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+
Legomancer
I'm a big fan of Merchants and Marauders, and was eager to try this out. This is a game of ship-to-ship combat, where you can aim to strike a particular point or just release the whole barrage and take what you get. There's a really cool aiming system, tied into standard playing cards (which is kind of odd to me...I don't really associate standard cards with pirates) that is really cleverly done. There's also an interesting idea where the more a target becomes damaged, the harder it is to hit. There's a lot of fun thematic and narrative stuff here, including the addition that the type of ammo you get is random; your dudes are just grabbing what they can. This is what ultimately brought me down, despite a strong performance; I was trying to hit a small target and couldn't get the ammo or cards I needed, even though my opponent could no longer evade. It's a lot of wild fun, though we didn't play with the special action cards. We looked at them afterwards and saw they were INCREDIBLY swingy.
Brezman
Watch our unboxing video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b17YJV1p_RE Watch our play through and review video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI7lKCaZaZI&t=2287s
BrianLas
Just a fun game, not too thought provoking, and a bit of a slow burn. Shooting cannons at another's pirate ship is fun, and I enjoy the different ways to victory. We played with the captains and felt that it did not enhance the game really at all. It sort of breaks it, maybe?