Sea of Thieves: Voyage of Legends Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review Sea of Thieves: Voyage of Legends, published by Steamforged Games. Sea of Thieves: Voyage of Legends is based on the popular video game of the same name.

The wind fills your sails, a rousing shanty fills your ears, and the promise of riches fills your heart. In Sea of Thieves: Voyage of Legends 1-4 scallywags will embark on a sandbox adventure for 90-120 minutes, each seeking to prove themselves the most feared pirate legend of them all.

As someone who sank a lot of hours into the video game—until my husband and I grew tired of other players, in turn, sinking our ship and stealing our hard-earned plunder—I was cautiously optimistic when I learned about the board game version of Sea of Thieves from Steamforged Games. But is it a faithful adaptation? More importantly, is it good? Let’s dive (i.e. sword lunge) in and find out.

The game board is a map of the Sea of Thieves, divided up into hexes containing open sea spaces or islands. On their turns, players will spend up to three actions to sail their two ships around the map, plunder islands, fight the various hazards of the sea, attack other players, and complete voyages in order to gain points.

Many of the game’s actions are accomplished by making a Crew Roll—that is, rolling a number of dice equal to the crew onboard your currently acting ship. Any roll of 4 or 5 is a success, with 6s counting as two successes. You would then get to act based on the number of successes rolled: move your ship one space for each success during the full sail action, acquire treasure and supplies or defeat skeletons during a loot action, inflict damage on enemies during an open fire action. Your crew can also perform some actions for free, such as repairing the ship, or sailing.

Each player also has a hand of Fate cards, which can give you special actions or help boost regular actions, sometimes even earning additional points. The other action available to players is trading at the outpost, which is where you can sell cargo