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Review of Freebooter's Fate #2 Imperial Armada Starter Box (Resin Edition)
Blurb from the publisher: 'The Imperial Armada is desperately trying to hold its fraying empire together and has finally managed to go on the offensive again on Leonera. The Armada represents the trust in the rational, the sciences, as well as law and order. In the field, however, they can occasionally be quite happy to let the ends justify the means. Their arquebus-studded firing lines are feared in battle - the Empire is very good at punching holes into their opponents at long range. On top of that they are steadfast and tend not to run away that quickly.
The box contains 4 highly-detailed Freebooter Miniatures resin figure kits, as well as English- and German-language character cards.
This is a small crew of Imperial troops to start you off on your way to honour and glory. The crew consists of Commodore El Venador as the leader, ably supported by Arrequin, a specialist, and backed up by two deckhands, a female Marine and an Asaltore. The crew's total hire fee is 250 doubloons.
The Freebooter's Fate #2 rulebook and a bilingual deck of game cards are required for use of these figures.'
What you get: Your EUR 29,90 or equivalent will buy you the Imperial Armada Starter Box (Resin Edition) for you to start battling in the pirate world of Freebooter's Fate, and Freebooter's Fate #2 in particular.
In the interest of full disclosure, I playtested this Starter Box with the Freebooter's Fate 2nd Edition Rulebook Bare Bones Online, which was graciously provided by the publisher. Once I have playtested the full rules of the second edition, we will visit them together.
Contents: The box contains eight unit cards (four in English and four in German) of the characters already mentioned in the blurb, as well as the unassembled and unpainted resin minis themselves. Each mini is composed of one or two resin parts, the plastic base it is to be mounted on, as well as a textured resin cover for each base. You will need hobby tools, seeing how the resin parts are still attached to sprues and the minis have a fair amount of flash on them. The contents of the box are different to those of the metal Imperial Armada Starter Box which was published for the first edition of Freebooter's Fate.
The group's leader, El Venador, looks like a circumspect and composed man. He doesn't care for ranged combat, and only carries a rapier. Pirates are his arch-enemy (he starts the game in a hot-blooded state already), the most interesting thing however is his adherence to the duelist's code. If he establishes base-to-base contact with an opposing leader, that leader is obliged to fight him until one of them is taken out, without any miniature having the right to intervene. As a commanding figure, he can grant additional actions to a character within his authority through his Order trait. Rallying Cry allows him to grant additional morale tests to characters that are panicking, while he himself can repeat his own morale tests if he fails them.
At 80 doubloons Arrequin (or is it Arreqiun?) is as expensive as her leader. She is depicted in a static pose, her arquebus resting on her elbow. She can use both an assault arquebus as well as a double-handed bayonet. She is eagle-eyed, with a higher RAV when aiming. She can always hit her target in a cluster. Her assault shot allows her to combine a complex advance action with a ranged attack, effectively inserting the latter at any point into the former. There is a minor penalty in shooting due to the hastiness of that attack. She can also repeat her own morale tests if she fails them, while, as a sergeant, she takes over if command fails.
The Assaltore provides some much needed muscle, and the sharp tip of his extended bayonet shows that he means business. Just like Arrequin, he can combine a complex advance action with a ranged attack. He receives a bonus for his bayonet charges, while he can also attack from afar with his assault arquebus. The Marine holds an axe in a pose mostly associated with slasher movies. Her hiring fee is the cheapest of the four. She can only attack in melee. Under certain circumstances she can be upgraded into a Honour guard, gaining Parry in the process.
The double-sided cards have a standard size of 63 x 91 mm and can be easily sleeved.
The strong points: Review after review I keep extolling the sculpting of Werner Klocke, even though in this case the Krysa Project and Israel Delgado also contributed to the sculpts. These soldiers are lean. The design paradigm is very different to the one chosen in the Starter Box's first edition metal edition. All the miniatures have adopted a static stance, even though the Asaltore's extended bayonet breaks the monotony. Even thought the stances and faces more look like an old rock group's album photos, I like the simplicity of the design.
I also like how the minis have been cut. Even though most of the times I prefer to first glue and then paint, in this case I strongly recommend the opposite. This will allow you to more easily paint the parts that are hard to access. The details are prominent and can really make a miniature shine if you are dexterous enough to paint them. How on earth can I paint that hair-wide string on the Marine's chest?
As much as the outer box is made of light cardstock, the inner box is heavy and sturdy. If you are not keen on spending for new packaging material, your assembled and painted miniatures will make it just fine in there with some additional bubble wrap.
Freebooter's Fate has been around for long enough to be perfectly supported. It is in fact so well-supported that each of these minis is also sold separately, for those who have been into the game for a while and who wish to opt for a targeted purchase instead of buying a brand new boxed set. On the other hand miniatures cost a lot more when purchased separately.
The weak points: The Imperial Armada has kept the fluff intact, yet its characters do not fully conform to it. Two of the miniatures do not handle ranged weapons, and one of them is the otherwise dead-serious leader. I expect this to change with upcoming releases, on the other hand however I expected to see something more stereotypical in the Starter Box already.
I really liked how the first edition's Starter Boxes included a one-page leaflet that included a condensed set of the rules. No such leaflet is included here. Meh. It was actually easier to convince someone to start playing with nothing but a single Starter Box pitted against another. This is no longer the case.
The rules I used distinguish between Special Actions and Traits. The cards however do not. They indiscriminately dump every Special Action and Trait a miniature has, in alphabetical order, in the same space. That wouldn't have been a problem if the effects of each were reproduced on the back side of the card. Yet, they are not. In other words, not all the Special Actions and Traits are explained, and even worse, a beginning player has to search for the missing ones in two different places in the current bare bones rulebook. This is dreadful card engineering. Putting all special aspects on the card seriously reduces both the learning curve as well as page-flipping. Here, page flipping is increased because one doesn't even know which chapter to look at. Setting aside the number of Special Actions and Traits the cards bother to explain, the reason behind what gets omitted is not a gaming consideration but sheer lack of space. In a profoundly comical result, both the Asaltore and Arrequin explain their (common) Assault Shot, yet only the Asaltore card covers the also common Bayonet. What is this madness?
New edition, new beginnings, and it'd be lovely not to misspell a character's name on his character already. What is it, Arrequin or Arreqiun?
There is obviously a lot of work to be done in order to bring these minis to life, I was rather surprised however to stumble upon tons of flash. It takes mere minutes to clean, to be fair. It was just surprising to see the initial components at that state.
Back in 2010, four metal miniatures cost EUR 29,90. The same money in 2019 buys one a similar set in resin. Sign of the times...
Conclusion: Even though I expected an even heavier focus towards ranged weapons, I am overall satisfied with the Imperial Armada Starter Set (Resin Edition) for Freebooter's Fate #2. The looks are gorgeous, the feeling is evocative, and the Traits and Special Actions feel balanced, at least up to now. If only the cards helped with game the way they should have. This will unfortunately be a systemic problem.
To find out more about Freebooter's Fate #2 and the Imperial Armada Starter Box (Resin Edition) visit the Freebooter's Fate website at http://www.freebooterminiatures.de.
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