Blackbeard's Lost Fleet Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• Game Setup
• Player Setup
• Outline of the Rules of the Game
  • Goal of the Game
  • Captains
  • Sloops and Jolly Boats
  • Petty Officers
  • Pirates
  • Player's Hand, Deck and Discard Pile
    • Player's Deck
  • Golden Rule
• Round and Player Turns
  • 1. Start of the Round
  • 2. Player Turns
    • Anatomy of a Fellow Card
• Sailing (Sending a Fellow to an Action Field)
  • Sailing Rules
• Ship Boards and Nassau Actions
  • Anatomy of a Ship Board
  • Ship Actions
  • Nassau Actions
  • Adding and Moving Pirates
• Fellow's Mission
  • Bonus of a Card that Conforms to the Captain Board
• Folding and Purchasing Cards
  • 1. Transferring the First Player Marker
  • 2. Taking Advantage of Free Actions
  • 3. Purchasing Cards
  • Example of Purchasing Cards
  • 4. Refreshing Your Hand
• Mutiny on the Ship
  • Winning the Mutiny
  • Tie
  • One Mutiny per Ship
  • Control Field
  • Clean-up after the Mutiny
  • Example of the Ship Mutiny on St. Kitts Smuggler
• Game End and Victory
  • End of the Game
  • Scoring
  • EPIC GAME END
• Icons Used in the Game

Contents

• Nassau Game Board
• 9 Blackbeard's Fleet Ship boards
• Mutiny Marker
• 58 Fellow cards
• 4 Pirate Treasure Chests
• 30 Rum and Gold tokens
• 14 Captain boards
• 4 sets of Player pieces (4 colours), each containing:
  • 14 Fellow starter Cards (background in the player's colour)
  • First Player Marker
  • 2 Sloops
  • 1 Jolly Boat
  • 7 Petty Officers
  • 15 Pirates

Fellow Cards are later called simply Cards.

Game Setup

1. Place the Nassau board in the centre of the table.
2. Place the 9 Ship boards around the Nassau board.
3. Place the Resource Bank (Rum, Gold) in an area accessible to all players.
4. At the bottom of the Nassau board, create the Card Shop by shuffling its deck and revealing the first 5 Cards into the appropriate spaces on the board. The last field of the Card Shop is the space for discarded Cards.
5. Choose your colour and collect starter sets in your colour (14 Fellow starter Cards, 15 Pirate markers, 7 Petty Officers markers, 2 Sloops and 1 Jolly Boat).
6. Each Player places a Sloop cone on the 5th field of the Treasure Map Track on Nassau (telescope). Place the Players' Petty Officers markers on the starting fields:
   • 3 Victory Tracks: Controlled Fleet Track (A), Treasure Map Track (B), Flying Gang Support Track (C).
   • 4 Venues Tracks: Marketplace, Merchant, Friends and Tavern (D).
7. The first player is the one who was the last to sail the ship or you choose at random. This player receives a First Player Marker and a Mutiny Marker.
8. Starting with the First Player, place two Pirate Pawns from your resources on any Ship Mutiny fields (you may place both Pirates on one Ship or different Ships). The last Player places an additional third Pirate Pawn.

Player Setup

1. In reverse order (starting from the last Player to the first), each Player chooses a Captain board (A).
2. The remaining Players discard the starting Card with that name from the game. Only the Player who has chosen a given Captain's board has a Card with his name in his deck.
3. Each Player secretly removes any of their Starter Cards so that they start the game with 10 Starter Cards. In a 4-player game, each Player removes an additional 1 card, in a 3-player game - 2 cards, in a 2-player game - 3 cards.
4. Each Player takes starting resources into their private resources (B):
   • 1st Player - 1 Rum, 1 Gold
   • 2nd Player - 2 Gold
   • 3rd Player (in a 3+ Player game) - 1 Rum, 2 Gold
   • 4th Player (in a game for 4 Players) - 1 Rum, 2 Gold
5. Players store their Gold in their Pirate Treasure Chests (C) in such a way that the amount of Gold they have is hidden from other Players.
6. Each Player shuffles their deck of Cards (D) and places it to the left of their Captain board and then draws 5 cards from it (E). These 5 cards will be available for play during the first Round.
7. Leave a space for your discard pile (F) on the right side of the Captain board.

NOTE: For the first game, we recommend that you use a set of Captain boards according to the letter in the bottle.

Outline of the Rules of the Game

Goal of the Game

You are a captain who, with the help of your fellows, wants to take over the power among the pirates after the disappearance of Blackbeard. You will conspire against other captains, search for legendary treasure, instigate mutinies and ship takeovers, and in your quieter moments, seek the support of your pirate brethren.

Your successes will be reflected by the position of your Petty Officers on the 3 Victory Tracks:

• Treasure Map Track (treasure hunt progress)
• Controlled Fleet Track (number of ships you have captured)
• Flying Gang Track (support of your pirate brethren)

Captains

The board of the Captain you have chosen shows which unique skills you possess. Each Captain is different and has their ways to win. Details of each Captain are described in the Pirate Almanac.

Sloops and Jolly Boats

Sloops and Jolly Boats are pawns that Players send to fields of Nassau or Ships to gain resources or perform Actions from the target field. At the start of the game, each Player has in their resources available 1 Sloop and 1 Jolly Boat. When a Player's Petty Officer reaches the 5th field of the Treasure Map Track, the Player gets an additional Sloop located there, which they will be able to use from that point until the end of the game.

Petty Officers

Petty Officers are a Player's markers that indicate how strong a Player's position is on each of the Nassau Tracks.

Pirates

Pirates are Player's pawns that represent members of the crew. They can be used to resolve Mutinies and search for Treasure, among other things.

An Officer is a Player's Pirate who, as a result of a successful Mutiny, has taken control of one of the Ships of Blackbeard's Fleet.

Player's Hand, Deck and Discard Pile

Player's Deck

As the game progresses the Players have the opportunity to acquire new Cards which they will use in the game. Cards have different actions and abilities, so as the game progresses, each Player's deck will become increasingly different.

During the game, Players may also have the option to remove Cards from their deck to get rid of cards that are not very strong and, as the game progresses, increase their chances of picking up the stronger Cards acquired.

Each time you should, but cannot, draw a Card (and only then) because you have run out of the deck, shuffle your Discard Pile to create a new deck and continue drawing Cards from there.

Each time you acquire a new Card for your deck, place it in your Discard Pile.

Golden Rule

If the content of the Captain's board, or a game card, conflicts with the rules in the Manual, the importance of the content is as follows:

1. the content of the Captain board,
2. then the content of the Card,
3. and only then the general rules of the game.

(Illustration caption: "Niels reminds us of the Golden Rule".)

Round and Player Turns

The game lasts for a maximum of 9 Rounds. Each Round consists of the following phases:

1. Start of the Round
2. Player Turns
3. Ship Mutiny

1. Start of the Round

The Player holding the First Player Marker selects a Ship by placing the Mutiny Marker. He may only select a Ship on which there is not yet an Officer of either Player.

In this Round, a Mutiny will break out on that Ship.

2. Player Turns

The Action Fields are located on the Ships and Nassau.

Starting with the Player holding the First Player Marker, Players take their Turns in a clockwise direction.

In their Turn, a Player must choose one of three Options:

• Sailing (Sending a Fellow to the Action Field)
• Fellow's Mission (Performing the Mission from the Fellow Card)
• Fold and Purchase Cards

The Player may also perform any number of Free Actions.

A Free Action consists of discarding a Card in exchange for the resources shown on the field with the red lightning bolt (see Fellow Card Anatomy, item 2).

Anatomy of a Fellow Card

1. Required number of Favours to purchase this card
2. Free Action Bonus
3. Sailing Icons
4. Favours provided by this card
5. Bonus or available Mission of the card

A. Card name B. Card number

Sailing (Sending a Fellow to an Action Field)

To Sail:

1. Select a location to which you want to Sail.
2. Play a Card from your hand with a Sailing icon that matches the icon of the place you are Sailing to.
3. Place your Jolly Boat or Sloop pawn on an available Action Field.
4. Perform the Action of the field on which you have placed the Jolly Boat or Sloop.
5. Move the played Card to YOUR discard pile.

Sailing to Nassau: no Sailing icon on the Card is needed to place a Sloop on the Nassau Action field (every pirate knows how to get to Nassau).

For a Ship, the Sailing icon on the played Card must be the SAME as the Required Sailing icon on the Ship board.

Sailing Rules

• Jolly Boats and Sloops have their specific places on each Action field (in Nassau and on each Ship, a pawn outline).
• Each of these spaces can hold only ONE pawn.
• If the Ship Action field is empty, you can place both a Jolly Boat and a Sloop on it (only on a space corresponding to the shape of the pawn).
• If the Ship Action field is occupied by any Player's Jolly Boat (even yours), you may only place a Sloop on it.
• You can only place a Sloop on the Nassau Action field.
• If the Action field (Ship and Nassau) is occupied by any Player's Sloop, you cannot place any pawn there this Round.
• You cannot place a Jolly Boat or Sloop on the Action field and not perform that Action.

Some Cards provide a Sailing Bonus. You consider the bonus after you have performed the entire Ship Field Action. On the Cards, the Sailing Bonus is indicated by an icon of an exclamation mark on a blue background.

Ship Boards and Nassau Actions

Anatomy of a Ship Board

1. Name of the Ship
2. Required Sailing icon
3. Mutiny Field
4. Ship Action Field
5. Space for a Jolly Boat
6. Space for a Sloop
7. Officer's Field
8. Flying Gang Track Award
9. Control Field

Ship Actions

The Ship Action field may contain several options separated by a diagonal line. You can only perform one of them!

Control Field benefit: If the Ship on which you place a Jolly Boat or Sloop already has an Officer, the Player who owns that Officer's pawn may use that Ship's Control Field benefit.

Nassau Actions

There are 4 Action Fields on the Nassau. Each of them is located at one of the 4 Venue Tracks (Marketplace, Merchant, Friends, Tavern).

1. Place your Sloop pawn on one of the free fields of the Venue Tracks.
2. Move your Petty Officer standing on that Venue Track one field to the right.
3. Collect everything from the Field to which you moved your Petty Officer.

Adding and Moving Pirates

• Adding Pirates: If an Action allows you to add a Pirate, you place your Pirate pawn to the Mutiny Field of any Ship.
• Moving Pirates: If an Action allows you to move a Pirate, you may move the Pirate of any Player between any Ship Mutiny fields.

Fellow's Mission

Some Cards have a field allowing them to perform a Mission. Missions are performed without using Jolly Boats or Sloop pawns.

To perform a Fellow's Mission:

• Play a Fellow Card that has a Mission field (the white background of the bottom part of the Card),
• Consider the effect of the Mission in its entirety,
• Discard the Card to your Discard Pile.

Bonus of a Card that Conforms to the Captain Board

A Card conforming to the board of the Captain you have chosen gains special abilities. You can play this Card in one of two ways:

1. As a regular Card.
2. Using a special ability from the Captain board.

Each Captain provides unique abilities. A detailed description of each Captain board can be found in the Pirate Almanac.

NOTE: Some Captain boards change the basic rules of the game.

Folding and Purchasing Cards

When you can't or don't want to perform the Sailing option anymore, or the Companion Mission, you must Fold.

You still receive Benefits from the Ship Control Fields.

When you fold, perform the following steps:

1. Transfer the First Player Marker.
2. Take advantage of Free Actions.
3. Buy new Cards.
4. Refresh your Hand.

1. Transferring the First Player Marker

A. If you Folded, take the First Player Marker. It will stay with you until the end of the next Round.

B. If you Folded and have the First Player Marker, put it in the centre of the table.

C. If the First Player Marker has changed hands, the other Players skip the First Player Marker Transfer.

No Player may ever own the First Player Marker for two Rounds in a row.

2. Taking Advantage of Free Actions

When you Fold, you can also perform Free Actions by discarding any number of Cards to acquire the resources they provide (boxes with red lightning).

Before purchasing Cards, you can perform the below ONCE:

• discard X Rum to discard X Cards from the Card Shop, or
• discard 1 Gold to discard any number of Cards from the Card Shop.

Cards discarded in this way go to the Card Shop Discard Pile. If you have done so, fill the empty spaces in the Shop with new Cards.

3. Purchasing Cards

Uncover all the Cards remaining in your hand and add up the number of Favours they provide (green values on the bells).

The cost of purchasing a Card is located in the upper right corner (red number on the bell).

You can buy as many Cards as you like, provided you have enough Favours. You can divide the Favours among several Cards you buy. Unused Favours are forfeited.

Purchased Cards go to your Discard Pile.

If the Card Shop Deck has run out, shuffle the Card Shop Discard Pile to create a new Card Shop Deck.

If a Card is taken from the Shop, immediately refill the Card Shop by adding a new Card to the empty field. At all times during the game, 5 cards should be visible face up in the Card Shop.

Some Cards provide a Purchase Bonus, which adds additional Favours when you purchase Cards (green background at the bottom of the Card). If you want to use it, declare it before purchasing Cards, saying what your final amount of Favours is.

Example of Purchasing Cards

A player proceeds to Purchase Cards. They do not want to spend Rum/Gold to refresh the Card Shop. The player has 4 Favours (2 on the Jens card and 2 on the Nameless Peter card). He can get additional Favours by using the Nan "Eye" Fortelle card ability, which will provide the number of favours equal to the number of discarded Gold.

A player wants to buy a Blackbeard card with a cost of 7 Favours. To do so, they declare to discard 3 Gold to buy the 3 Favours they are missing with the help of the Nan "Eye" Fortelle card.

Immediately after the purchase of the Blackbeard card, another card from the Shop Card pile is added to the emptied space. This is the Woman with the Letter card with a cost of 5 Favours. The Player has no more Favours, and there is no Card with a cost of "0" in the Card Shop, so the Player finishes buying cards.

4. Refreshing Your Hand

1. Discard all your unused Cards to your Discard Pile.
2. Draw 5 Cards from your Deck. If your Drawing Pile is empty, shuffle your Discard Pile to create a new one and draw until you have 5 Cards in your hand.

Mutiny on the Ship

3. Mutiny on the Ship: when all Players have folded in this Round, a Mutiny breaks out on the Ship.

4. A Mutiny breaks out on the Ship with the Mutiny Marker.

5. ONLY Players who have Pirates on this Ship take part in the Mutiny.

6. Each player taking part in the Mutiny secretly decides how much Gold they want to spend on bribing the crew of this Ship, hiding it in their hand.

7. Players simultaneously reveal the Gold hidden in their hands.

8. The Mutiny is won by the player who has the most Pirates and Gold combined.

9. All Players discard the Gold used in this Mutiny.

10. Players who lost the Mutiny remove half of the Pirates (rounding up) from that Ship (Pirates return to the Player pool).

Winning the Mutiny

The Player who won the Mutiny:

• Places one of their Pirates participating in the Mutiny in the Officer's field on this Ship. This Pirate pawn will remain in the Ship's Officer Field until the end of the game, permanently reducing the pool of available Pirates for this Player.
• Moves their Petty Officer one field forward on the Controlled Fleet Track.
• Advances their Petty Officer on the Flying Gang Track by 1 or 2 fields, depending on the reward on the Ship.
• All remaining Pirates of the Player who won the Mutiny are returned to their pool.

Tie

If several Players are tied for having the same highest Pirates and Gold total, the Player who has more Pirates on that Ship wins.

If there is still a tie, the Player with the First Player Marker wins.

If the First Player did not participate in this Mutiny, the tied Player closest to them on the left wins.

Exception - Mutiny without Pirates: If there are no Pirates on the Ship during a Mutiny, the Player with the First Player Marker wins the Mutiny. He places a Pirate from his Pool on the Officer's field.

One Mutiny per Ship

A Ship on which a Mutiny has been performed will never undergo another Mutiny during that game.

Control Field

A Player who has their Officer on the Ship can use the benefit of this Ship's Control Field. They can collect this Benefit whenever any Player (even them) uses this Ship's Action.

Clean-up after the Mutiny

All unlocked Sloops and Jolly Boats are returned to their availability pool.

Example of the Ship Mutiny on St. Kitts Smuggler

The Green Player has 4 Pirates, the Orange Player has 3 Pirates. Both Players secretly bid using their Gold. The Green Player bids 0 Gold, and the Orange Player bids 3 Gold. The power comparison is as follows: Green Player 4, and Orange Player 6.

The Mutiny on this Ship was won by the Orange Player.

Winner (Orange Player):

1. Advances their Petty Officer 1 field on the Controlled Fleet Track.
2. Advances their Petty Officer by 2 fields on the Flying Gang Track.
3. Promotes one of the Pirates who participated in this Mutiny to Officer and places him in the Officer Field of this Ship.
4. The winner is entitled to benefit from this Ship's Control Field (every time anyone uses this Ship's Action, they will receive 1 Rum).
5. They move the remaining 2 Pirates to their pool.

Loser (Green Player):

6. They move 2 Pirates to their pool (half of 4, rounded up).

Game End and Victory

End of the Game

A game of Blackbeard's Lost Fleet lasts 9 full Rounds (9 Mutinies) unless one of the Accelerated Game End conditions is met or an EPIC GAME END occurs.

Accelerated Game End - Finding Blackbeard's Treasure: If any Player's Petty Officer reaches the 15th field on the Treasure Map Track (16th for 3 Players or 17th for 2 Players), this is the last Round of the game. The Player's Petty Officer always stops on the field that triggered the end of the game. The game Round is then played until the end, including the Ship Mutiny.

Accelerated Game End - Proclaiming Pirate King: If any Player's Petty Officer reaches the 12th field on the Flying Gang Track, this is the last Round of the game. The game Round is then played until the end, including the Ship Mutiny.

Even if a Player received more Flying Gang Points or Map Track Points as a result of an action, their Petty Officer stops at the last field (depending on the number of Players) and the additional points are lost.

Scoring

Summarize all your values indicated by the position of your Petty Officers on:

• Controlled Fleet Track
• Treasure Map Track
• Flying Gang Track

Add the remaining resources (Rum and Gold) to your score at a 3-for-1 ratio, rounding down (each full 3 resources gives 1 additional point, fractional values are not added).

The Player who scored the highest sum of points wins.

In case of a tie, the Player with the higher value on the Controlled Fleet Track wins. If there is still a tie, Players share the winnings.

Scoring example: Treasure Map Track 11 Points, Controlled Fleet Track 4 Points, Flying Gang Track 10 Points, remaining resources 2 Points. TOTAL: 4+11+10+2 = 27 Points.

EPIC GAME END

The Player who, after the end of the Ship Mutiny, has gained control of 5 Ships (6 Ships in a game of 3 Players or 7 Ships in a game of 2 Players), immediately EPICALLY wins the game. The game ends. No points are then added up. There is only one winner. There are no second or subsequent places.

So say we all...

Icons Used in the Game

• Resources: Rum and Gold
• Ships: Jolly Boat and Sloop
• Summon
• Place a Pirate to any Mutiny field
• Move any Player's Pirate to any Mutiny field
• Perform after Sailing
• Choice EITHER/OR
• Replace
• Amount of Favours when purchasing Cards
• Immediately obtain any one Card from the Card Shop without paying its cost
• Any Player
• Draw a card from your deck
• Discard pile
• Discard a Card
• Draw a Card from your discard pile
• Remove a Card from your hand or discard pile from the game
• Remove THIS Card from the game
• Discard the crossed out X times
• Doesn't work on Nassau
• Score 1 point on the Treasure Map Track
• Score 1 point on the Flying Gang Track