Osprey Games is primarily known for its wargames rules, such
as Frostgrave: Fantasy Wargames in the Frozen City,
but it also publishes board and card games and roleplaying games too. The
latter includes Gran Meccanismo: Clockpunk Roleplaying in da Vinci’s Florence,
Jackals – Bronze Age Fantasy Roleplaying,
and Heirs to Heresy: The fall of the Knights Templar,
whilst the former includes titles such as Undaunted Normandy, Jonathan Strange
& Mr Norrell, and Village Rails: A Game of Locomotives and Local Motives.
The latter is rail-themed board game designed for two to four players aged up
fourteen and over, and designed to be played in less than an hour. It has a delightfully
cosy feel to it, being set in the English countryside during the Age of Steam
during the thirties, forties, and fifties. Play is simple with each player only
having to make a few choices and the game ends once everyone has taken twelve turns after which each player’s tableau or rail network is scored and the
player with the highest score wins.
Village Rails: A Game of Locomotives and Local Motives consists of eighty Railway
Cards, thirty-eight Terminus Cards, four Reference Cards and four Scoring
Dials, Border Pieces, and almost fifty coins. The Border Pieces and coins are
done in thick cardboard, as are the Scoring Dials, which do require some assembly.
The Border Pieces are marked with the start of seven railway lines and are used
to create an ‘L-shape’ into which the Railway Cards are placed as a three-by-five
twelve-card grid. The Railway Cards are double-sided. On one side is Track,
which depicts two single tracks running across terrain such as fields, pasture,
forest, lakes, and villages. The Track side are also marked various
symbols, including Barns, Farms, Halts, and Sidings. When they appear on a
completed line, these will all score a player points, except for Sidings which
are scored at the end of the game. On the other side of the Railway Cards are
Trips, which score a player if their conditions are met. For example, ‘2 per
type of feature on the line.’, ‘No Bulls on the line: 4 points’, and ‘Only straight
tracks on the line: 6 points’. Terminus Cards earn a player money when played,
the amount depending on the indicated features on the cards, for example, the
number of tractors on the line, number of different terrain features on the
line, and so on. The greater the number of features on the line, the more money
a Terminus Card will earn.
At the start of the game, each player receives an ‘L-shape’ border and £5 in
coins. Once the Railway Cards are shuffled, cards are drawn to form two markets—the
Track Market and the Trip Market. These are two lines of cards from which a
player can select a single Track card and a single Trip card respectively on
his turn. The first card in each market is always free to take, but the cards
further along the line and closer to the deck must be purchased, with cards
closer to the deck being more expensive. This money is placed on the cards
further away from the deck and if a player subsequently selects one of the
cards with money on it, he receives both card and money. Each player receives
three Terminus Cards which he keeps secret until played. On a turn, a player
can conduct two actions. The first is to build tracks, which the player must do,
the second is to plan a trip, which is optional, but can be done before or after
building tracks. Planning a trip always costs money and the Trip card selected
is placed next to the player’s L-shape border at the start of a line. Each line
can have two Trip cards like this. When selected a Track card is placed into a
player’s tableau, either next to a border or another Track card. If as a result
of a Track card being placed, a railway line runs from the player’s ‘L-shape’
border to the edge of his tableau, it is considered completed and can be
scored. Points are scored for the features on the line, for the bonus provided by
the adjacent Trip card, and money if a Terminus card has been played. The Reference
Cards help scoring easy for each player.
In Village Rails, each player is working to complete his own
tableau and the game does not involve any direct interaction with each other.
The interaction comes indirectly through the game’s two markets—the Track
Market and the Trip Market. Here each player will be watching them for the best
cards to become available, hopefully free in the case of the Track Market and cheap
in the case of the Trip Market, and before another player takes them. Another reason
to take a card is that it has money on it. Money will enable a player to purchase
a better Track or Trip card than before another player can, or simply just buy
a Trip card, and the right Trip card will score more points. What this means is
that the players have to spend their money with care and take the opportunity
of their Terminus cards to earn more. A player will always have three Terminus
cards, so fortunately, there is always the opportunity for him to earn money when
completing a line.
Placement of the Track cards also takes care and players
tend to place their first Track cards at the outer corners of their L-shape and
work inwards to fill in all twelve spaces in their tableaus. This is because
those placed at the corners can often be completed first, scoring a player some
points and potentially earning him money. It also initially gives a wider choice
as to what cards a player can draw and play, but as more and more Track cards
are placed, the choices begin to tighten as a player tries to balance trying to
find the right Track card to add to a tableau and purchase the Trip card which
will score him the most points. Throughout, a player will always be considering
how he can maximise the number of points he can score and how much money he can
earn. Play continues until every player has placed his twelfth Track card and
the final scoring is done for the Sidings.
Physically, Village Railways is delightfully and sturdily
presented. The first thing that you notice upon lifting up the rules booklet
from the box is one single piece of design to the components—and not to the
components of the game, but the packaging of the components that the players pull
out to assemble the Scoring Dials and the Border Tiles. There is a notch in the
corner where a finger can be inserted and the thick sheets of card pulled out.
This only has to be done the once, but it just makes things that little bit
easier. Otherwise, all of the game’s components are sturdy, appropriately cosy
in theme, and easy to use, although the symbols on the Track Cards are not
always easy to spot, especially on the Track Cards with a darker theme, such as
the forests. The rule book itself is clearly presented and includes a good
example of a single turn, and the artwork has a lovely period feel, especially
the locomotive illustrations on the Trip cards.
If there is an issue with Village Railways, it is that it pitches itself as a railway
game set in the English countryside where the locals are happy to allow tracks
to be built by the players or railway companies, but make specific demands of
them. Which sounds like the players are laying tracks, but where they go will
often be dictated by intervening or vociferous busybodies or persons of note,
but it is not that. It is instead, more of a puzzle game in which each player attempts
to fill a grid with tracks and maximise their points. Essentially, Village Rails combines drafting from a marketplace, tile placement, and route planning
and building with the almost puzzle-like element of placing Track cards and
connecting railway lines in a way which every player hopes will optimise his
railway network and his score. Not as light a game as it first seems, Village Rails: A Game of Locomotives and Local Motivess is simple to learn and quick to
play, but it is more challenging and thoughtful than the average filler game.
