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Ticket to Ride Legacy; Bomb Busters; Histrio; Flash Point: Fire Rescue (revisited) · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:00
  Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver, the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as
• 0:06
  I head out for a walk and deliver an episode to you while I stroll around.
• 0:10
  I'm Brendan Riley.
• 0:12
  Well, greetings listeners.
• 0:23
  It's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago.
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  The sun is out, the sky is blue with a few cottony clouds dotting it.
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  The weather is pretty warm for February.
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  I mean, it's chilly.
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  I've got a hat on and a jacket.
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  I do have gloves in my backpack in case they need them, but it feels pretty nice.
• 0:42
  So I'm happy to be out talking to you.
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  I'm taking a walk up to the library to return a couple books and I thought it would be
• 0:48
  a good time to record a couple episodes of Pick Up and Deliver.
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  These are going to be aired or released after the Top of the Stack episode, which I will
• 0:59
  probably record and release on Monday, or maybe even Tuesday.
• 1:03
  We'll see if I can get out over the weekend.
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  But tomorrow is the beginning of the month.
• 1:07
  I guess I could record it today, but what if I play a game tonight?
• 1:10
  Stats will be all screwy.
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  So I thought I would record a Board Game Espresso Triple Shot.
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  The Board Game Espresso Triple Shot is an episode segment in which I talk about three games
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  I played recently for the first time, and then something else I played that's significant.
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  Could be a game I dusted off.
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  It could be a new expansion I tried, something like that.
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  Just as a reminder, these are games I played maybe once or twice, so this isn't really
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  a review per se so much as a first impressions kind of episode.
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  So let's get into it.
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  First game I want to talk of.
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  These all three of the new games that I played came from a single game day with our friend
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  Paul--Hi Paul--in which I got to try out several new games I hadn't played before.
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  The first of which that I want to talk about is Ticket to Ride: Legacy.
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  It's actually called Ticket to Ride: Legacy - Legends of the West, which I imagine they put
• 2:03
  that colon on there so they could do another one where it's like, "Europe on rails" or something.
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  They could do another one if this one was popular.
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  Obviously I won't say very much about it because I don't want to give anything away, but
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  Ticket to Ride is a game that we've all played many times and so Ticket to Ride: Legacy is
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  going to be an interesting development of that system.
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  At the beginning it feels it's almost as light as like one of the Ticket to Ride city
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  games like Ticket to Ride New York, not quite, but the map is not as developed as your
• 2:37
  traditional Ticket to Ride game.
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  Games with most legacy games, there is a story that develops, there is ongoing stuff that
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  happens, there are changes that you make to game components, and all this starts off
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  right away.
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  I mean the game kind of assumes that you know how to play ticket to ride if follows the
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  usual rules, but you will develop over time.
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  I think some of the stuff that I can share without giving anything away, each player gets
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  a little box that's going to hold your stuff and half of the box is a side that you can open
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  up with the flap and you put cards and whatever in there.
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  And then the other side is, it's called your bank I think, and it's got a little slot in
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  the side and it does not open and after each game you're going to ride a little slip of paper
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  and you slide the paper in there.
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  So that's a really interesting bit of business that I think works really well.
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  We played two games in our first sitting, I imagine the early games will all be relatively
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  short, but as the game goes on it should get longer.
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  One of the other things you find when you first open the box and get it out is that the
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  game board is made of puzzle pieces, so that parts are interesting because we could just
• 3:51
  tell at the beginning we only have the east coast of the United States and as the game
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  goes along presumably we are going to get more segments.
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  I mean it's kind of hard not to think the puzzle shaped game board will get more puzzle pieces.
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  So yeah and then there's there's stickers, there's all these spots in the rulebook where
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  stickers are going to go, so lots of room for narrative and mechanical growth.
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  Fun first couple games we'll see how it goes as we move along.
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  That's Ticket to Ride: Legacy - Legends of the West, designed by Rob Daviau, Matt Leacock and
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  Alan Moon, art by Cyrille Doja and Julien Delval.
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  The art looks very similar to other Ticket to Ride games so I don't know if they're just using
• 4:34
  the same artist they always have or if they're having someone else do it and it's in a similar
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  style.
• 4:39
  It is windy today, hopefully this recording isn't just full of windy feedback, but when
• 4:46
  I told my wife I was going out for a walk today she said don't give one away and now I know
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  why.
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  Yes, windy as I'll get out.
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  Come to the next game, the next game is called Bomb Busters.
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  I discovered this game when Steph Hodge who is a streamer and board gamer was on board games
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  and talked about it being her most played game of 2024.
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  She said she and her partner played something like 60 games of it and I can absolutely see
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  why.
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  First off it takes about 10 minutes to play a game so like our group played I think six
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  games it's a really at the beginning it's really a rather uncomplicated deduction game basically
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  the way it works is you have a bunch of tiles in front of you that have numbers on them and
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  as a group you are trying to find and match the other numbers and you sort of use little
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  bits of logic to figure out who's got what kind of numbers and as the game goes on it gets
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  more complicated there are more possibilities and it takes a little bit more effort.
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  It's kind of in the neighborhood of something long lines of Hanabi although you can see
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  your own numbers but there is logic to be used in a similar way.
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  The art is very cutesy it looks like the same style as that one where you look at the map
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  and there's sort of crimes, crime city or whatever that one's called this sort of like picture
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  searching puzzle game.
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  It's designed by Hisashi Hayashi who designed Yokohama and Trains and like
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  a whole bunch of other games it's pretty renowned Japanese game designer.
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  It's really fun very accessible easy to play interesting bits of logic and deduction to
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  use the early training missions kind of ramp up in difficulty and I imagine the other there's
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  like 50 some missions in the box after you finish the training missions and I imagine they
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  just continue to get more interesting and harder.
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  If you get a chance to play this and you like deduction games it's definitely top notch
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  it's very fun easy to play quick if you lose it's not a big deal just reset it's a good
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  time that's Bomb Busters by Hisashi Hayashi.
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  The next up is Histrio. Histrio is one of those games I've kind of seen floating
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  around for a while I do recall seeing it on a kind of bargain bin price and it was always
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  sort of like maybe I'll get that one.
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  I think it had a low six rating on board game geek so I wasn't always super intense about
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  it but it looked interesting and the art is very cute it's got a sort of Elizabethan
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  era art style so think about Elizabethan England but all the characters are anthropomorphic
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  animals and the premise is that you are competing traveling troops of performers who are
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  going from city to city I think in blimps performing different kinds of plays building up your reputation
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  so that you can go performed for the king at the end of the game.
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  As the game goes along you are working on recruiting a top notch troop of players but also
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  building your reputation and trying to sway the king about what type of play he wants
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  to see.
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  There are two rounds and each round at the end of the round you're gonna see what kind
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  of play the king wants to see and you get a bonus if your troop has more people who are
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  good at that kind of play than at the other kind so there's tragedy and comedy but there's
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  also all these other bonus scoring cards that you can pick up and there's a whole bunch
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  of nuance between the different actions it is and a location selection game and the idea
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  is that you're picking where you're gonna go and you get the cards that are at that location
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  unless someone else also picks that location in which case then neither of you get the cards.
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  The tricky part is you can see which locations everyone else has gone to already so you can
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  tell which ones they could go to and of course there is a way to get all of your locations.
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  There are cards that will let you take all of your location blimps back and then there are
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  also a couple you also if you get down so you only have one left then you get to take
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  them all back as well so there's two different ways you might get them all back and then
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  it's a matter of kind of choosing the cards that provide the least negative effects toward
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  the scoring goals you're going for and the best combinations of outcomes.
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  It's a cute game it's actually pretty fun better than I thought it was gonna be given
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  how often and long it was on discount I thought it wasn't gonna be great but it actually
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  was pretty great are pretty good anyway I don't know that I would necessarily run out to
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  buy it although having played it now if I encountered it for 10 bucks I might pick it up it
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  was good definitely worth playing Bruno Cathala is always I've had Bruno Cathala very consistently
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  games that are good they're very rarely great I don't think I have any of his games in my
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  top 50 but I do have several in my collection and I almost always enjoy them they are always
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  just for me good but he is a very strong designer and a lot of people really like his stuff so
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  definitely worth checking out if you get a chance that's called Histrio and finally I
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  did this a little out of order usually I saved the third new game for the end but I didn't
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  I did get a chance to dust off a game that I hadn't played in while this was a Flash Point: Fire Rescue.
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  Flash Point: Fire Rescue is a cooperative game in which you play a group of firefighters
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  who are working together to try to put out a fire I know that's super surprising that
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  that's what it could be about but there it is in the game you take on the role of a specific
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  firefighter and each firefighter has their own kind of special power that they get to use
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  so one firefighter might be better at oh let's say rescuing people another one might be
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  better at moving faster through the fire and that sort of thing so different firefighters
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  will have a different level of ability when they go through the house generally. When I played
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  this game back in the day which was eight years and eighteen days dusty so it
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  had been a very long time since I played it. Back when I used to play it we mostly played on
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  the simple version which is designed for families with children and it's easier to play I never
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  really got to play the advanced version much but we did play the advanced version for this
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  one and it was pretty great. Kevin Lansing the designer did an excellent job with the overall flow of
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  the game. The way it works is on your turn it's an action point system you get a number of
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  actions you get to take. As you take those actions you then move through the house you put out fires.
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  You do all this different stuff and you're trying to rescue people and the goal is to rescue people
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  putting out the fire is a way of slowing down the end of the game but I guess it's... I don't know if
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  it's possible to actually put out the whole fire in the game, like if it if you had really good play
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  and you got really lucky with your rolls if you could put out the entire fire, would the game...
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  can you end the game that way? I don't know but you do win the game by rescuing all the people in the
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  house and if you're not putting out the fire then the fire will burn the house down and you won't
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  succeed in the second half or in that second goal. So on your turn you use actions to move around to
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  douse the fire. You can chop through doors and walls to get to people then you find people and what you
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  get is these little tokens on the board, these question mark tokens, that say there's something here
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  that you have to investigate and some of them are blank, some of them are animals which I really
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  want to rescue the cats and the dogs, and then some of them are people and you have to get all of
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  the survivors out. Or as many as... you're allowed to lose a certain number but it's not that many
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  before the game ends and after each turn then we roll dice and we add smoke or fire to the house
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  it spreads. Basically how it works is if you roll dice and it adds smoke to a space where there isn't
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  smoke already, we add smoke; if there's already smoke though that smoke turns into fire. It's like
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  it's smoldering and then it bursts into flame and there's this insidious spreading mechanism where if
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  I recall correctly like if you have a bank of three or four spots that have smoke and one of them
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  triggers into fire the whole thing turns into fire, which kind of makes sense. Like I said different
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  players have different skills and different abilities and they get to use different equipment
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  as they go through, so it makes for a pretty lively and entertaining game. I enjoyed myself a
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  fair amount, I don't know like in the classic co-op games I don't know if I like this better than say
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  Castle Panic or Pandemic like I like I definitely found Pandemic better just because it's a little
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  bit more predictable the dice in Flash Point, which can just screw you and there's nothing you can do about it
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  which is frustrating. But generally it's a pretty good game and well worth it I'll play if you
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  don't mind playing a game about a fire. Yeah pretty fun--that's flashpoint fire rescue from indie boards
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  and cards designer Kevin Landzing. Well those are three new games that I've played recently and one
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  expansion that I tried so that's about it for me today. I hope that you have tried some new games and
• 14:03
  I'd love to hear about them you can share those over on boardgamegeek in guild 3269. I'd
• 14:09
  love to hear about them there. You could also send me a direct message wombat 929 on board game geek
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  or brendan@rattleboxgames.com by email. well like I said that's about it for me today thanks for joining me on my
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  walk. I hope that your next walk is as pleasant as mine was. bye bye!