Legends of the High Seas - First Impressions

A couple of days ago, myself and a couple of gaming buddies tried out Legends of the High Seas for the first time. So I thought I would post up my first impressions of the game.

We went for a basic setup (on the dinner table) using the basic rules. Land battle, movement, fighting, shooting and courage. So we could learn step by step we left out Fame, Fortune, Ships and campaigns for this game.

The crews used were my Pirates at the top, Liams Royal Navy on the left and Steves (Elven) Privateers on the right.
They were all the standard 200 doubloons with no special characters or Hired Hands.
The fun parts to start off with were deciding how to arm your crew and the Archetype of your Captain.
I went for Lucky as the 2 re rolls sounded useful. Liams captain was a Gentlemen, making his crewmen cheaper and Steve went for Bold (I think) allowing him to re-roll failed Rout Tests.
 There are other options but some look to be more focused in campaign play.

Movement came first and it couldn't have been easier. Everyone moves 6". You cant move within 1" of an enemy unless you want to go into combat. To use a pistol you can only move 3" and for a musket you have to stay still.
There are a couple more rules for jumping, swinging, swimming etc but they don't seem too difficult either. Just rolling a dice to see if you make it.
The movement rules were picked up by all 3of  us within 2 turns. We did check the rulebook a couple of times after that but you do that for most games no matter how long you have been playing.

The next phase was shooting. again this was easy but enjoyable. You roll to hit, there might be a 3 4 or 5+ 'In the Way' roll for cover, then its Strength v Defence on the standard GW wounding chart.
At long range a lot of the shots from the Privateers and Navy missed. But the Pirates had really bad luck.
If you roll a 1 to hit, its a jam or miss fire. (guess what I kept rolling)
All black powder weapons get a single shot then have to take a whole shooting phase to reload.
This does mean you don't get a stand back and shoot game which is nice.

A  fun addition to shooting is 'hittung the deck'. If you get shot but don't die, you might have to run for cover. If you are already in cover you dive to the floor. It does mean no return fire though.
Shooting was also grasped in about 2 turns.

The third phase was the obvious combat.
You each roll a D6 per attack. The highest wins and gets a chance to wound. Strength v Defence again.
The loser is pushed back out of combat 1" and if they cant move back for some reason you get to roll double the dice when trying to wound. (That's going to be fun on a ship)
Basic, simple, great fun!

With the crewmen falling from all that shooting and combat, the numbers started to get low on all sides.
Once your crew gets below half its starting size you have to roll Rout test.
Each man/woman/elf rolls 2D6 and adds their Courage. If the result is 10 or more they carry on. If its 9 or less they are removed from the table. Not dead, just running away.
You can also choose to fail your Rout for the entire crew and end the game there. Sound cowardly? Not when you look at the post game wound charts.

After about 2 hours its was down to the last few men.
And here is how that went.

So, what did we think of the game?
The core rules are very easy to pick up but not too simple that you will get bored.
Its a LOT of fun and if you try it there is a good chance you will get hooked. We want to play again asap.
Overall we LOVED it. Amazing games, well done Warhammer Historical.
Next game will be on ships. Some new rules but nothing too complex. Cannons, ramming, boarding, swinging from rigging. Can it get any better than that?

I will let you know

Cap'n Hendybadger out