More train board games
May. 10th, 2016 05:11 pmTransAmerica
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2842/transamerica
I played this at games evening, it worked really well, it was interesting and fairly fast even up to 6 players.
The board of North America is covered with a triangle grid, with major cities marked at some intersections. Each player is dealt a goal hand of 5 city cards, one from each region (E, W, N, S and central ish). On your turn, you place two pieces of track (which is the same for all players) on unused edges connected to your chosen starting spot. The first player to connect all their cities wins. Everyone else scores negative points for the number of edges they are short (generally 0-6 pts)
Edges crossing rivers and mountains are shown with a double line, instead of playing two pieces, you can play one piece on one of those edges.
It was interesting because it was easy to *understand*, and each turn could be over in seconds if you thought while other people were playing, and yet, it was really hard to know what was *best*.
Colt Express
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/158899/colt-express
Played with ghoti et al.
You have a little cardboard train made out of an engine and four carriages, I was really impressed how solid and 3d it seemed. Scattered on the floor of the carriages is various loot. Each player has a little bandit who can move sideways between carriages, or up onto the roof, or down from the roof. Or pick up loot, or shoot people (which may get points and clutter up other players' decks with non-functional bullet cards), or punch people (which knocks them out of a carriage and makes them drop loot).
The interesting thing is that each of those actions is a card, and like RoboRalley, each player draws from their deck a hand containing some but not all of their possible actions, and each player takes it in turn to choose an action to play, but some actions are hidden, and only after each player has played four times, do you then go through the played actions and actually enact them. The card controls the type of action (move, shoot, pick up, etc), but when it takes effect you choose which way to move, or who to shoot, etc so there's a little flexibility.
I loved the wild west flavour and the RoboRalley-esque mechanic. A few of the mechanics seemed a bit fiddly, but that may just be because it was my first game.
I was disappointed the female character and native american character fell into unfortunate stereotypes. Yes, the whole game is about classic western tropes, but you can find some more varied ones, I hope. But I don't think it's worse than lots of other games and media.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2842/transamerica
I played this at games evening, it worked really well, it was interesting and fairly fast even up to 6 players.
The board of North America is covered with a triangle grid, with major cities marked at some intersections. Each player is dealt a goal hand of 5 city cards, one from each region (E, W, N, S and central ish). On your turn, you place two pieces of track (which is the same for all players) on unused edges connected to your chosen starting spot. The first player to connect all their cities wins. Everyone else scores negative points for the number of edges they are short (generally 0-6 pts)
Edges crossing rivers and mountains are shown with a double line, instead of playing two pieces, you can play one piece on one of those edges.
It was interesting because it was easy to *understand*, and each turn could be over in seconds if you thought while other people were playing, and yet, it was really hard to know what was *best*.
Colt Express
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/158899/colt-express
Played with ghoti et al.
You have a little cardboard train made out of an engine and four carriages, I was really impressed how solid and 3d it seemed. Scattered on the floor of the carriages is various loot. Each player has a little bandit who can move sideways between carriages, or up onto the roof, or down from the roof. Or pick up loot, or shoot people (which may get points and clutter up other players' decks with non-functional bullet cards), or punch people (which knocks them out of a carriage and makes them drop loot).
The interesting thing is that each of those actions is a card, and like RoboRalley, each player draws from their deck a hand containing some but not all of their possible actions, and each player takes it in turn to choose an action to play, but some actions are hidden, and only after each player has played four times, do you then go through the played actions and actually enact them. The card controls the type of action (move, shoot, pick up, etc), but when it takes effect you choose which way to move, or who to shoot, etc so there's a little flexibility.
I loved the wild west flavour and the RoboRalley-esque mechanic. A few of the mechanics seemed a bit fiddly, but that may just be because it was my first game.
I was disappointed the female character and native american character fell into unfortunate stereotypes. Yes, the whole game is about classic western tropes, but you can find some more varied ones, I hope. But I don't think it's worse than lots of other games and media.