Merchants & Maruaders boardgame review part 2 of 2

[Anatoli]

First part out of a two part review of the excellent game Merchants & Marauders. It is a 2-4 player game set in the Caribbean and allows players to take up the role of merchants, pirates or privateers in order to gather a set amount of victory points through "glorious" achievements in order to win.

In part 1 I goover pretty much all the components and talk a little about their use. I will post part two tomorrow where I will talk about how the game plays, the rules and the game mechanics.

http://anatolisgameroom.blogspot.com/2011/08/merchants-marauders-part-1-components.html

[Marine0846]

Excellent review of part 1, Look forward to part 2. One question, are the captain cards of pirate captains, historical like Blackbeard and others or generic. Looks like a pirate campaign in the works, some time in the near future.

[Anatoli]

Thanks, the 12 player controlled captain cards are pretty generic. The event cards are the one's spawning NPC battleships and pirates - and on them you have stats and traits. But none of the NPC captains have a portrait or can be used by the players themselves. I'll explain all that tomorrow , it's not as bad as it sounds 

[Axtklinge]

Very nice review of the components.
Looking forward for the game mechanics part!

[Anatoli]

Second and last part of my review of the excellent pirate themed boardgame Merchants & Marauders. This game offers plenty of ways to achieve victory, be it trading, raiding, completing missions, finding out if rumors are true, defeating other players and NPC ships and depositing money in your home port.

The game blends several great features with a RPG light player board where you have your stash of gold, your current ship stats with any upgrades you have obtained, specialist crewmen, current missions and rumors.

Taking the merchant approach you want to have a ship with good cargo capacity, and some defensive ship upgrades. You will also wish to stay clear of any NPC pirate vessels as they will try to attack and raid you on sight.

On the other hand, if you want to be a privateer or a 100% pirate things get a bit interesting as you are denied access to ports of nations which you have raided, NPC ships will attack you, you will have a bounty on your head for other players to collect upon your death but pirate ships will treat you as one of their own.

Read the full second part of my review of this game on my blog: http://anatolisgameroom.blogspot.com/2011/08/merchants-marauders-part-2-rules-and.html

[mweaver]

Thanks for the review, Anatoli!  I had been wondering about this game.

[Relic]

played once and have to say it was a blast. I'm getting this one for sure. Good review Anatoli.

[Captain Blood]

Have you played the new improved version of Blackbeard? And if so, how does this compare?

[Anatoli]

Thanks guys, I can honestly say I have not been this excited about a boardgame in a good while. The only flaw being the game being too short  But as I suggested, just increase the amount of Glory Points required for victory or the stashed gold to 20g = 1 glory point to make it last a little longer 
On the other hand, it is a rare boardgame in my own collection as well as in my game group, that allows for more than one session in the same afternoon 

@Captain Blood, sorry I've not played either of them so I can't give a comparison. Though I will check it out.

[jscottbowman]

Thanks for posting this. I'd been looking at this repeatedly online and checking reviews for about the last month. Your report and its replies has finally persuaded me to buy a copy.

Theres 4 of us playing LotHS in our group at the mo', and this may be a fun themed diversion. Perhaps also a basis of a campaign for LotHS. What do you think?

regards
Scott

[warrenpeace]

Very nice game. I own a copy. There is a mass of stuff about this game on BoardGameGeek, including a lot of pics of paint on the plastic minis:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/25292/merchants-marauders

The game is fun and fast, about 45 minutes per player, up to 4 players. There are several variants to make the game last longer, including raising the number of glory points and/or requiring one or more glory points to come from missions or rumors. Many other variants are listed in the variants thread on the BoardGameGeek forum for this game, including one I suggested to add a couple of additional ship types. There are many variant ship captains, and much art in the photos section.

I would say the game would be useful for running a pirate miniature campaign. The map would be useful. The ship minis would be useful. And the glory and rumor and mission cards would be quite useful. The game would give a basic economic and prestige structure to a campaign, but those elements could be swapped out for more detailed systems from Savage Worlds, Gurps, LOTHS, Under the Black Flag, or any other role playing system that one would want to use.

The ship fighting system in this game is quick and fun, but could also be swapped out for a more detailed naval combat system if desired.

[Axtklinge]

Thanks for the report!
Sounds like a lot of fun, and being quite "fast" is a nice addiction too.

[Anatoli]

As warrenbruhn says I too think you could use the contents of this box for a pirate campaign map and it would be interesting to blend a miniature wargame with the boardgame for an additional layer of campaign gameplay and using it as a "world map" of sorts 

[jscottbowman]

Game arrived at weekend, and my family and I are part way through our first game, playing an hour or so each evening, after dinner,  before kids go to bed. Fun so far!
Definitely a good buy :-)
Scott