Cruel Seas Mini Review

Cruel Seas

As a part of my New Year Hobby Resolutions, I pledged that I would try and play one new game a week. This was after a conversation between myself and Gareth where we came to the realisation that there is currently a plethora of games on the market. Surely 52 new games in a year isn’t too much to aim for??

Come Friday, we sat down and cracked out Warlord Games’ latest skirmish game Cruel Seas.

Cruel Seas is a skirmish game based on small coastal fleet actions in the Second World War. The starter set introduces us to the Germans and the British. Other playable nations are Italians, US Navy and the Japanese.

I played the German Kreigsmarine, taking command of two E-Boats, whilst Gareth took the Vospers of the British Royal Navy.

We played a slow time game for a couple of turns to get the feel of the game and how it plays in it’s mechanics. I can honestly say that Warlord have managed to capture the feel of small boat actions, with an intuitive turn system based upon their Bolt Action ‘Draw a Dice from the bag’ action to determine turn order. This greatly differs from most other Wargames and the traditional You go, I go system and does work. It makes actions unpredictable and the game that bit more exciting because of it.

The weapons on the ships are varied enough that the tactical aspect of the game is varied each turn. The system of movement is based on slow, steady and fast ratings, whereby your speed dictates not only how far your ships can move, but also modifiers in the shooting phase based on speed when rolling the D10 to hit the enemy.

The starter set includes quick reference unit cards for the main ships, but the rulebook also has extra stat lines for other ships for the main navies in the game.

The game plays fast and there is not a lot of time to sit around. I certainly found myself throwing my ships into battle with no finesse at all. But soon the tactical side comes in I found myself playing better to angles, thinking where to place my ships.

On the whole the rules are easy to read and follow. We eventually found the quick reference guide at the back of the rulebook, but flipping back and forth wasn’t an issue and the game flowed.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed our first game and look forward to going again on another lunch break.  Now to decide on my preferred camo scheme and potentially my next article.

 Vapian