All roads lead to Gangs of Rome

I'm always on the lookout for games that try to solve the "everybody move to the center and fight" problem, and the even worse "everybody hide behind something and shoot for the rest of the game" problem. When I first heard about Gangs of Rome, it sounded like it focused on dynamic movement rather than just getting into an advantageous spot. But the real draw was the way the game incorporated non-player characters in the form of the mobs that wander the streets, and also the incola, individual characters who do things like fling scorpions at your fighters. Additionally, I liked that the setting isn't about military battles but rather on back alley skirmishes.

I bought some figures and terrain, played a few games, and found the game to be fun but a little fiddly, with a lot of small counters cluttering the table. I got distracted by other games, then heard that they were working on a second edition so I put Gangs of Rome on pause until the new version came out.

After playing with the new rules, I have to say they are a vast improvement. The designers have eliminated all the fiddly stuff but kept the things that make the game interesting: dynamic movement and an environment crowded with non-player characters who have a meaningful effect on the game. The revised rules use an interesting action economy system that is quite different from the usual "each model can do one or two actions" that is standard for most miniatures games. In Gangs of Rome, when a fighter activates they can choose to do between one and four actions. The player has to declare what the actions will be, using tokens to mark them on the board. For example, a player might declare "Marcus will move to this spot, then climb the scaffolding, then move into base contact with Rufus, then make a melee attack against Rufus." That player then rolls to see how many of the actions can be resolved. If any planned actions go unresolved, the fighter accumulates stress, which reduces his ability to act until it is cleared.

Combat is nice an simple with opposed rolls and very little on-the-spot math, making battles between fighters quick and decisive. But the real innovation in Gangs of Rome is in the way the game simulates the crowded city streets, via the mobs and the incola.

Mobs are large bases of five figures each. A standard game uses between three and six, placed around the board at the start of the game. The mobs make two important contributions to game play. First, if a player's gang fighter makes an attack within view of the crowd, there is a chance they will react, either by being scared (moving away from the action), or by getting angry, in which case they will move towards and attack the nearest player-controlled miniature. It forces you to be careful about when and where you attack your opponent, and reinforces the idea that this is a living, breathing city rather than an empty battlefield.

The second feature of the mob involves the ability for player figures to blend in with the crowd. If a player's miniature is in contact with a mob base, they can temporarily remove themselves from the board, reappearing on the following turn in contact with the same or a different mob base. It can be used as a sneaky way to hide and also move around the board undetected, and is another way the game makes the environment seem alive.

At various points during their turns, players can be given the opportunity to move a mob, or force a reaction, rolling to see if the mob is scared or angry and possibly getting them to attack an opponent's character. This is a change from the game's first edition, where the mobs moved in random directions and often had no real effect on game play. This way, players can attempt to use the mobs defensively or offensively -- it makes them seem more like part of the game.

The incola (citizens of Rome) add another level of interest to the game's environment. These are individual non-player characters who wander the board in a similar manner to the mobs with different effects ranging from calming down angry mobs to stealing player characters' weapons. My personal favorite is Rufinus the scorpion thrower, who flings scorpions at anyone who passes near, inciting mobs and inconveniencing player characters.

Gangs of Rome is the only miniatures game I've played where I feel like the environment is a critical part of the game. It's an impressive feat of game design, given that the enviroment is a living, breathing city crowded with colorful characters outside the players' direct control.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) This is one of the most truly immersive miniatures games on the market today.

See my battle report at OnTableTop.com for a detailed view of the game. 

• Gangs of Rome official website 
• Gangs of Rome Facebook group 

The games that burn twice as bright

"I've played...questionable games."

"Also extraordinary games. But maybe it's time for some new ones..."

I love buying new games. There is something magical about peeling off the shrink wrap, punching out the tokens, and wading through a new rulebook (to say nothing of the dopamine-like effects of new game smell). Of course, with a limited amount of space and an even more limited amount of time, if I'm going to continue buying new games that means I have to get rid of old ones. It should be easy enough to figure out what games I'm not playing any more, especially since I track and rate everything I play on BoardGameGeek.

Invariably when I comb through the shelves looking at games I've done lukewarm reviews of, I get a sort of reverse Marie Kondo thing where the low rated games spark joy in the form of "I might want to play that again one day." Even stranger, I sometimes find that high rated games are greeted with indifference, or worse, an enthusiastic "I'm tired of this game, it does not spark joy. Let's get rid of it."

A recent example of this phenomena was Roll Player. This was a game that I played at a convention and enjoyed enough to immediately buy a copy. I continued to play and enjoy it, even chasing down the two expansions and a host of promo cards, surely a sign of a high level of enthusiasm. But according to my BGG stats I haven't played it since January of 2021, and looking at it on the shelf I honestly have no desire to. Why is that, I wonder?

Roll Player isn't the only victim of my fickleness. I've had similar reactions to Jarl: the Vikings Tile-Laying Game (even while in the midst of rewatching Vikings), and Mansions of Madness. The decision to part with Mansions of Madness is particularly puzzling as it's the sort of pseudo-roleplaying game I tend to enjoy, and I had a significant sunken cost -- not only did I buy all the expansions, I spent considerably time painting all the miniatures. But part with it I did, and gladly.

When considering these and other 5-star games that I've since let go of, I could trot out all kinds of justifications for not wanting to play them (or have them in my collection) any more, but that's not the question I want to answer. What's really got me baffled is why I would get rid of 5-star reviewed games while keeping 3-star ones like Jurassic Park Danger or Paladins of the West Kingdom.

I think it comes down to the excitement of the new. A game comes along that does something differently, which is fun for a while, but on repeated plays you find that it just does that same new thing over and over, which soon stops being exciting. It's a good argument for spending a little time with a new game rather than reviewing it after one or two plays. At the same time, I sometimes find that I would like to give a game a better review after playing it more.

Or maybe it's just that they can't all be 5-star games. We need the less compelling filler games to keep from burning out on the ones that are truly great. We also need something to bring out when our non-gamer friends and family come for a visit...

In defense of the classics: Star Wars Clue

Re-skinning classic games with modern intellectual property is nothing new, just ask anyone who's ever owned a Charlie Brown chess set or a deck of novelty playing cards. Games publisher USAopoly has built up a healthy cottage industry out of grafting a dizzying array of film and television properties onto board game mainstays like Monopoly, Risk and Clue. While there is no help for Monopoly (it's a terrible game and always will be), occasionally the designers of a reskinned game will add elements in order to make the game more in line with the I.P. they're using. Sometimes this can work to the game's benefit; for example, Doctor Who Risk adds a much needed time limit to a game that can take all day to play, but really shouldn't.

Having not played the original Clue in many years (although I am a huge fan of the 1985 film, which is a work of genius), I picked up Star Wars Clue entirely due to the very impressive looking two-level board. In my defense, it was a spur of the moment decision, and besides, everything is better with Star Wars, right?

The three dimensional board is every bit as impressive as it looks on the box. The graphics are great, and some effort was made to make it look like the interior of the Death Star from the original Star Wars, rather than just slapping on stills from the film. The back side even looks like the death star exterior, but does reveal a problem: the board has a back side, which means whatever unlucky player gets that seat is going to be standing up a lot during the game. Even then, it's a little difficult to see the lower level of the board unless you're sitting right in front of it.

The playing pieces are miniatures of the principal Star Wars heroes, and they're as good as cheap molded plastic can possibly be. The colors are distinct and you can tell which character is which, and that's all you really need from a board game piece, although the miniature painter in me can't help wondering what they'd look like with a spot of paint.

"It was R2-D2, in the docking bay, with the lightsaber."

Well no, not exactly. Recognizing that a traditional whodunnit isn't on brand for Star Wars, the game instead asks players to figure out what room the Death Star plans are in, what planet it will destroy next, and what space ship the heroes will escape on. It's not a bad rationale, but it does remove the element of player pieces getting dragged around the board when they're accused, and it eliminates the murder weapons which were the most visually striking thing about the original game, even if they don't really serve a clear purpose. The planets and ships are represented by cardboard counters that are placed in the room when a player makes a guess, and element we found a little cumbersome but also helpful for remembering what guess had just been made.

One thing I remember not particularly liking about the original Clue is that sometimes you don't roll high enough to move to the room you want to move to, and you get stuck in the hallway with nothing to do. Star Wars Clue attempts to alleviate this, and perhaps make the game feel more like the escape from the Death Star, with a new deck of cards that must be drawn from any time a player ends their turn in the hallway. There are four possible cards that can be drawn: an all clear, which lets the player move to any room on their current level; a "stormtrooper ahead" that gives an additional dice roll for movement, with the caveat that if the player doesn't make it into a room they move to the Trash Compactor; a comlink that allows an extra guess to be directed at a single player; and finally, the dreaded "you are caught" card...

This card has been the subject of nearly all the criticism of this version of the game. When drawn, the player moves directly to the Detention Block and ends their turn. They are stuck there until another player moves into the room to rescue them, at which time the prisoner must show the rescuer one of their Clue cards. If all players wind up as prisoners, the game ends immediately. On paper it sounds like a fun way to spice up the game, but in practice we found it to be pretty tedious, even after house ruling that the prisoner only had to stay in the Detention Block for one full turn.

Even with these additions, the game is recognizably Clue, to the point that our winner was the player who had played the original a lot as a kid and had developed tried and true strategies for winning. We played with a group of Star Wars fans, but at the game's end we concluded that we had enjoyed the Clue part of the game, but the Star Wars elements got in the way more than they helped. When one player asked "so, it this a keeper?" my response was that I would be more likely to buy a copy of the regular edition of Clue.

Rating: 2 (out of 5) It turns out that not everything is better with Star Wars.

Lacorsa: a racing game that's elegant in its simplicity

When I was a kid I was always fascinated by the cribbage board that seemed to be a fixture in suburban homes of the 1970s. To this day I have no idea how to play cribbage, but I think it was the tactile nature of the cribbage board and its little pegs that intrigued me. Plus it was made out of wood, not the ubiquitous plastic that it seems like everything was made of.

Marketing photos of Lacorsa, a small publisher racing game that advertised heavily on social media after a successful 2018 Kickstarter, gave me a similar feeling. I'm not overly interested in race cars or racing, but the elegant wooden track and simple silhouetted 1960s-style race car miniatures looked great and the game play sounded really interesting.

A game of Lacorsa starts with a row of cars on a straight wooden track. The goal is not to move to the end of the track à la Snakes and Ladders or any number of back-of-the-cereal-box games, but rather more simply to move to the head of the line. The idea is that a race isn't so much about who gets to the end first as it is about who is in front when the race is over. With this in mind, players challenge each other with numbered cards from their hands, with the winner of each challenge moving ahead of the loser and then challenging the next car in line. Or, if there is an empty space ahead, the player can use an extend card to put some distance between their car and the one behind.

In actuality, the game starts a bit before the simple but elegant cars line up on the simple but elegant track. The game comes with six suits of 13 cards numbered one through twelve, plus a special redline card (more on that later). The deck is made up of one suit per car in the race; the cards are then shuffled and dealt out, 13 to each player. The game then starts with a qualifying round where each player chooses one card to play face down. All are revealed simultaneously, and the player with the lowest card starts their car at the end of the track, then the next lowest, and so on until everyone's car is on the track. Then the race starts.

Each "lap" of the race starts with the player whose car is in last place. That player challenges the car directly in front of theirs: both players choose a card and then place all their cards face down in front of them, with the chosen card on top. Cards are revealed simultaneously and if the challenger's card is higher, their car changes place with the loser, moving closer to the front.

The redline is a special card that adds +2 to the value of another card, and is the reason cards are played the way they are, in a face down stack. If a player reveals a redline card, they then also reveal the next card in the stack (also chosen by that player). Playing the cards from the stack hides the fact that a second card will also be played.

After a successful challenge, that player then challenges the next car in front of theirs, or, if there is an empty space, they play an extend card (if they have one) to move forward. One of the three extend cards in each suit is a special draft extend that can't be played by the car in the front, cleverly reflecting the technique of using the slipstream from the car in front of you to reduce drag on your car (something I had never heard of until playing this game, who says gaming isn't educational?).

After two challenges or an extend, that player's turn is over and the next player in line does the same. The lap is complete once the car in front has had a turn to either extend or discard a card if they cannot. The game ends when one player runs out of cards.

Lacorsa is exactly what a racing game should be: fast paced and exciting. The only time it slows down is if you need an extend card to move forward and you don't have one -- this can be a little frustrating, especially if your car is in the lead, but is mitigated by the optional going wide rule that allows you to risk moving backward for a chance at an extend by rolling a die. There are a few other interesting variant rules that can be introduced into the game gradually. Some, like the going wide rule, are pretty essential, but others risk taking away some of the game's simple elegance.

If you want to make it even more portable than it already is, Lacorsa comes with an extra set of cards as an alternate way to represent the race cars. This would allow the game to be played strictly using cards, placing them in a row with spaces in between to mark their positions.

All in all Lacorsa is a wonderful little game that plays quickly and is easy to understand and teach. If it were more widely available it might make a good gateway game; as it is it's a great filler to play in between longer games on game night, or even a good way to get non-gamer friends and relatives to sit down for a game.

Rating: 4 (out of 5) A fantastic game that looks great and doesn't take long but is very satisfying to play.

• Lacorsa official website
• Lacorsa on BoardGameGeek

Pan Am: an unlikely theme for a board game, but it works

Funko Games' design team, who work under the collective name Prospero Hall, are very good at creating games based on media properties that tend to be a little on the simple side, but are always well thought out and true to their source material. A quick look at their website shows a catalog that runs the gamut from Star Wars and Jurassic Park games to some that seem less obvious like The Rocketeer, Hitchcock's Rear Window, or 1970s dystopian classic The Warriors. But Pan Am the Game? Really? A board game based on an admittedly glamorous but long defunct airline seems a little obscure, even for Prospero Hall. There was a short lived TV series in 2011 starring Christina Ricci and Margot Robbie, but the game isn't based on that, it's just about the airline.

The first thing that is striking about the game is the board itself. It presents what appears to be an odd, distorted world map until you realize that the map is centered on the North Pole -- many intercontinental flights take a northern route as, due to the curvature of the Earth, it's often the shortest distance. And there's that attention to theme that Prospero Hall is so known for.

Something else Prospero Hall is known for is excellent graphic design, and that is certainly evident here as well. The board, along with all the components, are done in a classy early 1950s style that looks great without sacrificing readability.

Pan Am is a worker placement game with a little bit of bidding thrown in for good measure. Like most worker placement games, it follows a standard structure of placing workers to get different resources and eventually trading them in in different combinations to score points. In Pan Am, players represent small fly-by-night airlines who want to establish exclusive air routes between cities with an eye towards eventually selling their routes to Pan Am (a non-player entity controlled by the game), and then using the money to buy Pan Am stock. 

On their turn, a player's options are to build airports, collect destination cards representing the cities on the board, buy newer, larger airplanes, establish routes between cities, or draw directive cards that offer various bonuses and other advantages. Each of these actions is represented by a space on the board, but unlike most worker placement games, if a player has one of their workers on the space you want, you have the option to outbid them. You can opt to pay more to use the space, which gives the other player their worker back to either place in another space, or bid higher (up to a maximum amount). Once each player has placed all their workers, all the actions are resolved one by one.

Routes are established using a combination of airports and/or destination cards. In order to claim a route, the player must secure landing rights in each city by either having an airport there, holding a card that matches the city, or discarding either one card from the city's region or two matching cards from another region. Then they need to have a plane large enough to fly the distance between the cities. Maintaining airports and flight routes will give the player a little bit of income each round, but the real gravy is in selling your routes to Pan Am.

At the end of each round, a die is rolled that determines which routes Pan Am wants to buy. Routes are marked on the map starting in Miami (where Pan Am was founded) and spread out in three different directions -- the die roll tells you which direction they're buying in each round. There is also a "wild" die result that will allow players to sell any of their routes to Pan Am, which is the only way to sell the longest and most lucrative routes.

After Pan Am does their buying each round, players must decide how much Pan Am stock to buy vs how much cash to keep on hand for the following round. The stock price will fluctuate up or down throughout the game, so buying as much as you can when it seems to be low can be important. After seven rounds, whoever has the most Pan Am stock is the winner.

In most games like this, the point is to build up an engine that will allow you to process the games resources and turn them into victory points in as efficient a manner as possible. The thing that makes Pan Am interesting is that this game is all about taking advantage of opportunities by trying to anticipate what routes Pan Am is going to want to buy, and claiming those before your opponents do. It forces a very different mindset and makes you pay a little more attention to what your opponents are doing than you normally would in a game that isn't about direct conflict.

Unlike the other Prospero Hall games I've played, I can't really judge this one on how closely it adheres to the property it's based on -- it's not a film or TV show so I don't know what the story is or who the characters are. But it does have a well-developed, pleasing aesthetic and game play that definitely calls to mind the "golden age of air travel." The theme could have been more generic rather than calling out a real world airline, but Pan Am does lend it a shorthand for vintage, glamorous air travel, and the blue logo on the box is one that most people over a certain age will recognize.

Unfortunately, it appears that Funko has recently sold Prospero Hall to family games giant Goliath, who laid off the majority of the studio's designers. However, some of the displaced creatives are bouncing back by founding a new design collective, Tempest Workshop. It will be interesting to see what they do next...

Rating: 4 (out of 5) Early 20th century air travel is as good a theme as any, and the gorgeous retro design and streamlined game play make for a fun, accessible game.

• Pan Am official website
• Pan Am on BoardGameGeek