I decided to order a few ships on eBay to check them out before the game came out. Actually got them fairly cheap since I bought them early before the prices started to skyrocket.

Unfortunately the guy who shipped them packed them extremely poorly and most of the cards fell out of the envelope so I only really got 1 ship and 2 of 3 cards for another. Must resist Fist of Death! So I'll see how honorable the guy is on a refund.

But that's besides the point. Now I've finally been able to hold a ship in my hand and I have to admit they are pretty cool. I was sceptical at first but now that I've seen one I think they are pretty well designed. The only major complaint I have is the masts should have been a single piece instead of cut out like they are. As mentioned elsewhere you have to be careful not to snap them. Not good for clumsy hands or children. I'm alittle worried about constantly assembling them and scratching the art off. Not sure how well its going to hold up over extended use.

If they do expansions I'd recommend changing the masts and maybe increasing the slot size just a bit. Might protect the art and make them easier to assemble.

Another suggestion would be to include little rulers with a red and white marking instead of part of the ship card. I think I'll try to make one out of cardboard. Will keep the table less cluttered I think.

Someone else in another thread suggested making little hats to indicate lost masts instead of removing them. This would also decrease the chance of accidental breakage.

Hope they release updated rules for more than 2 players soon. I can probably get some friends at work to play but the rules as the currently stand have too many questions and issues. I don't want to see a FAQ longer than the rules for this game! So hopefully we'll see better rules soon. I will probably wait to invest in this game until I see what they have in store.

As for the first, you have yo have the main card for all your ships on the table anyways, so using one of those for measuments doesn't clutter things up at all.

As for the second, we are talking about WK here. Their objective with rulebooks is to make them as short as possible so they can say the game is simple, even if it isn't. The side effect to that is that ALOT of things get left out and as a result you need a FAQ that is longer than the rulebook, just to be abl to play the game right.

I thought about using a ruler with red and white lines on it too, but then an opponent may question the acurracy of a home made ruler. There is no question of acurracy with the cards. Also each movement (red or white), unlike some of the other Wizkids measuring games that have flexible rulers, needs to be in a perfect straight line to simulate the travel by setting the sails in a certain direction.

I don't mind the cards so much, but it would be very cool if the corner intersection of the red and white lines matched up and ended in a point at the corner of the card. That way if you have a ship that has a S+L, you can simply put down one edge of the card, pivot at the corner of the card and flip to the other edge of the card using the corner for changing direction. I don't think they could do this because if the cards were not cut perfectly (which not all are) at this intersection they would not work, so they left extra space at the corner. I keep wanting to do this so I don't lose the end point of my first measurement, but the current cards pretty much require you to mark the spot near at the end point, pick the card up off the play area and attempt to start the next line at the last end point. If I make any homemade measuring devices I would make one card sized (L+S) card and a square (S+S) card that I could pivot at the corners. These would even work for (L+S) +S (bonus) by starting at an "S" edge, pivot to "L", then pivoting again to the other "S" edge.

Perhaps if you use an exisiting measuring card, you can trim off the white edge sides where the red lines end (this squares the corners of the card and maintains the accuracy of the original red line). Then use a second card to measure the width of the card and trim it so it is exactly the width of a white line. Now you can pivot the card at its square corners and measure multiple movements without lifting up and reseatting the card. I'm unsure what to use to make acurate cuts on these styrene cards, or if the triming could be done accurrately enough to make this feasible.

This game though is fairly simple, especially compared to many of Wizkids previous games. I don't think too many things have been left out of the rules (at least for this first expansion). That being said, I do believe the list of questions I have already is longer than the rulebook. I don't feel this is because a lot of things have been left out, as much as I don't think the current rules are specific enough in many places and an additional word or phase here and there could have really help to firm up these rules. A little more playtesting and review of these rules would have gone a long way towards improving the rulebook and minimizing rules questions and mis-interpretations, without making the rulebook much longer. That being said, the game does seem to play very well and when official rule clarifications are available this should be a solid and a very nice and quick little game.

A thought just occurred to me while reading this thread; since the rules are fairly short, but a little vague in parts, and have brought up quite a bit of questions, :::HOPEFULLY::: instead of providing the privateers and players with a FAQ every so often, WK will just rewrite the rulebook and stamp it Revision X.X Like a lot of folks have said, it'd be sad to see a 21 page FAQ for a 12 page rulebook. All it'd really take is for someone to read through the questions, get official responses to how the rules should have been stated, then rewrite the vague wording in the original book. Here's hoping.

That would be nice. I have seen other game companies do exactly this and it works well. The rule provided with the game are then more of an introduction to the game rules, and the expanded rules rewritten to clarify the rules appropriately are known as the official tournament rules. The tournament rules are then obviously used for all tournament play and are generally accepted by any serious players of the game.

So what where the spare cards. If they are the ones i want I may make u a better deal than his refund. pm me ok
Also I got my demo kit in and had 2 half ships so it might have been WKs bad. Dont know whatit said on ebay
Arg
:eek:

The seller offered me a refund for the missing items. So I'm happy. Though not as happy as I'd be if I had them. ;)

Here's what I won-
Revenge (release version, not promo)
El Duque
HMS Albion
Crew- Capitain Alarico Castro
Crew- Commandante Luis de Alva

What I got was-
El Duque
Revenge (cards 2 & 3 only)

As you can see I lost 2 rare crew, 1 rare ship, & 1 uncommon ship. Instead all I got was 1 common ship. So I'd say I was VERY unlucky. So some post office floor or basket has my missing items that were probably thrown out.