Played my first game with my freind Ed at his home in San Antonio while I was there over the holidays. We both bought into the game at the Captian level and we have not been disappointed.
My impression of the game materials (Startter Box, first wave of releases, and additional Kickstarter benefits is overwhelmingly positive. The ships look better that expected and have, obviously, been thought out well from packaging to game play. Lessons from Wings of War/Glory have not been lost.
The packaging for the the Starter set is a keeper. The vacuum form tray has a place for everything. It does get a little tight if, like me, you have separated all the tokens into individual little baggies, but it all fits. The ships are extremely well protected in the tray.
An important note on ship. Ed warned me not to get too excited and open all the ships boxes at once. The ship models have no identifying marks. So once they are out ofthe boxes and if they get separated from the bases with the ship card, it would be nigh well impossible to straighten out the mess. The soultion is to unpack each ship model, one-at-a-time, and mark the model and the ship card. You needen't mark the base as the bases are interchangeable. The ships in the starter box are identifiable with their ship cards because all four have unique ensigns. Mark them anyway! Once they get mixed up with the fleet…well you get the idea…
We played Basic + Standard rules. The game went as expected--quick, easy, and fun. The roots of this game are apparent in Wings of Glory. If you now that game, then the rules for this game, while different, are apprehended with no hesitation. As far as "sailing" goes, pay close attention to tacking. At first blush, it not apparent how you can tack without ending up in irons. However, I suggest that you take a meta-gaming moment to just work through the maneuvers (cards) to do it and the mechanics will become apparent. Try it with the four ships, i.e. maneuver decks, provided in the Basic Set and you'll get a handle on how to do perform this critical maneuver.
The firing and damage tallying operated as expected and the ship's log/display/mats work extremely well. They make it easy to ensure that you don't forget to load guns,take actions, etc. The damage tally is a little odd at first, but the examples in the rule book will get you through it. Once learned, it's simple and and as you play your first game, you will see that it makes sense.
Obviously, I like this game a lot. I like it as much as I like Wings of Glory--and that's a LOT. It's complexity level and level of simulation/abstraction is about the same as Wings of Glory. In other words, play this game with a friend who is interested in having some good sporting fun. Don't play this game with a rivet counter, you'll be trying to have fun while they will be complaining about the lack of ratlines on the models and that a particular ship couldn't perform such-and-such manuever until its refit in Portsmouth in the fall of 1810 or some such.
P.S.
I forgot to mention the game mat. While not essential, it is very helpful. It has subtle black lines on it that help you to keep the wind indicators opinting in the right direction as you use them during the game. I only have one, but I will certainly being buying another to increase the play area. One mat was adequate for the Basic set ships but more ships will require a larger area. I would think that two mats would be a large enough area for a four person game with two ships each.
