This is intented to be a fairly comprehensive article on what has changed between the 1992 Avalon Hill edition of Blackbeard, and the new edition just released by GMT Games. I hope it's useful to somebody, and please post any additions or errors.
Game Box
The AH edition came in the standard "bookcase" box. The new GMT comes in a very sturdy box, common to many of the recent GMT releases.
Game Boards
The AH edition contained two mounted game boards - one containing the Atlantic/Carribean, and a smaller Gold Coast/Indian Ocean board tha butted against it. The GMT edition is very similar in size and content to the AH edition, in a one piece fold out card stock board.
The GMT board is much more attractive, with nice shades of sepia brown used to give a period effect. There are no hexes, rather movement is handled from area to area and port to port.
The AH boards aren't ugly, and have a more tradition "land green, sea blue" look. Of course, the AH version has a hex grid superimposed on it to regulate movement, and distinguishes between Ocean and Coastal waters. The AH edition also contains a lot of the charts and tables required printed on the land areas of the board, as well as 36 shipping lane spaces where the merchants appeared and disappeared from. The very first AH editions also had no dotted lines to separate the Carribean from the North Atlantic, and the shipping lanes didn't have the handy numbers printed around the hex.
Pirates
The pirates are mostly the same between the editions, with a couple of differences. Mission and Portugues from the AH edition are gone, with Bellamy and Hornigold coming in. Peter "Errol" Blood from the solitaire game in the AH edition is gone.
The pirate ratings have been altered - Ability, Leadership, Cruelty, Duel and Cunning are still there. Endurance from the AH edition have been replaced by Initiative. I haven't done a comparison of the actual ratings, but noticed that Cruelty seems to have been inverted in the GMT version (more later).
Counters
The GMT counters are lovely - colourful and well presented, although we found they did get a little lost on the board - just trying to find and count those merchants every turn got a bit old. The AH counters, while a lot more bland, certainly stand out better on the gameboard.
Cards
The GMT cards are very nice - sturdy and colourful, with the information clearly presented. The AH cards certainly look a bit dated now. Of course, the main card decks do vastly different things in terms of game play now.
The AH edition card deck basically ran the game. You flip a card and resolve it - it would either indicate a pirate to take "turn", or some other game function - event, new merchants, warships, etc. When a merchant was taken, more cards were flipped to resolve hostages, booty, home ports and the like. The cards did everything, and once mastered the game flowed very quickly. Of course, players never knew when they were going to get their next turn.
The GMT cards are now dealt out to players, and game play takes a more ordered fashion. Players now play in turn order, and play one or more cards as events, and possibly an actions. There are "play immediately" cards fed into the GMT deck to give a hint of older game events (storms, governers, etc).
Pirate Movement
Moving a pirate in the AH edition was a matter of rolling a die and adding the ships current speed to it. That was the number of hexes you could move, with a +1 for anchoring in a port. It is essential to keep your ship's speed up just so you can motor over the map. Upgrading to brigantines and 3 Masters had to be carefully weighed against the loss of ship speed.
The GMT edition doesn't use speed for moving pirates (unless it drops to zero), and movement is simply port to sea, sea to sea, etc. Clean and quick.
Pirate Ships
Both editions still give players the option of starting with a Sloop or Schooner. The AH edition had specific ship cards for each type of ship, while the GMT edition has generic ship cards and you position the markers accordingly.
Schooners and Sloops have changed a bit - sloops are now faster than schooners in the GMT edition, and schooners now have three holds (up from two). Pirates can upgrade to brigantines (four holds), but three masted square riggers are now off limits. No more sailing on New York or Bath in your 3 master with Roberts and Information... sigh.
The speed rating of pirate ships seems to have lessened in the new edition. The AH edition it was a modifier to your movement die roll, as well as evasion rolls when being intercepted by KC's and warships. Also, it meant a bit of downtime to get your speed repaired, as you had to Careen, repair and relaunch to get up and running. In the GMT edition, speed damage still effects certain mechanics, but it's now much easier to repair in port.
Merchants
In the GMT edition, merchants now appear at ports. The port D66 identifier now doubles as the old AH shipping lane. There is also a more-or-less fixed number of merchants on the map all the time, they don't come and go at the whim of the AH card deck any more.
Pirates now take merchants in a two "action" process - first they must find the merchant (D6 + Ability >= 7), and we found that very easy to pass. Once found, a subsequent action has to be take to loot it, which felt very similar to the AH edition. Interestingly, taking a Merchant does NOT inherit an attack history against that nation, so you can theoretically just stroll into the port and sell the booty of the merchant you just took. I'm not sure if I have that exactly right, so take it with a grain of salt.
Taking merchants in the AH edition was a bit more convoluted. D12 less than Speed + Ability + Combat - Merchant Value. This could be very tough, especially with a pirate of average ability, or a damaged ship, or a strong merchant. Additionally, if you rolled 1 or 2 over the magic number, the merchant would deal 1 or 2 combat damage to your ship!
Upgrading Ships
In the AH edition you could only upgrade a ship if you rolled doubles when attempting to take a merchant. In the GMT edition it's now always an option, if you want to spend the action doing it. As mentioned, you can't upgrade to 3 Masters in the GMT edition.
Hostages
In the GMT edition, you always get a hostage. In the AH edition, you had to draw a card to get a hostage number, add an ocean modifier, ship size, and try to get a total of 10 or more. Taking a hostage in the AH edition was quite rare, and seeded based on what area of the world you were sailing in.
Torturing is quite odd in the GMT edition - the more cruel your pirate, the less likely you are to get information, and the GMT hostages always die. This seems to be a 180 degree turnaround from the AH edition. Hostages seemed to have a better chance of surviving in the AH edition, amd if you rolled your cruelty rating, you'd get the information and still get to ransom the blighter!
Hostages in the GMT edition now have nice, thematic titles, two ratings - Value (for ransom in port) and information (a die roll modifier when attacking a port). In the AH edition they were generic, and simply added D6 x 100 doubloons or D6 information.
Doing Stuff In Ports
The basics haven't really changed between editions - you still sell booty, ransom hostages, get drunk, refit your ship, etc. There is some subtle stuff though - you automatically get tossed some citrus fruit entering port and can remove any scurvy in the GMT edition (it required a Recover turn in the AH edition). Also, business practices have improved in 16 years between editions - the GMT edition takes care of all in port stuff in one handy action. The AH edition required separate turns to refit, recover, sell booty, ransom, etc. Safe Havens can still be purchased, and strangely you don't lose them if you turn against that nation in the GMT edition (I think... not sure about that).
Attacking Ports
In the AH edition, attacking ports was a high risk, potentially lucrative, proposition. You'd enter the port and add your Ability and Combat rating to a D6. If you had information, you got another D6. The port would add D12 to their defence rating.
In the GMT edition, ports become much softer - they only add D6 to their defence rating (they add D12 if they've been previously attacked, but they tend to get sacked before this happens).
So, in the GMT edition, ports fall much easier. Also, the pirate only takes one point of damage for successfully attacking a port in the GMT edition. In the AH edition they took a number of points of damage based on the port defence die roll (lowest die - 1). So you could successfully attack a port in the AH edition, and be sailing out on a severely damaged ship.
Sacking Ports
To sack a port in the GMT edition, you roll D6 + Cruelty > Port Defence - this automatically puts a lot of ports out of the picture for sacking. The AH edition procedure for sacking a port was exactly like attacking a port, but the port defence was now halved, and it could still smash your ship to bits with a good roll.
Cunning
Cunning is back in the GMT version and still allows a re-roll (also it is required for the play of the Skull & Crossbones card). However, there is no "Cunning Last Use" mechanic from the AH edition, where if you spent a cunning you had to take this marker, and were unable to spend another cunning until someone else had spent one. Not sure why this was dropped - it was a great rule.
KC's and Warships
In the AH edition, King's Commissioners were activated by rolling D66 under a target pirate's notoriety. In the GMT edition, activating a KC is now an Anti Pirate action and you need to roll 3D6 under the target's notoriety. Players can no only own one KC in the GMT edition, against two in the AH edition.
Players had to use one of their precious turns to move a KC in the AH edition. In the GMT edition, they are now played out of turn as free "anti pirate actions", which makes them more dangerous (if players use them).
In the AH edition, warships appeared and moved at the whim of the event deck, and cleverly dogged the leading player. Warships could never be harmed in the AH edition, and were actively avoided. The GMT edition brings warships into play as anti pirate action card play, and they can now be sunk and used to gain notoriety.
Pirate Injuries
These rules do not appear in the GMT edition. In the AH edition, whenever your ship took damage, you'd have to roll one die per point of damage taken. Any '1' result was a potential injury to your pirate, requiring a card flip to consult the injury line. Results ranged from superficial to loss of an eye, leg or arm, to death. This had a huge impact on game play, as any damage could potentially kill your pirate. This is not present in the GMT edition, permitting your pirates to play fast and loose.
Duels
In the AH edition, different pirates could duel under limited circumstances, and gain or lose notoriety. I only ever saw one or two duels - they were rare. Duels can occur in the GMT edition due to the play of an anti pirate card, or over Booty Grab.
Booty Grab
A new addition to the GMT edition, where one player can attempt to steal part of the booty of another pirate under D&R. Haven't tried that yet, but I guess it's an interesting option to encourage interaction!
Random Events
The card deck in the AH edition would flip up different random events, which could have a huge impact on the health of your pirate. If this occured and you had Scurvy, it got worse. The crew in a blockaded port would get angrier, KC's and Warships could cross the transit boxes, and the big one - KC's and Warships stacked with a pirate would automatically intercept and start fighting. This created tremendous tension as a pirate with scurvy or stacked with a KC (or both!) would be aching for a turn to get away before the next random event.
The GMT edition replaces a lot of this with the "anti pirate action" mechanic - it's now up to the other players to deal out the pain, rather than the game system.
Victory
In the GMT edition, the game ends more or less once through the card deck, and players total up their victory points to get a winner. Victory points are based on notoriety and (retired) net worth.
In the AH edition there was an automatic win if a player amassed 100 notoriety (very difficult), or having the richest retired pirate when a certain number of pirates had left the game.
Posted Wed May 14,2008 05:34 am
