Hey Kiwis, I was looking at the Games section and noticed that we don't really have a lot of board game discussion here. Although we do have a thread about bad board games and spergs, and I apologize if this needs to be moved there, but I thought it might be fun to have a thread where people can share games they enjoy or want to warn people against buying. To start things off, I wanted to showcase a game I don't see a lot of people talk about, but I think deserves some love. Without further ado, here’s Rum and Bones: Second Tide!
Yar, Har, Fiddle Dee Dee......
NOTE ON RULING:
Rum and Bones has been released twice- the original game from 2015 and a revamp (Second Tide) in 2017. Although some characters referenced will be from the first game, the rules I’m reviewing are from the most updated version of Second Tide, as all characters from the original are compatible with the rerelease with the purchase of an upgrade kit.
OVERVIEW:
In Rum and Bones, 2 to 6 players take the role of pirate heroes and crews vying for control of Davy Jones’ coins, magical artifacts said to grant untold power to those who hold them. Various factions, from the oceans of our world and beyond, compete for these coins through a series of nautical battles. Players can play as any of these factions, ranging from typical pirates to ironclad warriors, and even undead or orcish crews.
Seen Here: basic layout of Second Tide base set- Deep Lords Vs. Marea De La Muerte
HOW TO PLAY
Both players begin with their ships and three powerful pirate heroes, each with their own skills and strengths, to create their crew. Although the ship designs and basic strategies of the crews differ greatly, each hero in the game is divided into one of five classes, which are as follows:
Captain: Captains act as a jack-of-all-trades that usually focuses on the core aspect of your team. While they’re not necessary to win, they strike a good balance between health, damage, and versatility, and can even work as makeshift Brutes or Swashbucklers in a pinch.
Brute: Big, strong, and tough. Brutes are your tank/meat shields who are meant to wade into a fight and take as much damage as possible. Despite not having too much more health than Captains (12 to their 10), Brutes are often much better at taking hits, and will often have some way to heal themselves or become stronger as they are wounded.
Gunner: Gunners are the glass cannons of Rum and Bones: powerful and able to shoot from a distance, but very susceptible to being crushed if caught out in the open. Their attacks often specifically aim at priority targets and inflict debilitating statuses to weaken enemy heroes. If kept fed and protected, they can be extremely effective without needing to engage in direct combat.
Swashbuckler: Close-range Gunners, Swashbucklers focus on swiftly getting into the enemy lines and letting loose. They tend to deal more damage to groups and excel at shredding enemy Heroes but need proper feeding to become tremendous threats.
Quartermaster: The support class of Rum and Bones. Quartermasters often have effects that benefit your crew or other heroes, like healing heroes, generating coins, or forcibly activating crew for bonus movement and attacks. Some Quartermasters will have surprisingly powerful effects that can provide the last push one needs to win.
Captain Shark, Doodoodoodoodoo.....
While technically the game recommends only having one of each class on your crew, in my experience it’s more fun to double up or find strong combinations (such as 2 Quartermasters constantly enabling a Brute). Each class has their own strengths and weaknesses, and finding which heroes work with which Tide Card decks is always interesting, especially when you come up with combinations nobody has seen before.
The game takes place entirely on the ships of your chosen crews, as both teams wage a broadside battle. The first team to reach 8 Victory Points wins. You can get these by either destroying objectives on the other player’s ship (such as masts, steering wheels, and ammo reserves), or simply by killing their heroes outright (each player may choose 3 respawning heroes for their crew). The game is played in rounds, with players being given the choice each round of when to move their heroes and crew (or pass and wait for the other player’s action). Over the course of the game, you use everything at your disposal to eliminate the enemy, including the powers of your heroes, Tide Cards that you draw from your ship’s deck, and a deck gun you can fire at opponents after moving your crew. Some Tide Cards will even let you summon a powerful Sea Monster on your side, giving you a powerful ally to help swing the battle in your favor.
When moving and attacking with your heroes, you can roll die to hit opponents, use skills, and even attempt to swing across the ship’s rigging to surprise your enemy. Killing enemy crew members or heroes’ nets you coins, which can be used to unlock and upgrade your characters’ abilities. Heroes can also be stunned, blinded, and knocked overboard among other things, so it’s important to protect them and know when to fall back behind your crew. Your crew, likewise, gets a turn to move and attack every round, following a direct path to your opponent’s nearest objective attacking anything in the way.
Despite the constant threats of enemy crew and heroes the opponent isn’t the only thing to worry about: certain Tide Cards and hero abilities will raise the Kraken Pool which, when high enough, can summon the Kraken itself- an immensely powerful sea monster that takes no sides and attacks everyone randomly. Often facing the Kraken can force the teams to work together- at least until they race to get the dying blow on the creature, as slaying it gives a good number of victory points.
The Kraken, destroyer of heroes and wrecker of your shit
Characters in the game come from many different pirate crews, each with their own decks and styles of ships. Each crew has a play style they tend to center around (such as the Deep Lords having a focus on the Kraken Pool or the Mazu’s Dreadful Curse gang focusing on controlling movement throughout the battlefield). Either version of the base game comes with two crews of five, with large expansions adding entirely new crews and smaller boxes offering extra pirates or sea monsters.
The game basically plays like a board game version of MOBAs, like League or DOTA: carefully move and level up your heroes, aim for the objectives and kills, try to avoid pissing off the Kraken, and eventually overpower the opponent with a slow and steady push. This isn’t to say that the game is predictable. The randomness of Tide Cards and the appearance of the Kraken can easily throw a wrench in a strategy (I have had him appear as early as the fifth round), and just like many board games, everything can change with an unfortunate roll of the dice. It’s a relatively slow-paced, but still exciting board game that I personally had a lot of fun with. But with a game as large and complex as this, there’s bound to be some issues.
First, the good parts: I really like the design of the game. Everything looks relatively good. The sculpts are nice and unique, the characters are diverse, and the gritty pirate atmosphere mixed with fantasy, history, and whatever else finds its way onto your ship work surprisingly well together.
Blutrausch Legion sculpts- love the green Brute in particular!
Probably the best aspect of the game is the ability to combine different crews and characters to find your own unique combinations- especially if you permit multiple characters of the same classes. It’s fun to piece together what works from your entire roster and devising some particularly unique or effective combos. Although most crews will have two members of each class exclusive to them (although the Deep Lords have three Captains), a lot of the expansion pack crew are ‘Mercenaries’ who can be used by any team, leading to more originality and diversion from the norm. Some Mercenaries even combine with each other, giving you even less reason to only use your basic crew. If you had the money, you could create almost endless combinations for your crew- which creates endless games and ways to play.
Unfortunately, the strength of Rum and Bones can also become its greatest weakness: with such a large roster of characters, some are bound to have slipped by balance testing, and facing a team composed of three broken characters, or one based on abusing a mechanic of the game, can cross the line from annoying to genuinely infuriating. A particularly infamous example of this would be this fucker:
The real Beast of Pirate's Bay is the jackass who picks him.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the real-life musician this character is based on- but this is a prime example of how some characters slipped under the balance testers’ radar. On the surface, Voltaire doesn’t seem super broken- his attack is kind of weak, and his activated ability takes a while to set up-until you consider his second ability. Moving the enemy an average of two to three spaces doesn’t seem so bad, but then you remember there’s often only one or two spaces between any given character and the ocean most of the time, the fact that it takes an entire round to bring someone knocked overboard back up to the battlefield, and that most characters have an average of 8-10 HP, and you can see how things spiral out of control pretty quick. With good positioning and good rolls, it’s entirely possible to force all the opponent’s heroes off the ship in one move without placing yourself in any danger. And you get to do this every round. Starting to see the problem? At that point, the annoying ranged attack and the pulling any card out of your deck becomes a minor nuisance. Want to add insult to injury? Combine him with Captain Hook (who immediately causes 4 damage to anyone who falls overboard), any other pushing character, and the Mazu’s Dreadful Curse deck (because both he and Hook are Mercenaries), and I guarantee your friend will never want to play again. Long story short, there’s a damn good reason he’s banned from my play group.
Now, this would be fine if Volty here was the only broken character- but unfortunately, that’s not the case. Many other characters have ridiculously overpowered abilities: Davy Jones boasts an immunity to the Kraken and tremendous attack power (able to roll upwards of 10+ dice in a single attack), Miss Mags and Mr. Sticks are incredible all-purpose supports, and a fed Le Boeuf can smash through objectives with ease. And with how easy it is to get coins in the game with the help of a good Quartermaster, chances are if your opponent is fielding even one of these monsters, you’ll be getting the full unpleasant experience. It’s nothing house rules against playing certain characters or combos can’t fix, but it can certainly limit the creativity and combination aspects of the game.
Suggested Buy: Mercenary Chest
If you like the game and want to grab more options, I highly recommend the Mercenary Chest. For less than what you'd pay for a new crew, you can snag 10 Mercenaries who fit onto any team. Good if you want to branch out a little but aren't willing to go out and snag everything. It's also packing some particularly powerful characters, including a Quartermaster who fits perfectly into the starter Deep Lords crew.
If you like MOBAS and complex games with a lot of moving parts to consider, then it’s a fun one to spend a few hours on, and combining the different traits of the characters, decks and ships can make it highly customizable to your play style (provided you have the cash to track down some of the rarer sets). On the other hand, it’s very time-consuming, the pieces can be pricey, and the rules can get a bit messy at times. If you’re a CMON fan, give it a go, but casual players had best look elsewhere for piratical play.
7/10
Again, please excuse me if this is unwarranted or belongs somewhere else. Please let me know if you like reviews like this, would like me spotlight more games from my collection, or have a game of your own to review!
