Hoist the sails and load the cannons, because we are going on some high sea pirate adventures! ☠️ In Back O’ Beyond you are playing as pirate captains, each with your own ship and crew, hunting trading ships, trying to become the most infamous pirate!

It is a midweight euro game played over 5 rounds. Whoever has the most infamy points at the end, wins the game. Points mostly come from defeated ships and completed council requests.

Each round starts with a preparatory phase where you allocate time tokens and your captain meeple to visit locations and take actions on a pirate island. Some cost more time than others so you have to carefully weigh your options and make sure you are well prepared for battle by e.g. recruiting crew members who then provide special abilities and extra dice, repairing your ship, buying supplies, taking on council requests as a side hustle, or – just in case – sabotaging your opponents. 😁

In the Hunt phase you pick a ship card as your target and draw some nasty event cards depending on their distance and your sails.

Afterwards the 3-step combat begins! If you fail a step, you continue with the next one.

1️⃣🏴‍☠️ Roll dice according to your Dread level – you could immediately win the fight here if you roll more jolly rogers than your enemy’s bravery.

2️⃣⛵ Fire your cannons. Roll the black dice of your crew and compare cannons and the enemy’s evasion. If you fail, take damage depending on your evasion.

3️⃣⚔️ Board their ship. Roll the white dice of your crew. You need more swords and pistols than your enemies sword value, however their pistol value makes you discard dice or wound crew members.

💬I love the artwork, even though this still a prototype, and components are not final. The game is highly thematic, but randomness can get a bit unfair sometimes, though you can mitigate some of it by rerolling using morale. If you do lose in the Hunt phase, you get some recompensation, but it could still be devastating. As rounds go by, enemy ships will get stronger, so you have to keep up!

If you like pirates, explosive dice combat and some rivalry with your friends, you should check the Kickstarter campaign tomorrow! 😉