Steam Torpedo and Expansions Review

Ever wonder how the Battle of the Atlantic would have fared if German U-boats were armed with crates of corrosive starfish? Would New Yorkers be speaking Russian today if the Red October had been equipped with radio controlled sharks? Thankfully, all of that experimental technology sank beneath the murky depths in the Great War. Apparently.

Steam Torpedo places you and an opponent in command of dueling submarines during an alternate timeline where World War I has dragged on for a decade and things have gotten so bad that the French switched sides. These are no ordinary submersibles, though. Heavily infused with a steampunk setting, your underwater craft brandish monstrous guns, bizarre accoutrements, and strange military experiments – all wholly fantastical and anachronistic! Personally I’m a sucker for steampunk, but don’t let my rose-colored, brass-plated goggles alarm you. This fun little design has several cogs spinning its gears.

Each player has a submarine constructed from ten tiles representing a control room and nine other compartments. The goal is to send your enemy to the sea bottom or force him to run out of oxygen. Ship’s sections are color-categorized and might be engines, armor plating, or experimental equipment. Some seem very similar in design and effect, though most are unique. The majority have weapons of varying power and range. Still others have special effects. Most abilities must be triggered by your crew. Some tiles also provide oxygen which slowly depletes every round. You can build your subs at random, completely customized or by tile drafting. Either way, your ten compartments are placed together in two rows of five. Never mind it doesn’t look very sub-like. It’s still deadly.

In between the ship layouts, both commanders place cut-out standees of their subs. This playing area is divided into five sectors, essentially the corresponding tile columns created by submarine construction. This space denotes each sub’s distance from and relative location to each other. Both begin parallel in the middle sector according to whichever side you start.

You also have five crew members – a captain and four sailors – who begin in your control room. During a turn sailors can either move to an adjacent compartment or trigger the effect of one they already occupy. Your captain can take two actions, meaning he could move and activate a tile in the same turn. When a crew member completes his action, he becomes exhausted and doesn’t refresh until the start of your next move. That’s significant because you can use some rooms as a reaction on your opponent’s turn, but only with a refreshed and ready crew member. Also, each time a seaman activates a tile it must move back toward the control room.

So there’s no camping out to blast your opponent turn after turn with your nitroseismic missiles. Quite the contrary, game play careens along at a frantic clip with your crew almost constantly on the move. It can be an anxious exercise to make sure you get everything covered. You need to man armor compartments to get defensive benefits- same with the engines, which need someone running them in order to move your sub. Not to mention that crew need to trigger weapons and other equipment which is invariably and inconveniently to be on the opposite side of the vessel! Adding to the tension, you’re operating this submersible while it slowly runs out of oxygen – both a built-in timer and figurative pall foreshadowing your doom.

But this is not a chaotic game, despite how it may appear. The only luck element involved would be if you used random tile distribution to create your subs. I don’t recommend that. Draft your starting tiles, instead, or just straight up choose which ones to use and how to piece it all together. It’s strategically more satisfying and tile location is often critical. You can leave yourself vulnerable without armor compartments adequately covering the aft, bow, starboard and port. And grouping a bunch of similar tile types in one area of the sub could leave you dead in the water or shooting blanks if that section gets repeatedly pummeled. Ensuring you have enough options evenly distributed is too important to leave to chance.

That actually makes Steam Torpedo an interesting puzzle which many a seasoned Euro gamer would enjoy, provided they can handle the in-your-face interaction and eccentric steampunk theme. Alas, many are put off with the genre. I guess I get it. Using telescopic shafts to board enemy submarines and bacteriological aqua-grenades to deplete its oxygen supply is super cool; but it isn’t like trading resources in medieval Europe.

The Research & Development expansion includes ten new compartments with more peculiar goodies. It’s sort of like a non-collectible booster pack. It’s reasonably priced, as is the base game, though it may have been better to just throw them all in the first release. Only time will reveal if the game is received with that collectible mindset. The second booster pack, To Your Positions, offers seven new tiles and three crew members – a bit more of an expansion feel. Both provide a great deal of replayability and give players a chance to mix and match to create the deadliest – or weirdest – subs imaginable.

In the 1981 German war epic, Das Boot, when queried about what life was like aboard a submarine, the chief engineer replied, “It’s…quiet.” Steam Torpedo deep sixes that notion with furious fighting, non-stop action and manic maneuvering. I know not everyone appreciates steampunk, but don’t let that deter you from checking it out. Steam Torpedo is a taut design with an interesting collectable aspect that offers tons of customization and replayability. It’s devoid of any randomness, so the game is all about you and your opponent. Smart decisions and bold gambles are rewarded and you can’t blame anyone else for failure. Beyond those mechanical virtues, it’s just simply a blast. The fun setting and infectious action create a palpably anxious gameplay that proves the “silent service” is anything but.