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Things to
realise about the Baochuan…
Physically she's biggest ship in the game by far
- although at 30 points, she's only 4 points
dearer than HMS Dreadnought, a ship which is
(IMHO) pretty useless.
Baochuan will
cost you a lot of money to get hold of - you
either have to spend loads at a convention in
order to acquire her as a 'freebie', or you buy
her off eBay. Either way, she's gonna cost you -
but...
She is a
truly awesome piece of styrene design and
engineering - albeit a little odd looking in
some ways - just a bit too angular… But that's
just a matter of taste.
She is however, fiendishly difficult to put
together - especially her hind quarters.
Take care and
time, or you will risk breaking your precious
new investment!
The whole
deal is actually 36 points because you MUST use
Admiral Zheng He with the Baochuan (according to
the ability text for both pieces).
Baochuan has
10 whole guns, which at first makes you think:
'Wow!'. Then you consider that actually any
5-masted gunship with a double action (from a
sac-captain or extra action) also has (in
effect) 10 guns, and costs a lot less than 36
points, and you start to suspect that Baochuan
may not be quite so great after all.
Then you
realise that none of Baochuan's guns are better
than average - and several are pure pants. Yes
she has a lot of guns - but quite a few of them
are likely to miss!
Thi means you
HAVE to put Chang Pao aboard to give you the +1
against any non-Jade Rebellion ship - which
brings you up to 40 points before you've even
started adding other essential crew such as
helmsmen, captains, re-rollers and so on.
Basically, to get her up to full fighting
strength, she's a 50 point package - a one ship
fleet.
Other
problems - even though she has the junk keyword
(so her own masts don't block her line of fire),
it can be pretty difficult to actually bring all
her guns to bear on a single target. Her fore
and aft guns are all short range, and her
overall length just makes it very difficult to
get them all in on a target.
She is
undeniably excellent at intimidating opponents.
Enjoy watching them run away very fast - to
start with.
However, once they overcome their irrational
fear and close with her, Baochuan can be
surprisingly easily overcome if numbers can be
brought to bear against her.
On the plus
side…
If you equip her with a 'roll 5 or 6 for an
extra action' character twinned to a re-roll
character, you give her a 66% chance of a double
move and shoot each turn. Of course this applies
to any ship in the game - but with Baochuan, it
means that she can (theoretically) get 20 shots
off in one go! Usually pretty terminal!
Between the
ship and the admiral, you also get an absolute
bucketload of built-in abilities, including the
very tasty 'explore at a distance' ability, the
'roll 6 for an extra action for any ship in your
fleet ability' (which is NOT mutually exclusive
with a 'roll 5 or 6 for an extra / repeat
action' character, as they are smiliar but
different abilities. This means you COULD
actually get 3 actions for the Baochuan - 30
shots!!!).
She can also
move S after loading / unloading treasure, crew
take up no cargo space, she has the junk
keyword… the list goes on and on.
But... You
have to use her aggressively. Let her get
cornered or outnumbered by 2 or 3 halfway decent
enemy ships, and all of a sudden those
magnificent 10 masts/guns are down to just a
handful, and she's just a vulnerable great hulk.
Overall though, a must-have ship for any serious
collector or player.
My rating:
4.5 for style, 3.5 for substance!
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