Germans Vs. French Playtest
Hey all,
So Bryn and I managed to get a Germans Vs. French playtest in before Thanksgiving.
As with the British playtest we threw all six German Ship Cards against the six French Ship Cards that’ll be in the Core Box Set.
We set up almost exactly like the previous playtest.
Once again, the first few turns rolled out similarly to the Germans vs. British, with Bryn splitting his forces and me surging to the left.
Because of the back-and-forth maneuvering on the board you tend to see with the French as they continually try and line up aerial torpedo shots, you’ll note that one of my Light Cruisers and two Destroyers are heading back along the lines they just moved previously.
Unlike the last game where I spun all my forces up the left side of the playing area (from my POV), because of that back and forth noted above, I decided two try and swarm my three destroyers from two different directions onto the German battleship Baden.
On the far side of the playing area you’ll see my battleship with all three German destroyers swarming. Despite my best efforts, they were able to slide into the Starboard side where I’d been savaged by the German Bracketing Crew ability and I lost my Battleship that turn. However, I took two ships with it as it fell from the skies.
In the meantime my destroyers systematically annihilated the Stern Location, leaving the Baden unable to move.
After destroying my battleship, Bryn rushed the Tiger over to do what it’s purpose-built for: Defensive Screening (I’ll share the details on this specialty ship in a future blog)…trying to protect that mortally wounded Stern Location. However, by this point I still had all the ships active with torpedoes, including the wonderfully fun French Lave Light Cruiser with its two torpedoes per side, and by sheer attrition (coming from every side and some good rolls) I was able to destroy the German battleship.
As with the British playtest, this game appears to coincide with the playtest feedback we’ve been receiving…namely that while one or two of the ships need some tweaking, on the whole we’re right on track and it leaves the Germans with a great feeling during game play.
At this point we’ll probably go ahead and make those tweaks and re-send out to the larger playtesting group as well as re-running the British vs. Germans ourselves once more.
And of course hopefully I’ll finally get those pesky Italians done and have a playtest report to share sometime in December as well.
See ya next duty shift!
Randall
The more I hear about Lave, the more worried I get. I think she’s the French ship I’m most worried about facing across the sky when I finally have fleets of my own. Thanks for the playtesting report Randall! I’m looking forward to hearing about the Italians.
Honestly, while all these playtest reports are cool…I want to play the full game somewhere other then GenCon. I am sure at the tournements next year, these will be cool..but..
Give me the boxed set or give me PDFs! PLEASE!
I’ve loved the Lave every time I’ve gotten to playtest. I usually find myself cackling evilly as I pretty much cover the sky with torpedo markers. I’ve rarely done significant damage with them, but I just feel so GLEEFUL as my opponent has to scoot around the board trying desperately to avoid all my torpedo lanes.
Really, though, the best tactic still remains bribing your opponent’s gunnery officers to miss all the time.
(Also on that topic, Randall… is there ever going to be another open playtest evening at Games and Gizmos? Or anywhere else, for that matter? Due to schedule changes, it’s a lot harder for Nick and I both to get out there, but I might still head over solo sometime!)
I’m glad you guys are liking the battle reports…they’re fun to put together.
Rachel, yeah, been totally slacking off G&G play…Starting in January I’ll be back to running Lev once a month in the store…
I know, I know. You’re getting sick of this question. We all are. But is there ANY further word on when we might see the game? Inquiring minds (that don’t live near enough to Seattle to play with you frequently!) want to know!
Dr. O, the worry is that people might stop asking. Ask and ask away! For my part, I’m checking every week for news.
Asking will take part to make things a bit cool at the end and besides I am having fond watching over this game and a kind interesting to have a try.
Really, though, the best tactic still remains bribing your opponent’s gunnery officers to miss all the time. I am looking forward on how this games will totally fun.
african mango
What’s with all of the SPAMy responses the blog entries have been getting lately?
hahahhahaha
If the Core set ships with only 8 ships (4 per side) then why are these play tests being done with 12 ships (6 per side)?
I remember playing the very base form of this back in ’08 at my schools game club. took us three days to figure it out, with all the raw instructions, ahort attention spans, and lack of game pieces. But when we did struggle through it was awesome, can’t wait to get my hands on a core set and play the finished product! I’m really excited because the game we played had “Designer’s note: Insert Nation Abilities” and “Designer’s note: Insert Ship Diagram”. I can’t help but feel that thisll make it easier and more fun to play.
@ inquiring mind: Each set comes with 8 ship miniatures, but 12 ship cards.
@jotora : so, you play 4 v 4, but you can choose which 4 cards (out of 6) to match up with your 4 ship mini’s? I can understand that I guess. But, why run tests of the game using 6 mini’s if that’s not how the game is meant to be played?
For the purposes of balancing the ships’ capabilities. I guess they felt this was the best way to do that.