Review – Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Dreadfleet Captains

The third edition of the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game (Amazon.com search*) took a radical turn and dramatically changed the game’s rules and style of play, taking a more board game-like approach that equally excited some and angered others. While I cannot say that I am 100% in love with all of the changes that were made to the game, I can say that enough of the new elements interested me that I’m impressed with the system.

One of the largest changes to the game was the addition of cards. Cards for almost everything. Now the characters in the game, their actions, and even the adventuring locations were represented by cards. A great idea, in my opinion, and with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Dreadfleet Captains Fantasy Flight Games took the potential of the cards and brought us a print-on-demand expansion of 40 cards, bringing new options to the game for less than the cost of their larger boxed accessories.

So how is it?

Not Exactly Forty Cards

While the game does include 40 cards, not all of them are equally usable in gameplay. Four of the cards are the instructions, cover, back cover, and legal language and credits. That leaves us with 36 game cards, which are:

• 10 Creature Cards.
  
• 10 Action Cards.
  
• 6 Location Cards.
  
• 10 Character Standup Cards.

Creature Cards

Below you can see the 10 creature cards in the game. Each is double-sided and follows the format used in other third edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game (Amazon.com search*) expansions. Each is an NPC Captain, and each is beautifully illustrated and designed and at a glance it’s tough to tell that this is a print-on-demand expansion.

Below you can see a close shot of one of the creature cards, Captain Jaego Roth, and if you expand the image you’ll notice that the card is a bit grainy. That’s not nearly as noticeable when holding the card at a normal distance, but the cards are of a very slightly different print quality than the boxed expansion cards. In play, though, it’s not really an issue at all. Seriously, the printing is just fine with the naked eye and at actual size.

And now we get a look at the reverse side of the character cards, which look the same as other Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game (Amazon.com search*) character cards with the character’s art and name filling the card back.

Action Cards

As with the character cards, the action cards in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Dreadfleet Captains are identical in design and function to the character cards included in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay Core Set* and its various expansions. Each is two-sided — conservative stance (green) on one side, reckless stance (red) on the other — just like the other action cards in the game line.

The cards can be used however the players like, but the rules included with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Dreadfleet Captains assign some of the cards to specific character cards in the set. Neat and useful.

Location Cards

One of my favorite third edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game (Amazon.com search*) rules is how movement is handled in the game — it’s all abstract — and the location cards in the game are such an awesome concept that I sometimes think about ways that I could adapt it to other games But this isn’t the place for me to dig into game rules, so all I’ll say about location cards is that they’re a quick way to slap down a card and describe an entire scene.

Above you can see a close shot of one of the cards. The first paragraph is descriptive text — the GM should read this as he plays out the card — while the second and third paragraphs define special rules for this location. And all six of the location cards in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Dreadfleet Captains will construct a ship if you use them together; fitting, considering the expansion’s theme.

Character Standup Cards

The final ten cards in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Dreadfleet Captains are useful, yes, but they’re a lot less exciting than any of the other types of cards. Since the abstract movement system relies on player/creature tokes for positioning these ten cards are designed to be cut out, folded, and slotted into plastic bases. As I said, not exciting . . . but I’ll admit that these are useful.

Closing Thoughts

At $10 this expansion is a pricey addition to the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay series (Amazon.com search*) — on a per card basis — but considering that the print-on-demand nature makes it possible for the expansion to even exist I’m not gonna grumble too much about $10.

The creatures, actions, and locations are all cool, and I’ll suggest this to any Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay GM looking to add a few new options to his game.

Now if only Fantasy Flight Games would release a print-on-demand pack of nothing but new location cards . . .

Philip Reed is behind on the WFRP third edition series. He blames the fact that there’s always more work than time in each week. He’s working on a way to fit more time into every day.