Friday Filler: Colt Express: Bandits

Published in 2014, Colt Express is a super fun game of bandits raiding a train in the Wild West, which would go on to be the 2015 Spiel des Jahres Winner. From one round to the next, each player programs the actions of his bandit and then at end of each round, these actions are played out in order, and as each action happens, the bandits aboard the train interact with each other, plans go awry, and chaos ensues! The fact that this takes place aboard a cardboard model of a train that sits on the table in front of the players and they get to program their bandits’ maneuvres up and down and along the train, only serves to make the game more entertaining. In the years since, Colt Express has been supported by a handful of expansions, such as Colt Express: Horses & Stagecoach, including even a Delorean! However, as good as it looks and as fun as it is to play, Colt Express is at its best when there are six players sat round the table and all six bandits are involved, and a game can devolve into maximum chaos and in the space of thirty minutes or so, tales of how each bandit successfully—or unsuccessfully robbed the Colt Express. So, what do you do if there are fewer than six players? Five players is fine, four maybe… With fewer players how do you back up to that maximum fun? Well, publisher Ludonaute has a solution—the Colt Express Bandits series.

The Colt Express Bandits series consists of not one expansion, but six. One for each of the six bandits in Colt Express—Belle, Cheyenne, Django, Doc, Ghost, and Tuco. Each expansion replaces its particular bandit in the game, but not when the bandit is being played by a player. Rather an expansion takes the place of a bandit who is not being controlled by a player and hands that control to the game itself. Each Colt Express: Bandits expansion adds new deck of eight Action cards which will control the bandit from one turn to the next and two special moves or effects.

So, what can each bandit do?

In Colt Express, with a “Liddle ol’ me?”, Belle cannot be targeted by a Fire or Punch action if another Bandit can be targeted instead. In Colt Express Bandits – Belle, her Action cards consist of Move—always towards where there is the most jewels to be picked; Punch—everyone in the same carriage and always towards the back of the train!; Theft—steal a Jewel from every Bandit in the same carriage; Robbery—jewels if she can; and Charm—make all of the Bandits aboard the train move towards her. Lastly, when she encounters the Marshal, she charms him into not shooting her! Belle is all about using her charm to steal as many jewels as she possibly can.

In Colt Express, Cheyenne is a pickpocket and when she punches a Bandit, also steals a Purse from her victim. In Colt Express Bandits – Cheyenne, her Action cards consist of a Double Move—two carriages if in the train or four if on the roof, or a Single Move—one carriage if in the train or two if on the roof, and always towards the most Bandits, after which she pickpockets a Purse from a random Bandit in her new location. She also a Bow Attack which replaces her pistol attack, enabling her to fire poisoned arrows at her rivals. These are treated like bullets as in the standard game and clog up a Bandit’s Action Deck. A poisoned Bandit must grab one of the Antidotes—to be found throughout the train—to be consumed per Poisoned Arrow taken. A Bandit who has suffered one or more Poisoned Arrows cannot win the game. Thus, Cheyenne is all about stealing Purses from her rival Bandits and preventing them from winning with her Poisoned Arrows. 

In Colt Express, Django is a crackshot and when he shoots another Bandit, he or she is knocked into the next carriage. In Colt Express Bandits – Django, he still has that capability, but here he fires a volley, the bullets hitting the nearest group of Bandits rather than a single Bandit! In addition, at the beginning of the game, each other Bandit receives two Ejection tokens, and at the beginning of each turn, Django places a Dynamite token in the carriage he is currently in if it does not have one. When the Explosion Action card is draw, all of the Bandits caught in the explosions are ejected from the train and must use their next action to reboard the train. Any Bandit ejected from the train in this fashion must give one of their Ejection tokens to Django and these are worth money at the end of the game. Django then, is also about using brute force, with a big gun or a big bang to drive everyone off the train and enable him to scoop up the loot.

In Colt Express, Doc is in smartest Bandit and always starts each round with seven Action cards rather than six like everyone else. In Colt Express Bandits – Doc gets to be cleverer too. First the Bandit who shoots or punches Doc earns his respect and his Respect card, allowing that Bandit’s Player to control Doc until another Bandit shoots or punches Doc. Doc also shoots special bullets which deny the shot Bandit particular actions, such as Fire, Floor Change, Punch, or Move, depending on the card. Doc also sets up a Poker Game, which forces every Bandit with loot to participate by contributing one of their already purloined loot, with Doc adding one from his stake. The player controlling Doc gets to redistribute this loot, Doc receiving two, and everyone else one bar a single Bandit who gets nothing. This is a slightly fiddly, slightly more complex expansion, the player controlling Doc getting to feather his Bandit’s own nest whilst ensuring his rival Bandits, including Doc does not receive as much.

In Colt Express, Ghost is the sneakiest of the Bandits and can place his first Action card face down into the common deck rather face up as is standard. In Colt Express Bandits – Ghost, he is after the Special Suitcase which replaces the Strongbox which begins play in the locomotive, guarded by Marshal. Any Moves he makes is always towards the Special Suitcase, but he also has combined action which enable him to do a Floor Change and then Fire, and his Fire and Punch actions affect every Bandit in the same carriage. Ghost is all about obtaining the Special Suitcase and will win the game if he has at game’s end, so when Ghost is in play, the game becomes about denying him the Special Suitcase as much as it is stealing as much loot as possible.

In Colt Express, Tuco can shoot up or down through the roof of the carriage he is, targeting a Bandit who is on the roof if he is in the carriage or a Bandit who is in the carriage if Tuco is on the roof. In Colt Express Bandits – Tuco, he can still do that. When he takes a Move Action, it is always towards the largest group of Bandits and as with other Bandits, his Punch and Shoot attacks affect multiple Bandits in or on the same Carriage. Tuco’s double-barrelled shotgun fires more bullets though and although Tuco cannot win by expending all of his bullets, he gets extra bullets and receives loot for each bullet fired. In addition, Tuco can swap places with the Marshal and if another Bandit forces Tuco to be in the same carriage as the Marshal, the offending Bandit receives a Wanted token. Each Wanted token adds to a Bandit’s final score, including Tuco’s. So Tuco wants to avoid the Marshal if he can because he is wanted and rival Bandits want to get Tuco and the Marshal together.

Set-up is simple enough. The Action deck for each Colt Express: Bandits expansion is placed to the right of the first player. Between the first player’s action and the second player’s action, one card is drawn randomly from the Bandit’s Action deck and added to the common deck which will be resolved at the end of the round. Each of the Bandits in the Colt Express Bandits series can be shot by his or her rival Bandits and when shot three times, he or she loses her next action.  Each also has his or her own winning conditions. Belle wins by having the most jewels at the end of the game. In which case all of the actual players and their Bandits lose! Cheyenne wins by being the richest of the Bandits at the end of the game who has not been poisoned. Django wins the game immediately if he gets all of the Ejection Tokens—essentially if every other Bandit is blown or shot from the train twice! He can also win by being the richest Bandit. Doc wins by having the most loot. Ghost wins by having the Special Suitcase at the end of the game or having the most loot. Tuco wins by having the most loot.

What is interesting is that elements of the Colt Express Bandits could be incorporated into the main game. So Belle could use her charm on the Marshal, Cheyenne could use her Poisoned Arrows, Django could seed the train with Dynamite and set off the explosions, Doc could play the Poker game, Ghost by possessing his Special Suitcase, and Tuco by avoiding the Marshal. However, they are not necessarily designed for that and they are not designed as written to be used as more than one entry in the Colt Express: Bandits expansion at a time. This is not to say that an enterprising group could not do that, or even an enterprising player, with the latter actually controlling his own Bandit, whilst the game controls the rest. This would make it fairly complex in working out what happens and when, but if the players are methodical about it, then it should not necessarily be an issue.

Physically, each entry in the Colt Express: Bandits series is well done. The cards are the same quality as those found in Colt Express, the tokens are on thick cardboard, and the little rules leaflet—print in French and English is generally easy to read. However, the English translation is not quite as smooth as it could have been and it could have done with another edit.

Each of six entries in the Colt Express: Bandits series is, to varying degrees, interesting and engaging, and brings out more character from each of the Bandits. The owner of the game is free to pick and choose which of them he wants to, but the likelihood is that he will want all of them, to give him and his gaming group the option to play the Bandits that they want and still have the equivalent of six Bandits in the game. However, this does feel like an expensive option, when perhaps all six expansions could have been collected into the one box (that said, all six expansions in the series will fit the box for Colt Express) and then expanded perhaps with advice on using them for solo play—that is, one player Bandit and five game-controlled bandits and how they might interact. Or on adding the abilities given in this series to the standard play of the Bandits with any of the entries in the Colt Express: Bandits series. As it is, a gaming group, and possibly a single player will have to find that out for themselves how the entries in the series for themselves.

Colt Express is still a great game and the Colt Express: Bandits series adds further flavour and character to each of the Bandits in play. Some options are more complex than others, but overall, adding one or two of these to game should keep the game play fun and add a little challenge and chaos at the same time.

Friday Filler: Super Colt Express

Published in 2014, Colt Express is a super fun game of bandits raiding a train in the Wild West, which would go to be the 2015 Spiel des Jahres Winner. It has been supported by a handful of expansions, such as Colt Express: Horses & Stagecoach, including even a Delorean! However, as good as it looks and as fun as it is to play, it can be slightly fiddly to set up, being played as it is, on a cardboard train along which the players move their bandits, grab bags of loot, punch and shoot their rivals, all the while avoiding the US Marshall protecting the local mine’s payroll. This of course, is done through pre-programmed movement and then resolved in a chaotic slew of actions. The latest addition to the Colt Express family is designed to counter all of that—it is a pocket-sized, pocket-friendly, time-friendly game in which the bandits race up and down a Union Pacific train, guns blazing at each other as the train crew uncouples Train Car after Train Car. Which bandit will be the last standing on the speeding train and so be the one to get away and win Super Colt Express?

Published by Ludonaute, Super Colt Express is designed be played by between three and seven players, aged eight and up, and in just fifteen minutes. Inside the little square box can be found seven Bandit meeples—one each for Belle, Cheyenne, Django, Doc, Ghost, Mei, and Tuco, eight Train Cars and one Locomotive card, a First Player card, and six sets of Action cards, one for each Bandit. The Train Cards have a Loot value on their reverse which is only revealed when there is a tie between the Bandits—the highest Loot value wins! Each Bandit meeple holds a revolver in his or her hand, and whichever direction the gun is pointing, that is the direction in which the Bandit is facing. Apart from the artwork, each set of Action cards is identical, providing four manoeuvres. ‘Flip’ changes the direction in which a Bandit is pointing his or her gun—up the train to the Locomotive or down the train to the last car or caboose. ‘Change Floor’ enables a Bandit to climb up to, or down from, the roof of the train. ‘Move’ enables a Bandit to move to the adjacent Train Car in the direction he or she is facing. ‘Fire’ enables a Bandit to shoot the first rival Bandit in his or her line of sight. Any Bandit who is shot, is knocked back one car and onto his or her back, stunned. If a Bandit is shot and is knocked off the train, then he or she is out of the game, but if not knocked from the train, a player can use any Action card to do a ‘Wake Up’ Action and get up.

Game set-up for Super Colt Express is simple. The Locomotive card and one Train Card per player are placed on the table in a line with the Locomotive at the front. Each player receives his Bandit meeple and four associated Action cards—‘Change Floor’, ‘Flip’, ‘Move’, and ‘Fire’. One player is randomly determined to be the First Player and his Bandit is placed in the penultimate Train Car, and then the other players place their Bandits in the next Train Car, one-by-one. The Bandits in the rear half of the train face towards the Locomotive, the other facing away from it towards the rear of the train.

From Round to Round, Super Colt Express is played out over two phases. In ‘Phase 1: Schemin’!’, each player chooses three of his Bandit’s Action cards and places them face down in stack. These will be played in order from the top down, so a player needs to be careful to get the order right to reflect what he wants his Bandit to do in a Round. In ‘Phase 2: Shootin’!’, beginning with the First Player, each reveals his topmost Action and carries out that Action. So the Bandits will move, shoot, change direction or ‘Flip’, and climb up or down from the roof, or ‘Change Floor’. At the end of the Round, once all Action cards have been resolved, the last Train Car in the train—the Caboose—is unhitched and left behind by the train. If a Bandit is aboard this Train Car, he or she is out of the game. The Bandit furthest towards the front of the train is awarded the lost Train Car for its Loot value on te back of its card.

A new Round then begins with a new First Player. Super Colt Express ends when the last Train Car has been unhooked and only the Locomotive remains. If the one Bandit survives, then he or she wins and gets away. If there are multiple Bandits on the Locomotive, then the Bandit with the most Loot—as determined by the value of the Train Cards in their hands, is the winner.

In addition, Super Colt Express comes with two expansions. These are optional and can be used with each other or on their own with the core game. ‘Extension: Horse’ gives each Bandit a ‘Horse’ Action which enables him or her to ride to the Locomotive at the front of the train, whilst ‘Extension: Reflex’ allows a Bandit who is stunned to get up and shoot the first bandit he or she sees. If not stunned, a Bandit instead shoots himself or herself in the foot and consequently, is stunned! Neither expansion increases the maximum number of Action cards a Bandit can play—they are still limited to three per Round.

Physically, Super Colt Express is very well presented. The artwork is excellent, much of which players will recognise from Colt Express. The rules are easy to read and grasp, and Super Colt Express can be played almost out of the box, with no more than five minutes preparation. The cards are of good quality and the meeple Bandits sturdy and attractive.

Super Colt Express plays quickly and easily as intended. However, the fewer number and similarity of actions in the game when compared to Colt Express does mean that some of the flavour has been lost from the original game and thus less scope for table talk and interaction between the Bandits and the players. Certainly, anyone who has played Colt Express will miss that.

On initial play, the temptation is to try and blast away with the ‘Fire’ Action, but the ‘Move’ and ‘Flip’ Actions quickly become as important as Bandits closer to the rear of the train need to move forward to the front before a Train Car is uncouple and lost and Bandits closer to the front of the train need to turn round if they are to move away from the soon to be uncoupled rear of the train. As the Bandits move from Train Car to the next and climb up or down from the roof, then there is room for more chaos and random results. Once issue though, is if a stunned Bandit gets up after a ‘Wake Up’ Action has been played and is then shot again, effectively meaning that not only does the Bandit lose his or her current action in getting up, but his or her next action too because another Action card has to be played as ‘Wake Up’ Action—and that is no fun. Thankfully, this does not last as there are only three Actions per Round and it is quickly over.

Super Colt Express is a quick-playing, fun blast ’em sort of game. However, it gets better later in the game as there are fewer players—their Bandits having been knocked off the train—and becomes a bit more of a ‘cat and mouse’ game of trying manoeuvre into the right place, at the right time to keep your opponents from the front of the train, as Train car after Train Car is lost from the rear of the train.

More Rootin', Tootin', Shootin', Stealin' Fun!

Tired of running from one carriage to the next and robbing the passengers? Tired of jumping from one carriage roof to the next? Tired of punching and shooting your fellow bandits and getting punched and shot at in return? Tired of dodging Marshall Sam whose bullets will send you racing to the roof? Tired of having your plans disrupted and messed up by your fellow bandits so that your rivals make off with the passengers’ purses and jewels and even the strongbox containing the payroll—worth $1000—for the local mine? Want to try something different? Leap onto a horse and ride it alongside the train and then leap off again? Check! Leap onto a horse and ride it alongside a stagecoach to swing inside and take a hostage? Check! Leap from the top of the locomotive onto the stagecoach, duke it out with the guard and grab the strongbox—containing another $1000—that the shotgun-wielding guard was protecting? Check! These are the core additions to be found in Colt Express: Horses & Stagecoach, the first expansion for Colt Express, the 2015 Spiel des Jahres winner.

There is no denying that Colt Express is huge fun. It is a programmed movement and action game in which bandits attempt to rob a train—the passengers of their purses and their jewels and Marshall Sam of the local mine’s payroll. They can move from carriage to carriage, climb up and down onto carriage roofs, shoot and punch their rival bandits, and hopefully dodge the Marshall when another Bandit moves him! The fun of game comes in both a well-conceived plan executed perfectly and in a well-conceived plan coming into contact with the plans of rivals and being thoroughly disrupted—especially when they affect another Bandit instead of the intended target. It is a Wild West game of Old School movie action and the fact that it comes with a cardboard model Train as the playing area makes it a highly attractive looking game.

With Colt Express: Horses & Stagecoach, an actual stagecoach cardboard model can be added to the game as well as wooden horses. Bandits can use the new Ride action card to leap onto a Horse adjacent to a carriage—either from inside a carriage or from its roof—and ride it alongside the Train, either to move back or forward along the carriage and then reboard the train. This provides a new movement action to the game, plus it allows players to leap from a horse and get inside the Stagecoach. Alternatively, a Bandit can use a Movement card to leap from the roof of an adjacent carriage onto the roof of the Stagecoach—or vice versa. Once inside the Stagecoach, a Bandit can take one of its passengers hostage. There are eight Hostage cards in the game, but only five are available during a game. A Bandit can only take one who remains with him throughout the game. At game’s end, a Hostage will earn a Bandit more money, but not without a penalty. For example, ‘The Lady’s Poodle’ earns a player $1000 at game’s end, but he suffers a Bullet card at the beginning of any Round because the yappy little dog keeps biting him!

The Horses are also used to determine Bandit placement at the beginning of the game. Each player takes his Bandit pawn and a Horse and hides them in his fist. He selects which one to reveal. If he reveals his Bandit pawn, it is placed in the most rearward carriage. If he reveals a Horse, his Bandit keeps riding forward alongside the Train. The process is repeated and any Bandits revealed are placed in the next forward carriage. This process continues until all of the Bandits have been placed. Essentially this spreads out the placement of the Bandits at the start of the game. The advantage of being placed further forward is quicker access to carriages containing Jewels and even the Strongbox in the Locomotive, but the Bandit at the rear of the Train will go first.

Atop the Stagecoach is a guard with a Shotgun—presumably a grizzled old veteran seeing out his time as a stagecoach guard—who has been trusted to protect a second Strongbox, also worth a $1000. He will not act unless a player tries to steal this Strongbox, in which he shoots the player who takes a neutral Bullet card just as if he had been shot by Marshall Sam. It takes a Punch action to knock the Shotgun onto the roof of the carriage adjacent to the Stagecoach. There he takes potshots at anyone who lands on the same roof, but his absence on the Stagecoach means that the Strongbox he was guarding is now available to steal.  Any player atop the Stagecoach can be shot at from anywhere on the roof of the Train and can likewise shoot anyone on any any carriage roof of the Train.

Colt Express is not quite perfect though… There is an issue in the game where a player has a bad hand of cards, sometimes because he has too many Bullets in his hand after getting shot once too many, other times because the cards he holds mean actions that make no sense in the current situation, and thus he cannot act—at least not logically. In the base game, a player can give up an action to draw three new cards, but losing an action can be almost as bad as having no suitable cards to play. In addition to the new things that players can do in Colt Express: Horses & Stagecoach, it also adds a means to counter this issue. This is a number of Whiskey Flasks littered throughout the Carriages. These are picked up using Robbery Action cards—just as a Bandit can to pick up Purses and Jewels—and come in two types. The Normal Whiskey Flask enables a Bandit to draw three Action cards and play an Action card instead of playing an Action card as normal. The Old Whiskey Flask enables a Bandit to play two Action cards instead of the usual one. In either case, a Whiskey Flask can be used twice before it has to be discarded. 

Colt Express: Horses & Stagecoach adds several new Events to the game that can occur at the end of each Round and/or game. These include ‘Sharing the Loot’ in which any Bandit with a Strongbox is forced to share it with a rival Bandit who ends the game with him in the same carriage; ‘Escape’ in which all Bandits must leave the Train by game’s end or risk being arrested and thus be prevented from winning the game; and ‘A Shot of Whiskey for the Marshall’ in which the Marshall picks up a Whiskey Flask—if there is one in the carriage—and moves towards the Caboose at the rear of the Train, shooting any Bandit he comes across. Presumably in a drunken rage!

One last set of mechanics that Colt Express: Horses & Stagecoach adds is rules for team play wherein each player controls two Bandits who work together in robbing the Train. In each Phase of a Round, all of the players put an Action card down for their  ‘A’ Bandits first and once done, they take in turn to put down an Action card for their ‘B’ Bandits. Play is otherwise as per Colt Express, but at game end, the Bandit pair with the most money will be the winner. This set of mechanics lets fewer players play a fuller game with more Bandits and more actions so that they get to play the game at its fullest.

Physically, Colt Express: Horses & Stagecoach is as well designed as you would expect. The Stagecoach is bright and colourful, the Horses are fun (if only because a Bandit can sit on them), and the new cards are clear and easy to understand.

Colt Express: Horses & Stagecoach takes Colt Express and just adds more of what makes Colt Express fun. More Actions, more to do, and more theme—and it also helps  alleviate the issue of a Bandit having a bad hand of Action cards. Plus the Horses and the Stagecoach look great on the table. If you have Colt Express then robbing the Stagecoach is just as much fun!

Reviews from R'lyeh Christmas Dozen 2015

Since 2001, I have contributed to a series of Christmas lists at Ogrecave.com—and at RPGaction before that, suggesting not necessarily the best board and roleplaying games of the preceding year, but the titles from the last twelve months that you might like to receive and give. Continuing the break with tradition—in that the following is just the one list and in that for reasons beyond its control, OgreCave.com is not running its own lists—Reviews from R’lyeh would once again like present its own list. Further, as is also traditional, Reviews from R’lyeh has not devolved into the need to cast about ‘Baleful Blandishments’ to all concerned or otherwise based upon the arbitrary organisation of days. So as Reviews from R’lyeh presents its annual Christmas Dozen, I can only hope that the following list includes one of your favourites, or even better still, includes a game that you do not have and someone is happy to hide in gaudy paper and place under that dead tree for you.

—oOo—

Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City
(Osprey Publishing) $24.99/£14.99

In a first for Reviews from R’lyeh, a set of wargames rules makes its annual Christmas Dozen. Frostgrave is a skirmish miniatures game in which rival wizards and their apprentices lead warbands into the icebound city of ‘Frostgrave’ in search of treasure, relics, and knowledge lost to the cold centuries before. Both the background and the rules are simple, making it easy to learn by experienced wargamers and novices alike—and making it easier to teach too! The buy-in cost is also low, each warband needing just ten figures, and because the rules give plenty of options, it means that one warband is rarely going to be the same as any other. Frostgrave can be played in single one-off skirmishes, but the game gets better when played as a campaign because a wizard can learn from his experience and not only gain more spells, but get better at casting them! Miniatures are available for the game—though any can be used—as is a fiction anthology, Frostgrave - Tales of the Frozen City, and the first campaign, Frostgrave: Thaw of the Lich Lord.

Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 5: United Kingdom + Pennsylvania
(Days of Wonder) $40/£25.99

New boards are always welcome for the classic Ticket to Ride board game and never more so with the line’s Map Collection series. The fifth and very latest Map Collection addition, not only adds two new map boards, it adds technology and shares, elements usually found in more complex train games. Even better, the new map boards includes a map of the United Kingdom so that now you can play across the nation that gave the birth to railways! On the Pennsylvania map, players now compete for shares as well as routes, giving them new ways to score points, whilst on the United Kingdom map, players need buy technological advances to build beyond England to Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and further… For long time Ticket to Ride fans, this expansion adds new rules and challenges, but without adding too much complexity that would make it that much more difficult for casual players.

Shadow of the Demon Lord
(Schwalb Entertainment) $49.99/£39.95

The end of the world is nigh! All that stands between the world and its destruction is the Veil, yet the Demon Lord rends at it, weakening it and spreading his influence in the real world beyond. Thus the trolls come out of the mountains, beastmen out of the Badlands, zombies from the grave, and cultists out of the shadows to spread fear and chaos, hearkened by the coming of their master. Perhaps though, there is a chance, just a slim one, that the Demon Lord can be stopped—and if not that, then at least the chaos and the horror held off, at least for a little while… This is the set up for Shadow of the Demon Lord, a dark horror fantasy RPG from the co-designer of Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, inspired in part by his love of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. Its focus is entirely upon the characters and the horrors they face, even beginning the game not knowing what career they will follow let alone what madness they will have to deal with, but once they progress, they are free to choose their path as they want. The RPG offers a wide choice of career paths, simple mechanics, and simplified level progression that means that characters gain a level every adventure! Perhaps the end is just the beginning?

Thunderbirds Co-operative Board Game
(Modiphius Entertainment) $69.99/£45

Calling International Rescue! 

Only the Tracy family and the amazing vehicles and gadgets of International Rescue stand between the disasters and the plans of the nefarious Hood that beset the future of 2065. In this co-operative boardgame, the players work together as the Tracy brothers, along with Lady Penelope, racing to stop one disaster after another whilst working to thwart the plans of the criminal mastermind known as the Hood. Based on Gerry Anderson’s classic 1965 Thunderbirds television series, the game comes with the famous vehicles, each a fantastic little model, and the disasters that we remember from on-screen. Designed by Matt Leacock—a name known for designing co-operative boardgames like Pandemic and Forbidden Island—the Thunderbirds Co-operative Board Game not only has charm and nostalgia in abundance, but succinctly captures the feel and style of the television series.

Colt Express: Horses & Stagecoach
(Ludonaute) $19.99/£14.99

The trainrobbers are back! Plus they brought their horses with them and there is a stagecoach to rob too.

The Spiel des Jahres award winning Colt Express was one of the best board games of 2014, so it was no wonder that it was included 0n the Reviews from R’lyeh Christmas list of 2014. It is still a great game, but this year we got the first expansion—Colt Express: Horses & Stagecoach—which enables the players to not only rob the train of the core game, but leap from the train onto horseback, ride the length of the train, and then leap back aboard, or leap onto the stagecoach and rob that! There are more jewels and money to be stolen, hostages to be taken, an ornery old man armed with shotgun to contend with, and when things get bad, flasks of whiskey for a bandit to imbibe and refresh himself with. More options mean more chaos means more fun!



White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying
(Barrel Rider Games) $34.99

Taking the Old School Renaissance to the stars, White Star: White Box Science Fiction Roleplaying is inspired by sources including Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, Doctor Who and Firefly, but at its heart, this Swords & Wizardry-powered RPG is a Space Opera game through and through. Wearing its inspirations upon its sleeve, White Star devotes time aplenty to exploring the genre and its variations and different story types in depth and then discuss how to do them using the rules. This is helped by the familiar Dungeons & Dragons-style mechanics that also make White Star easy to play and easy to run, but there are plenty of optional rules that enable the GM to tweak the game to his tastes. (The designer has promised us a White Star Companion which will include more options and support. Lastly, the retro-future feel of White Star is echoed in its simple design, making it feel like the 1977 Sci-Fi RPG we never had.

Read the review here.

Machi Koro: Harbour Expansion
(IDW Games) $19.99/£14.99

One of the best games of 2014 was Machi Koro, the 2015 Spiel des Jahres nominated dice and card game about building your Japanese town better and faster than your rivals. Which is why it made the Reviews from R’lyeh Christmas list of 2014. As much fun as the base game is, it needed more Landmarks to make your town stand out and more Establishments to generate the income needed to buy those Landmarks. In 2015, Machi Koro received two expansions that did exactly that—Machi Koro: Harbour Expansion and Machi Koro: Millionaire’s Row. Of the two, Machi Koro: Harbour Expansion is the better expansion, slickly adding not only the cards needed for a fifth player, but a swathe of new Establishment cards that interact with each other and the cards in the base set. Even better though are the new rules that modify the Marketplace where the players can buy their Establishment cards. It just limits those available at any one time to just ten types—rather than all of them as in the base game—which forces the players to make more careful choices and breaks up the easy paths to victory of the base game. The result is a much improved, slicker game. If you own only Machi Koro, then definitely add Machi Koro: Harbour Expansion (and possibly think about Machi Koro: Millionaire’s Row), but if not, then Machi Koro: Deluxe Edition is the perfect choice (plus it comes in a tin!).

Read the review here.

The Dracula Dossier
(Pelgrane Press) $74.95/£49.95

In 2012, Review from R’lyeh liked Night’s Black Agents so much that it made the Reviews from R’lyeh Christmas list of 2012. It set the secret agents a la James Bond and Jason Bourne not against the traditional mundane conspiracy, but against a conspiracy headed by vampires! Now the horror-espionage RPG lives up to the author’s pitch for it as “The Bourne Identity meets Dracula” with The Dracula Dossier. This huge sandbox campaign works from the idea that Bram Stoker’s Dracula was a fictionalised account of an attempt by British Naval Intelligence to recruit the infamous vampire that failed… Repeated recruiting attempts during World War Two and the War on Terror have only turned the vampire’s antipathy against us and now it is your turn to deal with the threat. This is of course going to be a mammoth undertaking and the campaign is equally as large—a giant set of clues, people, locations, and more designed to support the GM in running an improvised campaign and in doing so, complementing the toolkit aspect of Night’s Black Agents. It is also a fearsome work of the imagination that comes with gaming’s biggest set of clues—the annotated and redacted version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula!

The Metagame
(Local No. 12, LLC.) $25.00

2015 was a good year for party style games, with Code Names, Love 2 Hate, and Spyfall all being released and all being good games, but there was one card game in 2015 that outshone them all—The Metagame. This big box of cards might look like the infamous Cards Against Humanity, but where that game was in black and white and contains one basic game in a big box, The Metagame comes in a white box, its cards in colour and black and white, and it comes with six games rather than one. The cards are divided between Opinion cards—such as  “Which is the most useful on a desert island?” and “More Myth Than Fact”, and Culture cards that range from Enron, Brie Cheese, and World of Warcraft to The Vagina Monologues, Riverdance, and Romeo and Juliet. The games include trying to match Opinion cards with Culture cards, guessing when the things on Culture cards appeared, debating both Opinion cards and Culture cards—and more! The Science Fiction Expansion Pack and the Film 101 Expansion Pack are both available and add to the mix and the fun. The Metagame is both a good family and a good party game and can be played with anyone.

Tianxia: Blood, Silk, & Jade
(Vigilance Press) $44.95/£29.99

With the release of Jadepunk: Tales From Kausao City and Feng Shui 2: Action Movie Roleplaying, 2015 was a great year for the wuxia genre, but if Reviews from R'lyeh had to choose one, it would be Tianxia: Blood, Silk, & Jade. The setting is the classic Jiāngzhōu, the ‘border land’ on the edge of the ‘Divine Realm’, which has a reputation for banditry, gangsters, and corruption. Pirates, like the Blue Carp Brotherhood, led by the infamous pirate king, Fish-Eye Cheng, prey upon the boats moving up and down the Silk River whilst Five Demon Forest is known to be a haven for the bandits and thieves that prey upon the Jade Road, but is reputed to be haunted too. Jiāngzhōu is also home to the Wuxia, the ‘Wandering Swordsmen’ and ‘Knight Errants’ who lead lives often independent of society. Many are mercenaries, some follow their own paths, but all seek to become masters of Kung Fu. This broadly drawn setting is ably supported by delightfully cinematic Fate Core rules and solidly done new martial arts rules which in combination emulate the classic tales and action of the Wuxia genre.

Read the full review here.

Eyes of the Stone Thief
(Pelgrane Press) $49.95/£32.95

In traditional Dungeons & Dragons the megadungeon is a static construct, a fixed structure dug deep into the earth that bold adventurers will delve into again and again, exploring its secrets and facing its threats. Plus, if it is a ‘Living dungeon’ then perhaps its denizens will change and react in response to the player characters’ action. In 13th Age, the storytelling, action orientated interpretation of Dungeons & Dragons-style gaming, the dungeon is definitely living and it is far static, swimming to the surface to devour whole towns and cities. Designed for characters of Fourth to Eighth Level, Eyes of the Stone Thief, at first the adventurers will have to venture inside to rescue someone, but once it has their scent, the dungeon will begin hunting the adventurers! Which means that the adventurers will have to go back in to stop themselves from being hunted down… Can they stop this 'Moby Dick' of a dungeon before it gets them?

Pandemic Legacy
(Z-Man Games) $69.99/£54.99

Since 2008, Pandemic has been the touchstone by which all co-operative boardgames have been measured. It set the standard, combining an engaging theme with elegant mechanics that see the players trying to find the cures necessary to stop four diseases that threaten to become pandemics and overwhelm the world. Last year Reviews from R’lyeh liked the stripped down, faster playing dice-based variant of Pandemic the Cure, but this year Pandemic fans were faced by not just a new challenge, but a whole new set of challenges joined by secrets and surprises. For Pandemic Legacy answers the question, “What would happen if what you did in one game of Pandemic carried over to the next… and the next?” In other words, with Pandemic Legacy, the original Pandemic becomes a campaign, with chances that the characters played in game being hurt, killed, or hopefully getting more capable, with diseases becoming more virulent or less deadly, cities being saved or lost, and even worse, government funding being cut—all depending upon how well the players do! Ultimately every copy of Pandemic Legacy becomes a game of its very own, unique to the playing group that played through it.

Rootin', Tootin', Shootin', Stealin' Fun!

The winner this year of the Spiel des Jahres is Colt Express published by Ludonaute. It was up against Machi Koro and The Game and has proved to be a surprising winner given that the themes and actions of Colt Express are not necessarily as family friendly as those of other Spiel des Jahres winning games. This is because Colt Express involves robbing a train and punching and shooting each other… Even so, Colt Express is nothing but fun!

Colt Express is a’ Wild West’, programmed Action game in which several rival bandits—Belle, Cheyenne, Django, Doc, Ghost, and Tuco who will do their utmost to outwit, outshoot, out brawl, and out steal each other! It comes with a very striking play area—a three-dimensional cardboard train that the players will move their bandits along, up onto the roof and down again, all the whilst their bandits apprehend loot, and punch and shoot at each other. This is played out over five rounds, each ending with a random event, the winner being the bandit to leave the train with the most loot.

Before the game begins, the full-colour train requires some assembly. Whilst relatively easy, some care needs to be taken less the cardboard is bent or torn. Once assembled, there is just about sufficient space in the box for the train to remain assembled.

During the game, each player controls a single bandit. Each Bandit possesses a special ability. For example, Belle cannot be targeted by a Fire or Punch action if another Bandit can be targeted instead, Cheyenne can steal a purse from another Bandit after carrying out a Punch action, and Tuco can shoot through the carriage roof at another bandit (either in carriage below or on the roof above). Each Bandit also has a corresponding set of ten Action cards and six Bullet cards. Each Action card allows a Bandit to do one thing: Move (from one carriage to the next or all the way along the roof), Floor Change (climb up to or down from the roof), Fire (at a Bandit in an adjacent carriage or next in line of sight on the roof), Punch (a Bandit in or on the same carriage), Robbery (of any loot available in the carriage), or Marshal (move the Marshal to an adjacent carriage). Some Actions have consequences: the victim of a Fire action receives a Bullet card to add to his hand; the victim of a Punch action must drop a loot token; and if the Marshal moves into the same carriage as a Bandit, not only is the Bandit forced to flee to the carriage roof, he gets shot by the Marshal too!

At game’s start, all of the carriages are seeded with Loot tokens (of a random value) and both the Marshal and the Strongbox are placed in the Locomotive. Four Round cards and one Station card—the latter being for the last round—are chosen randomly. Each Round or Station card shows how many turns it has, how many are played in tunnels, and any special events. Lastly, each player shuffles his Bandit’s deck of Action cards and draws six and puts aboard the rear of the train.

Each Round consists of two phases. Once the new Round card is revealed, the ‘Schemin’! phase’ begins, each player taking it in turn to play an Action card onto a pile that forms the Action Deck. These are played openly so each Bandit can see what the other is doing, or face down and hidden if the Round card indicates that the Action cards are to be played in a tunnel. Once the ‘Schemin’! phase’ is over, the ‘Stealin’! phase’ begins. This involves revealing the cards in the Action Deck as played and their associated Bandit carrying their actions if possible. If a Robbery card is revealed and there is no loot in the Bandit’s location, then he cannot pick up any loot. Similarly, if a Punch card is revealed and there is no other Bandit to punch, then no brawling occurs. That said, if an action is possible and a player has choice of how his Bandit carries it out, he can choose how he does it. So if a Punch card is revealed and there are two or more other Bandits in the same location, the brawling Bandit chooses the target; if there is more than one item of loot in a location when a Robbery action is revealed, the Bandit’s player chooses which to take; and so on. At the end of each Round an Event takes place. These include ‘Braking’, when the train slows and forces every Bandit on the roof to move forward one carriage, and ‘Passengers’ Rebellion’, when the passengers shoot any Bandit in a carriage.

Once a Round ends, the players collect up all of their Action cards—played and unplayed—including any Bullet cards from having been shot by rival Bandits or the Marshal and draw new hands of six cards. This can leave a player with more Bullet than Action cards. Bullet cards slow a Bandit down and mean that he cannot act. Should he lacks Action cards, a player can draw three new cards instead of playing one during the ‘Schemin’! phase’.
Colt Express is a game of planning and consequences. During the ‘Schemin’! phase’ players try to work out the best actions to get the most loot, stop their rivals from doing so, or simply shooting their rivals. In the ‘Stealin’! phase’, these Actions will play out as intended, but often do not often survive contact with their rivals. Great when a plan comes together, but funny, if not frustrating when plans are unwittingly thwarted. Plans can be adapted to rival’s actions as most Action cards are played face up, but deduction is required when Action cards are played face down in tunnels.

A game typically begins with a grab for as much loot as possible from the rearward carriages followed by a frantic scramble to grab the Strongbox or stop another Bandit from doing so. All played out to a flurry of punches (to force loot to be dropped) and bullets (to gain the $1000 bonus for the most bullets fired). At game’s end, the Bandit with the most money wins, probably including the $1000 bonus.

Light and accessible enough for casual play, Colt Express’ quick-playing time offsets its frustrating aspects of plans going awry. The game’s ‘Schemin’! phase’ is its heart, forcing players to plan and think about their proposed actions, the mix of openly played Actions and hidden played Actions—the latter played in tunnels, both aiding and thwarting everyone’s planning efforts. Above all, Colt Express combines great theme and great visual appeal with simple fun.