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“I Sold My Soul For Some Pieces O’ Eight”
A Review of the Unique Treasures Available in Pirates
Part 1 of 3
By
Cap’n William ‘WildWill’ Noetling

Ahh, unique treasures, the bane of many a sailor’s existence. Some are fantastically playable, others are fantastically broken. For the next few days I’ll take a look at all the unique treasures available thus far, and tell you which ones you should play and which ones you should get rid of!

Unique treasures are tricky to play, and can backfire on you if you either a) forget which island you placed them on, or b) your opponent gets them first! I’ll list the treasure’s ability, my comments, and the price you should pay for these bad boys on the open market!

TREASURES OF THE SPANISH MAIN (6 RARE, 1 LE)
 

Card #	Name	Effect	Commentary	Hi $	Lo $
T-001	Shipping Charts	Once per turn, this ship may look at one face-down cargo on any ship.	There’s a trend in treasures of the Spanish Main, they duplicate crew/ship abilities for no cost. (Remember Unique Treasure take up no cargo spaces). I’m not real big on treasures that duplicate crew powers.	4	1
T-002	Marksman's Map	Once per turn, this ship may look at one face-down cargo on any island.	ANOTHER treasure that duplicates a crew ability. See above.	3	1
T-003	Forged Papers	This ship gains the Explorer special ability.	While there isn’t anything intrinsically wrong with this treasure, it’s just not that playable. Since explorers only cost 1 point anyway, wasting a treasure spot on this one just doesn’t make a lot of sense.	4	1
T-004	Homemade Flag	All cannon ranges are reduced to S, when attacking this ship.	Another treasure that duplicates a crew ability. Again, if you have the crew that does the same thing as this treasure, wasting a treasure token isn’t very wise. On the other hand, if you don’t, this treasure can be really useful for your gunboat.	3	1
T-005	Rum	Do not give this ship an action the turn after loading rum. Rum is worth gold equal to 6 minus the number of crew aboard this ship when rum was loaded.	Rum is one of the BEST treasures in the game, and as you can see, is very desirable in pretty much any game. If you have it, use it.	2	1
T-006	Plague	All crew on this ship are removed. When this ship touches any other ship, pass this treasure to that ship and the crew on that ship are now removed. While in possession of the scurvy treasure this ship cannot dock.	Now HERE’s a treasure that you want to use as an offensive maneuver. No matter what you do, you don’t want to take it yourself, so REMEMBER where you put it. Or try to anyway. Plague is one of the nastiest treasures in the game, and rightfully so. Be CAREFUL.	6	2
GT-001 (LE)	Ghostly Encounter	Once after a ship loads Ghostly Encounter, roll a d6 for each crew on the ship. On a result of 1, eliminate that crew (it dies of fright.) Ghostly Encounter is worth gold equal to the crew remaining on the ship (due to the tales they will tell.)	One of my favorite cards for flavor and collectability, since it’s a tournament prize LE with Silver Coins, (meaning ALL your coins in the entire game have to be silver), it just doesn’t get much use. Good thing they reprinted it in the Crimson Coast set!	10	4

Of the six regular treasures in Spanish Main, only two of them are playable in my opinion, Rum and Plague. I wouldn’t play Plague all that much either. Rum was a widely popular item when it first came out last year, but has cooled off since then. The tournament prize LE Ghostly Encounter is the most desirable of all of these treasures, and can set you back as much as a sawbuck (that’s $10 to you whippersnappers) on EBay. It also regularly trades for a 5 masted rare.

(to be continued matey ...)