Pandemic Review by Countzero

The world is being gripped by deadly viruses and its up to a small team to find cures and help the worlds population before a pandemic starts.

Pandemic is a cooperative game from Z-Man games that has taken the gaming community by storm. Its very easy to play but you can rack up the difficulty factor if you find things a bit to easy.

So, what do you get when you open the box.

• A nice glossy board depicting the world and its major cities
• 5 large wooden pawns
• 6 Wooden research station markers
• 2 decks of cards, one for players one for the diseases
• 5 role cards
• loads of coloured cubes
• some cardboard tokens
• Rulebook

All in the game components are pretty good, the cards and board look really nice with good quality artwork. The pawns and research stations are a little on the large side, which can cause a problem when everyone is at the same city or location.

Setup is very straight forward, role cards are shuffled and one is dealt to each player. There are 5 roles in the game, each one having its own special ability in the game.

The medic can remove more cubes in cities that he visits.
The operations expert can build research stations without using cards.
The dispatcher can move other players pawns
The scientist can find cures easier
Finally the researcher can swap cards with players.

Once everyone has a role they are dealt some player cards. These correspond to the cities on the board and are used to travel around the board and also to be spent when finding cures for the diseases. The number of cards dealt depends on the number of players. But first you must seed the deck with a number of epedemic cards. These are bad and the number you put into the deck determines how hard the game is. 4 is easy up to 6 which is very tough.

Next up is the seeding of diseases around the globe. There are 4 different coloured diseases, Red, Yellow, Black and Blue. I wish they had put names to the diseases but you can easily make up your own names. The top 3 cards from the disease pile are turned over and 3 cubes of the corresponding colour are placed on that location. 3 more cards are them turned over and 2 cubes go onto these locations. Finally 3 more cards are turned over and 1 cube is placed on these locations. The world should now have 9 infected cities and its up to the players to find the cures for each disease while stopping the infections on the board from spreading.

Each player then has 4 action points to spend. These are spent in a number of ways. Moving along a movement track between locations costs 1 point. Discarding a card from your hand to fly to that location costs 1 point. Discarding the card of the location you are on to fly to any other location costs 1 point. Flying from one research station to another costs 1 point. Removing one disease cube from a location costs 1 point. Building a research station costs 1 point. Finding a cure is 1 point and lastly trading a card is 1 point.

There are a number of different things you can do but they are mainly broken down into travelling or doing actions. Sounds complex, well its not and its very easy to start moving your pawn around the globe and making some headway into curing the infections on the board or working towards finding cures. Each of the different roles alter some of these actions, the medic for example can remove more cubes and the operations expert can build research stations with paying the exact card cost.

Once you have spent your 4 action points you get to draw 2 player cards. These are generally more locations or one of a few special cards.
After this its time to spread the diseases. You have to draw a number of disease cards from the disease pile and place one cube on each location. Pretty straightforward at the start but as the cubes start mounting things can get out of control. If you ever have to put a fourth cube on a location you instead trigger an outbreak. This means that you instead place one coloured cube of that disease onto every city that connects to the city that had the outbreak. This in turn can trigger more outbreaks. Each time you trigger an outbreak the outbreak track increases by one and when it hits 8 its game over.

Whats makes things worse is the epedemic cards that you seeded the deck with. If one of these is drawn the disease discard pile is picked up, shuffled and placed back on top of the disease pile. So in effect the cities that have already been infected and going to come around again.

So how do the players find cures? They need to discard 5 cards from there hand that are all the same colour. So 5 yellow cards would find a cure for the yellow disease. The scientist only needs 4 which makes life a little easier for him. You also need to be in a location with a research station.

When the players get all 4 cures they win the game, they loose if the outbreak marker hits 8 or the player deck runs out.

I have played Pandemic many times with differing numbers of players. Most games have been very tense and hard won with the players only just scrapping a win. Either with only a few player cards left in the deck or with the outbreak marker coming close to its limit.
As a cooperative game it works really well, the 5 roles are all needed and I personally don't think that they are unbalanced. I am happy to play with any of the roles although the researcher and scientist combo can certainly find the cures the quickest. But all that time researching allows the diseases to spread. After a couple of games you should have the abilities of the different roles down and know how best to use them in conjunction with the other players.

The theme in the game is pretty good, as I mentioned earlier it would have been nice to add names to the diseases but that's pretty trivial. I have also seen other users use coloured zombies instead of the cubes.

Whats not to like, well the board can be a little cluttered at times. Smaller pawns would help this or making the board a little bigger. Also its very easy for a seasoned player to just run the game and tell everyone what to do. These are pretty minor points compared to all the good things in the game.

The second print run should be hitting shelves very soon and with an expansion due in 2009 things are looking good for Pandemic.

Summary

Presentation: Game looks good and plays very well if a little tense at times. 9/10

Clarity of Rules: Excellent rules will get you playing very quickly. 8/10

Game Length: Games take about 60 minutes to play sometimes a little quicker if the players have a good run. 9/10

Value: Good quality components that are well made 8/10

Overall: This is currently my favorite co-op game. It plays really well and doesn't take too long. (8.5/10 not an average)

Kingsburg Review by Count Zero

Kingsburg Review by Count Zero

The king is dying and the kingdom is going to be passed on to one of his loyal ambassadors, its up to you to prove that you are most worthy of the realm. You have to do this by building various buildings in the country and protecting the land from invading armies.

The artwork on the box of this game is amazing, it gives a good feel for what you are going to get when you open up the box. Inside you get one large board that depicts the 18 different advisors that you will influence in the game. 5 smaller board that each player uses to mark which buildings they have build. A large bag of coloured dice, three in each colour and some plain white ones. Various cardboard tokens to be used by the players to mark there buildings and to gain other dice rolling advantages. Some wooden tokens to mark victory points and times in the game, a small deck of cards to depict the various enemies that attack in the winter season. Finally a nice colour rulebook that explains the game very well with good use of examples. The components are all very well made and the main boards artwork is very nice. It's a slightly cartoonish fantasy theme that works really well.

The game is played over a period of 5 years, with each of the years broken down into 4 seasons. The game starts in Spring and all players roll there three coloured dice. The values are totaled and the playing order is adjusted with the lowest going fist.
Now comes the basis of the turns. The dice that you have rolled are placed on the advisors, the dice can be broken down or placed as one. So for example if you total was 9 (3+2+4)you could put all three dice on the master hunter who is advisor number 9. Or you could place two dice totaling 5 (3+2)onto the soldier. Once you have placed some or all of your dice the next player places his. He cannot at this point place his dice on an advisor who already has dice on them. Once everyone has placed on one advisor the starting player can then place any remaining dice. This goes on until everyone has placed there die.

Each of the 18 advisors helps the players in one of several ways. Mainly through giving them resources, either wood, stone or gold. They can also supply troops for your army, spy on the Winter enemy or give victory points.

The advisors are then played and players recieve there resources or abilities. Now comes the spring build phase, here players spend there resources to build the buildings on there build mat. The starting buildings are relatively cheap, a single wood for a palisade or a wood and a stone for a tower. Each building is worth a number of victory points and generally gives the player some abilities. The more expensive the building the more victory points it provides and the better its power. The tower gives +1 to your army, the Inn gives a +2 token each summer which can be added to a dices value. (A 6 could be used as an 8).

After this has happened its time for Summer, again the players roll there dice, adjust there starting order, influence there advisors and recieve there benefits. Building happens again and hopefully the players will start scoring some good points.

Autumn is played in the same way with an added phase. When Winter comes a random army is going to attack the realm, anyone who has used there spy ability will know the strength of the attacking army and will hopefully have prepared. Players can now buy armies at the cost of two goods for an army. Once everyone has bought there armies the king will send in reinforcments. A single dice is rolled and added to everyones army strength. The enemy card is now flipped and will display the enemy type, goblins, zombies etc. The card will display the stregth of the army and each player thats army is greater than that will defeat the enemy and recieve the cards bonus. This is usually victory points or resources. Anyone who doesn't defeat them as the bad effects of the card played. Usually loosing victory points, resources or in the worst case buildings.

The first year comes to an end and by now everyone should know what they are planning for the other 4. There are a couple of extra events in the turn order. At the end of Spring and Summer the king will help the loosing player and give the winning player extra victory points. This is a nice little bonus, being the loosing player gets the kings favour in Autumn. This allows them to influence an advisor who already has dice on them or to build twice in a build phase. This little bit of help can bring the loosing player back into the running.

The next 4 years are played exactly the same with the winter enemy getting harder and the players building effecting the game. By the third year some building that produce victory points should be in play and the defensive bonus of other buildings should take the edge off of the winter phase.

After the end of the 5 years whoever has the most victory points wins.

It all sounds easy enough but there are several things that effect the outcome of this game but mainly its a planning game. What buildings you build really effects your game, the buildings are in a basic technology tree. You have to build a statue before the church, and a church before a cathedral. The higher up the tree the better the building and victory point bonus. The winter attack is also a key point in the game, early in the game the kings help will generally be enough to defeat the enemy but by year 5 the winter phase can dramatically effect the players. If you haven't built up your army you may loose your most powerful building and the victory points that it was worth.

Kingsburg was better than I expected. It plays really well and once the first year is played everyone will know what the have to do. I really think that this game will be nominated for the SdJ as its a great gateway/family game.

If you are interested there is a java version available here http://mitglied.lycos.de/thunderfall/

There will also be an expansion out for the game towards the end of the year.

Summary

Presentation: The game looks great, its well put together and the components look the part. 9/10

Clarity of Rules: The rules are really well written, there are plenty of examples to help you play. 8/10

Game Length: The game takes about 90 minutes which will get shorter once everyone has played a couple of times. 9/10

Value: Good quality components that are well made 8/10

Overall: This is a great game that would be an ideal gateway game for friends or family. (8.5/10 not an average)

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Neuland Review by Derek Carver

Some games come to our attention as a result of a flurry of rave reviews but then inexplicably disappear from public awareness no more than six months later. “How can this happen?” we ask ourselves. “Why did we all rush to buy this game yet now nobody wants to play it – not even a single bid when put on eBay!” We’ve all been there and as I write this I can see a host of examples on my shelves that I’ll refrain from listing!

But there are other truly excellent games that sort of creep into our awareness. Hardly anybody mentions them on the various boardgame sites. It is as though they never happened, yet as the months – even years - go by more and more people get talking about them. Three immediately spring to mind that I’ve no hesitation in naming. One was ‘Die Macher’, another was the cardgame ‘Der Flaschenteufel’, and the third is ‘Neuland’.

‘Neuland’ has just been reprinted (which is why I am writing this piece) in a much more colourful format. But interestingly enough it was because it looked so terribly dull in its first publication that I bought it. Not that it was badly made. It was simply extremely dull to look at. But with so much competition to get a game published, I thought, a game looking as dull as this must be really special in order to have found a good publisher! So I bought it. And how pleased I was that I did. I have always regarded it as being one of the two best games of its year (2004) and I couldn’t understand why people weren’t raving about it.

What I didn’t know at the time, of course, was that only a very few copies had been printed – somebody told me 500. So it wasn’t surprising that it was little known. (I seem to remember that this was the number of the first printing of ‘Die Macher’, which also wasn’t reprinted for several years.)

But now the demand for ‘Neuland’ has grown sufficiently to justify a reprint. When I commented on this to a well-known German reviewer he said how delighted he was because this was one of the very few games that in his review he had ranked 10 out of 10.

There is no point in taking up space with a detailed explanation of how it is played because this information is now available elsewhere. But if you are familiar with the Splotter ‘Roads and Boats’ you will instantly recognise a similarity (although ‘Neuland’ plays in a far shorter time). In both games players can build manufacturing facilities but these facilities, once built, can be used by any player – not just the builder. And unlike games such as ‘Caylus’ the builder of the facility derives no benefit if others make use of it. What is more – and here I’m back talking about ‘Neuland’ – since only one person can occupy the facility at a time you’re a fool if you build the thing and then fail to have any action points remaining that turn in order to place one of your pieces on it.

In a nutshell it is a game of progressive development. You start off with some basic commodities that you then use to convert to something higher up the scale, which in turn – and in association with other commodities – convert into something even better. The aim is to finally acquire the more abstract concepts of a civilised society and so win the game. And if, like me, you are getting fed up with felling timber to build your hut to house your cow, to sell your milk, etc. etc., don’t be put off; you’ll find ‘Neuland’ rises above this now rather tired concept. There is also a very clever and most original ‘movement’ system, which you’ll discover if you play the game.

At first sight the aim seems to be so very daunting you can’t ever imagine getting there without a considerable amount of brain-ache. Certainly a degree of brain-ache is involved but nothing excessive (after all, my brain has now been round a very long time but it can still cope with ‘Neuland’ OK). In fact, if you enjoy a challenging game you’ll be delighted. A few weeks back I introduced it to a player who is known as being “not easy to please” to put it mildly and he instantly placed an order for the upcoming version, proclaiming it as being the best game to come his way for a very long time. So there you go.

It is for four players maximum and it plays equally successfully with three – maybe better because your turn comes round more quickly. I’ve not played it with two so can’t comment.

I suppose it is important to stress that all of my comments relate to the original version. The reprint, which is due to arrive in the UK any day I’m told, has added more colour to the components and might or might not incorporate some changes – we’ll need to wait and see. But the game was so excellent that I can’t imagine it has been radically changed in any way.


Derek Carver

Battle for Hill 218 Review

Battle for Hill 218 review by Count Zero

Battle for Hill 218 is the latest offering from Your Move Games, there most popular game so far has been the Battleground series but I think things may change now.

For your money you get a single deck of cards in the standard cardboard box, similar to a deck of Magic cards. Opening the box you get a small paper instruction manual, two decks of 26 cards one set blue and the other is green. Finally there is the Hill 218 card.

Each player has the same set of 26 cards; these are split into the different troop or equipment cards that make up your army. These are infantry, heavy weapons, tank, special op's, paratroopers, artillery and final air strikes.

Setup of the game is very easy, the hill 218 card is placed on a table. It's more of a marker and serves no real purpose in the game other than as a visual aid. Each player then takes there two air strike cards and places them on their side of the table. There deck of cards is then shuffled and five cards are drawn. From these five two are discarded.

Player one now starts, he draws two cards from his deck and places one of his 5 cards. The first placement needs to be on his side of the Hill 218 card. You have to imagine that the board is made up of a grid of spaces. Each space being able to take one card. The spaces on opposite sides of the Hill 218 card represent your base. Your objective is to place one of your cards in your opponent’s base space. Sounds easy, but it can take a bit of effort.

Player two now takes his turn, he draws two cards from his deck and places two on the table. From this point on, both players take turns to draw two cards and place two. These can be either from their hand, or one of their two airstrike cards. The rules of placement are simple; each card has an image showing its supply route. This is represented as arrows running from a square. Cards can only be placed if they can trace a line back to your base. So for example, an infantry card will show supply routes North, South, East and West. You could place another infantry card next to this card in any of those spaces. Most of the cards have this same supply rules except for paratroopers who can be dropped into any space on the board.

Once a card has been placed it has the opportunity to attack. Again a small image will show the attack directions that this card can use and whether it can destroy a card or will need support to help it. The bigger unit cards such as tanks and artillery can destroy cards. So for example a tank can destroy a card to its North, South, East and West. So place it in front of an enemy card and it will destroy it. Most of the other cards need help to destroy your enemy’s cards and this is where the support rules come into place.

The final image on the card shows what support that the card can play, it will again have markers pointing North, South, East, West or in all directions. If a card is placed that requires support in order to destroy the enemy card the cards next to it are checked. If they can offer support then the enemy card is removed. Sounds a bit complicated, but after your first game you will get it.

The final type of card is the airstrike; by playing one of your two airstrike cards you can instantly remove one of the enemy’s cards from the board. You only have two of these so you need to use them wisely.

First player to place one of their cards into the opponents base square wins the game. It's a quick game that last about 10 minutes, so you will be playing multiples of the game or usually a best of three games to determine the winner.

I have found that the player who starts second seems to have a bit of an upper hand. But I am expecting this to even out after more plays. Hill 218 is a good quick game; it's one of those games that will surprise you with its unexpected complexity. From the start it seems pretty easy, but after a couple of games the strategies start forming.

As a bonus, your move games have put a free java version on there web site. It's easy to install and allows you to play the game without spending any money.
The link is here http://www.yourmovegames.com/pages/hill218.html

Summary

Presentation
Card stock is good with a nice shiny finish. 8/10

Clarity of Rules
Rules are pretty clear, after a game you will not need them again 8/10

Game Length
Games last about 10-20 minutes, so you can play a few quickly 8/10

Value
It's a pack of cards 7/10

Overall
An abstract game with a WW2 theme, quick to play and allot of fun (8/10 not an average)

Hey! Thats my Fish review by Count Zero

Hey! that's my fish review by Count Zero

If you are not fed up with watching Mumble dancing away in happy feet and can squeeze in more penguins then Hey! that's my fish is worth a look. Don't be put off by the child friendly cover, this is a great game that will get your brain working.

Opening the box you get 60 hexagonal ice flow tiles, each depicts a number of fish from 1 to 3. You also get 16 wooden penguins in 4 colours. Not a huge amount of pieces but its fine for the money.

Setup is very simple, the ice flow tiles are placed in a grid of 7 hexes by 8. They are staggered slightly so that the hex pieces work. There is a good diagram in the manual showing how you should do this. There is also a good play sheet available on board game geek to help kids set the game up. Once the ice flow has been put down players take it in turn to place one of there penguins on ice flow pieces that only contain a single fish.

Once all the penguins have been placed the game starts. Taking it in turns a player moves one of his penguins any number of spaces in any direction from his ice flow hex. The only limits are that they cannot move over any penguin including there own, or over an empty space. Once the penguin has been placed on its new hex the player removes the starting hex and places it next to him. So after a few moves you will see the ice flow starting to diminish as hexes are removed.
This can help or hinder you by allowing you to either cut yourself off or cut other players off. Sometimes its not the best strategy to go for all the 3 fish pieces.

Play continues until you cannot make any moves, you are now out and the other players continue until everyone can no longer make a move. The tiles your penguins are left on are now taken away and added to your collection. Add up all the fish you have and the winner is the one with the most fish.

As you can see there isn't a great deal to the rules of Hey! that's my fish but its a quick game to get on the table, teach and play. The game box recommends it for children aged 8 and above, but my younger kids enjoy playing it, even if they don''t get the strategy just yet.

Summary

Presentation
Quality pieces and well put together. The penguins look good as well. 9/10

Clarity of Rules
Rules are very well put together, colourful and full of examples you will be playing in minutes 8/10

Game Length
Games take about 20 mins, so there is always time for another 9/10

Value

Good quality pieces that feel good 7/10

Overall
Don't be deceived by this game, it's not just for kids. A fun light game abstract game that will played again and again (8/10 not an average)

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