Pirates! Card Game Kickstarter Review, Part 2: Gameplay & Verdict

This review is for a project still at the Kickstarter stage.  As such, final game contents may vary from those shown here.

In our last article we took a look at the box contents of our review copy of Pirates!, a card game by Jules Prick for 2-6 players.  Today we're going to break down the gameplay, give our thoughts on the pros and cons of the game, and give it an illustrious Games & Tea final score (yes, we've now decided our final scores should be illustrious ... it was bound to happen eventually).  As an in-development project it is reliant on crowd-funding, so if you like the sound of our review then please head over to its Kickstarter page and pledge your support.

The goal in Pirates! is to become the greatest pirate captain, either by being the first to accumulate 7 Pirate Points, or by simply eliminating the opposition.

To start the game each players is given a purple Big Sloop as their starting ship, as well as 11 crew tokens to man them.  The Pirate Card and Adventure Card decks are shuffled and placed within easy reach of all players, then each player is dealt 2 Pirate Cards and 3 Adventure Cards off the top of the decks.  Once all players have their starting hands and the beginnings of their pirate fleets, it's time to take to the high seas and find out who has what it takes to rule the waves!

Because sometimes a regular sloop just doesn't cut it...

Each player's turn consists of 4 phases: upkeep, adventure, re-organise, and draw.  The upkeep phase involves drawing 3 Pirate Cards to add to the player's hand, and adding new crew members to their fleets.  To do this, the cargo values (represented by the barrel in the bottom-right corner of the card) are added up across the player's fleet, and they receive that number of crew tokens to distribute as they wish.  The other values on the card are (from left to right) speed, cannons, and starting crew/maximum crew - all of which we'll address in due course.  The gold skull and crossbones icon represents a pirate point - most ships are worth just one, but some powerful vessels are worth more if a captain is ruthless enough to defeat them!

The adventure phase requires the player to place all of their Adventure Cards face-up on the table in front of them, and then decide which cards (if any) they will attempt to beat.  Alternatively, they can choose to attack one of their opponent's ships, which can come in handy when another player is getting close to their seventh Pirate Point!  Most of these cards are other ships which can be added to their fleet, but some are treasure cards which can have altogether different benefits!  Each ship in a player's fleet may only go after one Adventure Card per turn, so the players must decide whether to play the game cautiously or risk it all for gold and glory!  Seeing as combat plays a very large part in Pirates!, let's take a look at how it works...

This Big Sloop has decided to try and take on the David Le Roi for a very desirable reward of 2 Pirate Points.  The David Le Roi may not be tough, but with a speed of 7 she's fast, and so the Big Sloop must catch her first of all!  The player rolls the wind dice, and adding the dice total to the Big Sloop's speed, they must match or beat the David Le Roi's speed in order for battle to commence.  This may sound easy enough, but the wind dice features both positive and negative values, so if the Big Sloop is caught in a headwind then their quarry will escape unharmed!

Fortunately in this case the Big Sloop rolled a +1, allowing them to catch the David Le Roi.  Now they can engage eachother!

Before the crews go head-to-head, both ships get a chance to unleash a barrage of cannon fire upon eachother!  Each ship rolls a number of dice equal to their cannon value, and for each cannon icon rolled the enemy ship loses a crew member.  In this instance the Big Sloop has no cannons so must sit by whilst the David Le Roi fires two shots back at them!  Out of the two dice, one cannon icon was rolled, so the Big Sloop is reduced to 12 crew members before the hand-to-hand fighting starts.

Most pirates are not above using dirty tactics to win a fight...

Each ship rolls a number of dice equal to their remaining crew tokens.  This time, players are looking to roll crew icons on the dice, and for every one rolled the enemy loses a crew.  This process is repeated until one ship's crew is completely destroyed, and then the last man standing takes possession of the now empty ship!  This may sound like a lengthy and repetitive process, but the cap on the maximum crew of each ship brings this down to a manageable level.  The newly acquired ship is then given new crew members equal to its cargo value, and then it joins the victor's armada, adding to their Pirate Point total!

Some Pirate Cards can be played to give ships permanent upgrades, whereas others can give bonuses which last for just one round of combat.  These cards can also be stacked to give brutal combinations which can change the course of a game.  In the photo above, the Big Sloop has been upgraded with +3 cannons.  At the start of the battle, it was given the card "Chain Shot" - giving it a further +3 cannons - twice, and "Fast Reload", giving it x2 cannons.  All of these bonuses combine to give the Big Sloop a devastating +18 cannons for one round, giving it the chance to destroy an enemy ship's entire crew before the hand-to-hand fighting even begins!  This is a great example of how managing the Pirate Cards can be used to tremendous effect.

Following on from the adventure phase, the reorganisation phase allows players to redistribute their crew across their fleet, and sell any unwanted ships for their cargo value's worth in crew tokens.  Whilst this may sound counter-productive, selling ships to boost your total crew can prove to be a life-saving decision if players find themselves spread too thin!

Finally, in the draw phase players draw 3 new Adventure Cards to be played next turn.  You may be wondering why this is done at the end of the turn, rather than the beginning of the next one, and we have to admit we wondered the same thing when we first read the rules.  Once we started playing, however, we realised that this actually increases the strategic depth of Pirates!, as it forces players who are under attack to decide whether to use their Pirate Cards to help defend their ships, or to keep them in-hand to help complete their Adventure Cards in the next turn.

Play continues until one player secures that coveted seventh Pirate Point, or until only one remains in the game (the loss of a player's final ship results in their elimination).

So that's Pirates! in a nutshell!  So the all important question (and the one, we hope, for which you were awaiting an answer): what did we think of it?  Well to start with, we liked the fact that it's a card game with a little bit extra.  It might sound shallow, but the simple addition of some tokens and a themed-dice mechanic just makes it feel like it has a little more substance than a regular card game.

Looking beyond this, there's a lot about Pirates! which has been well thought out.  It's nice to see a card game which isn't a party game, but works well with more than two players.  It toes the line well between being a casual game and one which requires some slightly deeper, forward planning, giving an enjoyable experience without becoming too taxing.

The battle system works very nicely for the most  part - in the world of gamers there do seem to be a lot of anti dice-rolling voices, but in our opinion it adds a nice random element to any game.  Sure, no-one likes to just roll straight dice against eachother, but as an addition to a tactical element we believe it has its place in games, and it works well here - it's a great thrill when your opponent boards one of your ships with a larger crew, and some lucky dice rolls leave your crew heroically victorious against all the odds!  There's a nice variety of ships to chase down and plunder, from heavily-armed galleons to swift little sloops, and the wide range of Pirate Cards allows for some dramatic table-turning and devious thwarting of enemy plans.  Also - and this did surprise us a little - none of the Pirate Cards are drastically overpowered.  Many card games do suffer from having a few overpowered action cards which give the holder an unfair advantage, but Pirates! seems to have steered clear of this pitfall.

As mentioned earlier, the small touch of drawing Adventure Cards at the end of players' turns is another good mechanic, as it allows players to plan out their turn ahead, and forces them to decide whether to stick to the plan or use their cards to intervene if their own ships come under attack.

The victory condition of 7 Pirate Points seems spot on as well.  In many of our games, players would quickly reach 5 points as they each focused on their Adventure Cards rather than eachother, and then the game would become much more aggressive as they each tried to prevent eachother from scoring those final 2 points, whilst trying to edge their way there themselves!  This made those final points a very tough slog, only adding to the careful tactical planning of each turn.

This is something of a double-edged sword, however.  We did have a few games where a couple of players both reached 5 points fairly quickly, and then in the following few turns their attempts to keep eachother from winning ended up knocking both players back down to 2 points.  This was repeated a few times, making the game feel as though it was stuck in something of a "Groundhog Day" loop.

You may have picked up on the fact that we said the combat mechanic works "for the most part".  The only downside to it in our opinion came up when two large crews went up against eachother.  When you have two ships with roughly 20 crew members and 10 cannons each going head-to-head, the dice-rolling can start to become a little tedious.  This didn't come up very often, but during one battle over 80 dice were rolled before one heavily-battered ship emerged as the victor!  We did wrack our brains for a while to try and think if there was a way to streamline this mechanic for larger engagements, but we came up blank.

So, let's break it down into a nice, bite-sized summary...

The Good Points

• Pirates! fits together very nicely overall, and works as a nice semi-casual game.
• It's a quick game to learn, but has a tactical edge for players can develop.
• Up to 6 people can play Pirates! at once, making it a good social game.
• It doesn't require a great deal of space to play.
• It's about Pirates!  Everyone loves Pirates!

The Bad Points

• In larger battles the dice-rolling element of combat can go on a little too long.
• Players can sometimes get stuck in a loop of mutual annihilation, although this lessens with higher player numbers.

Recommended Number of Players: 4

The first games of Pirates! we tried out involved just 2 players, which does work, although the odds of a mutual annihilation loop do increase!  3 players works nicely, but we found that 4 provided the best overall experience, giving players plenty of targets to choose from without spreading their attacks too thinly.

Average Game Time: 45-60 minutes

Pirates! isn't one of the quickest card games in the world, but that's entirely down to the tactical element of the game.  Unlike some card games such as Fluxx, which can feel like they'll go on forever, Pirates! always makes the players feel as though they're heading for their goal.  We found 2 player games lasted around 30 minutes, with that time slowly increasing with the player numbers.

Replay Value: Medium

There are enough combinations of Adventure Cards and Pirate Cards to keep Pirates! fresh for quite some time, although not forever.  The games do go on for long enough though, that a decent games night will probably only accommodate one or two rounds, so it shouldn't be a game that goes stale too soon, and the potential for future expansions (see below) can only enhance its longevity.

The Future: Bountiful 

Being a project currently in development, it's difficult to pin down the future of Pirates!, but we've been in touch with the creators to get a rough idea of where this game may go if it achieves post-Kickstarter success.  Whilst we don't want to go into too many details and make promises on behalf of the Pirates! team, ideas are currently bouncing around for future expansions which will include additional mechanics to give the game a little more depth.  There is certainly potential here for Pirates! to grow far beyond its humble beginnings.

Price: £20

Being a Kickstarter project, backers have the choice of how much they want to put in to try and help it on its way.  A small amount can go towards simply supporting the project, whilst larger amounts reap greater rewards, such as a sloop tour down the canals of Amsterdam!  To simply secure a copy of Pirates! upon its release though, will set you back £20.

OVERALL SCORE: 8/10

Tea consumed during this review: Our penultimate bag of Twinings green tea/every day tea blend, with milk and 2 sweeteners.  10/10

If you enjoyed this article and want to see more of the same, come and like us on our Facebook page to keep up to date with our reviews, as well as our general day-to-day ramblings!



Pirates! Card Game Kickstarter Review, Part 1: Box Contents

This review is for a project still at the Kickstarter stage.  As such, final game contents may vary from those shown here.

 

If there's one thing here at Games & Tea that really gets our blood pumping (other than games and tea) it's zombies.  Ironic, really, considering the lack of blood flow in the undead themselves, but each to their own.  If there's a second thing that does it, then it would probably be pirates.  There's a certain romanticism about the freedom of sailing the seven seas, going wherever the wind takes you, and stealing vast quantities of shiny things.  There's something even more fun about the notion of catching a good tailwind and pulling alongside your best friend's ship for a devastating broadside!  So with that in mind we were all too happy to receive a review copy of Pirates!, a card game for 2-6 players by Jules Prick, in order to bring you our thoughts for the Kickstarter launch.  The last game we reviewed with exclamation marks in the title was the distinctly average Zombies!!!, so we were trusting in those roguish seafarers to restore our faith in our favourite item of punctuation.

 

Drink up, me hearties, yo ho...

 

The goal of Pirates! is a simple one: to become the greatest pirate captain on the high seas!  It sounds simple enough, but when you have 1-5 other pirate captains with their eyes on the same title, things become a little bit tricky.  To become the greatest pirate, players must accumulate 7 Pirate Points, through feats of adventure and fighting prowess.  Alternatively, for the more aggressive player, victory can be achieved by simply annihilating the opposition!  But we're getting ahead of ourselves (as usual), so let's take a look at the contents and mechanics of Pirates! before delving into our thoughts on the game...

 

 

There are two main decks in Pirates!, both of which are communal, giving no player an unfair advantage right off the bat.  The first of these are the blue-backed Adventure Cards, of which there are two types: ships and treasure.  There are different types of ship in the game, each with different stats in terms of speed, firepower and crew capacity, and defeating these ships to add to your fleet is the main victory tactic.  The treasure cards are generally used to boost players' pirate forces by giving them extra crew members for example, as well as serving a second overall purpose: the player with the most treasure cards at any time takes possession of the oversized Treasure Cave card, giving them one additional precious Pirate Point.

 

 

The second deck consists of the red-backed Pirate Cards which are used to form the players' hands.  There are three different types of Pirate Cards; Your-Turn-Only and Battle Cards, which allow players to take actions which boost their resources or give them the edge during a battle, and Inventory Cards which are used to upgrade ships in their fleets.  Managing these upgrades and making the best use out of these actions can turn the tides (see what we did there?) of battle, and determine which captain is left standing when the smoke clears.

 

 

In addition to the two main decks, there are also the purple-backed Big Sloop Cards.  These are the basic starting ships, and each player receives one at the beginning of the game - even Blackbeard and Davy Jones had to start somewhere!

 

 

Pirates! also features some rather unique dice, which are used to determine the outcome of battles.  In our opinion these are the coolest things about the box set, with the sides of the black dice featuring cannons, cutlasses and compasses!  The blue die is used to determine the vital wind speed in ship-chases, and so features plus and minus values.

 

 

Finally, we have the crew tokens.  These are used (as you might have guessed) to keep track of the number of crew on each ship under the players' commands.  Each ship has a maximum crew compliment, and players will want to try and keep them as full as possible to ensure victory over their opponents!

 

Being a review copy our game didn't include them, but in addition to the oversize Treasure Cave card mentioned earlier, the full game should feature a few more oversized Fame Cards, as well as quick-reference setup and turn order cards to help speed the game along.

 

So that's the box contents of our review copy of Pirates!  Come back for Part 2 of our review to see how the game plays and our thoughts on it as a whole, but in the meantime check out their Kickstarter page here to find out some more information from the creators themselves!



WarFields: Beta Review

So in our last entry we talked about how we've stuck our noses into the world of Kickstarter, and the projects we've chosen to back.  As a follow on from that it's our utmost pleasure to bring you a review of one of those projects:  WarFields, a card game by Chris Green of Menaveth Games.

 

 

Now before we go on we must stress that this is a work in progress.  As a backer of WarFields we've been presented with a print & play copy of the game, which means that the final, polished product may be different from that described in this article.  The artwork will change, some mechanics may change, the deck breakdown may change etc.  That said, there's certainly enough here to bring our readers an in-progress review of the game and a look over the mechanics, so let's press on and do just that!

 

WarFields is a strategic card game for 2 players, in which both sides must gather resources to build their army, and push forward to vanquish the opponent's king.  Both players draw their cards from a communal Draw Deck, which consists of 90 cards of two basic types.

 

 

First of all there are the Character cards, which make up the bulk of the Draw Deck.  These are the troops with which the players will wage their wars, and the workers which will gather the resources required for this endeavour.  You'll notice various stats and symbols on these cards, and we'll do a detailed breakdown further down the page.

 

 

The other card type is the Effect card.  These allow players to take various actions on the battlefield, such as boosting the defence of a Character, drawing extra cards from the Draw Deck, re-rolling dice, or even stealing resources from an opponent.

 

 

Separate from the Draw Deck is the 54-card Gold Deck, which is also communal.  Gold cards come in denominations of 1-3, and are the driving force behind WarFields.  Whether you want to add another Character to your army, play an Effect card or make an attack, you'll need Gold to make it happen.

 

 



Now to have a look at the card breakdown, taking this Archer as an example.  In the top-left corner there are two numbers, a large number (4 in this case) and a smaller one (2).  The large number is the Gold cost required to bring this Character into play, whereas the smaller number is it's selling value.  Each turn a player may sell one card, and will draw cards from the Gold Deck equal to the selling value.

The symbol in the top-right corner (a little unclear in this photo) is the Character type, of which there are three; Human, Beast, and Undead.  Humans can be played straight off the bat, but Beasts and Undead need special Characters to bring them into play; the Summoner and Necromancer respectively.

The large number on the left is the Character's defence value, and the number on the right is it's health.  Whenever a character is struck by an enemy it takes the damage off its defence first of all, and once the defence is gone it starts to lose health.  At the end of each turn, each character's defence is fully restored, but any damage done to its health remains.

This just leaves the Characters attacks/abilities at the bottom of the card, along with their damage and gold costs.  Typically the more gold a player spends, the more damage they'll do!

 

So it seems like a very basic mechanic, right?  Players gather Gold, summon Characters, and then start hitting eachother.  Well, not quite.  WarFields has a very interesting battle mechanic, and it's this very thing which prompted Games & Tea to throw their lot and and try to get this game completed.

 

 

The battlefield in WarFields is divided into six rows, with each player having a Kingdom Field (back row), Ranged Field (centre row) and Melee Field (front row).  Each turn, Characters can advance one row, and then make their attacks.  Melee attackers can only attack the row in front of them, and ranged attackers can attack up to 2 rows in front.  This means that players don't just have two opposing lines of Characters relentlessly pummelling away at eachother, but instead they have to build a structured army, and actually advance it into enemy territory in order to accomplish their goal.  And what is their goal, you ask?

 

KILL THE KING!

 



 

Each player starts with three cards in their army; their King, a Knight, and a Worker.  This means everyone starts on a level footing, with one soldier and one resource gatherer.

 

Let's go through a turn of WarFields to explain the mechanics in more detail, and then we'll talk about what we thought of the game.

 

At the very beginning of the game each player draws 9 cards from the Draw Deck, and then place 2 of them into the discard pile.  This may seem a bit strange, but on closer inspection it's actually a nice way to begin the game.  A simple draw of 7 cards each would put both players at the whim of fate, but that slight element of customising their opening hands allows a tactical element to creep in very early on.  Once this setup is complete and a die has been rolled to determine the first player, the game begins.

Each turn consists of four stages, starting with the Currency Stage.  The player draws 2 cards from the Draw Deck to add to their hand, and then add one Gold Card to their gold pile for each Worker they control.  If the player wishes to add more gold to their pile they can sell one card from their hand as well.

The next stage is the Build Stage.  The player can spend their gold to play Characters from their hand, but these Characters must enter the battlefield in the Kingdom Field.

Once the Build Stage is over, the Movement Stage begins.  Any character can move forwards or backwards one Field in the Movement Stage, as long as that Field isn't occupied by an enemy.

Then comes the fun part: the Attack Stage!  As long has the player hasn't spent all of their gold in the Build Stage then they'll have enough to attack (that's right, you don't just have to hire your troops, you have to pay their salary as well!).  As mentioned earlier, melee attackers can hit any Character in the next row ahead, whereas ranged attackers generally do less damage, but can hit ahead one row further.  To show an example of an attack, we're going to take a look at a Knight having a swing at an Arachnid...

 

 

The attacking Knight is going to use his Sword Slash ability, with an attack value of 3.  The attacking player then rolls a die to see how effective this attack is.  On a roll of 1 or 2, the attack gets -1, on a 3 or 4 it hits at face value, and on 5 or 6 it gets +1.  On this occasion the player rolls a 5, making the Sword Slash deal 4 damage instead of 3.  The Arachnid has 2 defence, which is obliterated, and so takes 2 damage to its health.  This gives any other attackers a good chance to finish the Arachnid off, but if none do, then at the end of the turn its defence returns to 4, but its health will remain at 2.

 

The game continues turn-by-turn until one player has pushed ahead far enough to defeat the opposing King, and then they are declared the victor!

 

There are further rules which we haven't gone into, else this review would probably double in length!  There are limitations to the uses of some cards, various Character effect such as poison, special rules for bringing out Beast and Undead creature types... we could go on, but we think we've gone into enough detail to give you a decent idea of how WarFields works.

 

So what do we make of it overall?  To start with, the communal Draw Deck is a very nice idea.  Strategic card games often work around building your own decks, and so games are usually won or lost before the first card is even drawn.  With a communal deck there's no player advantage, meaning that victory boils down to a mix of playing skill and luck of the draw.

Another nice touch with the Draw Deck is that it doesn't get replenished, once it's entirely been discarded then it's gone!  This means that there will be no games of WarFields which end up as hours-long wars of attrition, and even the most evenly-matched game may well end up as one King slogging it out against his opposite number! 

The use of Gold Cards to fund everything in the game works well.  It may make the opening turns feel a little slow if you're eager to run forwards and start bashing away at your opponent, but as the game presses on it forces players to think carefully about whether they want to go on the offensive during their turn, or sit back and bolster their defences with more Characters.

The combat system is well thought out as well.  Most good games contain a random element to them to prevent them from becoming too predictable, but without detracting from the tactical element altogether; Puppet Wars has the Fate Deck which can be counted, X-Wing has the combat dice which can be Focused, and WarFields has a D6 which simply modifies the attacker's base-value.  This allows players to try and play the odds when pitching their Characters up against their opponents', but prevents an absolute certainty over the outcome.

 

In terms of negative points, there aren't many to pick at which can't be put down to the fact that WarFields is still a work-in-progress.  Some of the Effect cards in our experience seem to be a little bit overpowered for their low Gold cost.  And sometimes games can be lost purely down to an unlucky draw, although the same can be said of any card-drawing game.

 

All in all, we've thoroughly enjoyed playtesting WarFields here at Games & Tea.  If you think it sounds interesting, then please visit its Kickstarter page here.  You'll find a tutorial video to show you a detailed gameplay runthrough, and more importantly you can pledge your support to the project!  It's providing us with a lot of fun over here, and we certainly hope to see a complete and published version in the future.

 

The Good Points

• A communal Draw Deck puts both players on a level footing from the outset, making WarFields a game of skill, rather than a game of "who spent the most money on their deck".
• The six-levelled battlefield adds a very enjoyable tactical depth, and one we haven't experienced in previous card games.
• The Gold system adds a need for further tactical thinking, often forcing players to choose between attacking and reinforcing each turn.
• The combat system contains the essential element of chance, without descending into the realms of becoming completely randomised.

The Bad Points

• Being a game-in-progress, the balance of some cards feels a little bit off.  That said, Menaveth have been taking feedback on board, and the game is in a constant state of refinement.
• Like all card-drawing games, a very unlucky draw can put a player out of the game quite conclusively.
• Whilst we do love the six-levelled battlefield, it does mean the WarFields requires more space to play than many other card games, which might prove a squeeze on smaller coffee tables.
• WarFields is a game for two players, so may not be suitable for large gaming nights with several players all wanting to play together.

Recommended Number of Players: 2

As mentioned above, WarFields is an exclusively 2 player game.

 

Average Game Time: 30-40 minutes

An average playthrough of WarFields takes just over half an hour, although obviously this will stretch out if both sides are playing especially cautiously (or recklessly!).

 

Replayability: Medium/High (see "The Future")

WarFields is a very enjoyable game, and one we're happy to keep going back to.  With each playthrough, players will start to form better tactics to help them in future games, but with the Draw Deck included in the print & play version there will obviously reach a point where all of the Characters have been seen plenty of times and may start to feel a little stale.  That said, if the project's full funding is reached and it does see the light of day then there are plans for expansions, which will allow customisation of the Draw Deck and allow the game to remain fresh for a long time.

 

The Future: Bright (as long as we all get behind it!)

As we just mentioned, there are plans in the works for expansions to WarFields as long as the initial Kickstarter project is successful.   These expansions will allow players to give distinct themes to their Draw Decks, which will in turn allow for very different playing experiences.

 

Price: $25/39 (or however much you want to contribute)

Being a Kickstarter project you can pledge however much you want towards WarFields.  $25 will secure you a copy upon release if you're in the US, Canada or China, and $39 will get you a copy in the rest of the world.  Higher pledges will grant you extras such as t-shirts, cards designed after yourself etc.

As we've said earlier, we'd really like to see this game hit the shelves, and so if you like the look of it we do encourage you to support it here.

 

 

 

OVERALL SCORE: 8.5/10

(if we ever get expansions this will probably hit 9/10)

 

Tea consumed during this review: PG Tips with milk and 2 sweeteners.  Brew rating: 9/10.

If you enjoyed this article and want to see more of the same, come and like us on our Facebook page to keep up to date with our reviews, as well as our general day-to-day ramblings!

KICKSTARTER UPDATE: Unfortunately WarFields didn't succeed in reaching its funding goal on this occasion, however Menaveth Games are planning a relaunch next year taking into account the feedback from their backers.  If you liked the look of the game then keep an eye on the Kickstarter website and get in on the action when it comes back around!