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CoolMiniOrNot: Rum & Bones Unboxing

4 Minute Read
Sep 23 2015
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It’s a Pirates Life for ME – BoLS takes a deep dive into the new MOBA style Board Game from CoolMiniOrNot!

Hey BoLS Readers! AdamHarry back with another unboxing – this time we’re looking at a pretty unique Board Game: Rum & Bones from CoolMiniOrNot. Why is it unique? Well it’s based off the MOBA-style game play. What does that mean? I’ll let them explain:

Rum & Bones is a game for 2-6 players aged 13+ where players take command of a pirate faction: The swashbuckling Wellsport Brotherhood or the undead Bone Devils. Each side has five characters with a variety of attacks and abilities to fight alongside the faceless crew as they charge headlong across the gangplanks to sink, take, or burn the enemy ship!

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It’s a direct head-to-head faceoff inspired by the popular MOBA style video games and brought to the tabletop with beautiful miniatures. Each pirate faction has its own unique theme, and the characters’ abilities combine in startling ways to create killer combos and feats of daring. But, be cautious! Too much power concentrated in one place stands a chance of summoning the mighty Kraken, which can turn the battle in an instant!

It’s actually a very cool concept and the gameplay mirrors it’s digital cousins very well. If you’re a fan of League of Legends, DOTA, or Blizzard’s HotS you’re going to want to check this one out.

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Rum & Bones Kickstarter (Complete)

 

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There is a ton of stuff in this box. Tokens, tiles, cards, dice, and of course MINIATURES! Who doesn’t love pirate themed miniatures? The game itself covers just about all your favorite pirate theme tropes from the standard Pirates of the Caribbean, to the Chinese Junks of the Far East, and even Pirate Zombies – because you GOTTA have those now! The base box contains two different pirate factions to start. The Asian, French and …’Other’ factions were available to Kickstarter backers but may be for sale at some point.

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The Wellsport Brotherhood Miniatures

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Bone Devils

Each faction has a selection of Heroes to use and you can build your crew based on all the different heroes available. Each Hero has a specific role that transposes traditional MOBA character archetypes into Pirate Theme Crew Jobs. You’ve got the Captain, Quartermaster, Gunner, Swashbuckler and Brute – I’ll let you figure out who’s-who with the roles they play.

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The Board itself is actually TWO boards/ships connected by gangplanks that form lanes where a lot of the action takes place. Both ships are themed appropriately for their respective faction, too! I thought it was a nice touch. Each ship has 5 key objective it’s trying to defend while pushing to the opposing ships objective. Oh and all the while there are “AI” goons to clear out and deal with too.

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The deckhands each have slightly different abilities but really they are there to get killed by the real “crew” and slow down the enemy. They aren’t particularly tough but if you don’t take them out they will cause you problems in the long run.

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The Heroes all have giant sized cards with all the stats in an easily referenced manner. Overall the quality of the items in the box is pretty impressive and this game is really well put together. It’s fun, frantic and pirates are everywhere – what’s not to like?!

Rum & Bones finished shipping to all backers on the 17th of September. If you’d like to pick-up a copy it is available from CMON’s store:

Rum & Bones $99.99

You can also check out the rulebook for FREE on their site. So if you’re still on the fence go read the rules before you walk the gangplank!

Also if you want to see what else CoolMini was working on we did a GenCon rundown of their booth so check that out if you’re curious:

 

I’m still waiting on those lost episodes of Dark Water to get my pirate fix…

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Author: Adam Harrison
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