Last week, Sails of Glory finally hit the high seas after 2 years of development and a highly successfully Kickstarter campaign (of which I was a backer!). My Kickstarter fullfilment actually arrived last August, but given that I was on deployment at the time I am only now getting the chance to dig in to all of my new Age of sail Goodies. So, without further ado, here is what you can expect to find in the starter set.
First of all, the box itself is rather imposing; there is some significant heft behind it:
Once the lid is off, you can see where the heft comes from; the tray inside is crammed full of ships and cardboard markers:
Below the rule book on the upper left there are a number of sheets of cardboard chits that will need to be punched out, along with some player aids like a wind gage.
Now on to the part I’m sure you are really interested in, the minis! A total of four ships come in the base box set; two ships of the line (the larger ones) and two frigates (the smaller ones), one each for the British and French. The minis themselves are nice sculpts. There is some cast-on rigging detail on the sails I’m not real wild about, but in general the gun ports, deck features, and the like are fairly crisp and identifiable. The painting and decoration is also nice; I saw very little bleed-over or sloppy washing, which are issues I’ve seen with other pre-paint lines (the later sets of War at Sea, for example). Here is what they look like:
HMS Defence:
Genereux
Courageuse:
HMS Terpsichore:
So, there you have it! The base set is fairly pricy, right up there with the price for other “hobbyist” board games. However, the quality of the components and the sheer amount of “stuff” means that this strikes me as a very solid value. Next time, I’ll go through some of the add-ons and (hopefully) some impressions on the game play itself!