Merchants & Marauders: Broadsides
Expansion of: Merchants and MaraudersXVII century, Caribbean Sea. At the helm of your mighty vessel, revisit the golden age of piracy with Merchants & Marauders: Broadsides, a game in which you and your opponent are engaged in a deadly battle hoping to sink each other’s ship.

45m

2 - 4 Players

Ages 13+
Phasmatis
Played a couple of times with long stretches in between. This can be a very fun game if you play it often enough with the same person/people. Always checking what card hands do what actions if you are unfamiliar. Plays within an hour which is a bonus.
jormungandr
Love the theme, love much of the core mechanics, but the damage system just did not work for me. Damage is capped to start with by the number of potential targets and then (with the exception of carronades) it is only modified down. So if you have a -1 cannon penalty and aren't using a carronade, you can never destroy your target, no matter how well you shoot. Meanwhile, the carronade is clearly overpowered because with the right ammunition it can push 2 damage all the time, no matter how poorly it is aimed or crewed. Our game dragged on about 30 minutes longer than needed because of these mechanics. Fixed damage on the guns (3/shot) might be enough to save it for me, but my rating is a reaction to what I see as an ill-designed game.
randystu5417
Boy I really wanted to like this game and gave it the good old college try but without some rule modifications I found it frustrating and disappointing. The game has a unique battle mechanic that I like. The graphics are ok, a little too cartoony to be taken too seriously. The rules are well laid out and easy to understand. There is lots of things that you can do and many ways to win. You start out fine and start battling down the ships. But with only 2 actions, you find you can't do much and have to make too hard of choices. I found adding one action or making the hold action mandatory works a lot better. This mechanic of 2 actions, slows things down too much and drags out the game. Plus, when you get down to just a few whatever (planks, men, or sails) it becomes really hard to shoot them down. Now I don't mean hard in the sense it is difficult, no hard in the sense you have to be perfect on the shot or you will lose 1 fire capability and with only 1 unit left, you automatically lose. Any other situation and why waste your time. So you end up drawing cards and drawing cards and drawing cards waiting for that 1 perfect card, and if your opponent doesn't play an evade, and you still have the men left, you can finally get that one last item off the opponent's ship. Sheesh. What a hassle. I felt like I was always in a catch 22 and got really frustrated trying to finish the game. A 6 is being nice.