Admiral of the Black is set in the Golden Age of Piracy. It is both a board game and a deck building game. Players take the roles of pirate captains and compete against each other by raiding merchant ships for trade goods and treasure that earn them Victory Points. They also must visit friendly ports to trade goods, add new crew members, and purchase arms and equipment. These new crew members, arms, and equipment cards are added to their decks. The board is a map of the Caribbean with a hexagonal grid. Players move on the edges of the hexes while the merchant ships move from one hex to the next. A player may engage a ship in battle when its ship is on a hex edge adjacent to a merchant ship. Once an enemy ship is defeated in naval combat the player may initiate boarding combat. Both naval and boarding combat are resolved through the player's Naval Combat and Boarding Combat decks. An additional six-sided die is added to the combat score. The game ends when the Admiral of the Black (the leader of the pirates) is defeated and a new Admiral of the Black is declared by the player with the most Victory Points.