After some slight delays (a missed containership, a new year, and a global pandemic,if I've managed to keep things straight), it is finally here. The Oak & Iron kickstarter, the new game from Firelock Games (the Blood & Plunder folks). Since it got delayed for Europe, it's not quite the new hotness any more, but I found myself quite excited when I got it none-the-less (certainly helped by the fact that I've conciously not followed the game much on social media).
Doesn't look all that much, does it? Still, the art is pretty to look at, that's always nice.
But we're not here to look at pretty boxes. What's in them, you ask? Well, let's have a look.
First up, we get some nice cardboard markers, rulers, and tokens. Good printing, but not something to get overly excited about. More exciting is almost the gaming mat included in the box, with a very nice bright blue Caribbean sea printed on it. Surprisingly good quality, but then this is in part sold as a full game in the one box, and you need a gaming mat for this (unless you want it to look truly bad).
Next up, more cardboard, some flat but quite beautiful terrain. Double-sided, too, allowing for either fog banks or islands, or rocks/shoals for the smaller parts. And very easy to get of the cardboard squares as well (yes, the big island fell out by itself when I picked it up the first time).
And it matches amazingly well with the included gaming mat. The advantage of designing everything at the same time and place.
Finally, the thing everyone's excited about, the ships. You get six ships in the core box, a Light Galleon, Corvette, Sloop, Brigantine, Fluyt and a Petit Frigate. These ships should all be familiar to players of Blood & Plunder, who might own larger versions of these (and I'm not kidding about that, see further down).
Not shown is the 30 page rulebook and a small trees worth of cards. All of which I will probably memorize, if I know myself right.
Of course, all the ships in the core box are a bit... not compensatory enough. Men of War include some heavier girls, with the 4th, 5th and 6th Rates (the 4th rate being a true Ship of the Line, while the 5th and 6th still counts as Frigates). And yes, the 6th Rate looks suspiciously like the 6th Rate I haven't yet managed to paint in 28mm for Blood & Plunder.
And of course, you get tokens (shown) and stat cards (not shown) for these ships as well.
And if you want some true compensation jokes, look at the Ships of the Line, for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Rate. All of them are humongous. How humongous, you ask? Suffice to say, most of the ships are incredibly light, but the 1st rate have some honest weight to it, to the point that it amazed me when I first picked it up (as a happy coincidence, after having looked at the Sloop directly before that, for maximum contrast).
The last box is smaller, with only a Sloop (upgunned, of course) and something converted to be close to a 6th Rate (the infamous Queen Anne's Revenge). I find it oddly amusing that this box contains so much revenge, Blackbeards Revenge, with the Sloop Revenge and the ship Queens Anne's Revenge... someone's looking for revenge, all right.
Of course, also included is the expected tokens and ship cards, but also a captain card for Stede Bonnet. And yes, I'm very tempted to use the Revenge for my ordinary Sloop, simply because the rigging looks awesome.
All in all, that's a moderately sized fleet that now enters the painting queue.
The details on all the ships are exquisite. Just look at the tiny gun carriages on the Sloop. I'm equal part excited and terrified for trying to paint these. (Mast removed so that it's easier to see everything)
Talking about details, the sides of the Brigantine share an amazing amount of detail with the 28mm version, including the curlies on the fore and aft deck railings. I might have to invest in some truly tiny brushes for this.
The stern of the Petit Frigate looks familiar to anyone who's looked at the Blood & Plunder ships. I am eternally amazed at the amount of details they've managed to fit in there.
And now for something that isn't just a down-scaled version of a 28mm ship (if only because the thought of this one in 28mm is terrifying, and my back hurts just imagining carrying it). The 1st Rate.
Look at all those cannons! (Masts again removed for ease of viewing)
The decks also look incredible, with capstan, stairs (that at least look reasonable), and a whole lot of cannons.
And with a massive, and at the same time exquisite stern, too. I probably shouldn't paint her first, I need practice before that.
I did say the 1st rate was huge (in case the fact that she barely fits onto the base isn't a clue). Here she is next to the Sloop, once again for maximum contrast.
Now I just need to
- Paint all of these
- Read, learn and understand all the rules and cards
- Figure out how to give them interchangeable flags (because I want them to have full flags, and of course they need to be for the correct nation I've elected to play this time)
- Figure out how to transport them all. Because while they're small, at the same time, they're not.
Any advice welcome
/Fool Out, slightly overwhelmed
