Board game review: Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride is a 2 to 5 player board game produced by publisher Days of Wonder.  Initially released in 2004, it has sold over 750,000 copies and won several awards along the way including the prestigious Spiel Des Jahres in the year of its release.  There have been several expansions and editions released since but this is a review of the original game.

The box.

At the heart of the game is a card collecting mechanic with the aim of connecting routes between cities on the gaming board.  Players are dealt 'ticket' cards which define their objective in the game and are kept secret from other players.  Tickets define a route between two cities on the board and after completing a ticket, ie connecting two cities via the train routes offered, points are accrued at the end of the game.  Points are also awarded for completing single 'legs' with the amount depending on the length.  Individual routes are completed by collecting cards matching to that routes colour and the route is then filled in on the board with the plastic train pieces.  Any uncompleted tickets at the end of the game means the score for the ticket is deducted from that players overall total.

More tickets can be claimed if the original ones are completed in-game but be careful, because as soon as one player runs out of train carriages to place on the board, the game is over.  There is an additional 10-point bonus at the end of game for players with the longest route.

There's not much more to it and the rules are easily mastered within, at most, a couple of turns.  It is considered a 'Gateway' game, that is, one being easy to play and a great introduction to other, more complicated board games.  Playing time is around 45 minutes and from experience, even up to 5 players can complete a game in about an hour.

Ooh, lots of bits to play with.

Component quality, as always from Days of Wonder, is excellent.  There are 240 plastic train carriages in various colours that are placed on the board which allows players to claim routes.  In addition, there are 140 full-colour cards symbolizing the different resources and tickets used in the game.  A criticism here is directed at the size of the cards - they aren't of the normal full-size playing card, instead are about 3/4 size.  This makes for difficulty when shuffling and indeed, in the first expansion entitled 1910, DoW released a full-size set of cards to replace these smaller ones.  A good move.  The board itself is large, colourful and maintains the high-standard of artwork as seen on all DoW games.  The scoring track (ho ho) goes round the edge of the board - a nice touch.  The only problem here is portability - it's a large game to play, say on a train or to take camping.  No bad thing of course, a big board that is, but it's worth mentioning if you're thinking of taking it on your jollies.

It's a big, hefty thing.

It's all in the gameplay of course and Ticket To Ride doesn't disappoint.  As mentioned, it's very easy for players new to the game to pick up the rules.  It's also very engaging and is equally at home in our lunchtime board game club here at work or for a family-orientated gamefest on an evening.  My wife declares it her favourite boardgame, supplanting even the mighty Carcassonne.  Following the traditional German-style boardgame, it's hard to see who has won until the end of the game and no-one is eliminated until then - very friendly for families.  Also, play is fast with little downtime between turns, an added bonus for those with attention spans of goldfish.

Tactics in Ticket to Ride are subtle.  You can go for lots of small routes but with smaller points totals while the longer routes obviously have more points but with higher risk.  Blocking is also a tactic and can be quite effective, especially when an opponents route is obvious (such as completing the first and last legs of a well-known route).  However, even blocking can backfire as precious carriages are used up on non-ticketed routes.   The 10-point longest route bonus can often be a game-changer with many of our games being won and lost on this bonus.

Interestingly, in the sequel to this game, Ticket To Ride: Europe, players can place stations in cities that allow them to claim routes held by other players, thus almost negating blocking altogether.  This has led to a debate in our board game club with some members considering the Europe version quite boring.  I can see where they are coming from as blocking in this original game can be quite devastating.  In the sequel, a block can be easily navigated with prudent application of a station (and a low cost of 4 points).

Overall, this is an excellent game and like Carcassonne is a good gateway into some of the more advanced board-games out there.  It's easy to understand, playing time is quick and the game moves on at a fast pace.  It's perfect for families looking for an antidote to the terminally dull Monopoly or Frustration and its subtle nuances make it a decent game for the more serious gaming afficionado.  Like the advertising blurb says, it's definitely not your father's boring train game.

Costs around £35.00.

Board game review: Carcassonne

What is it?
Carcassonne is an award winning table-top board game published by Rio Grande Games where 2 to 5 players lay down square tiles to build up a large map made up of roads, rivers, walled cities and fields.  By strategic placement of pieces, or meeples as they are known, points are scored for every city, road and farm that is completed.

Carcassonne is classed as a European or German-style board game.  This type of game tends to favour themes of economy over combat and there is more emphasis on skill and strategy than luck.  Also, all the players tend to remain in the game until the very end which for a family board game, is an excellent idea. 

What's in the box?

The game consists of 72 landscape tiles each measuring 1.5 inch square, 40 meeples in various colours, a score track board and a colourful, easy-to-read instruction guide.  The rules stretch to four A4 pages of large text with lots of pictures explaining various scenarios encountered within the game.  The tiles and score track are thick-stock card that will stand up to many hours of gameplay.  The pieces, or meeples, are wooden and are of a cute style, as employed by many games of this nature.

In play

Carcassonne is a very gentle game and the rules are relatively easy.  Expect to play three or four games before the rules become second nature and strategies and tactics become apparent.  When placing tiles, the features on the tile must match up against what is already on the board.  For example, a tile with part of a walled city must match up to an existing wall, roads must attach to an existing road etc.  Meeples are placed onto the various features but not where a meeple already exists.

A city is completed when the outer wall circles the city without a break.  2 points are scored for every tile making up a town so it pays to make the largest town you can.  While a meeple can't be placed in a feature that is already occupied by another player, through judicious placing of tiles, it is possible to sneak into an existing feature and to share the points.  When a town or castle is completed, the meeple is then returned to the player and that feature can't be used again.

Roads are completed when a blocking tile such as a city wall or road junction is placed at both ends.  1 point is scored for each road tile.  When the road is completed, the meeple is returned to the player and the road can't be occupied by any player for the remainder of the game.

Cloisters are completed when they are completely surrounded by tiles.  With a point per tile, a completed cloister is worth a total of 9 points.  Again, the meeple is returned to the player.

Farms are scored differently.  By placing a meeple on a field, any *completed* cities bordering the fields are worth 3 points.  These points are only scored at the end of the game so the meeple has to remain in the field for the whole duration and they aren't returned to the player.

At the end of the game, points are scored for meeples occupying incomplete features as well.  In the case of cities, this is reduced to 1 point per tile but the other features remain the same.  The game is finished when all the landscape tiles have been used up.

The stated game time is 45 minutes but in our experience, games can last up to an hour and a half.  Maybe that's our inexperience and it will improve in time?

Strengths:

• Easy rules to understand.
• Every game is different and a completed game board looks great with very colourful and detailed artwork.
• With a limited amount of meeples, there is a decent element of strategic thinking involved.  While turning over each tile is random, placing them to best effect in conjunction with your limited resources is the skill and strategy needed.
• With all players remaining in the game until the end, it's very family friendly.
• The scoring system allows games to be close and it's hard to pick out a winner until the very end.
• Encourages simple arithmetic in younger players.
• Quality components

Weaknesses:

• The farms are quite complicated to score, especially for younger players.
• It's easy to knock the tiles therefore dislodging the whole game board.  Keep your elbows together.
• Needs a large table or plenty of floor space once the map starts to grow.
• The link to Carcassonne, the REAL walled town in France is tenuous at best.  For those expecting a little history lesson in with their gaming will be short-changed in that regard.
• Takes longer than the anticipated 45 minutes.

Conclusion

Carcassonne is a fun game for all the family to play and easy to understand.  The artwork is well done, of a high-quality and is a lovely-looking game to boot.  I would say it appeals to all age groups and anyone from the age of 7 upwards would enjoy playing.  It obviously takes a few games to understand fully the game mechanics, develop strategies and know the best options for your followers but it's all good fun.  Carcassonne is highly recommended and a good introduction to alternative board games if you've only ever experienced Scrabble or Monopoly before.

Board game review: Carcassonne Princess and the Dragon

What is it?

Carcassonne Princess and The Dragon is an expansion set for the Carcassonne board game, a clever tile-laying game where 2-5 players build up a map of roads, fields and cities by connecting tiles together to form bigger features.  By strategically placing followers, or meeples as they are known, onto these landscape features, victory points are scored.  The bigger the landscape feature, the more points are scored.

Who will enjoy this game?

Obviously, this is an expansion and as such, the original game is required before-hand.  Carcassonne, the board game in general, is very much geared towards a fun, family-orientated game and the rules are relatively easy to pick up.  Euro or German style games such as Carcassonne place the emphasis and theme towards economy and area control as opposed to combat and luck.  Players tend not to be eliminated, rather they stay in the game until the end, allowing for a high level of player interaction.  More importantly, family members aren't left out because they've been knocked out of the game early. 

What's in the box?

The Princess and The Dragon expansion contains a number of new landscape tiles with various features pertaining to the expansion on them, a wooden Princess piece, a wooden Dragon piece and an A5 double-sided sheet of rules.  As with all Rio Grande games, the components themselves are of a very high quality.  The tiles are printed on very thick card and stand up well to repeated play.  The wooden pieces are in the typical meeple style and are also thick and chunky.

How do you play it?

The Princess and The Dragon expansion adds an element of fantasy to the normally grounded-in-history Carcassonne game.  This is not a bad thing but could put off the more traditional games players.  There are several new game mechanics added to the original game with this expansion, namely the Dragon that moves around the map, removing meeples back to their respective owners and the Princess, who provides shelter from the Dragons fiery breath.

The Dragon starts the game on a volcano tile.  If another volcano tile is drawn by a player, it will immediately fly to wherever that tile is placed.  If a tile with a movement icon is drawn, the dragon will move around the board, throwing meeples back to their respective owners. 

There is a restriction on its movement however. It can only move 6 squares, horizontally or vertically only and it can't revisit a square it has already occupied on this movement.  Each square it moves, the responsibility for the move transfers to each player in turn until it can't move anymore.  Any meeples it encounters are returned to their respective owners.  Moving the dragon around is fun and calls for a little forward thinking when it comes to your turn to move it.  You can try and steer it into a cul-de-sac, away from your own players or move it towards your opposition. 

The Princess acts as a protector for a player as the Dragon can't move onto a tile occupied by the Princess.  Players can take control of the Princess at the start of their turn.  An extra point is accrued for the player who is being guarded by the Princess at the start of his or her turn.

To counter-act the effect of removing meeples from incomplete landscape features, there is also a portal tile that allows a player to place a meeple onto any previously incomplete and uninhabited feature, a significant rule change over the original game.  In addition, there are Princess tiles that allow a player to kick an opposing knight out of an incomplete city. 

Does it work?

In play, the Princess and The Dragon expansion calls for new strategical thinking and ramps up the tension, especially when the dragon is moving round the board, closing in on ones unprotected meeples.  The deliberate placing of a volcano tile near an opposing players settlement is also good fun. 

A drawback was remembering to score the extra point on each turn for possession of the Princess piece.  Trying to remember even to claim the Princess piece is a feat in itself.  While there is a small element of luck in the base Carcassonne game, especially when trying to draw just the right-shaped tile to complete a large city for example, in this expansion, if you don't draw any portal or Princess tiles, you're almost out of the running, meaning luck seems to play a bigger part than it originally does.

As with most (if not all) of the Carcassonne expansion packs, they can be combined with other expansions in the range to create one great big mega mega large game.  Just make sure you have the floor space.

Conclusion

Saying all that, it's still a fun addition to the series, my ten year old daughter in particular loves it.  The rule for the extra point seems to be one rule too far but is quite easily ignored.  It does extend the game time from 60 minutes to around 90, mainly because of the extra tiles and occasional rule lookup.  It's a worthy addition to an excellent board-game series.

Priced around £15 and published by Rio Grande Games, The Princess and The Dragon can be bought at any good board-game stockist.  The Carcassonne board game series contains elements of arithmetic, strategic and forward thinking and good old gamesmanship.

Board game review: Memoir '44

What is it?

Memoir 44 is a combat-based board game designed by Richard Borg and first published by Days of Wonder in 2004.  Its aim is to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France 1944 and it does that by allowing two players (or teams) to take charge of a unit-level army of Allied or Axis soldiers and lead them into battle based on a variety of historically-based scenarios.

Table-top wargaming can be a deliberately obtuse hobby with reams of information, lookup charts and any number of rules, regulations and complicated procedures to provide the ultimate realism of a battlefield.  Unforunately, those types of product tend to have a very niche following so Memoir '44 aims to bridge the gap between complicated war game and family fun by providing simple mechanisms for movement and battles without getting bogged down in a swamp of instruction.

What's in the box?

Memoir '44 consists of a huge number of components and includes two opposing armies of small soldiers, tanks, artillery, obstacles, double-sided terrain hexagons, a pack of command cards, rule summary cards, victory point tokens, special unit tokens, a large double-sided board and a well-illustrated, easy-to-follow rule book.  There's a lot in the box and you really feel you are getting value for money.

The combat units are well-sculptured but the two sides are quite similar in colour especially under poor-lighting.  This is easily remedied by painting, should you wish, but a little more colour disparity wouldn't have gone amiss.  Apart from that, the quality of the components are excellent.  The game board is a very heavy cardboard stock but is easily folded.  The terrain tiles and command cards are all well-made and stand up to repeated plays.

The Objective

The objective of the game is to win by gaining a certain number of victory points.  Victory points are accumulated either by destroying an enemy unit or by capturing certain objectives, dependent on the scenario.

How does it work? (the short version)

Choose a card.  Move.  Fire.  Roll some dice.  Retreat.  Draw a card.

How does it work? (the long version)

Ok, there is a bit more to it than that but that is essentially the different phases of each players turn. 

The Board

The board is split into three sections, or flanks, separated by red lines.  Each 'space' on the board is in the shape of a hexagonal (hex) and movement and shooting range is determined by counting the hexes.  No fiddly rulers or tape measures here.  The board is double-sided with a countryside motif on one side and a beach motif on the other.

Command Cards

In a players turn, they first select a command card from their hand and act upon it.  There are two types of command cards; Section cards and Tactic cards.  Section cards relate to a flank on the board such as 'Order 3 units on the right'.  Tactic cards may affect any area of the battlefield such as calling in a bombing raid or move X number of units (in any section).  Each side only holds a set number of cards, depending on the scenario and knowing which card to play in the right situation is part of the skill of playing.  Some of the Tactic cards have quite long descriptions describing the special action and these, in my experience, are the ones that newcomers to the game struggle with the most.  There are alternate rules that allow the Tactic cards to be removed prior to the game commencing.

Units

There are three types of fighting unit in Memoir '44.  Infantry, armoured tanks and artillery.  Each have their own movement and battle charateristics.

• Infantry: Move 1 hex and fire or, move 2 hexes and don't fire.  Range is up to 3 hexes and fire power is reduced the further away the target is.
• Armour: Move 3 hexes.  Firing range is 3 hexes.
• Artillery: Move 1 space and don't fire or, don't move and fire up to 6 hexes away.

Moving

Units move according to their individual characteristic *and* according to the terrain.  For example, moving into forest terrain means the unit cannot fire in the same turn.  Moving into a hedgerow stops the unit from moving any further (until their next turn) but they can still fire, that kind of thing.  Obviously, units cannot move through or over other units and must go round. 

Movement and placement of units according to terrain is a big part of the strategy and tactics involved in playing the game.  Thankfully, Days of Wonder have printed a set of rules cards that summarise all the different terrains and which rules apply.  This is very handy and means the dreaded 'rule-book flippitus' is kept to a minimum.

Firing

The further away a target is and depending on the terrain, determines how many dice are thrown when attacking an enemy unit and this is true for all of the units involved.  Each mini-battle is decided by throwing dice and a unit is reduced depending on the symbols on the dice. 

Each 6-sided has the following symbols;    2 x Infantry, 1 x Tank, 1 x Grenade, 1 x Flag, 1 x Star.  Infantry only reduces infantry, tanks only reduce tanks etc.  If a grenade is thrown that's an automatic hit, regardless of the unit type.  A star can usually be ignored but is used in special circumstances such as in bombing raids. 

Retreating

A unit is forced to retreat when a flag is thrown on the attacking dice.  Retreating involves moving the unit back towards your own lines.  They can't move sideways and if they hit an inpassable obstacle such as a river or even the edge of the board, one figure is removed from the unit per flag.  Certain terrain features grant protection from retreating.  For example, sandbags allow the defender to ignore the first retreat flag shown.  If two flags are thrown, then the unit must retreat.  In practice, this gives terrain with an 'ignore-flag' rule a big advantage.

Terrain

The game board is only part of the picture when it comes to setting up a battlefield.  Terrain features are placed on the board according to the scenario and these features include hills, rivers, forest, towns, hedgerows etc.  Each piece of terrain has its own set of characteristics and rules.  Terrain affects line of sight, the number of battle dice thrown and movement.

Some examples:

An infantry unit is is two hexes away from attacking another unit hiding in a forest.  Normally, the number of dice thrown would be 2 (counting down from 3) but the forest provides cover of -1 to the hiding unit so only 1 die is thrown (2 - 1). 

An armoured tank unit is firing at an infantry unit, tucked well into a town.  A tank fires with 3 dice up to a distance of 3 hexes but towns provide -2 of cover against attacks by tanks.  Thus, only 1 attacking dice can be thrown by the tank.

The Rulebook

It all sounds complicated, but really, it only takes a couple of turns to get the hang and the scenarios included in the box are designed to ease players into the game.  The rule book is very clear with examples and lots of pretty pictures which is always a help.  It explains all the basics of the game along with terrain descriptions and has 16 scenarios to play.

The Scenarios

Set in 1944 at the time of the D-Day landings, there are plenty of opportunities for battle re-enactments.  There are 16 scenarios in the base game covering the start of D-Day including the beach-landings and leading right up to the re-taking of Paris.  Online at the Days of Wonder website, there are hundreds more user-created scenarios using their own scenario editor for the PC available as an extra charge.

For example, the first scenario in the rule-book, based around Pegasus Bridge on the eve of D-Day, sees Allied paratroopers attempting to capture several important bridges that would slow-down a German counter-offensive the following day.  Further scenarios see the Allies trying to storm the beaches against a well dug-in enemy and the subsequent advancement into the French countryside.

The first scenario will take new players around an hour to play, including setting up time.  This is a quick turn around and makes for a fast-paced game.  As Days of Wonder have tried to maintain a fair degree of historical accuracy, scenarios are quite often purposely unbalanced and the instruction guide suggests players swap sides after playing a scenario to enable both players to experience both sides of the conflict.  A neat idea.

Isn't it just down to luck?

Due to the die-rolling nature of combat and the drawing of combat and tactical cards, there is an element of luck involved.  This type of luck does tend to even itself out over the course of a game and success is usually down to the strategy and tactics employed by the commander of the battle.  The game is geared towards two players but more can be incorporated by allocating battle field flanks.  There is an expansion called Operation Overlord that allows up to eight players to play in one sitting, using two game boards joined together.  I can see how even three boards could be joined together, a flank for each board.

Can I expand it?

There are a multitude of expansions for Memoir '44 with Russian, Japanese and British army sets taking the game into the Eastern Front, Pacific and Mediterranean theatres respectively.  There's en exciting Air Pack that introduces air power to the battlefield and a campaign book with over fifty new scenarios to play as part of a larger military campaign.  Days of Wonder even produce a specially-made bag to hold and carry the game and all available expansions in one place.  New expansions are being released by Days of Wonder on a regular basis and along with a healthy online community, longevity is assured.

Come on now, surely it must be difficult and takes ages to play?

Memoir 44 *is* easy and don't let the complicated descriptions above put you off.  It is also quick to play and each session comes in at under an hour, including setting up the board initially.  As more expansion sets are introduced, the rules do become more complex but it's a graded complexity allowing players to gradually build up their expertise and confidence.  It's aimed at players aged 10+ and in our experience, that's a good guide.  My daughter aged 10 picked up the rules in one game and while she didn't fully appreciate the tactics, she still beat me!

There are one or two downsides to the game.  As mentioned, the colours of the components are too similar and luck plays a hefty part in the individual battles.  There's an argument whether games like this glamorize war and it's a valid one but then, there are lots of war games in the market and it would be unfair to single out Memoir 44 for criticism.   You'll either be excited by the topic or you'll hate it.  The scenarios included in the rule-book have been researched well, covering many famous battles of that era and this gives the game much more gravitas.

Conclusion

A great, easy-to-play board game and a good introduction to what can be a fascinating hobby, especially if you decide to paint the soldiers and make your own 3D scenery.  It is also a decent 'bridging' game, that is, it's easy enough for complete novices but is involving enough for more experienced players looking for a quick fix.

The real question is; Is it good value for money?  At £45.00 a pop, it's not cheap but then, there are a lot of components and what's the everage price of an XBox game nowadays?  The purpose of the review is not to compare it to videogames as they are two totally separate beasts.  As far as board games go however, Memoir '44 is right up there and is worthy of anyones hard-earned cash.

Essential Info

The game has elements of simple arithmetic, reading, history, forward planning and strategic thinking.  It is accompanied by a healthy community website, has plenty of options for expansion and there are even resources available to introduce Memoir '44 into the classroom.

Price: Around £45.00 for the base set
Ages: 10+
Time to play: 1 hour
Board Game Geek entry: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/10630/memoir-44.

As of January 2011, it is sitting at number 49 in the list of all-time best board games on that website. 
There is also a French version of the game.

Days of Wonder

Memoir '44 is published by Days of Wonder, a company specializing in family board games.  As well as the Memoir '44 battle system, they are also responsible for many successful games series such as Ticket to Ride and Small World.

http://www.daysofwonder.com

Richard Borg, the designer of Memoir '44 has also developed other games using a very similar gaming mechanic.  Called Command and Colours, it has been adapted into other themes such as Roman battles, Napoloenic wars and fantasy arenas.  Richard won the prestigious Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) in 1993.

Added Extra: Battle Report

It was a tall order: Myself having taken delivery of the game only the day previously and the grizzled, hardened veteran of exactly one mission, and three of my work colleagues who were playing it for the first time to fit it in during our lunch hour.  Could we learn the rules, set up the board and have a decent game to a conclusion within our allotted 60 minutes?  Read on to find out ...

Brigadier Poulter and myself took the side of the Allies and with our opening gambit, we decided to annihiliate the sandbagged unit hiding behind the barbed wire with a ferocious artillery bombardment, a move we were sure, would open the way for an easy stroll onto our target.  It failed miserably with only one enemy casualty.  It did serve to awaken the Axis to our positions and they were able to make a decent fist of it against the Allies' leading unit, reducing it by half.

With true Dunkirk spirit, the Allies made a screaming charge into the barbed wire but were held back by some dogged German defences.  The Axis struck back quickly and were soon in posession of their first victory point.  A smoking crater where the lead Allied unit only moments earlier had been standing.

The Allied High Command were now starting to look worried and issued a direct order, allowing units to swarm towards the enemy positions, at both sides of the battlefield.  Another unit advanced quickly around the pond, a pincer move in mind onto the stubborn dug-in enemy position.  But the Axis unit behind the sandbags held firm and thanks to a nifty probe down the right flank, were able to provide covering fire over the river onto the advancing commandos, eliminating another unit.

Sheer weight of Allied troops were to prove too much for the Axis defences as the dug-in unit were forced to retreat onto Pegasus bridge itself.  Orne Bridge on the right flank was a much easier proposition and after just token resistance, the Allied soldiers were able to force the Axis units into a retreat, decimating them in the process.

The Allied pincer move was starting to pay off, and thanks to a particular gruesome firestorm of flying bullets, the Axis units were being picked off voraciously.  With only seconds left to spare on the lunch-hour clock, a final, spinning die slowly succumbed to gravity, eliminating the last man in the German unit and with it, a hard-fought victory for the Allies.  Score 4 - 2 to Allies.  Time: 60 minutes bang on.

We did it.  Four complete newcomers to the game, setting up the board and having an entertaining game to a conclusion in an hour. 

Overall, we all enjoyed the game and felt the rules were easy enough to follow.  As the Allies, and holder of the rule book, we perhaps cheated a little by invoking the 'remove a unit if no retreat possible' rule without the other side knowing it existed.  We claimed a VP for that as the one-soldier unit was eliminated and it definitely swung the game in our favour.  If our opposition had known the rule, they would not have placed their unit in such a vulnerable position. 

Kapitan Lowson and Oberfurststurmfuhrer (sic) Palmer made the most of their dug-in position, despite some pretty poor starting cards and were able to gain their 2 VP's from that position alone.  When they were forced to retreat, abandoning the sandbags in the process, things definitely went downhill from there.

For a first game, there was a little debate over the rules but the helper cards did their job and were able to provide a nifty reference guide.  By the end, we were all pretty confident in how the battles and movement worked and the turns were progressing quite fluidly.

Although we won the game, the Allies only held one of the two bridges and felt we hadn't quite achieved the objective.  Would it be fairer to make the 2 VP's for the bridges the only condition of victory for the Allies?  Hard to say but saying that, with only another five or ten minutes more of game-time and with far superior fire power, the Allies would have over-run Pegasus bridge, claiming the objective out-right.

That last dice roll was very lucky and seemed to take forever to stop spinning!

We're going to swap sides for the next game.  Can't wait.

Board game review: Steve Jackson's Revolution!

What is it?

Revolution is a board game first published by Steve Jackson Games (SJ Games) in 2009.

Following a revolution, a city is in turmoil and requires a resourceful, head-strong leader to guide the massed throngs back to stability and prosperity, but more importantly, come out on top.  That's the spiel but in reality, it's a Euro-style resource management game using a closed-bid system of vying for the support of various factions around the city.

A Euro-style game is one where no-one is 'knocked-out' of the game and the true winner of the game is not usually ascertained until the final whistle.  There is usually less emphasis on luck with very little dice-throwing, and more on strategy.  Worker placement and resource management as opposed to military endeavours are very common mechanics in Euro-style games.  They are particularly family-friendly as no-one is left out of the action and all players stay in the game until the end.

What's in the box?

The Revolution main game-board is a very pretty, top-down reproduction of a small city with lovely detailed artwork depicting the various areas such as harbour, market place, plantation, tavern, cathedral, fortress and town hall.  Around the edge of the board is a scoring track (or 'support' track as it's called in the game) for keeping track of the scores for all the players.  Also in the box are four plastic bags of support cubes in different colours, four *individual* player boards each with a cardboard screen, numerous 'influence' and player counters and an A4 4-sided rules 'book'.

The components are very high quality, made out of thick card-stock and the small coloured wooden cubes are like those seen in other games such as Agricola.  The bidding screens, on the inside, have a very brief summary of the rules regarding the bidding round (more on that later) which is handy.

How does it play?

The players' aim in Revolution is to gain control of more of the city than other players and this is done by gaining the support of various factions.  Each player has an identical game board upon which are represented various important members of the city whom the player is trying to 'influence'.  Influence comes in the form of Force, Blackmail or Gold. 

• Anyone can be influenced by Gold.
• No amount of Gold beats Blackmail.
• No amount of Blackmail beats Force.

There are four phases to each turn:

1. Spying - Each player sees what counters the other player has to spend on their influence round.
2. Bidding - Players then surround their game boards with the screens and secretly place their counters on members of the city they want to force, blackmail or pay gold to.
3. Resolution - The screens are lifted and everyone can then see what other players have bid.  Reading across, each faction then responds to the highest bidder for their support.  Where there is a tie, no-one wins and the counters are lost.  Depending on who the faction is, they can give the player influence counters, support points on the support track or support cubes for placing in the various buildings on the city map (or a combination of all three).
4. Patronage - Each player makes up their counters to 5 by taking gold from the bank.

And the next turn starts. 

Each building or area on the city map is worth a certain amount of points at the end of the game.  The player with the most support cubes in an area gains those points.  For example, the Tavern is worth 20 points but only requires 4 support cubes while the Fortress is worth 50 points but requires 8 cubes.  If an area is tied, no-one gets the points.

Some of the factions also allow you to swap and move support cubes on the board which becomes a key tactic towards the end especially. 

Good Points

• It sounds horribly complicated but it's a very simple mechanic and the rule book (pamphlet really) has lots of pretty pictures.  The game boards are colour-coded showing where the different influence counters can be placed and the rewards for successfully influencing a faction are clearly shown.  In our very first game, after the very first turn, we all 'got' it and needed little to no looking up the rules.
• As stated, this is a Euro-style board game and all players remain in the game until the end.  Furthermore, each player is given something to do each turn and you are not left hanging around too long between turns.
• A game will come in under an hour, perfect for lunch break board games.
• Very quick set up time.  Open the board, hand out the cards, hand out the counters, done.
• It's fun!  No, really it is.  It's all about trying to second-guess your opponents and trumping their bids for the hotly-sought factions.  You get a real nice warm feeling to see one of your bids win that all-important support cube and the tension mounts as the final scores are tallied.

Bad Points

• The Revolution theme of a, erm, revolution is merely tagged onto an abstract gaming mechanic.  That is, the rules could easily work in any other setting such as a farm or a sea of islands ready to be plundered by pirates or without _any_ theme at all.  This is quite different to, say, a game like Twilight Struggle where the theme IS the game (The Cold War).
• It's 3 or 4 players only.  Bear that in mind as the options here on Ciao don't allow this to be shown correctly.
• With 3 players, there is the possibility of one player shooting into the lead on the very first turn with no chance of the others catching up.  Yes, this happened to us.  Don't ever ask my mate Tim to play.
• It's easy to fall out of the loop of receiving more force and blackmail counters and having to rely on just 5 gold to make the winning bids.  This makes it very difficult to chase after the higher scoring areas of the city as you are constantly being priced out of contention.
• After repeated plays, it starts to get a bit 'samey' with no massive variation between games (that could be down to Tim winning every single one though.  Like I say, don't ask him to play, I'm sure he cheats).

Conclusion

Overall, it's a very enjoyable game and a worthy lunchtime filler.  The components are superb quality, the artwork is top-notch and the rules are very (very) simple.  There's an interesting mix of strategies that can be employed and of course, all players stay in until the end.

It has elements of simple arithmetic, logical deduction and forward-planning so would be a good family game.  It is rated as 10+ and I have no cause to doubt that.

Revolution is ranked #655 in BoardGameGeek.com's game ranking chart.  It can be found here: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34887/revolution
or http://www.sjgames.com/revolution/

Expect to pay around the £25.00 mark.

Expansions

At time of writing (Feb 2011), there is only one expansion available, 'The Palace' which allows up to 6 players, but with SJ Games' track record of releasing expansion for their games, this will surely rise.

Board game review: Carcassonne, The Tower Expansion

What is it?

Carcassonne Tower Expansion is an add-on for the Carcassonne base game.  Carcassonne is a clever tile-laying game where 2-5 players build up a map of cities, roads, fields and rivers.  With strategic placement of followers on these landscape features, points are scored.

Who will enjoy this game?

Being an expansion, The Tower requires the original Carcassonne board to play.  The Carcassonne gaming system is a fun, family-orientated game and the rules are easy to pick up.  It's known as a Euro or German style game where the theme and emphasis is towards economy and area control as opposed to combat and luck.  In a lot of Euro games, players tend not to be eliminated and stay in the game until the end, allowing for a high level of player interaction but more importantly, no family members feeling left out because they've been knocked out of the game early.  Also, in most games of Carcasonne, the true winner is not determined until the final points tally.

What's in the box?

The Tower Expansion, as the name suggests, is an expansion to the original game.  It consists of 18 extra landscape tiles with nicely-drawn tower foundations, 30 wooden tower pieces, a thick-stock cardboard *actual* tower, around 10 inches or so high, that acts as a handy container to pull out tiles for the game and finally, an A5 double-sided rules sheet.  The extra tiles can be used as per normal ones should you wish to eskew these expanded rules (but why would you want to?).  The quality is excellent, as is to be expected of Rio Grande games, and the components stand up well to many repeated plays.  The tower is pre-constructed so no glueing or pushing together pieces of card.

What does the expansion do?

The Tower Expansion introduces a new element of strategy by allowing players to build towers that 'capture' opponent pieces within a pre-described area of influence.  As the tower grows higher, so does the area of influence it exerts.  Tower pieces can only be placed on landscape tiles with one of the new tower icons on them but a tower can be expanded anywhere on the board, icon permitting, and not only on the tile just played.  Players can cap a tower by permanently placing a follower, or meeple as they are known, on top of a tower thus preventing further expansion.  Once an opponents piece is captured, they can be bought out of captivity in exchange for three victory points or a straight swap should each player hold another players piece. 

The *actual* tower as supplied in the expansion doesn't add anything at all to the game except as a place for all the tiles to be stored and drawn out easily. 

Most (if not all) of the expansions within the Carcassonne game system can be combined to make a really really big game.  I suggest renting out an aircraft hangar should you wish to do that.

More strategy please

As Carcassonne is concerned with making the most of limited resources i.e. placing followers onto scoring features such as cities, roads and farms, so to have a follower imprisoned can be a large factor in the final scoreboard.  More care is needed when placing meeple onto the board as another player could easily take over a tower and capture your piece.  Conversely, capping a tower will protect your meeple from capture but it means you have one less resource to utililize for those all important feature scores (capped towers don't score any points).

The rules are fairly clear and concise although we did have a slight discrepancy that we had trouble resolving.  When a tower is capped, does it simply stop same-coloured meeples within its area of influence being taken prisoner or does it also stop other players from placing tiles and resources nearby too?  We played it so we could place resources without being penalized even though it seemed strange to do so. 

For example, there was a long road leading up to a large capped tower and placing a thief on the road seemed strange considering the tower is supposed to be providing protection.  It didn't explicitly say in the rules we couldn't do that so that's how we played it.  Conversely, by not allowing players to place tiles in the blank areas, the map could have quite easily become disjointed and imbalanced.

Conclusion

The Tower Expansion is an interesting, well-made addition to the Carcassonne base game and offers a new strategic element.  The tower pieces themselves pleasingly add height and an extra dimension to a normally flat game map.  The large tower-shaped cardboard piece holder seems a little gimmicky as it doesn't add anything to the game but in practice, it's actually really useful by allowing tiles to be pulled out with ease, keeps the game table clutter free and provides an easy-storage facility when not in play.  All in all, a great buy and an enjoyable addition to the Carcassonne series.

Bought for 19.99 from Travelling Man in York but can be bought in any good games store.  I recently saw Carcassonne being sold in Waterstones - a great coup for Rio Grande and can only result in more people trying out these fabulous games.  Expected playing time as stated on the box is 60 minutes but in practice, account for 90 minutes.  The game is suitable (and fun!) for all ages from 8+.  It has elements of arithmetic, forward-planning and gamesmanship.

PS

If your only experience of board games is with Monopoly, Cluedo and the odd game of Scrabble, I urge you to try out games such as Carcassonne.  There is a whole sub-culture waiting to be explored when it comes to board games and the depth of these games goes way beyond anything produced by Hasbro or Mattel.

Board game review: Munchkin Quest

What is it?

In 2001, Steve Jackson Games released a card game called Munchkin that promised to deliver a Role Playing Game without all the role playing nonsense that goes with that moniker.  It's a fun, irreverent, simple game to play and it was so well received, SJ Games decided to release a board game based upon the same simple mechanics and wacky humour. 

Munchkin Quest was born and while it carries on Munchkins legacy of lampooning the Dungeons and Dragons ridiculousness, the rules have been tweaked somewhat to accommodate a modular board, roaming monsters and lots of lots of treasure.  You can still steal said treasure, you can still kill monsters and you can still stab your buddies in the back (while stealing their treasure).  Good, then.

The Objective

The first player to reach level 10 who can then reach the exit by defeating a big ugly monster is the winner.  This is achieved by exploring the dungeon, killing monsters and finding treasure (did I mention and stabbing your buddies in the back?).  Wholesome family fun.

What's in the box?

51 Deux ex Munchkin cards, 81 treasure cards, 68 monster cards, 27 health tokens, 69 gold pieces, 12 dropped item tokens, 15 move tokens, 12 search result tokens, 4 level counters, 4 Munchkins, 12 monster bases, 24 double-sided room tiles, 1 entrance tile, 73 links, 38 monster standies, 8 6-sided dice, two for each player, 1 10-sided die, 1 six-colored monster die, 1 20-page rulebook.  It's a big old box of goodies and for £35 (or thereabouts), tremendous value.

How to play

Each players turn is split into these phases:
*Draw a DxM card
*Movement which can be Exploring, Fighting, Dealing or Searching
*Charity

Then the monsters move.  Run away, fast.

In the original Munchkin card game, the allegory of exploring a dungeon was explained by turning over a door card.  Here, this is taken further by placing a large, well-illustrated dungeon tile onto the playing surface.  All the players in the game start at the entrance room (that also serves as the exit come the end of the game) and from here, doorways lead to as-yet unknown parts of the dungeon.  In the board game world, this is known as a modular board and as the next room to be explored is totally random, every game is different.

As a player moves through a doorway, a new, random dungeon room is attached to the board and a new monster is generated, represented by a small (or large, depending on the monster) cardboard chit that is slotted into a coloured plastic base.  It would have been nice to have properly sculpted plastic models for the monsters but as there are so many other components in the game, the cost would have been too prohibitive.  As it is, the plastic player models will have to do (as nice as they are).

On their turn, each player has a 3 movement tokens that can be used to move between rooms, fight monsters, search for treasure or deal with other players.  Movement tokens can be added during the course of the turn as long as the DxM or treasure card allows it.  Each room has a set of icons on it and / or additional rules that can affect things like combat and searching.  Rooms can be ransacked and looted, depending on the results of a search look-up table. 

Combat is very similar to the card game with a very simple level comparison to item bonuses plus the players level and, new for this game, a roll of the dice.  Other players can still throw in cards that affect the combat, either to help or more likely, to hinder you and reduce you to a pile of smoldering ash (should you be facing a level 20 Plutonium Dragon, that is.  If it's just a potted plant (really, there is one), you can put your hands on your hips, stick out your chest and laugh like a Crunchie bar).

Monsters are controlled by the players but really, this amounts to little more than moving them around the dungeon in the monster turn phase or rolling dice for them in combat.  An extra card is drawn from the DxM deck if a player's monster is mercilessly destroyed. 

Bad bits
The rules, understandably, are much more complex than the card game and with it, the length of game has increased somewhat.  It's much less fast-moving than before and with 3 movement tokens per turn that can also be enhanced, we found each player was taking up to 20 minutes per turn.  This is a *loooong* wait between turns.  Of course, this is offset by the ability to take part in combat as well as (randomly) taking control of monsters that appear.  The 3 movement tokens also mean a player going first has an advantage when it comes to building up their character quickly with armour, weapons and such-like.  With four players, we have yet to play a game under two and a half hours.  The first game took a mammoth 5 hours to get through with lots of rulebook lookups.

Taking your turn last is a distinct disadvantage.  A few games now I have gone last and only managed to move my Munchkin character twice before the game has ended and before I could make any meaningful contribution.  Quite frustrating, it has to be said.  This is also down to the amount of card-drawing that takes place.  There's a lot, much more than the card game strangely enough and this leads to the early players gaining huge amounts of advantageous loot.  Again, my mate Tim seems to attract all the best gear, the worst monsters and wins every single game.  He cheats, I'm sure of it.

Good bits

The artwork is fantastically drawn by John Kovalic and the dungeon tiles are very colourful with lots of detail.  This is in stark contrast to the Dungeons and Dragons game Castle Ravenloft where the dungeon tiles are drab, grey and boring.  Here, they really add to the atmosphere and that irreverent humour runs throughout.  Witness one of the dungeon rooms called 'Ye Olde Shoe Shoppe' where female players get a bonus for exploring.  Nice.

The extra rules and subsequent complexity make for an absorbing experience.  The original Munchkin always had more depth than the simple rules would imply and Quest extends that with more rules than you can shake a rat on a stick at (a rat on a stick being a weapon in the game).  The cards and rooms extend the rules themselves so the game feels much more organic and unstructured than say, Monopoly.  If you dress up in funny little costumes and wear some tin-foil armour, you could imagine yourself actually in the dungeon.  Don't walk home after the gaming session like that though as you're only asking for trouble.

It's a genuinely fun game to play, as all Steve Jacksons games tend to be.  While the whole idea of a modular game board that is never the same twice is not new, SJ Games have sprinkled some of their Munchkin magic over it.  The numerous components are excellent quality with the tiles being of thick card-stock and even the playing cards have been pimped up with a nice, pleasing shine to them. 

Conclusion

I would have given this game 5 stars but the extra complexity means it has a far-less reaching appeal than say, the original Munchkin card game and so dropped it for that reason alone.  I would say anyone over the age of 10 should have no problems but do expect lengthy games at first, certainly before the rules become second nature.  It's still a mighty big blast of fun though and far (far) less complex than the  'official' Dungeons and Dragons games tend to be.  D&D Lite, if you like.

It has elements of arithmetic, reading, forward planning, strategic thinking and downright cunning and nastiness, especially when there's treasure involved.

When it comes to expansion sets, Munchkin Quest is not lacking and since its release in 2008, there have been no less than 2 expansions, a spare parts pack and numerous special edition components released.  Expect to pay around £35.00 for the base game and between £20 and £25 for the expansions.

Highly recommended.

BoardGameGeek.com entry: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/29678/munchkin-quest
Rated: #1564
Mechanic: Modular board and dice rolling with a fantasy, exploration theme.

Board game review: Munchkin Demented Dungeons

What is it?

Munchkin 6 Demented Dungeons is an add-on expansion set for the popular card game Munchkin, first published in 2001 by Steve Jackson Games and featuring superb cartoon artwork by John Kovalic.

Munchkin has a bold claim of an RPG game without all the tedious RPG stuff and it's a fun, family-orientated card game.  The rules are relatively easy, the humor never ceases to amuse and games always have some laugh out loud moments.  Stabbing your buddies in the back while nicking their treasure has never been so much fun.

The Munchkin base game is played by drawing a card from a stack and reacting to this card as appropriate; fighting monsters, using items, being cursed etc.  The card drawn is referred to as a door card and is an oblique simile of a door being opened into a dungeon.  This Munchkin 6 Demented Dungeons expansion pack takes the simile one step further by providing a vague description of an actual dungeon for players to occupy. 

How to play

The Demented Dungeon expansion pack contains 20 over-sized dungeon cards representing the various dungeons that players of the game will find themselves trawling through and 16 regular-sized portal cards that are to be shuffled into the original deck of door cards.  The instructions are on a double-sided page of A4 paper.  A dungeon card is placed face up to represent the current dungeon and this contains extra rules that apply to *all* members of the game, not just the current player. 

These dungeons are quite an eclectic mix and you will find such humorous places as the Dungeon of Mandatory Murder (level-upping can only be achieved by combat, Go Up A Level cards don't work), Dungeon of Foul Filthy Flypaper Floors (everyone gets a penalty for running away) or the Dungeon of Feeble Foes (monsters are all much weaker than normal).  It's worth noting that, unlike Munchkin Quest where the dungeon tiles are designed to be fitted together like a jigsaw to provide an ever-changing dungeon, here they are simply placed on the table and stacked on top of one another.  They are *not* a map, just a description.

Portal cards are used as a mechanism of moving between dungeons and while the descriptions differ between the cards, they all amount to the same thing of changing the dungeon.  When a portal card is played (either face up from the deck or from a players hand), another dungeon card is drawn and this then becomes the current dungeon in play.  In total deference to the laws of physics, players can appear in more than one dungeon at a time making for a slightly more complicated playing experience (but also quite fun)

Bad bits

It's hard to say anything bad about Munchkin 6 Demented Dungeons.  There are only 36 extra cards for the same price as say, Munchkin 7 More Good Cards which has 56 but then, 20 of the cards here are over-sized.  Also, if the portal cards aren't shuffled well into the main deck, it can be very confusing when a load of portal cards all turn up at once.  You can find yourself in more dungeons than a nun looking for soap.

In play, the extra dungeon rules are fun to follow but they do add an extra layer of complication.  We often found ourselves forgetting about the dungeon completely but that's perhaps due to our high level of experience with the base game.  Even so, Munchkin is not really that complicated to begin with so is not too much of a hardship.   It does extend the playing time and expect to add at least another half hour onto a game that normally lasts for about an hour.

Conclusion

If you like the original game then there is no reason why you wouldn't enjoy this and at around 10 pounds for the set, it is very good value.  It has all the hallmarks of a Steve Jackson game with humour and delightfully wicked illustrations by long-time collaborater John Kovalic and that, coupled with a simple mechanic extending an already easy game means it's another winner by SJ Games.

Don't forget, you need the original game to play these extra cards.

Board game review: Star Munchkin

What is it?

Star Munchkin is part of the Munchkin series of games published by Steve Jackson Games.  They are described as role playing card games without all the stupid role playing and are extremely humorous, irreverent and very social multi-player card games.  All the games in the series follow a similar pattern with slight modifications to the rules to make each game that little bit different.

Star Munchkin is what happens when you get bored of dungeons and decide to take the exploring and adventuring to another galaxy.  Gasp in horror at the Fanged Fuzzball, shake your Nova Grenade at the bleating Space Goats and if a Little Green Man appears before you, don't ask to be taken to his leader, kill him then steal his treasure.

What's in the box?

168 full colour cards
Rulesheet (4 sides of glossy A4 paper)
1 dice

How to play

Star Munchkin follows the same rules as every other Munchkin game and the turn sequence is thus:

• Open a door card
• If it's a monster, fight it, kill it, steal its treasure.
• It it's a trap (the renamed curses), swear loudly then apologise to the kids for swearing and apply the trap.
• Either draw another door or look for trouble by fighting a monster from your hand.
• If you have over 5 cards in your hand, discard down to 5.

That's it.

Items that are worn or used such as armour and weapons are placed in front of you on the table.  Cards in your hand are your little secret from the other players and could contain one-shot items such as the afore-mentioned Nova Grenunade or other stuff such as traps, wandering monsters, monster modifiers and all manner of things that will make you guffaw loudly when you play them on your bestest buddy moments before stealing THEIR treasure as well.

Combat is resolved by adding together all your bonuses and character level together and simply comparing it to the monster and any modifiers or one-shot items played with (or against) it.  Defeating a monster usually results in a level adding to your character and an amount of booty.  Being defeated by a monster means you have to suffer the 'Bad Stuff' which ranges from a mild telling off to the severe humiliation of a painful and excruciating death.

The first to level 10 can bathe in all that reflective glory and daggering glances from your work colleagues / immediate family.

What's new?

Players can now take control of a sidekick who will aid them in combat and even sacrifice themselves for the greater good.  Some monsters are so scary however that sidekicks will simply run away then slink back with their (usually mechanized) tail between their legs once the monster has gone, the cowards.  Red Shirts are so nervous, you have to roll a dice after each combat to stop them from simply sacrificing themselves anyway.

Laser weapons can be combined with other laser weapons and there is no limit as to how many can be strapped together.  It's not uncommon for a player to be in possession of a laser-daser-maser-bobaser and get the +8 bonus all those combined weapon scores give. 

The race and class cards from the original Munchkin game have been changed to reflect the new games interstellar nature. 

New race cards:

• Cyborgs - Start at level 2.
• Felines - Their natural curiosity allows them to open another door card if the first is not a monster.
• Mutants - Due to the extra limbage of an ordinary space mutant, they can carry extra stuff (more hands) or use extra headgear and footgear (more heads and feet).

New class cards:

• Psychic - Can look at other peoples cards or see the future.
• Trader - Can have two sidekicks and take from the discard pile
• Bounty Hunter - Take an extra card for helping someone else defeat a monster
• Gadgeteer - Can carry as many complex gadgets as possible.  Can disarm traps.

Complex items have replaced Big Items from the original game and players can still carry or use only one at a time, unless you're a Gadgeteer of course.  There's nothing really to distinguish them from big items except when combining (see below) games together where they are treated as two separate items.

In play

The new bits in Star Munchkin were picked up very easily but then, we have played the original Munchkin a lot.  It's still as funny as ever and we laughed like loons as someone screamed, 'Die Space Vampire, I attack thee with my daser-faser-maser and Foof Gun' before being obliterated by a slew of wandering monsters.  There seems to be a lot more items in this version of the game and as weapons can be attached together such as the lasers, we have had a fair few games where one player streaked into an unassailable lead due to some massive weapons and a good run of item cards.

Sidekicks, if sacrificed, give a +12 bonus to combat and this influences battles greatly as we found players to be more reluctant to throw in powerful items only for them to be rendered useless by the needless martyrdom of a faithful, loyal assistant.

As with any Munchkin game, a lot of the fun is from the massive variety of cards and here is no different.  It's a great system with a basic, bare-bones rule-set augmented by the myriad rule possibilities on the cards themselves.  Some of the cards are extremely powerful, such as the Time Warp that can reverse a game-changing decision.  It's best to hold onto that until the end.

Combining

SJ Games also give a paragraph in the rules about combining Star Munchkin with the original game as well as some others in the series.  You can put your Half-Elf, Half-Halfing Wizard into space where he could also be a third-half Feline Bounty Hunter.  Confused?  You will be.

Not only that, on their website, there are free rules for Epic Munchkin which is a way of taking the game beyond Level 10.  Steal more stuff, kill more monsters, stab more buddies, all the way up to level 20.  It's all good fun, honest.

In Conclusion

Apart from the propensity for one player to dominate proceedings (something which never seems to happen with the original game), Star Munchkin is a worthy entry to the SJ Games stable.   Sure, it's more of the same but when games are as funny, sociable and enjoyable to play as this, that's no bad thing. 

At around £20.00, it comes highly recommended.

Playing time is around an hour.

My eleven year old daughter loves playing this game and 10+ would seem an appropriate age guide.  It contains elements of arithmetic, reading and downright nastiness when stabbing buddies before stealing their treasure.  Brilliant.

As this is a stand-alone game, the original is NOT needed.  There are currently (April 2011) two expansion sets specifically for Star Munchkin: Clown Wars and Ships in Spaaaace.

Board game review: Munchkin

What is it and what's in the box?

Munchkin is a card game for 3 or more players and is described as a role-playing game without all the tedious role-playing.  That's the bold statement made by Steve Jackson games, producer of the Munchkin card game, first published in 2001.  The tagline for Munchkin is 'Kill The Monsters, Steal The Treasure, Stab Your Buddy' and this gives you a sense of the humour that underpins the game as well as pretty much summing up the rules.

Inside the box is a deck of 168 cards and a rules 'pamphlet' that stretches to only 4 A4-sides of paper.  There is a single, solitary dice.  That's yer lot.


How to Play

To play, the 168 cards are split into two stacks, 100 door cards and 68 treasure cards, denoted by the symbols on the reverse of the cards.  In keeping with the RPG parlance, each player starts their turn by turning over a door card and depending on what is on this card, they can either fight a monster, react to a curse or put the card in their hand.  The objective of Munchkin is to be the first to reach level ten which can be done through combat, level-up cards or buying levels (by selling items).  The game can only be won in combat though.

The order in a turn is thus:

• Draw a door card, face up.
• If it's a monster, fight it and collect the treasure (or run away, as the case may be).  Go to Charity, below.
• If it's a curse, apply whatever effect the curse may have (such as 'Chicken on the Head')
• If you have a monster in your hand, you may 'look for trouble' and fight it.
• Charity.  If you have more than 5 cards (6 for a dwarf) in your hand, you must get rid of any excess.  They go to either the lowest-level player or the discard pile.

The rules are easy enough to follow and after a couple of games, become second nature.  Really, it's what's on the cards that make the game so fun.  A big part of the appeal of the game is trying to 'bend' the cards (not literally) to suit your own, selfish, nefarious needs.  Steve Jackson, in a flash of inspired brilliance, defers any conflict of the rules to the owner of the game. 

An example:

"Ha ha I defeat the Plutonium Dragon and I've won the game."

"Ha ha but I'm going to play my instant escape card that allows you to escape from any combat."

"But I don't want to escape, I want to fight it and win the game."

"Tough"

"But ... but ... you can't do that."

"Yes I can, it says I can play this card in _any_ combat so I'm playing it in your combat. You escape, you haven't won. My turn."

"Grr, just you wait ..."

Etc, etc.

Combat

Combat is very simple.  Each monster has a level and by comparing your own level together with any bonuses you may have acquired such as armour, weapons, curses and such-like, it's easy to see if the monster is beaten or not.  Other players can join in the combat either by re-inforcing the monster to make it harder to beat or yourself for a share of the monsters booty.

Items

Wearable and usable item cards are placed on the table in front of the player.  These items typically follow standard dungeon-trawling fayre such as axes, swords, armour and leather codpieces.  You may find yourself in possession of the Chainsaw of Bloody Dismemberment, fighting a vicious Potted Plant while another player throws in a Cotion of Ponfusion (sic) and curses you with a Duck of Doom to disrupt your plans. (All these things are real, actual items and monsters as featured in the game.  You can't make it up, really you can't).) 

Humour? In a RPG? Off with their head!

It's a very fun game to play and appeals to adults as much to kids.  The humour is quite irreverant and never fails to amuse, even on repeated plays.  The illustrations on each of the cards, so expertly done by artist John Kovalic, are genuinely funny and give the game an added dimension, particularly with the absence of a 'proper' board to play it on. 

Shhh, you might even learn something ...

In a whispered, hushed tone, well away from kids' ears, Munchkin could also be construed as an (almost) educational game.  With elements of counting and simple arithmetic, reading quite complex pieces of text and following rules and regulations, it's not a big jump to think of it in educational terms.  Just try and draw a veil over the stabbing buddies and cheating that goes on.


There must be a catch?

• There are a few downsides to Munchkin, but not many.  While the rules are fairly simple, some of the actions upon the cards can be quite confusing for younger players, particularly when modifications to items are involved. 
• The class and race cards also proved to be a bit of a sticking point, even with repeated plays.  Classes and Races allow players to use different skills and have different abilities.  Also, certain items are only usable by certain classes or races.  For an experienced dungeoneer, this would prove no problem but for a family only used to Monopoly, it could get confusing.
• With 4 or more players, games can become one-sided and every so often, we will have a game where one or two players just don't seem to be able to get started.  It's all down to the luck of the draw obviously, but it's still very frustrating not being able to do anything.
• It's worth noting there are no score sheets included with the game.  You can download some pretty ones from the Steve Jackson Games website (www.sjgames.com) or make your own by drawing 10 circles on a piece of paper.  Either works. 
• It does work best with 3 or more players.  I have played with only 2 players but an important element of the game, helping other players in combat, is obviously missed.  Over 5 players and there are large gaps of doing nothing between turns.

Expansion Sets

One of the beauties of a game system such as this is the ability to expand it with extra sets, thus prolonging the life of the game.  Munchkin is no different and there is a vast array of expansion sets and even whole new games within the game system.  SJ Games are very prolific and there are regular new releases to the Munchkin series.  Also, all the different stand alone games can be combined together to make one huge game of Munchkin.

Expansions for Munchkin include (but is not limited to and correct at time of writing [Jan 2011])

• Munchkin 2: Unnatural Axe
• Munchkin 3: Clerical Errors
• Munchkin 4: Need for Steed
• Munchkin 5: De-ranged
• Munchkin 6: Demented Dungeons
• Munchkin 7: Cheat with both hands
• Munchkin Reloaded
• Munchkinomicon
• Munchkin Monster Enhancers
• Munchkin Go Up A Level

Stand-Alone games in the Munchkin series:

• Star Munchkin 1 and 2 (Space and Clowns in Space))
• Munchkin Fu 1 and 2 (1970's Hong Kong martial arts films)
• Munckin Booty (Pirates)
• Munckin Bites 1 and 2 (Horror films)
• Super Munchkin
• Munchkin Impossible (Spies)
• Munchkin Cthulhu 1,2,3 and 4 (Lovecraft-an)
• The Good, The Bad and The Munchkin (Cowboys)
• Munchkin Zombies (Erm, zombies)

And probably a whole load more.

Conclusion

Overall, Munchkin the card game, is a marvelous fun-filled family game.  It has wonderfully witty humour that never grows stale, great artwork and coherent gameplay.  Also, being a card game, is quite transportable so would be easy to carry on a vacation or day-trip and doesn't require a huge amount of table-space to play.  Munchkin is also supplemented by a range of add-ons to the base game allowing a myriad of possibilities, all of which can be blended together to create a super Munchkin game.

Munchkn the Card Game is published by Steve Jackson Games and is available from good toy stockists or online.  Here in the UK, it retails for £19.99 at Travelling Man.

In our experience, one game can take up to an hour and a half to play through to its conclusion.

I have played this with people of several age levels and all seem to 'get it'.  My daughter, aged ten and her friends of the same age played without too many problems (except for some of the more complicated cards). 

PS

To clear something up, Steve Jackson is an American games designer who in the past has designed and created fantasy role-playing games.  There is also another Steve Jackson, an _English_ games designer who in the past has designed and created fantasy role-playing games.  Munchkin is produced by the American version, not the English one.  Follow that?  Thought not ...

Board Game Review: Memoir 44 Mediterranean Theatre Expansion

What is it?

Mediterranean Theatre Expansion Pack is an add-on for Memoir 44, an easy-to-play wargame based on the Second World War.  First published by Days of Wonder in 2004, Memoir 44 is a light wargame set on a hex-based board, upon which tiles are laid to signify terrain features, army units, objectives etc.  The release date is no coincidence as the game's aim is to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings in 1944. 

What's in the box?

Mediterranean Theatre is an add-on pack to the base game and introduces new rules to go with the new terrain pieces, counters and a whole British Army, all based around the North African desert campaign of World War 2.

The standard of the components are in keeping with the rest of the Memoir 44 range (indeed the whole Days of Wonder portfolio) and are excellent.   The only gripe here is the plastic inserts designed to keep everything in place, struggle to maintain order.  It's easier just to throw the inserts away and place everything in the box in a big scrum.

New Rules

The game mechanism employed by Memoir 44 is cunningly versatile and allows add-on packs such as this Mediterranean Theatre to be slotted in with comparative ease.  Included are rules for new terrain pieces, special weapon units, individual army rules for the British and Italian armies, a whole British Army group containing 42 infantry, 24 armoured units, 6 heavy artillery and 3 special weapons plastic figures.  A comprehensive rules book describing all the new features and 8 totally new scenarios complete the package.

New Terrain Tiles

These new tiles are designed to be used with the Days of Wonder desert board.  They can be used with the original countryside board but the aesthetic effect is lost slightly.

* Enscarpments are totally impassable by all ground units.
* Roads provide an extra movement as long as the unit starts and ends the turn on the road.
* Wadis restrict movement in one direction.
* Airfields don't have any effect unless the optional Air Pack (purchased separately) is being used.
* Ergs and Ridges same rules as hills.
* An Oasis provide a means for units to recover lost members.
* Beach and ocean tiles
* HQ and Supply tents, while not providing any kind of cover, if captured by the enemy allows them to remove one command card from your hand until such time you can capture the HQ tile back.

New Gameplay Elements

* Minefields are represented by a series of face-down counters.  When an enemy unit moves onto a hex containing a minefield counter, the counter is turned over to reveal a number.  That number represents the number of die rolled by the oppopsing team to determine damage caused by the minefield.  If the minefield is a zero, it is a dud and should be removed allowing free movement over that hex.

* Anti-tank units are represented by small plastic miniatures, reminiscent of a bazooka.  This unit also causes damage with a star but can't move and fire.  Otherwise, all attributes are the same as normal infantry.

* The new British Army can invoke a Stiff Upper Lip where a unit down to a single member can battle back immediately with a single die.  In certain scenarios, the British Army can call upon engineers to remove mines instead of battling.

* The Italian Army can retreat up to 3 hexes if necessary to represent their superior mobility during the North African desert conflict.

* Exit markers are placed on the edge of the board, as denoted in the scenario description, and allow an extra means of gaining victory points for the attacking player by escaping through them.

* North African desert rules allow an armoured to make an extra movement in a successful armour over-run.

In Play

The Mediterranean Theatre Expansion adds to an already rich playing experience and when combined with a desert board, is very immersive.  Part of the fun with a game like this is interpreting the rules and this was no exception.  Luckily, Memoir 44 makes it very easy for players to work everything out.  By the third or forth game, we had pretty much figured it all out with minimal referral to the manual.

The new anti-tank weapons work well and give the infantry units an extra dimension.  They also tend to draw fire more than other infantry units too.  The minefields add an extra element of suspense to proceedings, particularly when they are face down and the only way to find out how strong they are is to step on one.

The new scenarios are difficult, especially the early ones playing as the Allies.  Of course, the desert conflict was incredibly difficult (not that ANY conflict is easy) and this is represented well.  The Allies had a mammoth task facing them and this comes across in the game.  There are some nice fast-paced tactical tank battles over relatively flat ground and these were great fun.

Gripes

The new minefield rules are very powerful in contrast to the rest of the game and even when turned over, the minefield remains in position until removed by an engineering unit.  Within the context of Memoir 44's simple rules this is understandable, but a few of the included scenarios don't cater for engineers and the minefield becomes a very tricky obstacle to cross.  To be fair, it's hard to see how else to represent this integral part of the North African campaign within Memoir 44 so it's not a gripe as such, more of an observation.

There are no new command cards.  This seems an opportunity missed to expand the original set of command cards as provided in the base game.  They didn't even have to be desert-themed or biased towards this expansion.

There are no terrain summary cards as in the original game which means the rule book, at first anyway, is constantly being referred to.  The summary cards were very helpful and could be placed to the side of the board in a handy position and their omission here is missed sorely.

To obtain the full immersive experience, a new desert board, while not essential, does make it all seem more realistic.  This can cost up to an extra 20 pounds.  As mentioned, this expansion can still be played with the original countryside board from the base game.

Conclusion

For a little over 20 British pounds, the Memoir 44 Mediterranean Theatre expansion pack represents excellent value for money, especially considering the number of extra components included.  The new rules are easy to pick up and add a worthwhile dimension to an already brilliant game and the gripes mentioned are very minor.  Recommended.