Vault Assault: Review

Vault Assault: Review

Information:

Mechanics: Real Time, Dice Rolling, Asymmetric
Player Age: 8+ 

Player Count: 2 - 4 Players

Time to Play: 10 - 20 Minutes 
Game Designer: Conor McGoey

Publisher: Inside Up Games

Year Published: 2017

BGG Weight: 1.00

Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.

Objective:

In this game there are two roles: the robbers attempting to steal as much money from the vault as possible, and the cops who aim to stop them in their tracks. For this review, I am going to focus on the rules for a two-player game, however, Vault Assault can be played up to four players with two robbers and one cop in three player mode and two cops and two robbers in four player.

Game Anatomy:

Robber Dice:

There are six symbols on the robber dice. The first face is the lasers which will be used in the diamond heist part of the round.

The rest of the die faces will be used in the vault assault phase:

The ‘hostage’ face will have the robber yell “hostage” and must then reroll all their dice, this dice will have to sit to the side and can only be unlocked again by the backup side of the dice. 

The ‘backup’ face is the way for players to free their hostage dice. If a player has two of their dice on this side they can yell “backup” and gain their hostage dice back.

The ‘steal’ die face is used by having four dice on this side the player will then steal a tile (points) from another players getaway pile.

The ‘vault’ face works the same way as players will need four dice on this side but instead they take two vault tiles from the middle of the table, look at them (activating any abilities if need be) and add them to any of their getaway cars.

The last is the ‘escape’ face where at any time the robber can use five dice with this face, yell 'escape' and end the round for the cop and robber.

Cop Dice:

The cop dice have two symbols that will be used in the diamond heist phase: the diamond and the alarm.

The rest of the four sides are part of a ‘mosaic’: a donut, wheel (dispatch), police (crime scene), and a jail (arrest). These mosaic faces need to be created in the above order to catch the robbers. 

The cops will also have a special die that has a complete image of the above mosaics on the die sides that can be used as a wild part of the mosaic to make completing the mosaics easier.

The last side is a dye pack that will be used between completed mosaics to steal two vault tiles from a robbers getaway car. This is done by the cop yelling 'BANG' and using four dice on the dye pack side. 

Vault Tiles:

The vault tiles consist of three possible options: a monetary value that will be scored at the end of the game, half a diamond, or a trap. 

In regards to the diamond half, when a player has both halves at the end of the game they can steal a diamond from another player or gain one from the reserve. Each diamond is worth $40,000 so each player is going to want to get as many diamonds as possible!!

Some vault tiles are traps that the police set up ahead of the heist. These traps will activate when taken from the vault and are then removed from the game. Examples of traps include rolling with the opposite hand or playing with your wrists pressed together until the end of turn.

Getaway Car Tile:

This is where each player will store their hard-earned vault tiles. If a robber gets arrested by police, all vault tiles on one getaway car are confiscated then the tile will be flipped over and is now impounded. That player can no longer place vault tiles here for the rest of the game.

Set up:

In a two-player game, there will be one cop and one robber per turn. Each game will have 3 rounds made up of two turns where after every turn the players will swap roles. 

- The robber will take all five dice of either the white or black dice. If there are two robbers in a three or four-player game the other set of dice would be used. 

- The cop will take all the blue and red dice but they will return one of the diamond/wild dice back to the box. 

How to Play:

Each turn is made of two phases, the diamond heist and the vault assault.

Diamond Heist:

A player can win a lot of points in a diamond heist. Unlike other items, if a whole diamond is gained, that gem is safe for the whole game and cannot be stolen afterwards (except at the end of the game).

During this phase, the cop will keep their dice hidden using the game box as coverage. They will have one dice placed on  the diamond side, one with a dye pack and the rest are alarms. This is kept in a straight line and can be in any order. 

The robber will set all their dice on the laser side. They will now carefully choose which wire to cut, the dice they choose will directly correspond to the police dice in the same spot being chosen. This could potentially lead to gaining a diamond by the police dice being a diamond.  If the police dice was an alarm the cop player will start the vault assault with one piece of their first mosiac already face up, then the robber can choose to go again. If the robber picked a dye pack the robber will already place one of their dice on the hostage side and will need to call back up to free the dice and the diamond heist phase will now end and the vault assault can now commence. 

Vault Assault:

This phase is played in real-time, which means the players will constantly roll and re-roll any undesirable dice until they get what they are seeking. Remember the cop wants to get through each stage and complete the mosaics. Additionally, they want to confiscate goods from the robber every now and then by using the dye pack. On the other hand, the robber does not have a set sequence they must match with their dice rolling. Instead, they can choose what actions they want to complete, however, if they are not fast enough or get too greedy then they will fail to escape in time. This causes every vault on one getaway car to be lost along with the getaway car itself. 

The turn will end after this phase and players will trade characters. A new turn  begins, once each player has had a turn as the cop a round will end, once three rounds have occurred or after six turns the game ends and players will tally their final scores. 

Final Thoughts:

Pros:

- Can play at two to four players and self balances between the different player counts. 

- A fun real-time game that combines interesting elements of push your luck and take that. 

- Very interactive.

Cons:

- The box and components do not look as good as later inside up games.

- The heist phase of the turn can sometimes be hard to remember.

'Vault Assault' is a great filler game that will keep you energised and alert. I have a few real-time games that I keep finding myself returning too, and 'Vault Assault' has just been added to that list. It gives a perfect level of depth but doesn't bog itself down with too many rules (excluding the diamond heist phase). These rules can be a little hard to remember amongst the frenzy of the game but once imprinted, the fun flare of the game shines brightly.

Click...feed the addiction: 

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