So I've sort of had my eye on DeepWars for a while. For one, its based on SoBH of which I am mildly put a fan. Other things they've got going is some gorgeous miniatures and art and a pretty and evocative setting of deep sea struggles against eldritch horrors and deep sea monstrocities. But a few things have kept me from taking the plunge (yes I we do puns now). Namely that the company is based in America and that buying several starter boxes plus a rulebook is gonna be expensive as heck for me.
However earlier this month AntiMatter Games came to my rescue, through the release of a starter set. Which on top of featuring a total of 8 miniatures, cards, tokens and playmats. And it actually happens to feature my two favorite factions. The Fortune Hunters, divers in heavy duty suits armed with harpoons and knifes, trudging into the darkness in the hunt for ether tech. And as their opposition, the Dark Mariners, barnacle encrusted mariners and siren sorcerers leading tentacled contructs against their enemies. And with the option to actully order it from an EU side distributor, I placed an order.
Having my curiosity peaked I went on a little research trip, trying to figure out what exactly the contents looked like. And sadly I couldn't find much more than what was featured on the box art. So while it may be a bit too late for an actual unboxing, I though I'd regardless fill this gap and show off the contents and give my thoughts on the whole affair. Also worth noting: AntiMatter Games have also made a starter set for ShadowSea the sibling of DeepWars. While this isn't a review of the ShadowSea starter box, I could imagine they have largely been cut from the same cloth.
For starters the box looks very nice and features a hinged lid that neatly tucks in, so there is no chance of it sliding open in transit. Good! Also as a small addendum before I start plastering images of minatures here: they come with lipped bases, which in itself is fine, but I am not a fan of those, so I've based mine of steel washers to give them a larger terrain surface and less large dark rings.
One of the first things that jump at you is all the colourful cards. There are 10 special operations cards, these are bonus objectives that can give matches more strategic depth than just kill the other guys dead. Beyond that there are 10 tarot sized profile cards, who are all supplied in matching sleeves and with a dry erase marker so you can dot in damage to systems easily.
The dark mariners have three units, Cylla Darkmyre, an Obliterator Biomech and a Vanguard Scout. The fortune hunters have Lucius Cromwell, an Iron Predator Mech and a Sea Dog Corsair. And finally the wild predators are two Gray Whaler Sharks, a Deepstar Kraken and a Beast of Kronos. Weirdly enough there is a card and token for the Beast of Kronos, but it isn't featured in any of the scenarios from what I can tell at a glance. Most of these characters can already be seen on the DeepWars resource section but there are a few new kids on the block who haven't been shown in the files. I wont post the cards out of respect, but I'll give brief descriptions.
Cylla Darkmire
She is a siren personality. She can do the usual siren tricks, like distracting people, entangling them with her tentacles and obfuscating herself with an ink shroud. What makes her special though is that she is a Sea Mage, so she can fling both elemental and psychic spells at her enemies, and she also carries a control staff for biomechs.
One small thing though, since she has access to a large variety of spells (13 in total matter of fact), some semblance of a quick reference for them would be nice to have in the set. They are of course in the rulebook, but during your first few games you may need to look up various other things.
Obliterator Biomech
This is a big armoured son of a bitch, he has some nice resistance, crunches people in melee but is an easier target due to his size. As his armaments he has some large grapply tentacles and disruptor torpedos which both explode over an area and transfixes his foes with their resonance.
Lucius Cromwell
He is a crusader personality, so he has the signature iron will and serves as a leader for his compatriots. He wears an armoured dive suit, a multi-spear gun and luckily he also carries a crystal lamp for illuminating the depths. He cant do as much fancystuff as Cylla, but he seems like a well rounded and solid guy.
Iron Predator Mech
This is the fortune hunters big mechanical tough guy. Its basically a floating gun platform. With the capacity to use rapid fire and the fast reload ability it can sink the majority of its action points into simply unloading on your enemies. And it carries a slew of weapons, torpedos, a multi-speargun and a power drill. So whether you need to breach something, shellshock your opponents or simply skewer them, it can do that. Quite interesting though is that it is also sluggish, so if someone was to swim up behind it and start clubbering it, it would take extra time to turn around and respond.
As for the miniatures themselves, I hope the pictures does them justice, however some of them does feel a bit flimsy and especially Cylla needed a lot of very careful cleanup.
Beyond the cards and miniatures we are greeted by some translucent blue dice, a token sheet and some measuring sticks. Here is where things gets a little less cool. The dice are perfectly fine, and even have some pointy edges to they wont roll too far before settling. But the measuring sticks, tokens and status markers are a little wanting. They are printed on some slightly thicker paper. But they are rather thin, fiddly and because none of it is actual punch outs you have to cut them out with a scissor yourself. To give the tokens more size to them I glued them all to card board pieces you they can be picked up and moved around a a bit more easily. I did the same for the range measuring sticks, since a thin slice of paper can be hard to pick up and move around reliably.
Likewise many of the small status markers aren't as pretty or interesting as the other tokens and while I wont make replacements, I might glue them to some 20mm washers to give them some of that depth.
However with that said, the large token sheet had some really pretty and evocative things too. There are spell zones, clams, deadly barnacles, ancient devices and even a massive whale carcass and I am happy that they have brought such a variety of objects and scenarios into this box, because alongside with the token sheet is a selection of fold-out playmats. And there are 4 quite different ones in total, each with their own beautiful terrain painted on and rules and variations written for the relevant scenarios. As a final little bonus there was a card that told me to contact AntiMatter Games via email and if I provided confirmation of my purchase I'd be given a free PDF of the full DeepWars rulebook!
Speaking of rulebooks, how is the one in this box? It is in full colour and lovingly illustrated. And it contains what about you'd expect: there are the basis rules for how the game works, sections about ranged and melee combat, a reference over what specific weapon and character abilities might do, spellcasting is explained, there's rules for campaign advances and injuries as well as the 8 included scenarios and some gameplay summary and reference sheets in the back.
I did notice one thing though, its not a criticism as much as an observation, plus it quite alleviated by AntiMatter Games actually including a PDF full rulebook. Anyhow: the rulebook contains rules for just the things in the box, no more and no less. There are no rules for how to design your own divers or sea witches, the only weapons, armour and abilities described are those used by the models included. So if you were wondering what other spell schools or weapons options are out there, or if you really wanted to know more about the Ancients of Atalán faction, this isn't the place.
Overall I am a happy with the package, despite some components being a little more DYI than I expected. I needed to glue up some tokens, improvise miniature storage and find some plastic bags to keep all the components from sliding around willy nilly. But if you can look past that, there are some gorgeous miniatures and components waiting for you! I would've loved some punch out tokens, spell reference cards and a foam inlay for keeping the miniatures safe during transport, but all of these would likely have driven up the production price and likewise driven down the accessibility of the product.
I will of course write a proper battle report once I get around to playing it, and in the meantime, AntiMatter Games if there is anything else in your catalogue you'd like me to review you know where to find me!
Post publishing addendum: After having received my download link for the pdf rulebook I was surprised to discover that it also included both the 31 page painting guide and their 7 track digital soundtrack for the game!
However earlier this month AntiMatter Games came to my rescue, through the release of a starter set. Which on top of featuring a total of 8 miniatures, cards, tokens and playmats. And it actually happens to feature my two favorite factions. The Fortune Hunters, divers in heavy duty suits armed with harpoons and knifes, trudging into the darkness in the hunt for ether tech. And as their opposition, the Dark Mariners, barnacle encrusted mariners and siren sorcerers leading tentacled contructs against their enemies. And with the option to actully order it from an EU side distributor, I placed an order.
Having my curiosity peaked I went on a little research trip, trying to figure out what exactly the contents looked like. And sadly I couldn't find much more than what was featured on the box art. So while it may be a bit too late for an actual unboxing, I though I'd regardless fill this gap and show off the contents and give my thoughts on the whole affair. Also worth noting: AntiMatter Games have also made a starter set for ShadowSea the sibling of DeepWars. While this isn't a review of the ShadowSea starter box, I could imagine they have largely been cut from the same cloth.
For starters the box looks very nice and features a hinged lid that neatly tucks in, so there is no chance of it sliding open in transit. Good! Also as a small addendum before I start plastering images of minatures here: they come with lipped bases, which in itself is fine, but I am not a fan of those, so I've based mine of steel washers to give them a larger terrain surface and less large dark rings.
One of the first things that jump at you is all the colourful cards. There are 10 special operations cards, these are bonus objectives that can give matches more strategic depth than just kill the other guys dead. Beyond that there are 10 tarot sized profile cards, who are all supplied in matching sleeves and with a dry erase marker so you can dot in damage to systems easily.
The dark mariners have three units, Cylla Darkmyre, an Obliterator Biomech and a Vanguard Scout. The fortune hunters have Lucius Cromwell, an Iron Predator Mech and a Sea Dog Corsair. And finally the wild predators are two Gray Whaler Sharks, a Deepstar Kraken and a Beast of Kronos. Weirdly enough there is a card and token for the Beast of Kronos, but it isn't featured in any of the scenarios from what I can tell at a glance. Most of these characters can already be seen on the DeepWars resource section but there are a few new kids on the block who haven't been shown in the files. I wont post the cards out of respect, but I'll give brief descriptions.
Cylla Darkmire
She is a siren personality. She can do the usual siren tricks, like distracting people, entangling them with her tentacles and obfuscating herself with an ink shroud. What makes her special though is that she is a Sea Mage, so she can fling both elemental and psychic spells at her enemies, and she also carries a control staff for biomechs.
One small thing though, since she has access to a large variety of spells (13 in total matter of fact), some semblance of a quick reference for them would be nice to have in the set. They are of course in the rulebook, but during your first few games you may need to look up various other things.
Obliterator Biomech
This is a big armoured son of a bitch, he has some nice resistance, crunches people in melee but is an easier target due to his size. As his armaments he has some large grapply tentacles and disruptor torpedos which both explode over an area and transfixes his foes with their resonance.
Lucius Cromwell
He is a crusader personality, so he has the signature iron will and serves as a leader for his compatriots. He wears an armoured dive suit, a multi-spear gun and luckily he also carries a crystal lamp for illuminating the depths. He cant do as much fancystuff as Cylla, but he seems like a well rounded and solid guy.
Iron Predator Mech
This is the fortune hunters big mechanical tough guy. Its basically a floating gun platform. With the capacity to use rapid fire and the fast reload ability it can sink the majority of its action points into simply unloading on your enemies. And it carries a slew of weapons, torpedos, a multi-speargun and a power drill. So whether you need to breach something, shellshock your opponents or simply skewer them, it can do that. Quite interesting though is that it is also sluggish, so if someone was to swim up behind it and start clubbering it, it would take extra time to turn around and respond.
As for the miniatures themselves, I hope the pictures does them justice, however some of them does feel a bit flimsy and especially Cylla needed a lot of very careful cleanup.
Beyond the cards and miniatures we are greeted by some translucent blue dice, a token sheet and some measuring sticks. Here is where things gets a little less cool. The dice are perfectly fine, and even have some pointy edges to they wont roll too far before settling. But the measuring sticks, tokens and status markers are a little wanting. They are printed on some slightly thicker paper. But they are rather thin, fiddly and because none of it is actual punch outs you have to cut them out with a scissor yourself. To give the tokens more size to them I glued them all to card board pieces you they can be picked up and moved around a a bit more easily. I did the same for the range measuring sticks, since a thin slice of paper can be hard to pick up and move around reliably.
Likewise many of the small status markers aren't as pretty or interesting as the other tokens and while I wont make replacements, I might glue them to some 20mm washers to give them some of that depth.
However with that said, the large token sheet had some really pretty and evocative things too. There are spell zones, clams, deadly barnacles, ancient devices and even a massive whale carcass and I am happy that they have brought such a variety of objects and scenarios into this box, because alongside with the token sheet is a selection of fold-out playmats. And there are 4 quite different ones in total, each with their own beautiful terrain painted on and rules and variations written for the relevant scenarios. As a final little bonus there was a card that told me to contact AntiMatter Games via email and if I provided confirmation of my purchase I'd be given a free PDF of the full DeepWars rulebook!
Speaking of rulebooks, how is the one in this box? It is in full colour and lovingly illustrated. And it contains what about you'd expect: there are the basis rules for how the game works, sections about ranged and melee combat, a reference over what specific weapon and character abilities might do, spellcasting is explained, there's rules for campaign advances and injuries as well as the 8 included scenarios and some gameplay summary and reference sheets in the back.
I did notice one thing though, its not a criticism as much as an observation, plus it quite alleviated by AntiMatter Games actually including a PDF full rulebook. Anyhow: the rulebook contains rules for just the things in the box, no more and no less. There are no rules for how to design your own divers or sea witches, the only weapons, armour and abilities described are those used by the models included. So if you were wondering what other spell schools or weapons options are out there, or if you really wanted to know more about the Ancients of Atalán faction, this isn't the place.
Overall I am a happy with the package, despite some components being a little more DYI than I expected. I needed to glue up some tokens, improvise miniature storage and find some plastic bags to keep all the components from sliding around willy nilly. But if you can look past that, there are some gorgeous miniatures and components waiting for you! I would've loved some punch out tokens, spell reference cards and a foam inlay for keeping the miniatures safe during transport, but all of these would likely have driven up the production price and likewise driven down the accessibility of the product.
I will of course write a proper battle report once I get around to playing it, and in the meantime, AntiMatter Games if there is anything else in your catalogue you'd like me to review you know where to find me!
Post publishing addendum: After having received my download link for the pdf rulebook I was surprised to discover that it also included both the 31 page painting guide and their 7 track digital soundtrack for the game!
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