The Battle of Your Life

Seventeenth Century, Caribbean Sea. At the helm of your mighty vessel, you scour the horizon with your spyglass. Profitable sea lanes are waiting to be claimed… But a rival ship is fast approaching your prize! Can you sink them before they send you swimming?

Merchants & Marauders: Broadsides returns you to the golden age of piracy with this 2-player competitive game where you engage with your opponent in a deadly battle hoping to sink each other’s ship. Load your cannons, aim, and unload everything you’ve got at the enemy!

Mechanisms

Set in the Merchants & Marauders universe, this new entry is far from the pick-up and deliver adventure that was its predecessor. Instead, Broadsides is a hand management, worker placement, combat game. Among other actions in a given phase, each player uses a hand of cards to load canons or aim them at an opponent's rigging, hull, or deck.

Other actions include reloading canons, engaging a broadside, and even forcing your opponent to discard some of their cards with a Sheer Off action. Players perform each action by discarding card combinations such as a pair, a straight, or a flush.

You can only pick two actions per turn, though—and there's no guarantee that the cards you need to aim properly will come back any time soon! What action you choose and when you choose it could make—or break—your strategy at any turn.

Fire in the Hole!

Let's face it: Broadsides is about combat, and what brought you here is your ship's arsenal and what damage you can deal with it. So, let's take a look at the canons.

Each player has three different canons at their disposal: The 18-Pounder, the Long Nine, and the Carronade.

The 18-Pounder is the “standard” cannon found on fighting ships of this size. It loads two shot discs and has a balanced spread of Perfect, Good, and Poor results. It’s the most basic of the weapons. We suggest playing with at least one of these for your first game.

The Long Nine loads only a single shot disc. It cannot achieve Good shots; hits are either Perfect or Poor. That said, with its wider range of Perfect shots, you’ll achieve perfection with it more often than with any other weapon. It’s harder to hit with and requires more frequent reloading, but when it hits, it’s usually deadly.

The Carronade loads two shot discs. It has a wide range of Good results (and a little strip of Poor), but cannot score a Perfect result. It’s easy to hit with, but you can’t line it up for flawless attacks. Fortunately, the Carronade has one unique ability that can overcome this problem: the Double Shot.

Before you fire any of these babies, you must load them with the best shots! You can equip three unique shots to any canon, depending on the draw and what strategy you chose.

	Solid Shot is best for hitting planks.
	Chain Shot should be saved for crushing sails.
	Canister Shot is the crewmen’s worst enemy.

That's just a taste of the high seas combat you’ll enjoy with Merchants & Marauders: Broadsides, available at your local retailer now!