The Art of Blackwake's Tactics

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Welcome to my third guide on Blackwake. I hope you will find this as equally useful as my previous captaining guide to Blackwake. Before we begin, I must apologise (again) for the length of this guide. Although perhaps not approaching the ridiculous (and extremely useful) 100+ page Wargame Red Dragon guide, it's pushing it. I am confident however that the information inside it will make up for the length. Tactics in Blackwake (as in any situation really) are complex beasts. It is impossible for a captain to become effective without practise. My guides provide a ground work and ensure that some valuable lessons are learnt without the pain myself and others went through to learn them (!) but theory is no substitute for raw experience and intuition. In this guide you will find the accumulation of hundreds of hours of Blackwake tactical theory, both in game as captain, and by watching videos, discussion with fellow players and observing the successes and failings of other captains. If you are new to captaincy in Blackwake, it is probably best to ignore this guide for the moment and look instead at my other guide, which provides basic and intermediate information on how to be an effective captain. This guide lacks descriptions of any kind of the tools of the trade as captain. It assumes a good knowledge of the weapons and players at your command. At the same time, it is never too early to be thinking about how to captain. One of the commenters who kindly complimented me on my guide suggested that I do a guide on tactics and tips and tricks. Little did I know that this monstrosity would be the result. We are all learning and although I have spent enough time in Blackwake to believe myself competent enough to make blanket statements - for example to state that there are indeed only 5 situations in Blackwake (!) - we are always learning and I am eager to hear your assessments of the situations and my recommended solutions to them. Naturally, much of this rests upon my own personal taste for victory through superior firepower followed by whirlwind boarding assaults. Blackwake's a simple game really. You put stuff in guns, you hit people and things with swords and hammers. You might man a pump for a while. So what makes every game different? The captain. I'm sure you'll have run across a few of them by now. There are good ones. There are bad ones. The are loud ones, there are quiet ones. There are those who will learn - and those who will not. The personalities of each of these individuals define the fun factor vs the pump factor of each game. Boarding, shooting things and getting loads of juicy triples is fun. Staring at the pump go up and down as you wonder how your crew could be so stupid to ignore that hole beside you, less so. A key component to Blackwake is commanding and coordinating your crew. Alright. You've done that. They're manning guns, they're nattering away and saying "ARRRRR" a lot. Now what? Captain - it's on your shoulders now. You must outwit, outsmart and outfight your opponent. You must now not only enforce your will upon your crew, but now there is this opponent that must be outfought too. Good luck, but realise that it is the aim of this guide to remove as much luck as possible from the equation. Yes, you read right. Theory Don't be afraid. Frankly, I think this stuff is pretty damn interesting. I'm an amateur military historian. (And after university I hope to god that "amateur" bit changes!) As you look deeper into campaigns and battles and why generals win and lose, you'll encounter some concepts that I believe are easily applied to Blackwake. Blackwake involves command. It involves two captains slugging it out, demanding the best from their crews. These crews are often - even after a week of Blackwake - extremely competent. By the same token, these crews are human - and they are fallible. So why does one side fail and the other succeed? Friction was first properly discussed in Karl Von Clausewitz's classic treatise "On War". Clausewitz had seen a lot, he'd been a staff officer in both the Prussian and Russian armies during the Napoleonic wars, he knew what it was to see a great general and a veteran army be destroyed by over confidence and an added bit of Russian winter. One of his quotes sums it up the best: "Everything in war is very simple. But the simplest thing is difficult." The idea is that in the confusion and uncertainty of the campaign and especially the battle, everything you would expect to be simple and easy suddenly becomes difficult as a result of the aforementioned confusion and uncertainty. Unforeseen events, changed conditions and simple misunderstandings make everything take longer or be botched. Now - how does this apply to Blackwake? Well - Blackwake's a simple game. At its heart all you do is load cannons or repair stuff. All you do as captain is point your guns at the enemy so your gunners can shoot, right? Wrong. That 13 year old shouting in your ear is explaining to his mum why he can't come to dinner. He is now distracted and that's one less gun shooting in that broadside. One shot less. There's a newbie who doesn't understand that it takes 3 seconds for their gun to shoot. And so they miss. There goes another shot. Some troll has shot off a gun randomly just before and now your crew is still reloading it. And other shot bites the dust. Despite your shouts for your crew to hold fire, another guy fires off a gun at empty sea. Guess what. Your 8 gun broadside on your galleon is now reduced to four. Through no fault of your own. It wouldn't matter how awesome you were as a captain. This could be your first time, it could be your 100th. And the enemy - thanks to whatever cruel god - just happens - as always - to unload a full broadside into you. Say it's the start of the game. You're trying to make up lost ground before it has even started. And none of those examples involve an sort of combat. Friction are all these situations. They can be just random stupidity on your side. It can manifest during enemy action - and it only gets worse from there. I'm sure you'll have seen such cases by now. There is nothing you can do about friction. Stuff just happens. Internets fail, real life rears its ugly head, the enemy will fire back and you must always remember that the second most abundant particle in the universe (after hydrogen) is stupidity. But you can learn to live with it and try and try and soften some of the worst cases. Make it clear that people messing around throwing water over you or standing around aren't helping. Be firm, but not rude. Keep people informed. Let them know how the battle is going and what the ship is doing. The chances are they'll recognise what to do better if they know the situation. Friction happens no matter what, but recognising it and understanding when it will happen and how to come back from it is a vital skill. Situations of high friction include: An enemy's broadside hitting you. A ramming action. A boarding action Being grappled. In these situations, do not expect even a minority of your crew to follow your orders. They'll do their best, but remember that to meet the situation they must move often a long distance, will often stay at their current job until it is done, and of course may be killed or be about to be killed. It is important I put friction front and centre in this guide. There is a danger that in my discussion of tactics and the 5 situations that I give the impression that all you need to do is perform a magic formula and your victory will be assured. All these situations and maneuvers hinge upon your crew being a coherent force whose effectiveness is not destroyed by friction. It is entirely possible for you to pull off the perfect maneuver and your crew to entirely fail to capitalise thanks to the friction they are suffering under. Friction is the nature of any human endeavour, but it is magnified in times of intense actio