Merchants & Marauders
Published: 2010
Designer: Christian Marcussen
Publisher: Z-Man Games
Rules Complexity: Medium
Players: 2 -4
Type: Competitive
Artwork: A
Bits: B+
Playing Time: 2-3 hours

Let me get this out of the way up front Merchants and Marauders is one of my favorite new games for 2010/2011 and I've barely scratched the surface. The game is set in Caribbean where you can take on the role of a influential merchant shipping goods from port to port. Have more sinister ideas of acquiring fame and glory? Well then a pirate life you be seeking.

Merchant off the port and she is riding low captain!
The game comes with a lot of bits for your buck. There are over 250 cards, 190 tokens, die cut treasure chests for each player to stash their booty. There are 26 plastic ship miniatures, featuring 5 different ship types. Finally there is one beautiful board which while big in size starts to feel crowded at times during the game.


As the game gets moving you'll have all players ships on the board, goods tokens, ship upgrade tokens, possible NPC merchants and pirate ships. Finally mission cards can also be placed on the board which struck me as odd. For a game full of bits that do an excellent job at keeping you immersed in the games theme, two cards laying on the board was not expected. Fortunately a little imagination and a printer and you can come up with some creative bits for those mission locations.

"Merchant and pirate are the same they just rob you in different ways... scoundrels to the man."

The game starts by each player getting one of the 16 random captains. Each captain has a set of stats for Leadership, Influence, Seamanship and Scouting. They also have a special ability such as Ignoring the effect of Storms. Finally a nationality and a home port. During the game ports will close to you either via your actions as a pirate or events pitting your country at war with other countries. However your home port never closes, it's like returning home from college and giving mom all that laundry.

You're captain and his or her stats will generally guide you to your career path. Some captains set up much better for being a merchant, while others a pirate. Of course you're free to follow your own course. After you have seen your captain you secretly choose either a Sloop, which is better for pirates or a Flute which is ideal for shipping cargo and your off.

The object of the game is to be the first player to 10 Glory points. You gain glory points from various things such as defeating another captain, plundering 12 gold in a merchant raid and selling 3 in demand goods at a port. You can also stash gold in your treasure chest whenever you're in your home port and for every 10 gold you get a secret Glory point. While you can stash as much gold as you want in your treasure chest you can only accumulate 5 glory points this way.

While theoretically this can catch players off guard it is pretty easy to tell if a captain is stashing gold and while you never know how much. If a player is at 5 or 6 victory points and has set full sails for his home port you know whats coming. What's unique about this mechanic is if a player declares victory in this manner the other players still get to finish their turns. Glory points on the board count more then glory points gained from stashed gold. So if I had declared victory with 5 Glory on the board and 5 from my stash, and Chris who had 7 glory on the board managed to finish his turn and have 3 glory from his stash he would win the game.

A turn starts by drawing an event card. Events can bring into play NPC pirates or nation specific ships, storms or the previously mentioned wars. NPC pirates hunt player merchants and npc ships hunt players with bounties on them. I wont go into the whole hunt order but just note it is fairly simple to follow and the NPC's move on the event cards so it is not cumbersome at all.

A players phase consist of a combination of 3 actions. They either move around the seas or to and from port. They conduct a port action or they scout for a merchant vessel. Port actions allow you to sell and buy goods, recruit crew, upgrade and repair your ship and of course get rumors which is an excellent way to get glory points.

Scouting allows your captain to search for merchants and plunder them if they so choose. Every sea zone except for one is governed so to speak by a nationality and each sea zone has a merchant token. After a successful scout you can flip the merchant token and then either decide to plunder that merchant or one of the zone. For example if I am in the Spanish zone of Havana and I flip a Dutch merchant token I can choose to raid the Spanish, the Dutch or no one.

Raiding a merchant gets you a bounty token. This is how you officially become a pirate. Once you've done this NPC ships hunt for you, ports close to you and life can get much harder. No one said being a pirate is easy, but with risk comes reward and with planning and luck you can make a go of it.

Bring her about and fire all Canons.
I don't want to spend a lot of time detailing combat, you can find how it works in the online rules. The important thing to know is that combat is fast. There are actually two types of combat. When you raid a merchant it is all card play and it literally takes no more then 2-3 minutes. This mechanic in a game with a lot going on is perfect. It doesn't inflict the game with downtime.

Combat is a bit different when fighting another player or NPC as it should be. Even then it is pretty fast. You choose to either shoot, board or flee and you see who has out maneuvered who and then go to the results. Even after boarding, crew combat is fast and furious. The typical combat of this type is going to take 5 minutes, 10 tops for newer players.

I think this is the key to what makes Merchants a very good game. The combat and raiding gets the job done and doesn't slow down the game.

Set course for Tortuga

I haven't even touched on Missions which if solved give you glory and some kind of reward. How each port has a special ability. Glory cards you receive when acquiring a glory point which do all sorts of wonderful things such as giving you special crew members to extra actions. Captains can retire and die which means you're never out of the game and can change your play style mid-game.

Make no doubt about it Merchants is a game with a lot going on and it's all very good. It's also a game that needs to be played several times to be appreciate. It's very tempting to go the merchant route. It is far easier at the start of the game and some even say it is easier to win the game playing a merchant.

I'd disagree, because successfully playing a pirate puts the choices in your hands. You're not hoping to find the right good while purchasing and being able to move it close by. As a pirate if you make the right decisions on who and when you strike you can gain a lot more glory quickly. Sure at the start you're vulnerable with your little sloop but just a few successfully raids and spending your money on upgrades instead of goods is going to pay off.

However that first game most people will flounder in between merchant and pirate and that is the worst way to play and it draws out the game. You need to pick one and go, and for a first time player that is easier said then done.

Which brings me back to my initial point. Merchants is a game you need to play a few times to learn "how to play", not to learn the rules. Each game gets better and better and a seasoned group of players can result in an interesting contest.

My recommendation is buy it.

Killing a little time waiting for FedEx to arrive with my copy of Mansions of Madness and I stumbled across this in the BGG forums.

Mayday Games to Publish Eaten by Zombies.

It's yet another deck-building (I know, right?) game, this one with a zombie (I know, right?) theme.

While it would be easy to dismiss just based on that alone, I have major respect for the DIY enthusiasm of small publishers, so I'm adding this one to my tentative interest mental list.

I secretly dread telling people I play board games. They usually reply “What, like Monopoly (or Risk, or Clue, or Sorry, etc.)?”

No. Not at all like that.

For a while I looked for different ways to say it, but I realized that saying you play “hobby board games” doesn’t mean anything to people and saying “adult strategy games” sounds a little creepy and dirty.

Once I told a coworker that I played a four hour simulation of the German political system at one of my game club’s one-day conventions. He replied something along the lines of “That sounds like the most boring thing I’ve ever heard.”

No. It’s not.

When I was in high school I unleashed my inner nerd on Dungeons and Dragons, after that it was a couple years of Magic in its heyday and a few years of Warhammer 40K before walking away from both bored and broke.

It was around ’96 that I fell in with a local gaming club, and for a while I was one of the younger people there, but not for long. In those days we played Battletech, Call of Cthulhu, Wings of Fire, Deadlands, Hostile Aircraft, and Settlers, El Grande, Gunslinger, and a lot of other games I probably couldn’t remember if I tried. Somewhere along the way 15 years passed and I turned into one of the longer tenured members of the group. The miniatures games all disappeared and aside from a single group so did the RPGs and we became an almost exclusively board game club.

So now I’m just a board gamer, and I’m okay with that. When someone asks what I’m into I just say “I play games in a board game club in Elgin” and let them ask about Monopoly and I smile and say no, and tell them about the kinds of games we do play. Sometimes they’re interested, I found out recently that one of my employees was a huge fan of the Gamemaster series in the 80’s, and even knew that Axis and Allies had been re-released and had a handful of variations now. Most of the time they listen politely but uninterested, and I’m okay with that, too. I’m comfortable with my niche hobby, and stopped caring what other people think of it a long time ago. I just wait for the next game day, where I can rub elbows with my people.

So I wanted to write about what defines me as a gamer, and the only way I feel I can truly do that is with a rough timeline of my evolution as a gamer, the games that made me the gamer I am.

Here goes:

Dungeons and Dragons, Shadowrun, Call of Cthulhu, Magic: the Gathering, Netrunner, Deadlands, Warhammer 40k, Cosmic Encounter, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Settlers of Catan, Doomtown CCG, Button Men, Tigris and Euphrates, Through the Desert, Disc Wars, Princes of Florence, Ra, Die Macher, Carcassone, Taj Mahal, Age of Steam, Puerto Rico, A Game of Thrones, Goa, Call of Cthulhu CCG, Struggle of Empires, Arkham Horror, Roads and Boats, Shogun, Galaxy Trucker, Race for the Galaxy, Dominion, Planet Steam, Descent, Civilization.

My most recent game order arrived today--here is what I picked up:

I'm not talking March Madness but Mansions of Madness of course. Our copies are shipping today so hopefully we'll have some impressions over the weekend.

Chris is our resident Arkham expert so we'll leave the review of that one to him. Unfortunately my day job cut into my blog time this week. I'll still have the Merchants review up by tomorrow but the NinjaGo video review is going to be a few days as I need to re-shoot some items.

Whats and instant buy for me? Take giant movie monster, put them in a board game with cool looking miniatures and then grab a designer like Richard Berg.

The game is coming from Toy Vault and there is not much information on their site for a game that is suppose to be released in the March / April time frame.

Here is a little snippet:

It’s an all-out brawl of monstrous proportions and Earth is the battlefield! The Xiliens have pitted Godzilla, Rodan, Gigan and King Ghidorah against each other in a catastrophic battle and only one monster will emerge victorious!

In Godzilla: Kaiju World Wars, players pick a monster and a scenario, stomping over terrain and destroying buildings on their warpath - all while fending off aggressive military attacks, bombs, traps and, of course, other KAIJU! Special abilities are used to eliminate the competition or to tuck their tail between their legs and run away before they are taken out.

Color me intrigued. Of course the only thing missing is my all time favorite monster Gamera. Stay tuned as we try and dig up some more information on this title.

As you were warned, Danimal has decided to open the flood gates and allow for some of his longtime board gaming colleagues/foes to invade his space here in the blogosphere.

To expand on what Dan mentioned earlier, Fantasy Flight Games has officially announced Rune Age. Follow the link the their full announcement.

And yes, it's yet another deck building game, the 5th game to use the Terrinoth setting begun in Descent. The description promises a faction-specific set of cards for each player as well as scenarios with different victory conditions to set it apart from the 75 other deck building games that have been released since Dominion swallowed the gaming universe.

I will try and keep my inherent cynicism at bay while we wait for more info to develop. Who am I kidding, it's FFG, I'll buy it.

The trend of board games sneaking their way onto phones generally finds good to great digital carbon copy adaptations of games ported gameplay-to-graphics. Fantasy Flight has opted to provide something different with their Arkham Horror Toolkit app. Since a game like Arkham could never really shrink down to handheld size to any satisfaction it instead supplements the tabletop game, ostensibly to help remove clutter (and about 700 cards) from your game table.



For me, the dice roller is of less interest. Though it smartly lets you select the “Cursed” and “Blessed” statuses, and reduces the die faces to blank or Elder Star Sign success for simplicity’s sake, I can’t see actually using this feature while playing. Navigating from the encounters section to the dice roller and back is annoying and takes longer to do than just grabbing dice off a table. Secondly, I like the feel of real dice in my hand and the act of rolling an amazing or miserable skill test is part of the fun of games like this. Removing the tactile sensation feels like you’re short changing the tabletop game experience a little too much.

The Investigator minder is nice, but not practical if you have to pass your device around the table so people can read encounters to each other. You can raise and lower sanity, stamina, money and clue tokens and adjust your skill points, though it lets you “cheat” and move them in excess of your focus. Starting location and items along with special abilities are on the back of the card, reached by tapping the investigator portrait, where abilities are likely to sit for the duration of the game, entirely forgotten.

The last feature is Maps. I won’t waste too much time on it; I’ll just say that this is entirely useless. I don’t need the game map on my phone when it’s sitting on the table in front of me.

Some overall impressions, the app runs smooth and quick on my iPhone 4 and the HD artwork throughout looks fantastic. It also supports the iOS multitasking feature for compatible devices, extremely important if you’re like me and you can’t stop fidgeting with your phone during game downtime. It’s nice to know it’ll pop back up faster when returning to the app, right where you left off. I wish there was a way to support the mythos deck, but rumors and environment events just don’t make it possible. It also seems odd that the game doesn’t feature the Great Old Ones in any way, at least a randomizer would have been nice. It would have made a great replacement for the beyond pointless maps.

For $3 (and $1 or $2 per expansion) is definitely a reasonable price to pay, and it makes sense for FFG to release something like this for all the Arkham nuts like myself. With 7 expansions (and an 8^th on the way) we’ve proven we have a little extra money to spend.

I received an email this morning from a long time reader, I'm happy we have at least one of those, who asked what I thought of the new Tide of Iron expansion called Fury of the Bear. I'll be honest I haven't played TOI is a very long time. In fact I have a mint condition Normandy expansion that has never been played.

Why did a game that i was so crazy about fall by the wayside? I really had to think about that. I have a shelf full of two player wargames that don't get played. I'm not your typical gamer, I'm middle aged with two young daughters and have only been living in my current area for about 7 years. Although I attend a regular board game group seldom are two player war games hitting the table. I don't have any friends at this point in my life who are like the friends I had before moving. Lets face it there is a difference between a friend you see once in a while and one you can call on the drop of a dime and go get some chicken wings with.

Next TOI while a good game is far surpassed by any number of other 2 player games I have. Combat Commander is one of the best tactical WW2 games I have ever played. I have other great 2 player games that seldom see the table like Washington's War, Hannibal and For the People. So if I have a chance to play a 2 player game Tide isn't usually number one on my list.

Finally FFG basically stopped talking about, promoting or even acknowledging the series. Honestly Fury is an expansion most thought was canceled and by the lack of activity on the Geek forums about it many could care less. I would be surprised if this series sees anymore love from FFG going forward.

Would I play Tide or Iron again, certainly I would. However my opportunities are limited and I think that it will be a while before I'm cursing those little plastic guys and why they don't stay in their stands.

While nothing official has been announced by Fantasy Flight some participants at the recent Realms of Terrinoth event got to play a game in development by FFG called Rune Age.

This looks to be another in the growing stable of deck building games. You can find the post here and it does a great job of explaining the game.

According to the FFG website this anticipated title is now shipping to retailers. In talking to some sources some places may have it as early as tomorrow.

Keep an eye out to the blog for our review in the near future.

We're in the process of gearing up staff at the OBGB. This should increase the number of posts and reviews.

This week we will have a Merchant & Marauders review, a NinajGo video review and hopefully some other surprises.

Fantasy Flight Games has announced another expansion Arkham Horror called Miskatonic Horror. With the large number of already released suppliments to this game, FFG has taken a new approach with this expansion.

Miskatonic Horror is a new type of Arkham Horror expansion that builds upon the materials found in the ample library of other Arkham Horror expansions. While the components and rules found in Miskatonic Horror can be enjoyed with only the Arkham Horror base game, the more expansions you incorporate, the more aspects of Miskatonic Horror you can enjoy.

Personally I'm eagerly awaiting Mansion of Madness but for all the Arkham lovers this looks to be a nice expansion.

Published: 2010

Designer:Matt Leacock

Publisher: GameWright

Rules Complexity: Easy

Players: 2 -4

Type: Cooperative

Artwork: A

Bits: B

Playing Time: 30-45 minutes


Forbidden Island is a cooperative game for 2 to 4 players that is very similar to Pandemic. The reason for this is the two games are designed by the same individual. Calling Forbidden Island a Pandemic light is a really excellent way to describe this game. While such a comparison might be considered a slight to the title, I think it's a compliment. Pandemic is an excellent cooperative game and Forbidden Island replicates many of that games mechanics and it plays in half the time.

The setting is simple. You're a group of treasure hunters and your goal is to acquire 4 Idols off this island and then leave before it sinks via the helipad because we all know a mysterious island comes with an equipped helipad. As a group you can lose the game in a number of ways. If a character dies you lose. If the water level gets too high you lose. If both treasure chambers for an unclaimed idol sink you lose. Finally if the helipad tile sinks you lose.

Each player is randomly given a character who has a special ability. For example the pilot can fly himself for an action to any other tile, the diver can swim under flooded or sunken tiles for an action allow him to move large distances.

On your turn you get to take 3 actions, then you draw 2 treasure cards and then you draw flood tiles based on the water level. All of which is covered on the back of your player card which makes the player card very useful and also makes the game much easier to explain.

The actions you can take are moving, shoring up flooded tiles, giving a treasure card to another player on your tile or claiming a treasure if you have 4 matching cards in your hand.

The trick to the game, and possibly it's flaw, is the treasure deck contains 3 water rises cards. When one of these is drawn you increase the water level. This level determines how many cards you draw in the flood stage. You then reshuffle the discards in the flood deck and put them on top of the flood deck draw pile. Pretty much identical to the way this mechanic works in Pandemic. The treasure deck itself isn't very large and each player has a hand size of 5 so the cards cycle at just the right speed.

Finally you draw flood cards based on the water level so you will be drawing between 2 and 4 cards depending on how bad things have gotten. When you draw a card it matches a tile. If that tile is dry you flip it to it's flooded side. If that tile is flooded you remove the tile and the card from the game. Removing the card is an important rule not to forget as it reduces the size of the flood deck.

The game itself usually plays very fast and is also typically very tense. Players coordinate there actions between shoring up tiles and trading cards. There are also special cards that can be played at any time. These are the sandbags card which allows you to shore up a tile. Also the helicopter lift card which allows you to move all pawns on a tile to another. The Lift card is also required to be played to get everyone off the island once on the helipad.

Forbidden island is a decent game. It plays very fast and for some reason is easier to explain then Pandemic. In fact I would consider Forbidden island a good game to get some9ne feet wet for Pandemic.

The only problem I have seen with the game and it has happened twice is if the water rises cards get grouped up in the shuffle and come out early you can usually outlast them and then it is a pretty easy victory. When that doesn't happen the game is usually very tense and is a good 30 to 40 minute ride.

Forbidden Island is a good game. It plays fast, it's exciting and easy to teach. If you own Pandemic you might not need this game unless you're looking for a new setting and a game that plays quicker. If you don't own Pandemic I would still recommend it over Forbidden Island as it is a slightly deeper experience.

Wrath of Ashardalon is the second release in the D&D board game series from Wizards of the Coast. For those who have the previous release Castle Ravenloft you may be wondering if it is worth your while to own another version of the game.

WOA is in a new setting which means it comes with all new monsters, new tiles, new cards and of course new heroes. The first thing I notice about WOA is I preferred the variety of monster more. Obviously setting the location outside of a haunted castle controlled by a vampire gives you a little bit more flexibility in the types of monsters you can include. Once again the sculpts are fantastic but the thing I am most impressed with is the monsters are much harder.

There are some new rules for doors and a few other things which I am not going to get into in this impressions article mainly because I haven't had a chance to play any of the scenarios including them. The rule book and many of the items are much more organized and address a lot of the issues people were having with Ravenloft. the rules clearly state which pieces will be used in every session and which are scenario dependent. This makes the learning curve much easier for new combers who could be overwhelmed with the amount of items in the box.

In my limited time which as of this writing includes 2 plays of the solo scenario I've discovered the best thing thus far about WOA is the treasures. You can find some really powerful and helpful items.

The tiles are again very nice and of sturdy quality. The cards on the other hand (at least in my copy) left a little something to be desired. Ravenloft is one of the most played games in my collection and I have very little wear on those cards. With the WOA cards I found the corners turning up and showing slight signs of warping within 30 minutes of opening the game. Curles edges and slight warping is expected with cards, but not in that short of time with absolutely no plays. To their credit WOTC has already issued me new cards which is appreciated but I have doubts they will make a difference the cards just seem to be on a different stock.

Overall I think if you loved Ravenloft then WOA seems like a lock. The new setting, figures and rules will keep you busy. If you were luke warm about Ravenloft then you may want to try WOA as the setting an additional rules make the game a tighter experience. However if you loathed the previous game I don't see anything in WOA at this point that would change your mind.

Some items I've acquired recently.

Merchants & Marauders
Haven't had the chance to play this one yet but have done the usualy rules read through and play some test turns. I expect my regular group to be slit on this one. Great concept, quality components and does what i expect. However might be a little too rules overload for some.

I hope to get it to the table this Thursday.




Earth Reborn
This game took a long time to punch and it is going to take even longer to get through the rules with the available time i have right now. What's cool is the way it teaches the rules in small chunks. Conflict of Heroes did this and it is one of the few games I can always remember how to play.

I expect it's some time before this one sees daylight though.

Other games I've gotten recently. Formula D with all the track expansions, the new BSG expansion, Telestrations (This one is a huge party hit) 1960 to play with the wife.

I've got more games then I have time to play right now.

Tonight we're going to look at the Americans in Civilization the Board Game. The Americans may seem like one of the more vanilla civilizations to play but they provide a good starting point for a player who can be flexible and depending on the situation open up any avenue of victory.

The Americans get a random great person, so what you get can certainly dictate how you proceed. However the addition of a great person at the start can be very helpful, especially if it leads to increased culture or wealth.

Because of their special ability to acquire 2 hammers every time you convert trade into production the Americans would do best to put their cities in areas heavily favored to Trade. Cities place near water with harbors can lead to a lot of excess trade that can be converted very easily into units or buildings.

Finally with Currency as a starting tech the Americans can immediately build a market to get their economy rolling. Also the ability to convert incense to gain 3 culture during the city management step means if the Americans can get a good great person draw and get out and explore they can take an early culture lead.

So next time you find yourself playing the Americans don't look around in envy at the other players. Analyze the set up and situation and pick a plan and hold the course. If you do so victory can be yours in a number of ways.

While my copy is set to arrive today I had the chance to play this one last night and my initial impressions are that I loved it. I'll be digging into this much deeper over the coming days but this is really a great game entry in the genre.

We set up for 4 players, the game needed to be punched and rules needed to be explained so that was an hour of time right there. The game itself is pretty easy to follow once you play about 2-3 turns. I think once everyone knows how to play this game could be knocked out in 2.5-3 hours.

As a first game though we didn't even finish and we were close to 2-3 hours in after the initial set up. Part of that is first game normalcy, part of it is not really having a focus on a victory condition and then it comes down to the group.

The game is broken into 5 steps to a Turn and 3 of those steps are done simultaneously, I've marked those below.

Start of turn Actions*
Trade*
City Actions
Movement
Research*

The first two actions should be relatively quick as unless you get a few player haggling over trading something there is not a lot going on. I noticed while we played that many people were constantly counting their trade every round, even when nothing changed to effect it. If you had 11 last round and didn't build anything to alter that you still have 11. Perhaps some scratch paper for the forgetful?

You essentially get one city action per city and you have to determine your production for each city on a turn so this step is the longest. Movement is where combat can come in, but combat is quick and effective so that's not much of an issue.

Finally research is where the game seemed to bog down and it shouldn't You know if you're going to research a tech by the trade phase usually, at the very latest the City Management Phase. So while other players are doing those action you should be looking at your tech deck and deciding what to do.

Anyway enough with the rant on how to play the game, just expect a longer game the first time out.

The game itself was great, I like every mechanic and really can't think of one I didn't enjoy. I'm going to cover these over the next week. I love the 4 ways to victory and last night I really didn't focus on one. As Germany and with my initial set up and the way the game evolved I should of been pursuing a military victory.

However I was all over the place, I think I had the biggest tech pyramid when we quit, I was 2nd in culture which took a lot of doing, had only 1 gold coin in terms of the wealth victory condition and I definitely had the biggest military force. With all that I wasn't anywhere close to winning.

The game suggest not using wonders or two of the Civs in a first game and to simply set up and play a few turns and start a new game. I balked at this notion, however I think it is a really good thing to do. Most players will be too focused on learning the mechanics, looking at techs and exploring to even explore a strategy. Playing even just 3-4 turns will get everyone's feet wet and then make the second game a much more focused setting.

Next time I'll get into the Civilizations and how they differ. For those looking for a recommendation I would say if you like the genre or the computer game you shouldn't hesitate to buy this as long as you have a group to play it with.