the
extra points. Now I do have a little addendum
to that that battle report and not that I don't want to go off
the topic but Cam, have you or or have you heard any Arata in
the game regarding the dwarf monitor?
Because I've been noticing so you know there's every ship has
a battle honor associated with it.
So if you sink, you know, or or or Scott.
Oh. Yeah, I know what you're talking
about. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're
talking. About so the the battle honors
are typically it's one point for every 25 points that the ship is
worth. So like a squadron of ships of
the line that cost 150, that's fifty points per ship.
That means that it should be worth 2 battle honors.
But for some reason the Dwarf monitors are worth 3 battle
honors, and I don't know if that's a typo or what.
It's the it's the only ship that's like that that I've come
across, and I don't know if that's intentional or if that's,
but anyway, if it is supposed to be two, that game would have
been closer than, right, you know, than it came out to be so.
Definitely a typo then, that's for sure, yeah.
I'm gonna write. I'm gonna write a mine right
away. I'm gonna write a two on there,
not a three on a crossing or A2. Easy fixed.
I'll have to look into the the esoteric order of gamers like
their sheets and see if if it's a two or a three on that.
I'm just just throwing that out there, OK?
I'm sorry. Contact Games Workshop.
You send them a letter. Eastwood, right?
Yeah, there's a. Andy Jones.
They answered some some measure of this question in one of the
Q. And as they were, somebody
asked, yeah, somebody, somebody wrote in and asked because they
had noticed that the battle honors were different than the
points system that you're talking about.
And if I if I remember correctly, in the Q&A they say
to go by the listed battle honors, not by the points that
you just couldn't. You could just use the points if
you didn't know what the battle honors.
Right. But that was like a backup
backup way of determining your battle honors, basically.
OK, but yeah, I'll I'll find it and put it up in the put it up
in the discord. Yeah, that's good mate.
That's that's great. You you mentioned that and
brought that up because now every Dwarf player has that
assurance now that their monitors are worth 2 battlers,
not three. So that's a good point.
That's a good point about you just go by the points, not by
what it says on the card, because sometimes that can be a
mistake. And as Chris has pointed out,
all right, so OK, so you had a game against me now that was
dwarves against the Bretonians and with Treasure Fleet.
Any other games at all, mate before that can you remember?
Oh, I played a punch. No, Incredibly recently I I feel
like I kind of have the it's a, it's a a mixed bag really.
It's good because I get to often play with newcomers, people who
are interested in learning how to play the game and I like
that. I mean I have a lot of fun, you
know, teaching the game and introducing it to people.
The the downside is I feel like I've played like a vanilla game
so many times and the game that you and I played that, you know,
the treasure fleet was maybe one of the only or or few scenarios
that I've played in recent memories.
So it's nice. I really like playing the
scenarios and as much as I like, you know, playing a vanilla game
with new people, I really like to try diving in more to
scenarios and even maybe coming up with my own scenario because
I think that would be a lot of fun.
Yeah, why not? Although I did play, one of the
scenarios I remember I did play was the Is it the Treasure
Island? Is that what it's called?
Where you? Yeah.
Well, Barry Gold, I think Barry Gold is what it's called.
Yeah, that's really interesting too, because you, you, you know,
land one of your ships on the island, unload some crew.
That's right. And depending on what fleet
you're running, I mean, that can make a huge difference.
I think I played that with some Dark Elves, which was I think
perfect because and the only fleet, the only ship that has
crew in that case is the Black. Ark, I was gonna say, and just
don't have any crew. No, no.
So it could just, you know, move up to the island and dump off
some crew and and it's a pretty defensive ship, so it might have
to worry about, you know, but like if I were playing something
like the elves for example, those hawk ships only have one
crew. So, you know, that would be
pretty dangerous to do. But yeah, I like I did like that
that scenario a lot too, yes. That's probably that's that's my
favorite scenario. The baseball.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, there are some other ones where you have to, you start off
with half the points of the other fleet, like there's a kind
of like a, you know, imbalanced thing, but you know you're
defending or you know, you're attacking or something like
that. And certain scenarios.
I've never played those. I've only played the treasure
hunt, the I think the 1st 2 ones, where one's kind of like
you're sort of after a a storm. After the storm.
I think it's called where your ships are displaced and your
opponent gets to place them in your deployment zone in any
direction. And the other one where you have
all the terrain pieces. I think you'd have at least
three in each sector or each quadrant or 4 or whatever.
That's quite cool as well. So yeah, I mean there's there's
lots of good scenarios in there and also with the play fleet you
come they've got actual special chaos terrain.
Yeah that can actually affect the the seascape.
So that I think there's one that me and Paul played was like the
sea of chaos and you enter and you got to roll a dice to see
what happens to your to your crew and and that kind of thing
to your ship. I think he, I think maybe he by
Magic, he managed to pull me into there and I had to roll to
see what happened and that was really cool too.
So yeah, it's got lots of potential in there and we
haven't, you know, even though we've been playing for quite a
while, we haven't explored everything about Man of War,
which is really nice. Yeah, there's 66 scenarios in
the base Game, 6 scenarios in Plague Fleet.
That's right, Yep, exactly. And I should mention too, just
before we go on the camera and ask him about his remote games,
you both have been on Matthew's Bedroom Battlefields podcasts
talking to him about Man of War and about remote gaming.
So just a shout out to him and his podcast for people to go and
listen to those if they haven't listened to them yet.
And yeah, you guys talk in detail about that with Matthew,
which is they've been really enjoyable to listen to.
But Cameron, have you been playing any remote games
recently mate? The the last game I played was
with Mark from Bedroom Battlefield as he's real active
over there on that Discord. I think it was his first game in
a while but he's he was, he's played it before and he was
super quick on pulling up or or remembering the rules and so it
wasn't really like playing with. I didn't have, I didn't do much
teaching with him. It was he was he was on top of
the rules right away. I think he must have studied up
or something, I don't know. But he was definitely all over
it. And we played Bertoni, he played
Bertonians, I played the Orcs and it was just a straight up
game. And I get what Chris is saying
about playing those, those straight up battle games where
there's no scenario after a while it's, you know, you, you
kind of want to play a scenario for a for for a change.
It's just I think some of the scenarios are better suited if
you have a player that is trying to learn the rules as opposed to
others. Like the Treasure Fleet scenario
is a pretty good one. I think if you got somebody
that's a beginner and still needs to you know be taught some
of the rules I think that's a a doable scenario and so is
probably after the storm. But like the scenario I I don't
think I would try Barry Gold with somebody that was first.
It was like their first experience with the game and I
would try the sore Fort scenario that's a that's a those those
sore forks are are are. I think if I'm not mistaken that
the one of the objectives in that game is to destroy the
Shoreport. Now that thing is bloody
impossible to to damage. It's just crazy.
Yeah, it it has a three up save, so it's.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I did it once with Paul
again. I played against his cast dwarf
fleet. Against my Dwarf fleet, Well, I
never got to see his shore Fort. I mean he he obliterated me
before I even got anywhere close to it.
So with this Chaos War fleet, which is another topic for
another day, I think if you've ever faced a Chaos War Fleet
you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.
But they're quite unique in in how they play as well, with
their barrage template, weapons and that kind of thing.
Briscoe got to find out all about them today, didn't you
mate? When you open up your box, set.
Yeah, it's the first time I looked at them.
Can you believe that? I've had this game how long?
And I'm for the first time I'm looking at Chaos Wars, yeah.
Yeah, yes, they're really cool as well.
So there's everything. Yeah, you you cater for
everything in the game. And also there's something we
haven't really touched on is campaigns.
Now there are campaign rules in the base set which allow your
crews to gain experience over time, having survived linked
battles. So for example, if you know and
me and Paul have been playing those and we've done so, we've
done some of those for the our channel Chronicam and games
where we played a few games as campaigns and we've got a
record. You've got a record sheet that's
on the back of the rulebook, you've you just photocopy that
and you can write all your details of your ships.
And then as you survive each game and accrue battle honors,
you can assign that to upgrading your cruise to like veteran
status. And above that so that I think
there's about four or five different levels they can go up
to and the further you go up and experience the better they are
at shooting or they can shoot twice and things like that So
and but if you if you lose your ship and your crew during the
game it's gone their you know their experience is lost and the
sailors drown but so there is campaigns there is a there's a
nice little you know a way another way you can play man of
war and have linked games using the scenarios as well or the
ones you create yourself So it does have a bit of longevity to
it you know it's not just a stand alone game.
Have you guys experienced campaigns at all, Cameron?
I I played we played a a campaign once back in the 90s.
I haven't played them since, but we did.
We did notice that you know that a lot of the games are are
pretty bloody. You lose a lot of shits during
the game, so it's pretty difficult to build up a a
seasoned crew and it's really just a it happens over the
course of our campaign, but it's mostly just a matter of luck.
Like what what ship is going to is going to be lucky enough to
not not get sunk or or destroyed or abandoned or whatever.
And it does, it does add a little bit more fear I guess in
the Admirals, in terms of trying to keep your ship safe, you're
you're, you're probably a little bit more likely to withdraw in a
campaign game if you think you can get away and keep your ships
alive to, you know, to advance those those crews a little bit
further. I think there's a very special
quote in here about that about fleeing in during a campaign.
It's very quiet. It sounds like something that
Nigel Stillman wrote or something.
I'd say. Where was it?
Again, I'll just try to find it, but it says.
Something. It sounds.
Like somebody floated the idea of doing this.
Yeah, any any player who sells his fleet directly off the table
without firing a shot and no intention of fighting the enemy
or achieving the scenario objective is obviously a is a
Lily livid coward. There you go.
So yeah, it it has a rule in built in the game that if you do
that then you know you're going to suffer some consequences for
just, you know, you know, scampering off and not fighting
the game, which is really cool. Obviously it has been done
before when they play tested in the studio when they were
developing the game maybe. So yeah, it's a really good
game. I'm really glad we've discovered
it and you know, either from the 90s or recently and we're
playing it, we were throwing the idea about doing an online
campaign. I think we should really start
thinking about doing that because it's a, it's a case of
we don't really get a chance to play Man of War all the time.
We're doing it on Discord anyway.
We should just make it a campaign so that we can, we have
enough fleets amongst us all that we could do that easily.
And yeah, we should definitely get that to the table soon guys.
So I really appreciate you guys coming on and talking to me
about it and I hope we get more people interested in Man of War
and giving it a go. So guys, if they if someone out
there in on the podcast wants to contact you about getting a
demo, how would they do that Chris?
I guess just find me on Discord and send me a message and say
when can we play and we'll set something up.
I'm, yeah, readily, readily available.
OK. And Cam, same for you Matt.
They can contact you through Discord then.
Yeah Discord's probably the the easiest if for some book.
If for some reason somebody's listening to this podcast and
doesn't have discord or hasn't you know downloaded it or
whatever, they can find my YouTube channel.
Also it's like you mentioned Kraken's Wake and just comment
on in there and I've only got one video up so just comment in
there and I'll get in contact with you or on the the the
Facebook the man of war Facebook page.
Be another good good spot, shout out and yeah, we'll get you a a
remote game in. Excellent.
OK, so I'll leave. I'll leave your Discord
usernames in the show notes for this episode, and of course the
Discord link, so people can go there.
Discord's a great place for doing remote games.
You can watch remote games. You can.
You know you. You're part of a community that
has not just Man of War, but, you know, several other titles
there to engage with other hobbyists with around the world,
which is a really cool place to be.
So hopefully you can join us there and yeah, get into
discussions with Man of War and start playing some demo games.
So until then, guys, look thank you very much for coming on.
I appreciate your time today and enjoy your evenings.
Hey, thank you. Yeah.
Thanks man. OK.
Thank you. Bye, bye.