Black Fleet

Command a small fleet of merchant, pirate, and navy ships in a card-driven tactical game set in the Caribbean. Move merchant ships to deliver goods for doubloons, send pirate ships to raid merchants and bury treasure on islands, and use navy ships to attack opponents’ pirates. Players spend earnings to buy advancement cards that upgrade abilities and play fortune cards to create combos and disrupt rivals. The game rewards efficient income generation and tactical timing; the first player to amass enough wealth to pay the governor’s ransom wins.

Players: 3–4 best 4
Playing time: 60 min
Age: 14+
Complexity: 1.9 / 5

5.7 on LudoyaMiniaturesNauticalHand ManagementPick-up and DeliverGrid Movement

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About the game

Design: Sebastian Bleasdale
Art: Denis Zilber
Publisher: Space Cowboys

On Ludoya's tables

Full stats in Ludoya

34
Plays logged: 52
Players: 1h 12m
Average play: 17
In collections: 4
On wishlists

5.7/10

from 16 Ludoya reviews

Tomol7.5
Marvellous components for a nice light euro
Garfield8.0
#3
Evan2.5
Let me lead with the statement that I do think this guy has some problems. First, the game needs EXACTLY 4 players. Any less and it's basically unplayable. Secondly, each player gets some randomized player power cards they unlock over the course of the game, and these cards are really not well balanced with each other. The thing is, the experience of this game sticks in my mind, and I love the ~feel~ of playing it. I love how quickly your sunk ships respawn at the entrances. I love the movement cards system where you both get to advance your own guys and control the NPC navy ships. I love the tension of trying to get your boatload of goods to slip through the cracks. In general, I try to not list games here, or even keep games that require some sort of house rule to make work, but if there's any game that's worth house ruling, it's this one. It gets oh so much right, and just falls flat on the special power cards. I don't have the perfect answer as to how to deal with them. :star: Art, Iconography and components functional :nostar: Clever or interesting mechanisms :star: Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players :star: Multiple plays stay interesting :star: Low or mitigatable luck elements :nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar::nostar: Raw enjoyment