Merchants & Marauders – Pirate Board Game Review

/ josephforster86

Last Updated on December 18, 2025

We focus almost exclusively on Blood & Plunder on this blog, but there are other Pirate games out there! In this review we look at Merchants & Marauders, a pirate board game published by Z-Man Games.

DISCLAIMER: As of writing this (December 2025), this game has been hard to find for a couple years. I’ve waited for 2+ years to write this review in hopes it would come back. But it hasn’t yet… You can track a copy down on Ebay or BGG, but it will likely cost $150+. But it’s one of the best pirate games out there and it might be worth that to you! It doesn’t sound like there’s currently any solid plans to get it back into print, but it’s one of the best pirate games out there so we’re going to review it anyway.

Basic Details for Merchants & Marauders Board Game

Theme

You’re a captain in the Caribbean in the age of piracy and you can do whatever you want! You might suffer consequences, but it’s all there. You can trade, smuggle, raid merchants, go toe-to-toe with the English Navy, find treasure, plunder the other players, pick up rumors, hire crew, trade up to bigger and better ships, customize your ship, and build up your legend of glory and plunder!

It’s pretty easy to describe as Sid Meier’s Pirates! in a box.

Merchants & Marauders Game Play

The game play and turn structure is pretty straightforward in Merchants & Marauders. Players take turns using 3 actions to move, scout/fight and accomplish a wide variety of port actions. It is pretty easy to jump in and start playing but the combat is where things get a bit trickier. The combat rules are fast once you grasp your potential options, but they didn’t come easily to start with. But with more I play, the more I’ve come to appreciate them for their elegance after coming back to the game several times over the past dozen years. With help from parents, my (nerdy) kids (ages 13, 11, 10) were able to pick it very quickly and fully enjoy the game on their first play.

Each player starts the game with a captain card (rules require you to take one randomly, but we find it is more fun to choose our own), a little gold, and their choice of either a Sloop or a Fluyt. That Fluyt can hold a lot of goods for the merchant style player, and the Sloop is fast and great at overtaking merchant ships.

Each captain has a home port where they start the game. Before each game round there’s an event (covered later), then player take turns doing their three actions in an effort to gain the 10 Glory Points to win the game.

You will take various tests through the game using different numbers of special d6 that come with the game, basically looking for the 5/6 “success” faces to accomplish various tasks.

Possible ways to score those 10 Glory Points include:

  • Defeat a Player or NPC ship in combat
  • Sell 3+ “in demand” goods at once at a port
  • Plunder 12+ gold at once in a raid on a Merchant Ship
  • Complete a Mission (wide variety of missions)
  • Find a Rumor to be true (also a wide variety!)
  • Buy a Galleon or Frigate
  • Stash Gold in you Home Port

Captains

Your captain will have a huge influence on how you play the game. Each captain has a nationality, a home port, a special ability, and 4 stats that will be key for accomplishing various tasks during the game.

I believe most of these captains have entirely fictional names, but they make an attempt at keeping them consistent with their nationalities, if not the time period. The art is good, but much of it obviously is based on real people, likely contributors to the game.

Captain stats include:

  • Seamanship
  • Scouting
  • Leadership
  • Influence

The number on the card represents how many d6 you get to roll for tests for that stat. Seamanship is key for initiative in combat and various sailing challenges. Scouting is for finding merchants, NPC’s and other players to initiate combat or raids. Leadership is the number of dice you roll in close combat after boarding or for recruiting new crew members. Influence is your ability to pick up rumors, and accomplish missions that involve working with other people or NPC’s.

Each captain has a special ability as well. Some of these abilities are very specific and not used very often, while others will be very influential on your game play for the entire game.

Movement

The map is divided up into sea regions and port spaces which players can move through. You have to keep on the move every turn and these simple actions keep the gameplay fast.

When you are at sea, you are in danger of being attacked by other players or NPC ships, but you can’t be attacked in ports. Each port has both some special abilities unique to the location, and a nationality. As the game progresses, if you turn to piracy, you won’t have access to ports of nations that you have raided or attacked, so you have to choose your enemies carefully.

Each port has changing “in demand” good that you can deliver for great profit, and an upgrade you can potentially purchase for your ship. You can also pick up rumors, purchase goods, recruit men, repair your ship, and possibly pick up missions at ports across the board.

Each sea zone starts with a “merchant ship” represented by a facedown round token. You can scout for the merchant and then choose to pursue and attempt to plunder it, if you’re willing to start taking bounties and losing access to ports of the nation the merchant represents.

Scouting & Combat

If you are in a sea zone with another player, a merchant ship token, or NPC ship, you can scout for it and attempt to fight or plunder it.

If you succeed in finding that ship, you proceed directly to combat. If it is a merchant ship, there’s a simple process for resolution. You draw goods cards that have combat symbols on them, representing the ship’s attempt to fight back and/or flee. They better you roll on your Seamanship test, the more options you have in combat resolution. If successful you get a number of gold, plus any of the goods from the ship that will fit in your hold.

If you are interacting with a player ship or a larger NPC ship, combat is a little more involved with each captain choosing to Shoot, Board or Flee before each combat round. The ship you’re sailing and your various upgrades, plus your captains all have a huge influence on combat, but the dice will really decide how things resolve. I found myself really loving the combat system for its elegance this last time I played the game with my family. Great stuff!

Ships

There are 5 different ship profiles in the base game including 2 starter ships (Fluyt & Sloop), two bigger ships you can purchase (Frigate & Galleon), and one large ship you can potentially capture from NPC (Man of War). The expansion adds the Brig which is a nice medium weight pirate ship that isn’t as flimsy as the Sloop. Each ship has 5 stats that influence combat the capacity in very important ways.

As you sail around the Caribbean you can pick up various modifications to your ship as well which can shape the direction your captains takes on his way to glory. Extra cannons, more hold capacity, chasers, streamlined hull, or extra crew capacity are all important and the Seas of Glory expansion adds even more, including a secret contraband compartment!

You can also purchase some weapon upgrades that can help you out in your preferred style of combat. There are lots of possible customization, but they aren’t all readily available to everyone as each port contains one ship upgrade that is facedown at the start of the game. Players have to take port actions to see what is there, and then have the choice to purchase and as the game progresses those upgrades will be eaten up by players so they will be harder to grab.

Port Actions

When in port you can do all sorts of fun stuff, but it mostly focuses on selling and buying goods and contraband. Possible actions include:

  • Sell Goods
  • Buy Goods
  • Visit Shipyard
  • Recruit
  • Acquire a Rumor
  • Claim a Mission
  • Stash Gold (home-port only)

The type of goods you can purchase is pretty random, but it represent supply and demand pretty well.

There are always two missions available at ports around the map that have a certain set of requirements to finish them and gain glory. Rumors are similar, but are a little lighter overall and generally less trouble to finish.

Events

Before each round of gameplay, an event is drawn. There is a lot of historical flavor in these events. Many of the event cards are simply NPC ships that will be added to the board (most with historically named captains). A few fun examples of other events include the Port Royal Earthquake, a chance for pardon, a state of war between various nations, a plague, or a nasty storm.

Event cards also help move the NPC ships around the board, which makes things exciting. Let’s talk about those NPC’s real quick.

NPC Ships

Throughout the game up to 6 different NPC ships can be added to the board, and no matter if you’re playing a Merchant or a Marauder, some of those ships will be hunting you! This makes movement interesting on each turn. If you’re a Merchant with no bounties from any nation, the two pirate ships (one large and one small) will hunt for you, and if you’re a pirate of any sort (even if you just start raiding the Spanish), all Naval Ships will hunt you. If a hostile ship activates through an event card, if it’s in the same zone or an adjacent zone, it will Scout for you and attempt to fight you.

These ships are often pretty dangerous and you should respect them! Sometimes it can be smart to just chill in port for a turn, but sometimes you got to trust to Fortune and try to sneak by! You can also potentially capture the mighty Man of War ship if you’re ambituous!

If a new NPC ship is drawn from the event deck, it tells you where to spawn it and it will enter play at the end of the game turn, so you won’t immediately get suprise attacked.

Glory Points

Every time you gain glory, you draw a private Glory Card that might be a trick, ability, or Specialist you can add to your crew.

These can really be game changing and add a lot of fun theme to the game.

Fun Factor

This is a great game full of fun. You have lots of choices all the time! Sometimes conditions can be tough, or you can get cornered by weather or hostile forces, but that’s what piracy is about!

There is no player elimination and if you are killed or captured, you retain all your points, but lose your money and ship and get to start again with a new captain, outfit and clean slate!

There’s a lot going on, but you can focus on a few things and not be overwhelmed by options. That said, you’re prone to the dreaded analysis paralysis, it might get you in this one! At 13 pages of rules, it’s not a huge rulebook, but there’s plenty to digest.

Depending on your play group, it can potentially drag if people take super long on their turns, but that comes with the territory.

Best Audience for Merchants & Marauders

The game is recommended for ages 12+ and that’s a pretty good suggestion in my opinion. My kids have played a lot of games, and at 13, 11, and 10, they were all able to pick it up and enjoy it without any issues. The game is best with 3-4 players. With 2 players there is just less player interaction. We wish it could play up to 5!

Merchants & Marauders Production Value

This is very well produced game. There’s a lot in the box:

  • 26 ships
  • 100 coins (with a historically accurate face!)
  • 254 cards
  • Beautiful board
  • 10 custom dice
  • 4 player boards
  • 4 treasure chests to keep your stashed money secret
  • 29 tracking cubes
  • Tons of other tokens

The ships aren’t 1000% accurate, they are the best board games ships I’ve seen out there.

The gold coins had the same image on each value and on both faces, but at least it was an accurate image of a coin appropriate to the era!

The game board is pretty accurate and a beautiful piece of work.

Replayability

This game is infinitely replayable. being a “sandbox game,” there’s always new things to explore.

Expansion for Merchants & Marauders

There is a Seas of Glory expansion to Merchants and Marauders that contains a host of “modular expansion” to the game.

Modules include:

  • More Missions & Rumors
  • More Special Weapons
  • More Ship Mods
  • NPC Ship Upgrades
  • New Ships
  • Spanish Treasure Galleon
  • Contraband
  • Wind & Weather
  • Location Upgrade Tokens
  • Favors
  • Crew Loyalty

There are also 5 new variant rules that can reshape the game in subtle ways as well, including our favorite that makes turn order random on each game round instead of fixed.

You can find the rulebook to this great expansion here.

The Spanish Treasure Galleon module adds a sturdy but very valuable NPC ship to the board at the beginning of the game and continues to gain value until someone takes it.

I appreciated the use of the correct captain for the treasure fleet!

The Weather & Storm module is another easy bit to add to the game. At the start of each turn, you randomly determine the wind direction and you get a free move in that direction every turn, but move against the prevailing wind will cost you extra actions.

There is also a storm marker that also moves around the board that can damage your ship if you’re caught in the storm.

The Location Token expansion adds fun bonus locations that you can visit in each sea zone that take less time that visiting a full blown port. Each location has fun special rules and pushes the game more into the Sid Meier’s Pirates! territory.

The Seas of Glory is an excellent addition to the game, letting you customize the game, adding a little weight if you need it, or just offering options to adjust parts of the game for your play group. Highly recommended!

There is spinoff game called Merchants & Marauders: Broadsides that is not an expansion and seems to be less highly respected

Final Thoughts on the Merchants & Marauders Board Game

This is a great game! If you like games and pirates, you’ll probably enjoy this game! It’s on the heavier side for a board game, but if you’re already playing Blood & Plunder, you’re sure to enjoy this (hard to find) gem.

Which pirate board game would you like reviewed next? We got a pile to review! Pirates Cove, GMT’s Blackbeard, Forbotton Waters, Captain Flip, Libertalia, Jamaica, Black Fleet, Ahoy, Tiny Epic Pirates, Loot, Rum & Bones, or Francis Drake, Maracaibo or even Friday?

Article by Joseph Forster

One thought on “Merchants & Marauders – Pirate Board Game Review”

  1. M&M was one of my first board games! It’s an amazing art and idea, few negatives tho:
    — lots of downtime during port actions
    — especially without optional Galleon nerf (and still with it) the merchant route is much easier than the pirate one

    Otherwise it’s an exceedingly fun game!

    Reply

Leave a Reply