NBC Mañana

Tomorrow: an apocalyptic nightmare, published by Conquistador Games, is one of the most challenging games to be crowd-funded via Kickstarter in 2013. It is challenging in two ways. First, in its subject matter, and second, in its game play. It takes as its subject matter, the idea that humanity is in the process of killing the planet and thus ultimately, itself. The solution, as devised by the world’s great scientists and leaders, is a radical one—reduce the planet's population in order to save the Earth and the survivors. Tomorrow's game play involves the culling of humanity, 70,000,000 people at a time... At game's end the players will score points not only for the survivors they control, but also for those that they killed during the game. Such slaughter may not be to everyone's liking.

In order to conduct such slaughter, each player takes the role of a global superpower that will employ cyber warfare, and biological and nuclear weapons to whittle away at the world's inhabitants. Although it looks like a standard game of strategic global domination, Tomorrow is anything but that, and to play it as such would be at odds with the game's intent. Tomorrow is in fact a semi-cooperative game with a time limit. The players have to cooperate in order to kill the required population, but must do so before the world ends. If they fail to do so before the world ends, then everyone loses. Yet even if the players succeed in annihilating the required numbers, this does not mean that everyone has won as it might in any other cooperative game, for in the desperate future of Tomorrow, there can only be one winner, that being the player who has killed the most and has the most survivors and has thus acquired the most points of Political Capital. Tomorrow is in effect, a sort of anti-Risk.

Designed for four to six players, Tomorrow carries an a suggested minimum age of seventeen plus, which is not surprising given its subject matter. Each player is the leader of a global superpower—China, the European Union, Russia, and the USA  in a four-player game, plus the Arab Caliphate in a five player game, and India in a six-player game. Each superpower begins the game with a nuclear and military arsenal, the size varying from superpower to another. Both Russia and the USA have the largest nuclear arsenals, whilst the USA has the largest military. Each superpower has the ability to deliver these military and nuclear attacks as well as biological attacks. It can also conduct espionage missions and it also has a special ability of its own which is invariably useful and thematic.

Game Set-Up for six players.

China begins play with control of Cyberspace, which enables it to draw Strategy Cards, steal Strategy Cards from other superpowers, or dictate play order each turn, and as a ‘Closed Society’ can once per game regain control of Cyberspace if it has lost it. The European Union holds the position of ‘Secretary-General’ and determines play order each turn unless overruled by whomever controls Cyberspace. Russia suffers from ‘Desolation’, its home territory being so large that diseases caused by Biological Attacks do not spread into or out of Russia. With ‘CDC’, USA controls the Centre for Disease Control, which means that sometimes a biological attack on its home soil can be stopped. The Arab Caliphate can conduct acts of ‘Terror’, either to prevent another superpower from taking one of its actions or once per game, to sneak into a rival superpower’s virulent disease store and unleash it on that superpower’s home territory. Lastly, India possesses ‘Peaceful Oversight’, which enables it to protect minor powers it occupies more effectively. Of these special abilities, only ‘Terror’ requires a player to use it as an action—the others are all permanent effects.

At game’s start, each player receives his arsenal of military and nuclear missile tokens, a set of Action Cards, three diseases for use in Biological attacks, and his population pawns. These are set up according to the numbers on the board. Population pawns are also added to the regions of the world occupied by the minor powers—Canada, Central America, South America, North and South America, South Korea and Japan, Southeast Asia, Australia, and Oceania, again according to the numbers marked on the board. The minor powers also have their population pawns. They also have their own armies and nuclear missile tokens, though they come into play with certain Event Cards. The game’s Strategy Cards are shuffled as are the Event Cards. There is a set of Strategy Cards for each of the game’s three Threat Levels—Yellow/1, Red/2, and Black/3. Each card provides a benefit and many also provide a player with extra points of Political Capital at game’s end. For example, the Yellow/1 ‘Antidote’ Strategy card can be played to prevent a disease spreading into a territory that you control and is worth +1 Political Capital; the Red/2 ‘War Crimes’ Strategy Card is played on a superpower when it removes the final population pawn from any power to levy a penalty of -3 points of Political Capital; and the Black/3 ‘Defense in Depth’ Strategy card gives a bonus to support the defence of a minor power that is being invaded. Most Black/3 Strategy cards simply award points of Political Capital (which are somewhat lacking in flavour, but this offset by the fact that they mainly drawn once play has ended and scoring begins).

The Event Deck represents tomorrow’s news that will affect one or more of the superpowers. Each Event Card describes three events, one for each of the game’s three Threat Levels. Only one of the events on an Event Card will apply that turn, this depending on what the current Threat Level is. At Yellow/1, an Event Card gives ‘For Israel!’ which awards any superpower that nukes the Arab Caliphate with a Strategy card and a +5 Political Capital bonus; at Red/2, ‘Religious Radicals’ in India award anyone that nukes India with a +5 Political Capital bonus; and at Black/3, ‘Panicked Bloodlust’ forces everyone to launch a nuclear or biological attack that turn or be unable to act. With twelve Event Cards in the deck, there is plenty of variety here, but only nine are used to form the Event Deck in play. This Event Deck is the timing mechanism in Tomorrow. With an Event Card being drawn at the beginning of each turn, the superpowers have only nine turns before in which to deplete the world’s population or the world ends...

Lastly, the Death Marker is placed high on the Yellow/1 Threat Track, which runs parallel to the Red/2 and Black/3 Threat Tracks. As the game proceeds and the world is depopulated of Population pawns, the Death Marker is moved down the Threat Track, moving from the Yellow/1 Threat Track to the Red/2 Threat Track and then the Black/3 Threat Track. The aim is to get it right down to the bottom of the Black/3 Threat Track by game's end.

Each of the game’s nine turns consists of five phases. First, an Event Card is drawn and its effect is noted for that turn. Second, the current controller of the Cyberspace card chooses either to take a Strategy card from the current Threat Level, steal another superpower’s Strategy Card, or override the European Union’s Special Ability to determine the play order for that turn. Third, each superpower chooses two of his Action Cards that will represent what it will do that turn. Fourth, the European Union (or the superpower that controls Cyberspace) determines play order, one superpower at a time. As each superpower is revealed, it chooses either to pass or use an Action Card. Once every superpower has played or passed, they get to do it a second time in the same order. Last and fifth, all tokens are refreshed and new diseases acquired if any Biological attacks were launched.

Each turn a superpower can undertake up to two actions using its Action Cards of which it has a hand of five. The ‘Biologicals’ Action Card enables a superpower to attack a minor or major superpower with a disease such as ‘British Hugging Duckling Syndrome’ or ‘Beubonic Wrath’. Each disease will typically kill one or two Population pawns in the targeted region and usually has a chance of spreading to adjacent regions as well—Russia being the exception to the latter. Alternatively, the ‘Biologicals’ Action Card enables a superpower to gain two new diseases. The ‘Cyber’ Action Card lets a superpower attempt to wrest control of Cyberspace from the superpower that currently holds the Cyberspace card. When played, the ‘Espionage’ Action Card prevents another superpower from using either the ‘Biologicals’ or ‘Espionage’ Action Cards as well as the Arab Caliphate from using its  ‘Terror’ Action Card. The ‘Espionage’ Action Card is the only card that can be played reflexively and out of turn. The ‘Military’ Action Card is used to launch a conventional attack on a minor power such as Canada or South Korea & Japan—such attacks cannot be launched on other superpowers. Such an invasion can be countered or supported by other superpowers and temporarily exhausts the army units until the next turn. If a superpower successfully invades a minor power, it must maintain an army in the region and will be rewarded with a Strategy Card when the Death Marker moves from one Threat Track down to the next (from Yellow/1 Threat Track to the Red/2 and then the Black/3 Threat Track). A superpower can launch a nuclear attack with the ‘Nukes’ Action Card. Only China, the European Union, Russia, and the USA possess missiles that can target any region on the planet, while the Arab Caliphate and India have missiles that can only strike adjacent regions. Launching a nuclear attack has a negative effect. It only kills one Population pawn and levies a penalty of -3 Political Capital upon both the attacking superpower and the superpower in possession of the targeted region. Further, it drives up the Death Marker on the Threat Track, not down it, and nor does the attacking superpower points score points for it at game’s end. The ‘Nukes’ Action Card cannot be blocked though…

Africa, the Arab Caliphate, and European Union have suffered biological attacks.
China has invaded Canada before the USA does and declared the Canadian Communist Republic.
India has initiated a peacekeeping mission in  Australia.

When Population pawns are removed from the board, the Death Marker on the Threat Track is driven ever lower. How much by depends on where the Population pawns come from. For each Population pawn from Russia and the USA, it is moved down by three spaces, by two spaces if from China or the European Union, and by one space from anywhere else. This feels a little odd, but essentially, the value of each Population pawn represents not just  70,000,000 people, but also the impact they have on global resources.

The USA strikes back—successfully invading the Canadian Communist Republic and then Japan & South Korea.
Russia has launched two invasions. One in Central America, mostly unsuccessful due to the population having been devastated by a biological attack, and in the other in South-East Asia, which is much more successful.
Elsewhere, the populations of the Arab Caliphate, European Union, India, and Russia have been seriously depleted. The end of the game is near...

 Tomorrow ends after nine turns have been played. If by this time the superpowers have failed to drive the Death Marker down to the end of the Threat Track, then the world ends and nobody wins. If they have, then each superpower adds up the Political Capital to be gained from the Population it still has, the Population it killed, any Strategy or Event Cards, and then deducts points from the devastating effect of nuclear attacks. The superpower that comes out of the depopulation campaign with the Political Capital is the winner.

End Game. 
China has driven the USA out of Japan & South Korea—and launched a nuclear strike on Russia.
The Middle East, Central Asia, and northern India have been devastated.
The game was not a loss—sufficient numbers of the population were annihilated. 
Despite having suffered a nuclear strike, Russia won.

Physically, Tomorrow is a beautiful game, sober and austere, with the look of an actual global threat assessment map like that found in the film Doctor Strangelove. The Population pawns are solid pieces of coloured wood, the cardboard tokens are thick and colourful, and the cards are easy to read and understand. The Kickstarter.com version of the game may include wooden tokens for the armies in the form of tanks and thick and heavy mushroom clouds for the nuclear missiles. Although not necessary to play, they add much to the theme of Tomorrow. The good news is that these wooden pieces are now available from the publisher. The rules themselves need a good read through as although the game is actually much simple than it looks, there are one or two little elements that can be lost when first playing. Some advice is given alongside the rules, necessary because essentially the theme of the game is at odds with the look and style of the game. 

Throughout the rulebook, one piece of advice is given again and again—‘Negotiate!’ Tomorrow is a cooperative game and the players have to work together if there is the chance that one of them will win, but that said there is no means or a mechanic in the game that would prevent a player from working against this aim. If a player wanted everyone to lose, then he could certainly cause that to happen. This may well be the game’s Achilles’ heel. Nevertheless, the players really should work together if they are not to lose, and there are plenty of opportunities to bargain throughout the game. In support of, or against, a ‘Military’ Action Card, on whom to use an ‘Espionage’ Action Card, and where to target a ‘Biologicals’ Action Card for example. Throughout, agreements and promises can be made between the superpowers, but these do not have to be adhered to, but such betrayal may lead to repercussions…

One advantage of negotiating is that it can offset each superpower’s disadvantages. For example, the Arab Caliphate is relatively weak, has a small military, and its nuclear missiles are few in number and of limited range. It has the ‘Terror’ Action Card though, which is a powerful threat as it can limit the actions of another superpower. Promising to direct the ‘Terror’ Action Card elsewhere may redirect the attention of an superpower that might otherwise attack the Arab Caliphate. Similarly, whilst Russia and the USA possess the largest nuclear arsenal, there is almost no point in actually using them—the penalty in terms of Political Capital and the fact that their use drives the Death Marker up the Threat Track not down, should be deterrent enough. This does not discount their use as a big stick with which to police the depopulation of the world, that is a deterrent. Such negotiation should of course be accompanied by plenty of ‘table talk’—preferably in character!

Similarly, each player needs to learn how to use effectively each superpower’s Special Ability. For example, both China with its control of Cyberspace, and India with its ‘Peaceful Oversight’, both grant the means to gain Strategy Cards which will give them advantages or Political Capital. Both Russia and the USA possess defensive Special Abilities, whilst the Arab Caliphate can use the ‘Terror’ Action Card to deny another superpower an action each turn, and the European Union can control play order and that can also be negotiated for!

So what of Tomorrow's subject matter? Is it really as controversial as the outcry suggests? Arguably it does call for the players to cooperate in committing mass genocide, but this is simulated genocide after all. Further, is this subject matter as bad as that of many other games, whether that is the death and pillage at the heart of Dungeons & Dragons, the forced labour of the plantation workers in Puerto Rico, or the grisly combat of Advanced Squad Leader? Arguably, it is not as controversial because it is asking players to do no more than they might in any other game. The controversy comes in Tomorrow being explicit about about its subject matter, in being upfront about what the players are expected to do, in making it the point of the game rather than the ‘side effect’ of winning...

Tomorrow is a beautifully presented game with engaging theme aplenty that should drive the game’s table talk. Whether or not a playing group will enjoy Tomorrow will depend upon how they take to that theme. The gameplay is relatively simple, but there are nuances in the design that run counter to the atypical global-political game and such nuances will vary between the superpowers and their Special Abilities. These do provide the game with some replay value, but in the long term, Tomorrow: an apocalyptic nightmare may not outlive its nouveau notoriety despite it being an interesting design and an interesting idea.

[Photographs courtesy of Debbie Leung. Thanks to attendees of Afternoon Play for helping me test out Tomorrow: an apocalyptic nightmare as preparation for this review.]

Your Rokugani Primer

Emerald Empire is the second supplement to be released for Alderac Entertainment Group’s Legends of the Five Rings Fourth Edition Roleplaying Game. It replaces one of the most sought after supplements for the third edition of the RPG, also of the same name. What it sets out to provide is an extensive guide to Rokugan, the setting for Legends of the Five Rings, expanding upon the information given in the core rulebook. Over the course of eleven chapters and two appendices, it explores and details first Rokugan’s physical geography, and second, various aspects of Rokugani culture. These includes its customs and social structure, its politics and arts, how it maintains law and order, its religion, how it educates its people, its attitudes towards money and how it conducts commerce, how it goes to war, and its attitude towards and what it knows about the various Gaijin peoples beyond its borders. It not only goes into depth about these aspects with regard to Rokugan as a whole, but also Clan by Clan, including not only the eight major Clans, but also some of the minor ones too.

Essentially then, what we have in Emerald Empire is a series of lengthy essays. Just as with other supplements for Legends of the Five Rings, each chapter is preceded by a piece of short fiction that illuminates the contents to come. In this case, it follows the education of a student of Clan Scorpion at his dojo as he discusses each of the chapter’s subjects with his sensei. It is very enjoyable flavour text, and although what follows is more informative and much drier in tone, it is rarely less than useful. Alongside the main text, sidebars explore other aspects of a subject being discussed. For example, the section on law in Rokugan that discusses the usual Rokugani reliance upon testimony during criminal investigations is accompanied by a sidebar that examines the method of relying upon evidence employed by the Kitsuki family of the Dragon Clan. Throughout the volume, regular sections illuminate aspects of the Imperial Histories, such as how the first Emperor came to choose his wife, how the minor clan known as the Fox came into existence and who for example, has owned Ryoko Owari, the City of Lies, throughout its long history. Other sidebars provide adventure seeds – though these are few and far between; excerpts from noted works; monastic ranks; and many other elements of the setting.

For all of its background information, Emerald Empire does not ignore the mechanical aspects of Legends of the Five Rings. Rounding out most of the chapters are new mechanics to add to a GM’s game. These include new basic schools such as the Shinjo Bushi school for the family that once ruled the Unicorn Clan and the very practical Ikoma Lion’s Shadow Bushi school; new Advanced Schools like the Bushi Minor Clan Defender and the Courtier Imperial Scion; and Play-Aids such as tables that allow “Random Events at Court” or “Random Dojo Events” to be rolled for. Not all of these are new of course, but rather they are new for the Fourth Edition of Legends of the Five Rings.

Rounding out Emerald Empire is a pair of appendices. The first of these is an expanded glossary, one that replaces that included in the core rulebook. The second appendix provides a set of new rules for player characters taking on important stations such as Governor, Merchant Patron, or Warlord. Once a character has been appointed to one of these positions, he can begin to grow into the role and to call in favours and make improvements to all that comes with the new position. Thus, an Ambassador will gain Iron Will and be able to endure the turbulent arguments that go with court life, whilst a Governor can improve the Accommodations, Defences, Monuments, and other features of the area that he administers. In game terms, these improvements and advantages are known as Features and must be purchased using Duty Points granted by the new advantages, The World of the Daimyo and The Daimyo’s Path.

All six of these higher station roles are accompanied with new optional mechanics of their own. For example, the Court Battle System allows an Ambassador to engage in the battle of wits regularly engaged in at court, much like skirmish rules given the core rulebook. Similarly, a Keeper of the Temple can create new spells and kiho, Master Sensei can create new kata, and with the Army Battle System, a Warlord can command larger and larger units of troops, using them in conjunction with the Mass Combat rules in the core rulebook.

In places, these new rules do feel a little brief and also left undiscussed. There is certainly enough information for a GM to take this game to a new level, and he should be able to extract numerous roleplaying challenges from these rules. Yet, what advice there is, feels all too brief, and there is quite possibly a whole new supplement to be got out of this aspect of the game. As welcome as these new rules are, they do feel disappointingly slight when compared to the rest of the book, but then the rest of the book more than compensates for this relatively slight disappointment.

Physically, Emerald Empire is another stunning looking book, in keeping with the rest of the line. The layout is clean, tidy, and attractive, and the artwork, which is excellent throughout, never feels less than appropriate.

There is so much to be got out of Emerald Empire. Its pages flow with detail and flavour, and it does not matter in what period a GM’s game is set nor what the players prefer in terms of Clan, there will be something in the supplement of use to them. For example, adherents of the Mantis Clan will appreciate the chapter devoted to commerce, the Crane Clan the chapters on court and the arts, and the Crab and Lion Clans the chapter on war. It is also easy to extract details and bring them into a game. For example, in our Lion Clan game, I not only read up on the Clan’s birth customs, but also Crane marriage customs for a scenario I wrote. Each of these selections nicely complements the further content given in the game fourth supplement, Great Clans.

Emerald Empire is superb supplement. Its contents are incredibly useful and can add so much to a campaign. Whether that is in the form of an idea for a scenario or for a whole campaign, or in the form of a small detail that will help bring a game to life, the supplement is a wealth of information. It also helps with another aspect of the game, the fact that Legends of the Five Rings is a culture game, and the details contained in Emerald Empire do support this. This makes Emerald Empire, along with Enemies of the Empire, the two key supplements to purchase after Legends of the Five Rings Roleplaying Game. Above all, Emerald Empire brims with detail and flavour that will help a GM being Rokugan to life and give a player a greater knowledge into which immerse his character.

Track or Share?

One of the odder games to be released at Essen in 2010 was SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français) from Winsome Games. The oddity being that Winsome Games is best known for developing, publishing, and licensing detailed, historical train games – board games that focus on the building and development of railway networks and the trading in the shares of railway companies. SNCF was anything other than detailed or historical, but was instead a simple track and share game that could be played in thirty minutes. Nevertheless, it offered up careful tactical play and was quickly licensed to Queen Games and released as Paris Connection.

As both titles suggest, Paris Connection is set in France in which the players take the role of investors in the new railway companies that want to connect Paris with the rest of France. Designed for between three and six players, aged ten and over, the aim of the game is to increase the value of shares in one of six railway companies and to hold shares in these companies. Share values are increased by laying track and building connecting routes from Paris across France to her towns and cities. The first clever aspect of the game is that the wooden train pieces that represent the track or routes in the game also represent the shares in the company, so there will come a point at which it is more profitable to own shares in a company rather than build with them. The second clever aspect about the game is that share ownership is hidden throughout the game and only revealed at the very end, though share transactions are done in public.

The game consists of a board depicting a map of France with her various towns and cities. Most towns are worth a single point when scored, but in general, the further a town or city is away from Paris, the more valuable it is to score. Around two sides of the board is a scoring track that runs from one to thirty, showing not a player’s score, but the share values for each company. Besides the main board, there is a small storage board for each of the game’s six sets of share/track pieces. These come in six colours, are done in wood, and are shaped like steam locomotives. There is a card screen for each player behind which he can hide his shares. The last two components are a black cloth bag used to determine random share ownership at the start of a game and two sets of rules. One set of rules is in French, the other in English. Both are double sided, done in full colour with one side explaining how to set the game and the other the game’s actual rules.

Game set up is simple. Each player receives a screen and a train of each colour is placed on the start of the Scoring Track and on the start hexes in Paris. The remaining train pieces of all six colours are placed in the cloth bag and given a good mix. Each player then draws a number of random train pieces from the bag and hides them behind his screen. The number drawn depends on the number of players. The greater the number of players, the fewer the initial number of shares that they can hold at the start of the game and the fewer maximum shares that a player can hold at the end of the game without their scores being penalised.

On his turn, a player has two options. He can either lay track or take shares. To lay track he takes up to five train pieces from any one storage board and places them board so that they are connected to trains of the same colour. To take shares, a player places one the shares he has behind his screen on the storage board that matches its colour and takes two shares of another colour from another storage board. This is only way in which a player can increase the number of shares that he holds.

Play continues until there are only share/track pieces remaining on the single storage board with the remaining share/track pieces either behind the players’ screens or on the board. The other way to end the game is for a player to build into Marseilles. At this point everyone reveals the shares they hold behind their screens and receives points for each share according to its value on the Scoring Track. The player with the highest value share portfolio – after penalties are levied for holding more than the maximum number of shares – is the winner.

Initially, the idea that you are not building your own railway and that you do not own train pieces of a single colour is counter intuitive. In almost every other game, you are building your own railway and you do own all of the train pieces of a single colour. Once past this stumbling block, Paris Connection presents one base tactical question and then a number of smaller questions to a player. That base question is, at what point does it become more valuable to hold multiple shares in a railway network than to extend that network? In other words, at what point do share/track pieces become more valuable as shares than as track?

The subsequent and smaller questions revolve around how does a player affect the share values in the other rail networks? The game is not complicated enough that it includes rules on how to reduce share value, but it is possible to limit the growth in share value. The most obvious means is place the share/track pieces in such a way that they do not connect to any town or city and so do not score any points. Thus a rail network’s share value is not increased for a player’s turn.

The last question that a player needs to address is, how quickly does he need a rail network need to get to Marseilles? It might be that with several high value shares in his portfolio, he might want to end the game early to capitalise on those values. Conversely, the other players might want to lay track in a high value share to both stop it rising in value and it reaching Marseilles, hopefully giving them time to improve other share values and increase their portfolios.

There are three great aspects to Paris Connection. First, there is its simplicity. The rules are not only simple to learn, they are also simple to teach. In fact, the game is simple enough that after a single read through of the rules; a group could get playing, meaning that it is entirely possible to play Paris Connection out of the box. The second great aspect is that the game has almost no randomness to it, and what there is, consists of determining each player’s share portfolio at game’s start. The third great aspect is that this is a Euro Game not for two to five players as many good Euro Games are, but for three to six, and light games for six players are not necessarily all that common.

The production values on Paris Connection are very high. The board is attractively done and clearly laid out. The screens are nice, though prone to falling over. The wooden train-shaped track/share pieces are equally attractive if a little small and perhaps fiddly to handle. The rules sheet is bright and easy to read. Yet these high production values are source of the game’s single real flaw. Paris Connection is not an inexpensive game. In fact it is an expensive game given both how long a play through lasts and how simple it is. It is engaging and enjoyable to play, but it does not offer value for money.

The purchase of the copy of Paris Connection that we have been playing was an impulse buy. The promised lightness of the rules and the upper limit on the number of players were the draw despite the price. Having played it a few times, we have found it to be light and easy, but still offering some tactical choices. Not only is Paris Connection an excellent filler game, it is also a good starter game, a title that can be played and enjoyed with casual games players… that is, if you are happy to overlook the price.

Five Rings Get Their Fourth

The year 2010 marks the fifteenth anniversary of the Legend of the Five Rings Collectable Card Game from Alderac Entertainment Group. To celebrate that fact, the publishers released a new, fourth edition of the roleplaying game based on the Collectable Card Game that was originally designed by John Wick in 1997, and to be honest, it was needed. Both the Legend of the Five Rings Third Edition and Legend of the Five Rings Third Edition Revised Edition had suffered from secondary mechanics that were too complex, from a lack of balance between the character types and their abilities, and physically, from the need for extensive errata. It was also tied to quite a tight timeline that meant that some of its background and its players options were different at different times during that timeline. The effort to rectify all of these issues has resulted in Legend of the Five Rings Fourth Edition.

Physically, the result is a quite lovely hard back with a nice simple cover and a clean layout inside with everything easy to find. The contents are also well organised, as in previous editions, into books or chapters that follow the game’s five rings theme. Thus the Book of Air details the setting; the Book of Earth the core rules and mechanics; character creation is covered in the Book of Fire; the Book of Water provides optional and more advanced elements that a GM can add to his game; while the Book of Void contains more background as well as advice for the GM. The artwork is excellent, split equally between ethereal pieces that capture the meditative tranquillity of life in the setting, and high action pieces that portray the harsh brutality of war and strife in the setting.

That setting is Rokugan, a land inspired primarily by feudal Japan but also by China and Korea. It is a land dominated by eight great and many minor Clans that vie for control and influence on the battlefield in Summer and at court during Winter, all the while still owing fealty to the Emperor. Below the Emperor are the samurai and below them, the many peasants that they govern. Samurai are what the players will roleplay in Legend of the Five Rings, but more specifically, they can play bushi, which are the warrior samurai that we think when we think of samurai; shugenja, priests who pray to the kami or spirits to cast spells; or courtiers, the politicians, civil servants, and diplomats of Rokugan who serve their clans’ needs at court. Whatever his role, a samurai adheres to the tenets of Bushido, though which tenet he favours will vary according to his clan.

The eight great clans vary quite widely, each having its own theme and attitude towards the other clans. No surprise there, since this is an update of a 1990s design. The Crab Clan use their strength to man the wall that protects the Empire from the Shadowlands, but are regarded as uncouth and ill mannered; Crane Clan are known as the Left Hand of the Emperor and are wealthy and influential politicians; The Dragon Clan remain aloof from most affairs in its mountain fast, but have sallied forth to aid the Empire several times; and the Lion Clan are the Right Hand of the Emperor, being devoted warriors. The Mantis Clan is the only clan to have been raised to major clan status and is known for its sailors; where the Lion Clan is known for its bushi, the Phoenix Clan is known for its shugenja; the Underhand of the Emperor are the Scorpion Clan, which revels in its villainous status and reputation; and lastly, the Unicorn Clan are Rokugan’s horsemen, who spent several centuries in the Gaijin lands to the West.

Characters inLegend of the Five Ringsare defined by the five attributes or Rings: Air, Water, Earth, Fire, and Void. Apart from Void, each Ring is comprised of two traits. For example, the Water Ring is made up of Perception and Strength. The value of a Ring is equal to the lower of its two traits. For example, Nioko has Perception 3 and Strength 2, so her Water Ring would be 2, equal to her Strength. If she undertook regular exercise and spent the appropriate Experience Points, she could raise her Strength and thus her Water Ring to 3. A character will also be defined by various factors such as Glory, Honour, and Status, but primarily by her clan, her family and her school. Apart from the minor clans, each clan has several families, one bushi, one courtier, and one shugenja school, plus a more specialised school such as the Lion Clan’s Matsu Berserker School.

To create a character, a player selects a clan, a family, and a school. Both family and school grant a trait bonus each, while the school will teach the character a number of set skills plus the first of several techniques that enhance a character's abilities and reflect the school's teachings. At this point, a character will be like any samurai who has attended that particular school, but each player receives a number of points with which to customise the character. These can be spent to add advantages and disadvantages, and add and improve skills to personalise the character, whether that is making a samurai a better swordsman with Kenjitsu, adding a hobby skill like Poetry, or having him Haunted by an ancestor. Some skills, especially those that will find favour with players in other games such as Ninjitsu or Anatomy, are regarded as being dishonourable skills and a samurai will lose honour if he is seen using them.

The following three characters model the three character types in the game. Apart from equipment – and Legend of the Five Rings is not a game in which money matters very much, they are ready to play.

Tsuruchi Tsuru, Mantis Bushi
Air: 2 (Reflexes 3), Earth: 2 Fire: 2, Water: 3 Void: 2
Honour: 3.5, Status: 1.0, Glory: 1.0, Insight: 132
School/Rank: Tsuruchi Archer, Rank 1
Technique: Always Be Ready
Advantages: Absolute Direction, Daredevil, Touch of the Spirit Realm (Chikushudo)
Disadvantages: Phobia (Fire) 2, Sworn Enemy
Skills: Animal Handling 2, Athletics 2, Craft (Bowyer) 2, Battle 1, Defence 2, Etiquette 1, Hunting 2, Investigation 2, Kenjutsu 2, Kyujutsu (Yumi) 3, Medicine 1, Lore (Bushido) 1, Sailing 1

Yasuki Oguri, Crab Courtier
Air: 2 (Awareness 3), Earth: 2 Fire: 2 (Intelligence 3), Water: 2 (Perception 3) Void: 2
Honour: 2.5, Status: 1.0, Glory: 1.0, Insight: 118
School/Rank: Yasuki Courtier, Rank 1
Technique: The Way of the Carp
Advantages: Voice
Disadvantages: Bad Eyesight, True Love
Skills: Artisan: Poetry 1, Athletics 1, Commerce (Appraisal) 2, Courtier 2 (Manipulation), Defence 1, Etiquette (Bureaucracy) 3, Intimidation (Control) 1, Investigation (Notice) 1, Jiujutsu 1, Kenjutsu 1, Lore: Bushido 1, Sailing 1, Sincerity (Deceit) 2

Kitsu Rihito, Lion Shugenja
Air: 2 Earth: 2 Fire: 2 (Intelligence 3), Water: 3 Void: 2
Honour: 6.5, Status: 1.0, Glory: 1.0, Insight: 133
School/Rank: Kitsu Shugenja, Rank 1
Technique: Eyes of the Ancestors
Affinity/Deficiency: Water/Fire
Spells: Sense, Commune, Summon; Path to Inner Peace, Reflections of Pan Ku, Reversal of
Fortunes; To Seek the Truth, Yari of Air; Jade Strike
Advantages: Inner Gift (Lesser Prophecy), Precise Memory
Disadvantages: Doubt, Epilepsy, Haunted
Skills: Battle 1, Calligraphy (Cipher) 1, Defence 2, Divination (Astrology) 2, Games (Go) 1, Etiquette 1, Kenjutsu 2, Lore: History 1, Lore: Spirit Realms 2, Lore: Theology 2, Meditation 2, Spellcraft 3, Tea Ceremony 1, War Fan 2

For its mechanics, Legend of the Five Rings still uses the "Keep and Roll" system. For any action this has a character roll a number of ten sided dice, select the ones that he wants to use and then add them up. The number rolled is usually equal to the governing trait or Ring plus skill with the number kept being equal to the attribute or Ring, expressed as “xky,” where x is the number to roll and y the number to keep. For example, Tsuruchi Tsuru our Mantis Bushi above is out hunting when he is ambushed by a trio of Bakemono or goblins. He already has his Yumi or bow to hand and quickly notches an arrow as the creatures scamper towards him. He has to roll three dice for his Reflexes and three for his Kyujutsu skill, but can only keep the governing trait value or three for his Reflexes. This is expressed as 6k3.

The total rolled is compared to a TN or Target Number, which in the case of the Bakemono is 15. If Tsuru wants or needs to do something more than achieve this target, he can make Raises, adding five to the TN for each Raise declared before the roll. The limit on the number of Raises is a character’s Void Ring. In combat, Raises can add to the damage dice rolled or kept, depending on the number of Raises. If a character has an appropriate emphasis for a skill, he re-roll any ones rolled, and if just has the skill, then results of ten can be rolled again and added to the total. Tsuru thinks he has a good chance of hitting one of the goblins and declares two Raises, increasing the TN to 25. Rolling the dice, he gets 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 10. Since he has the Yumi Emphasis, he re-roll the 1 and gets a 3. Of the six dice rolled, he selects the 7, 8, and 10, re-rolling the 10 to add another 10, followed by another 10 and lastly a 1 to get a total of 56. This is well above the TN of 25, but since he only declared two Raises, he does not get the benefit of that really high roll! The Raises gets him an extra die to keep for damage, which is determined by the type of bow and arrow used. His yumi gives three dice, the willow leaf arrow gives 2k2, to which is added the bonus keep die to give a total of 5k3. The result is 3, 4, 8, 8, and 9, of which he keeps the last three and adds for a total of 25! This is enough to skewer one of the charging goblins who flops to the ground. Now for the last two...

Of course this in combat where you want to roll as high possible. Would there be situations when you might want to keep the lowest dice rolls? Possibly, such as when you are in a duel to first blood and want to pull the blow rather than deliver a killing strike. Although the mechanics get a little more complex with the secondary rules, they are at their heart easy to grasp, and in combat, they enforce just how deadly Legend of the Five Rings can be.

Beyond the character section, the book presents one other “major” clan and several minor clans that can be included in a campaign. The Spider Clan has not been recognised as a major clan by Emperor and its members are reviled for their devotion to the fallen Kami, the dark lord Fu Leng. Most of the minor clans do not amount to more than a single family and associated school, most being allied to a major clan. What is interesting in the treatment of the minor clans is that some of those listed have since become part of major clans, such as the Tsuruchi family of the Mantis Clan which was once the Wasp Clan. This supports one of the changes to Legend of the Five Rings in the Fourth Edition – keeping the core rules timeline neutral. Also detailed are the Imperial families and ronin, though the latter are only given cursory detail. Anyone wanting to play a ronin will have to wait for Enemies of the Empire for further information. Other optional rules cover mass battles, complete opportunities for heroic action; clan ancestors that can guide a character; alternate progression paths and advanced schools for characters; crafting rules; and Kiho, the sometimes near superhuman abilities of the monks.

Unless he is running a very strange game, the rules for Maho and Shadowlands Taint are really for the GM’s eyes only. Maho is the dark magic employed by the Spider Clan and other creatures of the Shadowlands, while the insidious and corruptive Taint seeps directly out of Jigoku, the Realm of Evil. Both are powerful and seductive, and the more you subject yourself to both the more likely that Jigoku will tempt you with interesting powers and mutations.

More specifically for the GM is the Book of Void. Much of this chapter is given over to describing the geography of Rokugan itself, detailing the places marked on the map inside the front and back covers. Flipping back and forth between this section and the end of the book is a pain, but this is a good read, full of interesting little particulars. The rest of the chapter is devoted to actually running the game, and includes an excellent section on storytelling that highlights the differences between Western and Eastern heroic stories; looks at possible campaign times, such as the ever reliable Imperial Magistrate based campaign to a Bushido-orientated Band of Brothers style game; discusses how to run two player games – very useful in these difficult days of getting players together; and examines the thirty six plotlines used by some writers. These are supported with scenario seeds and plenty of good advice throughout. The bestiary itself is relatively short, no surprise given all of the possibilities and the lack of space in this core book.

Lastly there is the scenario, “Tournament of the Samurai,” a political and investigative affair set at a Winter Court. I am of two minds about this scenario, despite not having read it (and not wanting to read it since it might be run for me). In part I miss the original scenario from the game’s first edition, as that was a very good showcase of the game’s mechanics and setting. Yet that led off to the characters being appointed magistrates, and this scenario is more neutral in its conclusion. That said, something that shows off the setting’s political aspect and its very different approach to dispensing justice – Rokugan’s legal system favours testimony rather than evidence – is more than welcome.

So that is Legends of the Five Rings, but what are the changes between this the Fourth and the previous Third Edition? Thankfully these have been summarised at the book’s start for returning players and while my comments will be based upon that summary, they will be influenced by my own experience playing the game. The most notable are that skills have been streamlined, with Emphases no longer adding to a roll, but allowing rolls of one to be re-rolled. “Defence,” which allows spells to be cast and skills to be used in combat while still avoiding trying to be hit, and “Centre,” for preparing yourself for a duel have both been added to the Stances available in combat. Also, there are no Techniques that allow an extra attack per round, though some do change attacks from Complex to Simple Actions, allowing extra attacks to be made if desired. The main change though, lies in a general streamlining and balancing of the schools available to the characters. This has allowed the flavour of the school to be got to very quickly and very easily.

Legend of the Five Rings is a very different game compared to most available today. It is a “Culture” game, one that rewards the GM and his players immersing themselves in a setting that is unlike medieval fantasy. This is not a setting that favours the individual, a samurai being expected to put the Emperor and his clan before himself. This can be a challenge for anyone coming to Rokugan having been influenced by Hollywood, but if he can think outside of the western traditions, this a fascinating world. Above all, what Legends of the Five Rings Fourth Edition does is make both the game and Rokugan itself far more accessible. The rules have been made easier and in doing so, have allowed the setting to come to the fore.

So This Is It...

Over the past few years, there has been a trend in board games wherein the players have not been competing against each other, but instead co-operate together against the game itself. For fans of the Cthulhu Mythos, Arkham Horror can be included amongst their number, alongside such other titles as Space Alert, Shadows Over Camelot, Red November, and Battlestar Galactica. It should be pointed out though, that both Shadows Over Camelot and Battlestar Galactica add in an element of treachery with at least one player being a traitor. The game I am going to review though, is purely co-operative and lacks that traitorous element – unless of course, you happen to purchase the expansion – but be warned, in playing you do hold the fate of humanity in your hands and that fate is damned difficult to avoid. The game in question is Z-Man Games’ Pandemic.

Designed for two to four players aged ten and up, in Pandemic the players take the role of specialists working for the CDC or Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States Federal Agency tasked with dealing with health, safety, and research as well as having to combat the outbreak of various virulent diseases. At the start of any game of Pandemic, the specialists will be faced with the outbreak of not one, but four diseases across the globe. They have an hour’s worth of nerve wracking game play in which to not only find cures for all four diseases, but also to prevent mankind from being overwhelmed by any one of them and thus wiped out. They will need to husband their resources, conduct enough research, and get to the right cities to treat the victims and so contain any further outbreaks if they are to win and mankind is to survive. There is only one way to win Pandemic – find a cure for all four diseases, but multiple ways in which to lose. It is a hard, sometimes a very hard game to win, but all too easy to lose...

Inside Pandemic’s surprisingly small box can be found a board, ninety-six wooden cubes, five pawns, six wooden Research Stations, six card markers, over one hundred cards, plus the eight-page rulebook. Everything is done in full colour with sturdy wooden pieces and hard wearing cards. The board itself depicts the Earth marked with the major cities of world and the routes between them. The cities are divided between four colour-coded zones: blue (North America and Europe), black (Eurasia, India, and North Africa), red (Asia and Australia), and yellow (Hispanic America and Sub-Saharan Africa). The board also has room for the game’s two decks of cards and its various markers. The six markers are divided four cure markers – one for each of the game’s four diseases, and one each to indicate the Infection Rate and the number of Outbreaks.

The cards are primarily divided between two decks, one of Infection Cards and one of Player Cards. For each of the cities on the board there is corresponding card in both decks, but where the Infection Deck only has cards that show a city, the Player Deck also contains special cards (which give the players a one time advantage when played) and Infection Cards (which indicate a new occurrence of a disease and increase the number of infection cards drawn). Each of the five Role Cards grants a player an extra ability that allows him to break the game’s basic rules. For example, the Medic role card lets a player treat all of the disease cubes of one colour in a city as a single action, rather than having to expend an action to cure a single disease cube. The other roles include the Dispatcher (who can move the other players around the board), the Operations Manager (who can build Research Stations wherever he is), the Researcher (who can freely give cards to another player when they are in the same city), and the Scientist (who needs fewer cards to cure a disease).

Lastly, there are four Reference Cards – these list possible player actions, and of course, the disease cubes. These are divided between the four colours – blue, black, red, and yellow – that match the coloured zones on the board. A disease of one colour will only appear in its matching zone unless an outbreak occurs and it infects a city in an adjacent zone.

Game set up takes a little doing. Each player randomly selects his Role and receives two Player Cards. The remainder of the Player Deck is seeded with Epidemic Cards, the number setting the difficulty for the game, five being average difficulty. Everyone starts play in Atlanta – the headquarters for the CDC – along with a single Research Station. Nine Infection Cards are drawn and each of the cities that they show is seeded with disease cubes. These nine cards are reshuffled and placed back on top of the Infection Deck. This is an important feature of the game, previously drawn Infection Cards being reshuffled and placed back on top of the Infection Deck each time an Epidemic Card is drawn from the Player Deck, indicative of the fact that once a city has been infected, that it can be re-infected.

Each player’s turn has three phases. In the first phase, he can act, having four action points to spend on movement, on treating diseases, on building Research Stations, or on the special actions listed on his Role Card. In moving, he can simply move from one city to the next or use a Player Card to move to or from the city given on that card. In doing so, he discards the card in question. To treat a disease, a player uses up one action and removes one disease cube from the city he is in. A player needs to have the Player Card for the city that he is in if he wants to build a Research Station there, discarding the card in the process. A player can give a Player Card to another player, but to do so both players have to be in the city marked on the card. Lastly, a player can cure a disease simply by discarding five Player Cards of the same colour whilst at a Research Station – or four cards if the player is the Scientist.

The draw phase follows this, a player simply drawing two new Player Cards. A turn ends with the Infection Phase, in which a number of cards equal to the Infection Rate are draw and single disease cubes added to the cities shown on the cards. At the beginning of the game the Infection Rate is just two, but this will increase up to three and then four as Epidemic Cards are drawn from the Player Deck. The maximum number of disease cubes of any one colour allowed on a city is three. If a disease cube is added to city that already has three – which will happen because cities are likely to be re-infected – an Outbreak proper occurs there. The Outbreak Track goes up by one and each city linked to the Outbreak location is infected by a single disease cube. In the process, it is possible to infect an adjacent city that already has three disease cubes on it and set off a chain reaction...

If an Epidemic Card was drawn during the draw phase, its effects take place before the Infection Phase. It moves the Infection Marker up by one and adds three disease cubes to a new city drawn from the bottom of the Infection Deck. This new Infection Card is added to the discard pile of Infection Cards which is shuffled and placed back on top of the Infection Deck. The Infection Phase continues as normal, except for the fact that cities already infected are likely to be infected again!

So how do you win? Simply by finding cures for all four diseases.

So one way to win, but three ways to lose. A game of Pandemic can be lost if the Outbreak Tracker goes up too high; if the Player Deck is exhausted; or if all of the disease cubes of one colour are out on the board.

If that all sounds very mechanical, then it is. In fact, Pandemic has to be very mechanical because the game has to run itself while the players try and stop this process. And stopping that process takes no little thought and no little effort, which is of course, is made easier because a player is encouraged to seek the advice of his fellow players who are expected to suggest his next best course of action.

Even at best and with that advice, the players are fighting a losing battle. They can never quite get on top of the diseases before an Epidemic Card is drawn and cities begin being re-infected. This leads to a certain amount of Infection Card counting, the players trying to balance their actions between the location of the Disease Cubes already on the board and the Infection Cards that have yet to be drawn. This is because the top cards of Infection Deck are going to be drawn and then refreshed when an Epidemic Card is drawn, giving the opportunity for the players to learn those top cards. The other balancing act is between trying to treat diseases and collecting enough Player Cards, the latter made more difficult because a player can only hold seven Player Cards in his hand.
Of course, once you have managed to cure a disease, everything gets slightly easier. It becomes easier to treat, more so if you have the Medic in play, who no longer has to act to treat, merely pass through a city infected by that disease. If the players manage to develop a cure for a disease and remove all of its cubes from the board, it is eradicated and will not appear again. So any Infection Cards drawn of that colour have no effect. Eradicating a disease is admirable, but rarely is it worth the effort – there being too much else to do.

Despite all of this difficulty, Pandemic is still a good game. Game play is very tense, but also very quick because you do not have that all much to do on your turn. Plus, when it is not your turn, you are still kept busy, discussing with everyone what both you and they should be doing. In fact the game is so quick that it is usually completed in less than an hour. One downside is that the discussion between players can be dominated by a single player, especially if the other players are not as experienced with the game. This lessens though the more times that it is played. The other downside is that it is so very difficult. Of course, the difficulty can be decreased by reducing the number of Epidemic Cards that can be drawn, but once you have beaten the game at one difficulty, you will only want to try at a greater difficulty. The big plus though, comes when you do succeed. The feeling of having beaten all four diseases and saved mankind is not only fantastic, it is also a relief.

I will go further than saying that Pandemic is a good game – it is a great game, a classic even. It is not difficult to learn or hard to play, but is difficult to master or rather beat the game itself. It also keeps everyone involved and it demands that you play intelligently. Pandemic is just simply and frustratingly brilliant.

[As a side note and to keep it within the Reviews from R’lyeh theme, there is even an unofficial variant that re-imagines the players not as specialists working for the CDC, but investigators holding back the forces of the Mythos. Think of the disease cubes as cults devoted to things that man was not meant to know and outbreaks as summoning and you get the idea... In the meantime, the designer of this game has new co-operative board game called Forbidden Island which I reviewed last month.]

Look at the Pretty Camels

Originally published in 1998, Reiner Knizia’s Through the Desert: A Game of Caravans and Desert Oases has recently been reprinted by Fantasy Flight Games. This is tile placing, route building, area control game, with the tiles being camels instead of desert. Designed for two to five players aged ten and up, it can be played within about thirty minutes. Its theme has nomadic tribes competing to become the most powerful in the desert by taking control of oases and establishing long caravan routes. In the game this is done by placing not just camels, but pretty camels in pastel colours.

The game consists of a board marked with a hex grid over a desert dotted with water holes and palm trees. Along the edges are several mountain ranges, with an additional impenetrable range in the middle of the board. One side of the board is marked with a bold line which marks the limit of the two to three player game. In a four or five player game, the whole of the board is used. There are also one hundred and seventy five plastic camels, comprised of thirty four camels in each of the five colours (lilac, mint, pale lemon, pastel green, and salmon pink), plus five in grey – though these look more brown than grey. For each player there is a set of six Riders (blue, cerise, green, orange, and red) that sit easily on the camels. In addition, there are five palm tree is dark green plastic. These come in two pieces and are easily assembled.

The other components consist of the Water Hole Markers, worth either one, two, or three points; Oasis Scoring Markers, worth five points and awarded whenever a caravan reaches an oasis; the Area Scoring Markers, awarded for the number of hexes enclosed by a caravan; and the Caravan Scoring Markers, awarded for the longest caravans in each colour, worth either ten points for the longest, or five points if there is a tie.

Game set up is relatively quick and simple. The palm trees are placed on any of the palm tree or oasis hexes – there being more than five palm tree hexes, and the Water Hole Markers are placed randomly on the water hole hexes face down. They are then turned over and their values revealed. Each player receives one camel of each colour, including a grey one, and places a Rider onto each of these to turn them into his Caravan Leaders. The grey Camel Leader is not played in the game, and only serves to remind the player of the colour of his Camel Leaders.  The players then take it in turns to place their Caravan Leaders anywhere on the board so long as they are not placed on a water hole or next to another Caravan Leader or a palm tree. Play then proceeds normally.

On his turn, player places two camels – these can be of any colour, the same or different – on the board. Each camel must be placed adjacent to a camel of the same that is connected to the Caravan Leader of your colour. It cannot be placed next to a caravan of the same colour which connected to a Caravan Leader of a different colour that belongs to another player. For example, Louise could put down a lilac camel next to her lilac caravan that is being led by one of her cerise Caravan Leaders, but not next to Dave’s lilac caravan which is being led by one of his orange Leaders. Keeping caravans separate in this way serves to make scoring easier for each caravan and it adds a tactical element in placing – it is possible to block another caravan of the same colour because it can only come within one hex of it.

When placing camels, a player will score points for most of the time. If he places a camel on a water hole, the player receives its Water Hole Token and adds its value to his score. If he places a camel next to an oasis – indicated by the presence of a palm tree – the player receives five points. This can only be done once per caravan per oasis, so a player will have to send that caravan to another oasis if he wants to score more points with it, or one of his other caravans to the first oasis to score points by reaching that one. In general, a player will try to reach as many oases as possible with each of his caravans, but will find himself blocked by caravans belonging to the other players.

Lastly, a player can score points by enclosing an entire area with a caravan of a single colour, claiming the points for any unclaimed Water Hole Markers and oases inside the enclosed area. He will also be awarded points for the enclosed area at the end of the game, at a rate of a single point per hex enclosed.

Game play continues until the players run out of camels to place of a single colour. Each player adds up his score so far and adds to this the points for any enclosed areas that he has created and if he has managed to create the longest caravan for any of the caravan colours, he receives points for that too. It is possible to tie for the longest caravan in a colour, in which case the points are split. The player with the highest score is of course, the winner.

Through the Desert is a simple game to play. You just put down two camels per turn. Where you put them though, is where the game gets interesting. There are multiple means of scoring of course, so as a player do you try and grab as many Water Hole Markers as possible, reach as many oases as possible, build the longest caravans, or enclose as much territory as you can? Invariably, you will try and do all of these, but there is usually never enough time, enough space, or enough camels. Game play tends to consist of two phases. In the first, players try and connect to as many water holes and oases as possible, preventing in the process other players from doing so. In the second phase, the game becomes more complex as each player builds longer caravans, tries to reach more distant oases, and enclose whole areas. At the same time, he should also be watching his fellow players looking for opportunities to block their caravans, so preventing them from reaching other oases and water holes as well as reducing the area that they can enclose. With so many options available a player has to make choices, sometimes to his benefit, other times to a rival’s detriment, and this really does force a player to think about where he is going to put his camels.

Physically, Through the Desert is well presented, but then you would expect nothing less of a game from Fantasy Flight Games. Its rules are very clear and easy to read, being just four pages long. Unlike earlier editions, only the English rules are included. The game is also rather attractive and looks good when being played. That though, is all down to the pretty little camels.

Through the Desert has three main problems. The first is one of cost. This is an expensive game for what it is, and this is only exacerbated in regions where games are subject to tax (which includes the United Kingdom).  The other two problems have to do with the components. The first of these is that with as many components as Through the Desert has, it does not come with any means of storing everything separately. This is a constant issue with products from Fantasy Flight Games and given just how much the customer is being asked to pay for this game, it seems a little rich not to include some decent ziplock bags. The second issue with the components is the choice of colours for the camels. In particular, the mint and pastel green camels are not always the easiest to tell apart and a better choice of colours would have made play just that little bit easier.

In the past I had read reviews of this game and scratched my head at how exactly it was played, but Dave – whose copy I am reviewing, thank you very much – quickly ran us through the rules. So having played it, I have found myself enjoying it very much. How to play proved easy to grasp and we were busy blocking each other on the second game, with everyone’s score being quite tight at game’s end despite our not knowing how well the other players were doing. We went from draw between myself and Dave in the first game to both myself and Louise beating Dave in the second game which I won, but only just. This is a game that I would appreciate having on the shelf ready to play.

Through the Desert is not quite a gateway game, a game that you use to introduce others to the hobby. In part this is because it is ever so slightly more abstract than other games that are described as being gateway games, such as Carcassonne or Ticket to Ride, but also because perhaps its theme is not quite as strong as it should be and because it is just slightly too easy for one player to block another, making game play ever so frustrating for the neophyte. So perhaps it best to introduce this game after other gateway games have been tried and enjoyed. Probably a little overpriced, Reiner Knizia’s Through the Desert: A Game of Caravans and Desert Oases is nevertheless a game that manages to be both pretty and thoughtful, and not just enjoyable.

500 Word Review One

Before Dave went on holiday, he lent me a pair of Fantasy Flight Games titles to try out, both of which he had been playing with his family over Easter. One was the classic, Through the Desert, the other was Quicksand: A Game of Jungle Exploration and Danger Underfoot, which had proved be popular with his brother and his wife over the weekend. Designed to played by between two and five players, aged twelve and up, it is a race game with bluffing and secrecy elements that can be played in about fifteen minutes.

The language neutral components are all high quality, with a simple sturdy board, bright and easy-to-read cards, and wooden playing pieces. The rules are clear and simple, just two pages long for the four languages included: English, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. 

The aim of the game is get your explorer through the jungle to a hidden temple, but only you know which colour or role your explorer is. Movement is achieved by playing cards that match the colour of the explorer being moved, the more cards played, the further an explorer can move. Sometimes you have cards that match your explorer’s colour in your hand, allowing you move him, but other times not, in which case you have to play cards to move another explorer, which might belong to another player. The temptation is to race your explorer ahead, but then the other players will suspect that the rushing explorer is yours and will try to stop him. This can be achieved by moving him onto a Quicksand space or playing a Quicksand card on him. An extra card has to be played to get an explorer out of the Quicksand.

The obvious tactic is not to alert the other players as whom your explorer is, either by moving him too far ahead or having him lag behind. The other is to get as many cards through your hand as possible. First by moving explorers further along (which takes more cards) and second by moving explorers onto spaces that allow a player to discard at the end of his turn. Discarding cards prevents you from playing cards that will move a rival explorer and increases the number of cards (hopefully advantageous ones) you draw to refresh your hand back up to six.

Once an explorer has been moved to the hidden temple, his controlling player reveals himself. If this explorer is the first, his controlling player wins the game. If the explorer is uncontrolled, he returns back to the beginning and starts again, everyone knowing that he is uncontrolled and using him to use and discard useless cards. The game gets a bit clogged near the temple at game’s end, everyone trying not to move a rival’s explorer too close or onto the temple.

Quicksand: A Game of Jungle Exploration and Danger Underfoot is a quick and light filler game that because it can be played by adults and children alike, is also a suitable family game.