Merchants and Marauders

I was able to get in a play of this fantastic game today.

I decided to start with the Fluke and have my captain be a respectable member of society but when she heard about those South American Indians and their hoard of gold She had to check it out.

My captain and her crew found that the Indians were a bit fond of their gold and when confronted by demands to "fess up the loot, Jellyfish," tend to turn homicidal. She now has a shallow grave on the coast of Columbia.

Well, my second Captain, took the opposite path and choose the life of crime. In his tiny sloop he became the scourge of English shipping.

Wobble Legs Klemme, the captain of a recently purchased Galleon decided that a good way to earn some money to pay for his new ship would be to claim the bounty that had been put on my captain's head. His lumbering but heavily gunned ship managed to get the drop on my man's small but agile vessel.

The combat was so one sided that the result was not in question. His first salvo destroyed what guns the sloop had and left her helpless. "Flee! " was my captains thought but Wobble Legs wasn't about to let that happen. He could have easily sent her to the bottom but decided against it. He started thinking of all that gold my captain was rumored to have.

Greed got the better of him and he boarded my ship instead. Again the outcome seemed certain but my crew fought like demons and in the end it was my captain who took HIS ship. It was glorious.

Making Wooble Legs walk the plank was the highlight of my day.

I parlayed that trading ship into a deadly Frigate and began to sweep the waves of merchant craft. My coffers bulged with ill gotten loot and I began to make my way home to bank it and win the game but slipping in just ahead of me was Tub Belly Jim the merchant prince. He had been quietly building a fortune through trade and avoiding my tender attentions by staying close to the naval ships of the great powers.

He stashed his gold one turn before me and the Merchant Prince became a king!

It was a total blast and I'm really looking forward to the expansion.

Awesome report. I've been seriously thinking about getting this game for quite a while now, because of all the stories it seems to produce. The only thing I'm worried about is play time. My group is usually 4 or 5, is the game a slog with that many?

It can run long with a high player count especially if the players are new and haven't internalized the rules. Also, the "optimal player" who spends a lot of time searching for the one best move can slow things right down. I wouldn't call it a slog though because the dynamics of the game, especially the Naval and NPC Pirate ships, become more important and interesting with a higher player count. So it's kind of a trade off.

Like most really good games, repeated plays and pushing past the point where you are no longer thinking of the rules but rather thinking of the game makes it's genius really shine.

If your group likes adventure games and has even a passing interest in the pirate theme, you'd be hard pressed to find a better game.

I bought this a couple months ago but haven't gotten to play it, it's got a lot of interlocking systems so would be hard to teach. The one thing about this game that is deceptive is it looks like all fun and games euro style but the combat is almost comically lethal and brutal. I love that.

It can be a bear to teach. It takes time with an experienced player. Trying to learn, teach and play it cold is even more daunting. But...the good thing is that all the stuff makes sense and works easy once it's down. So two or three turns in everybody is like...ok...I got this even if there is still some rules reference for combat and how to move and control NPC ships.

One of my FLGS's has a copy in and I'm planning on picking it up next weekend when they are having their 25% off sale for their 25th year of being open.

My boardgaming group are mostly non-gamers. They love M&M and I didn't think it was that hard to teach the rules. Sure I need to remind them now and then how combat works if we haven't played for a while but it's been a mostly smooth ride. Here's a list of games we played so far:
Settlers (lots)
Arkham (a few times)
Cosmic (lots)
Space Hulk (once)
Space Alert (twice)
and that's pretty much it. The most complicated is Arkham but the owner (a gamer but he moved away a couple of years ago) always did all the boring upkeep so we didn't have to remember the rules. Then again all of them are scientists so they are quite familiar with following complex instructions.

Brewmiester wrote: One of my FLGS's has a copy in and I'm planning on picking it up next weekend when they are having their 25% off sale for their 25th year of being open.

A game store that's been open 25 years? You should get them a medal. That doesn't happen often.

My friend and I, who love M&M, had taught a bunch of newbies to play. It's really not that tough, since pretty much everything links together meaningfully.

I really want to get my own copy. The guy I would pretty much always plays with owns it, so there's no point in me owning it, but it's one I want on my shelf.

repoman wrote:

Brewmiester wrote: One of my FLGS's has a copy in and I'm planning on picking it up next weekend when they are having their 25% off sale for their 25th year of being open.

A game store that's been open 25 years? You should get them a medal. That doesn't happen often.

My local store had their 20th Anniversary two months ago, their promotion was to roll a d20 and you get that percentage off...When I rolled, I pulled the Crit and got 20% off Andean Abyss.

The obstacle with learning M&M is getting people over the menu of options while in port. One thing I've experienced with teaching new players is to make sure everyone is paying attention to every else's port phases and go through every step the first few rounds.

Crap, wrong topic. Move along.