Yarrr, landlubbers! Enemy ship three knots off on the port side! I mean starboard! Doesn’t matter, just fire those cannons! In Turning Tides, a game from brand booty spanking new publisher Never Be Boardgames, two pirate captains try to turn the tide and destroy each other’s ships to make off with the loot! Will your ship and crew prove seaworthy or will piracy turn out to be a real crime? Turning Tides launches on Kickstarter and I was already given the opportunity to test the waters – just for you!
In Turning Tides, two players take the helm. Two ships are placed parallel to each other to slowly sail past each other. While all this is happening, players can tide over or deploy their crew and cannons to knock out the enemy crew and its mast.
Each round players take actions by playing a card face down. They can wait and see, speed up or slow down the ships, move their crew or even send them to fight or place and fire cannons. Each ship consists of several zones where captain, crew and cannons can be placed. A player needs a captain to perform actions and you need crew to fire cannons. By firing cannons you can inflict damage on the other player. If you manage to hit an empty zone of the other ship (a zone where there is no mast, crew, a captain or cannons) then this part of the ship is destroyed. If a player has no crew on the deck or if three zones of his/her ship are destroyed, then that player has lost and may go land rotting at the bottom of the ocean.
Turning Tides is a fun game full of bluff and intrigue for two players that plays very quickly. Don’t you believe that the best mates are on the shore and do you want to sail the seven seas? Then check out the Kickstarter for more information!
