A SAFE HAVEN

As the first entry of the year I wanted to dedicate The Gate of Suns to some download resources, so they can be accessed easily if for some reason you lose the files and Spartan Games decides to retire all those free stuff from their Uncharted Seas Download Resources Section, you have a "safe haven" to recover the lost files of this game. (and is kept alive!) Remember: It´s the first entry of 2016 ;-)

Uncharted Seas Basic Rulebook

The book is the latest update of the rules but it comes without the fleets, so I also made links for the fleets

The Bone Griffons
The Dragon Lords
The Imperial Humans
The Iron Dwarves
The Orc Raiders
The Shroud Mages
The Sky Pirates
The Ralgard
The Thaniras Elves

Finally we have some various stuff for campaings, background etc...

Introductory background for Uncharted Seas
The Cauldron of Silence scenario set

Uncharted Seas Map

UCS Territorial Map


And as a final comment...

Apologies for posting that late, but I have temporarily stopped painting my IH fleet just because It has been recently my birthday and a friend gave me some Firestorm Armada stuff. so I found myself under the "new toy synfrome"  and resuming painting Directorate. add on top of this the last film of Star Wars (I am a fan) and you know. those storm troopers shaking in the transport.. they look like Directorate troops on a Haunter... lol so I will be busy for a while with Armada stuff before I get back to IHs and those nice ships. I will be writting articles about tactics and stuff from time to time, I promise ;-)

A SMALL BATTLE REPORT BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR

A 1v1v1 BATTLE REPORT (Sky Pirates vs. Imperial Humans vs. Shroud Mages

This is a battle I had the other day with three friends and we all used cards (more testing for SP cards). I was playing the Imperial Humans (IH) and it was a "basic" engagement with each side having a Battleship, 3 cruisers and 2 squadrons of 3 frigates. I was unable to take pictures (forgot to bring my camera and I have and "old school" movile phone with no cam), it also was an introductory game, and had to spend some time in explaining the game (The UCS is the best game to introduce ppl to other SG games)

So what follows is just a small description about how it went:

- The table was very long but had not enough widht. The SP and IH deployed on the short edges and the SM just entered the game through the middle of a long table edge by placing the models touching the edge. The center of the board had a lighthouse and some sand bars around it. There were some medium-sized islands closer to the short board edges.

- One of my friends "convinced" the other to deploy the SM Battleship closer to my newly painted IH batteship and crippled her with extreme lucky dice rolls -____- #

- To make things worse he summoned a reef in front of the lead hawk cruiser (or removed the illusion that was hidding teh reef to be more precise) while the squadron was sailing in line astern formation. In the end the "tailing" cruiser hit the reef an went out of formation, islated from the rest of the squadron. I had the Battleship close to the squadron but already spent the Admiral order to save the middle cruiser from colliding with reef (I had very bad die rolls I know)

- I returned the favor by changing the wind agains the SP and convinced the SM player to deploy the cruiser near the SP to trouble them.

- In the end the SM won the match. We thought (me and the SP player) that the SM player was going to be "sandwiched" between the two fleets (IH and SP) but in the end the SM player found a "target rich enviroment" played a lot of repair and protection cards and with very good dice rolls was the player that killed the most ships (two cruisers and a bunch of frigates whiele we just killed frigates, not to mention the crippling of my BB)

- The IH (me) was the fleet that got mauled the most (lost all frigates, one cruiser, BB crippled and the two suriviving cruisers were isolated from each other (I should have avoided the reef). T__T but we had a lot of fun :)

Hope you liked

Dan ^_^

MERRY XMAS AND HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!

Winter has come and the mad weather I was having in Spain changed radically, dropping from almost 20º C to 10ºC in a single evening, and caught me unprepared so I ended up having a very virulent form of a shore throat, and the next day my voice got affected too and was unable to say a word until the next two days. I finally have recovered (almost), but anyways I was unable to dedicate time to the blog,. specially when I had to look after my nephews last three days (who took over the computer lol)

Anyways Santa managed to hand me a little present for you to download: The Sky Pirates cards (#14-26) ) for sleeving them into some other Uncharted Seas card deck. The cards are Printer friendly (black and white) with no background or icons, but I have plans to make them look more professional when I find some time (and health) to use Photoshop.

The link is here and is lthe last updated iteration with some minor changes.

I hope you find them an use ;-)

Dan

FIRST BATTLESHIP FINISHED!!

I took me three days before updating the blog but it was for a good reason: Finally painted my the first of two Imperial Human Battleships!

Here are some pictures I took today, just after the finishing touches

Those festive days are making me difficult to updatoe the blog so in case I can´t update the blog, Have a very good Christmas time!!! ;)

BATTLESHIP PAINTING UPDATE

Hi there! My battleships are taking forever to get finished!

 Managed to paint the sails of both but i only will focus on one of them due to lack of time and, for a short game I just only need one Imperal Human battleship to be finished.

So this is how the BB is looking so far (sails painted):

I need this ship finished before the end of the year, and the monster Crocidon for an scenario I want to play with my friend.

Speaking of the Crocidon he is giving a helping jaw (or is it an unhelping jaw???)) What do you think? :-)

 

IMPERIAL HUMAN CARD DECK

While woriking on the making of the Sky Pirates card deck did some analisys on the Imperial Human (IH) card deck. I am not sure if I can name each card and write about what it does, so I will write abut them briefly:

The IH have 4 magic cards, 7 counter cards, and I think is the "typical deck" or reference deck for an UCS faction when comparing with others as the "race speficic cads" (cards 14 to 26) just expand the common cards (#1 to 13) in the deck. They just add the "sacrifice" cards that allow you lose crew or ship to cause more damage back to the enemy fleet.

There are 5 "attack" card, 4 "defensive" card and 4 "tactical":

- The Attack cards are those which increase AD, MD or just throw or re-roll any other kind of dice to inflict damage to hull, crew or improve a critical effect. in the IH deck we have cards #14, 16, 17, 19 and 20 wich add extra MD, AD, cause the exploding critical when a ship is sunk (a sacrificial card), improve a ramming attack and even a direct magical attack that causes 8 AD!

- The defensive cards (#18, 21, 22 and 24) heal crew, make a ship difficult to be hit and change a critical effect deal to your ships.

- The tactical cards (#15, 23, 25 and 26) change wind direction 1 or 2 steps, add extra movement, improve turning template.

We just need to throw in the common card deck with another wind direction changing card, several AD increas card, one that kill crew, the "tally ho!" card (dual activation) and the tricky card that changes a critical hit dealt but we will cover that later ;-

Dan ;-)

THE IMPERIAL HUMANS

"At the heart of this race is the Imperial State, the powerhouse of a vast empire. The Imperial Council, which sits at the core of the Imperial State, is controlled by five great Houses: the Arkos, Corvinus, Tepes, Váka and Dragutin.

With the expansion into The Uncharted Seas the Imperial Council now has its sights set on a place to grow its power base even more, with new races to destroy and resources to plunder. Most of the Imperial Navy fleets in this region of expansion are commanded by the Arkos, Tepes and Corvinus families.

Large fleets from these three houses have sailed forth to claim new territories: the Arkos looking to establish new trade routes, the Corvinus seek out new mysteries, and the Tepes hope to carve out a kingdom of their own to strengthen their position in the Old World."

(Introductory text saved from the Spartan Games forums before it gets deleted)


Hi there! As I am focused now on the Imperal Humans (or IH for short) I am making a small introductory entry for them. While painting the battleships I had a small accident and have to fix it before taking some pictures. The sails are almost done and the sea waving effects have to be painted yet. I hope to have some pictures ready for tomorrow.

The IHs are one of the best looking (and historical) fleets of the game, and they can employ several tactics because they multi-purpose nature. You can make board-control fleet or a pure firepower fleet (like my Tepes ships) but lets read about the IH tactics from the veterans: here are some interesting comments from tank0625 and Averaje Joe (saved from the SG forum)

Tank062
"IH fleet is good at everything but not great at one thing. They are "jack of all trades". Their achilles heel is the wind. As long as you plan for it, it isn't that big of deal.

What I like to do is form a historical looking battle line with flagship, BB and Heavy Cruisers. The ships are in the middle of my zone with their sides facing enemy. Then I put frigates in front of Flag and BB to screen them from cruisers.

I hold the rest of my frigates behind my battle line until later in the game. They are great for counter attack.

Put your destroyers and cruisers on your flanks.

You are making a box around your enemy. If he hits one of your flanks. The other flank tries to continue behind his fleet. With your main battle line you snake it closer to the enemy. Until you can cross their "T". Then send in the remaining frigates.

Hopefully that will help"

Average Joe
"1. Stay at RB3 as long as you can. (a no-brainer, I know) I recommend targeting your opponents cruisers.  The 8,9, and 10 AD that your capital squadrons roll can absolutely devastate an opposing CR6 squadron.

2. Do what you can to have the wind pointing in the direction you want when you can no longer keep the enemy at arms length.  When that happens sacrifice your expendable smalls and go head on with any solid boarding models you may have so that your best shooting models can zip past heading for that potent RB3 again.



Hopefully you had some decent early shooting.  Maybe get some fires going with your Kestrels if you have them in your fleet.  With some luck you'll have your opponent on his back foot towards the closing rounds and you can choose whatever closing strategy that suits the scenario."

Hope you fouind this entry interesting ;)

Dan