The Raven Airship
The Raven Airship is a fantasy battlemap for universal with cartography by Simon Powell and published by DramaScape.
By Aaron T. Huss
Learn more about The Raven Airship here
Purchase The Raven Airship here
The Raven Airship is a multi-level ship (with “wings” for flight) with dock in the fantasy style. The wood is a rich reddish-brown and the battlemap includes the upper deck along with the lower deck. As an added bonus, the lower deck comes in two designs: one open and one with manacles for captives or slaves. Incorporating these two types means the ship makes perfect sense as a merchant ship or a pirate ship.
OVERALL
The Raven Airship is a beautifully designed airship and I especially love the two different interior options. The wood textures are incredibly life-like and features of the upper deck are amazingly well detailed.
RATINGS
Publication Quality: 9 out of 10
One thing I often find frustrating with ship battlemaps is when the publisher cuts the map down the center of the ship to lay it out across multiple pages. I always find it frustrating to properly visualize the map as a whole. The Raven Airship avoids this problem by placing the ship off-centered so that the middle is not cut by the page division, making some of the most important details that much clearer. Additional options to further customize the ship could have been included, but what’s there is already excellent and properly placed.
Visual Appeal: 10 out of 10
If I could give this rating a 15, I would. The wood textures found throughout the airship are absolutely phenomenal. They look incredibly life-like and I love how they vary from plank to plank. In addition, a lot of attention has been paid to all the little details such as they ropes, canons, ballistas, and the manacles overlay for the lower deck. Visually, The Raven Airship is stunning!
Desire to Use: 8 out of 10
The Raven Airship is a really cool airship. I would like to see other overlays or page options such as removing the cannons, adding more cannons, and possibly a captain’s quarters on the upper deck. This does not mean one wouldn’t desire the use of the battlemap, it just means that the options that are presented are static other than the lower deck. However, with the to different lower decks, the airship could fall under the control of various types of captains.
Overall: 9 out of 10
The Raven Airship is a beautiful airship and another fantastic battlemap from DramaScape. If you’re looking to sail the skies, why not do it in style with an airship you can be proud of? The best part of a battlemap such as this is that it could come into use time and time again across the course of a single campaign.