Jon Wooden
United Kingdom
Isleworth
Middlesex
-
Date: 20th October, 2010
Venue: The Londn Apprentice pub, Isleworth
John, Daniel and Keith had apparently played this in the dim and distant past, but a rules recap was useful for all the players. Jon especially emphasised that any merchant ships left in your hand at the game end were worth minus points.
The deck of cards used in this game comprises merchant ships (worth points if you can capture them), pirate ships of variable powers (used to capture the merchant ships), pirate captains (used to bolster a pirate ship’s attack) and one admiral (used to protect your own merchant ship). On their turn, players can either draw a card or play one but not both. Once a merchant ship has been laid down, players can use their pirate ships to try to capture it. If a player’s turn comes around and he has the highest value of pirates on a particular merchant ship then he wins it.
Maynard did well to get several merchant ships in front of him at one time, and managed to sneak a couple of them into his scoring pile without anyone having attacked them.
After laying down his pirate captain  , Jon picked up the valuable ‘8’ ship, to get his ‘loot’ off to a good start. Daniel was certainly putting his pirates about a bit, whilst Gareth seemed intent on picking up as many cards as possible.
The deck was getting close to running out, so Jon reminded everyone that merchant ships in hand at the end of the game were worth minus points. There were nods of assent all round. 
The deck duly ran out, and it was now down to whoever laid their last card to end the game. Daniel had ket his hand quite lean, and so it was not long before he slapped down his final pirate and ended the game.
Scores were totalled and Gareth laid out his hand cards to reveal at least 5 merchant ships.
“You know that they’re worth minus points don’t you?” chuckled Keith.
“No-one mentioned that rule!” protested Gareth.
“Errr…..we did actually..........twice……” 
Jon 14; Maynard 13; John 5; Daniel 2; Keith 1; Gareth -8
------------------------------------
To read more reports from the IBG'ers, check out our blog - http://isleworthboardgamers.blogspot.com/
-
|
|
