“whats a pirates favourite letter – R!”
Ok, now that’s out of my system, let’s move onto the board game itself
Overview
Merchants & Marauders lets you live the life of an influential merchant or a dreaded pirate in the Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy. Seek your fortune through trade, rumor hunting, missions, and of course, plundering. The game features a unique trade system and a thematic combat system, allowing for critical decisions and intense excitement. Modify your ship, buy impressive vessels, load deadly special ammunitions and hire specialist crew members. Will your captain gain eternal glory and immense wealth or find his wet grave under the stormy surface of the Caribbean Sea?– Source Z-Man Games
So Merchants is a game published by Z-Man Games It is a 4-player turn based strategy where all players start with a ship and a captain, and must decide how to play the game based on their captains stats, abilities and also just how you want to play.
Setup
To setup the board you merely have to place supply and ship modifications on the board and then sort out the decks to the side of the board. Player setup is very simple too, on your provided ‘Captains Board’ there is place for a ship and place for a captain along with various stats and upgrade slots. You draw a captain at random, look at their stats, and then decide which starting ship you would like to take.
The Stats
The Steering Wheel, or ‘Seamanship’ on your captain card is how many dice you get to roll during the combat phase. In fluff terms it is how well you captain can control his ship, getting the greater position on his opponent. Obviously this is a nice skill to have on any captain, usually around 2 is an average, 1 on some characters which can be a severe handicap. For pirates this is a needed 3-4 score, maybe even a 2 but that’s pushing it, since nothing is worse than successfully scouting an enemy ship, engaging and… getting your ship sunk and your captain destroyed by a merchant. Obviously for the same reason it’s nice for merchants to have this score too.
The Spyglass, or ‘Scouting’ on your captain card is how many dice you get to roll when searching an ocean area for an enemy ship. If you fail on this roll combat never starts, and gives your opponent a chance to sail away next turn. Obviously this is a needed skill for pirates and less so merchants since a pirate who can’t find his prey is useless, whereas merchants have no prey to hunt so it is a much less needed skill.
The Sword icon, or ‘Leadership’ is a score which allows you to attack the enemies crew count directly based off a successfully boarding. This allows you to reduce the enemies crew and gives a higher chance of you being able to take the ship for your own with it being less damaged after the victory. Unlike many a time when ships are just destroyed. This is also a strong score for any captain, although particularly pirates.
The last icon is the Chest icon, or ‘Influence’ score which is used for some quests or ‘rumours’ in this case. It is used for some specialist cards, and it also allows for the catching and completing of rumours. This is useful for merchants since it allows them to gather glory points (The in-game score points) through other means.
The dice have 6 sides, if you roll a dice and land a Skull icon instead of a number, that is classed as 1 success.
Ship Types
You could either take the Flute, a ship with a higher cargo capacity and slightly higher toughness, yet a lower maneuverability. This starting ship is recommended by me and the game if you wish to play a more peaceful merchant character.
However you also could take the Sloop. This ship is lower in toughness and cargo capacity, which would suggest it would not be very good in pirate fights. However with a higher manoeuvrability than the other starting ship, it’s aim is not to be hit in the first place. Since the Sloop has 2 more manoeuvrability than that of the Flute, it gets an extra dice when attacking flutes, allowing for a higher chance of a success.
Gameplay
Turns allow you 3 actions which can be movement, combat or port abilities. Movement moves you from either one sea area to an adjacent one, the sea area you were in to a port, or vice versa.
Combat is initiated by a successful scouting roll, then the 2 ships roll against each others seamanship checks, whoever gains the most Skulls on their dice will win that check and allow whatever move they declare to occur. The combat moves are:
- Cannon Fire! – You roll a die per cannon you have, this then allows for that amount of hits. Each number represents where you hit them, in the cargo, hull, masts, crew or cannons. When a hull or crew are taken to 0 then you win the combat. Destroying the hull makes the ship un salvageable. Destroying the crew makes is more useable to steal their ship. Destroying cannons reduces their cannon rolls by 1, until you have destroyed them all, making them less lethal. Destroying their masts takes their option of retreat away from them. Destroying their cargo removes their capacity, also making them sacrifice any cargo they have per cargo point destroyed. Dealing any damage to an area already obliterated deals the same damage direct to the hull.
- Boarding! – You automatically enter crew combat. Both players roll their leadership dice and the amount of skulls you rolled deals that much damage to the enemy crew. Once the crew hits 0 that player loses.
- Retreat! – You simply leave combat, you do not move out of your current ship zone.
Port moves allow you to buy goods, sell goods and purchase new ships or ship modifications. It also gives you the ability to try to gather rumours. Also if you are in your home port you can stash your gold.
Victory
To win you must gather 10 glory points and be the first to do so. This can be done by a few means such as:
- Stashing gold – You can gain glory points (Up to a maximum of 5 by this method) for every 10 gold you store. 50 gold is the maximum you can store for glory points.
- Looting 12+ gold from NPC merchants – Merchants raids are designed to be quicker than fights against other players and let you risk them getting away or damaging your ship more for the chance of extra loot. Raiding will gain you a bounty from the country of which the merchant was.
- Killing another player in combat. Speaks for itself, is also a good way of stopping pure merchants from racking up the money and rumours. Getting them after big sells will get you a lot of money from their ship.
- Selling 3+ of an item which is in demand at a specific port. This is a very good way for pure merchants to win.
- Completing a rumour – These often are simple and are merely going to a place and roll a successful check here. Very good for merchants on the move from port to port.
World Events / Glory Cards
At the start of every round an event card is played, often summoning ships of pirate or naval nature. NPC pirate ships go towards the nearest non pirates or sit in their assigned bays. However naval ships are given directions on where to head, often stopping on the way to attack a ship with a bounty of their country. This adds a bit more randomness similar to other games with world events, although at the end of the day they are just more ships. In combat with these ships the player who is most likely to play them ruthlessly against the foe gets to play them.
Glory cards are an addition which are not really used frequently in play but still add another level on interest. Usually activated on completing checks they can give you buffs or special effects which can really flip the game around. Some even call the help of naval ships whereas some act as specialists which can give bonuses to crews or cannons or cargo.
My Experience / Opinion
After playing quite a few games of merchants with friends in the evening, having played both a pirate, a merchant, and a merchant later turned pirate, I really think the game is a great idea and a great introduction to more complicated board games.
Things it does well: Things to be wary of:
Great looking pirate themed game.
The first game may take a while to get used to .
Interesting random captains encourage to make you play differently each game.
Quite a few different piles of cards and tokens.
An interesting ship and ship modification system.
Plastic ships are not strong, they will break if stepped on and probably hurt.
Combat that keeps you on edge.
Player max is 4, which I found quite restricting in my group.
New players can pick it up quickly with help of others.
As with all dice/luck games, skill is not a very large %.
Overall I would say Merchants and Marauders is a pretty great game, with unique features and for the money it provides more than a return in hours of play. The game has a lesser air of paranoia as many merchants are not sure who might turn to pirate. It’s not quite the fear of the Game Of Thrones Board game or Battlestar Galactica, but it makes the game very exciting. The combat is enjoyable and fun, by no means are players completely outmatched and some cards can be played to completely turn the tide of battle. Strategy is a big part in avoiding combat but during it luck is also the name of the game. Depending on the players games can last from 2 hours to maybe even 4 hours depending on if players leave each other alone (quite common in early games) or if there is a constant struggle between players.
Merchants can be purchased here: Z-man Games Merchants and Marauders
Boards And Hordes 