The Brigade: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Action Points, Modular Board, Area Control, Set Collection, Pick up and Deliver
Player Age: 8+ Player Count: 2 - 4 PlayersTime to Play: 30 20 - 40 Minutes
Game Designer: Ben Hoban, Alex Wynnter
Player Age: 8+
Game Designer: Ben Hoban, Alex Wynnter
Objective:
Welcome to Tinderbox, a lovely town ablaze with culture, recreation and, well, fire. You are one of multiple firefighter brigades trying to stop the spread of flames and bring them under your control. Putting out the fires will gain you loyalty tokens on either blocks of the same type, or one of each block type. Gain the loyalty of five total blocks and the game ends. If the game ends for any other reason the player with the most points shown on loyal blocks will be the best firefighting brigade.
Game Anatomy:
Fire Wardens:
A fire warden is the leader of your brigade and your starting character.
Each fire warden has two places available for water to be held on the top left side of the card. Each fire warden comes with a basic side and a more advanced side that will have a character ability to be activated throughout the game.
Firehouse Boards:
This board will have a location to place the water that your wagon is holding, a special ability (if you are playing on the advanced side) and three tracks that can be upgraded throughout the game. The tracks include crew size, water held in the wagon and your leadership which determines how many actions you can have per turn.
Crew Cards:
Crew cards can be recruited as long as you have upgraded your crew track to hold at least one member. A crew member will join your leader in the brigade and they will show on the top left how much water they can hold (which will instantly be filled when they are recruited). Additionally, they come with a special ability that can only be used once the player has gained the loyalty of a block that matches the same type.
Event Cards:
An event will be revealed at the start of every turn and this will determine where the fire spreads to. There are three types of events; Wind Gusts, Firestorms and Specials.
Wind gusts will spread the already active fires into neighbouring blocks. These gusts will move in the direction stated on the card.
The Special events will have instructions that will immediately be followed by the players. These instructions are often beneficial such as everyone gain a recruitment action or increase their leadership by one.
Firestorm events will spawn or increase fire on the locations displayed on the card.
Meeples:
Each player will have a brigade meeple and a wagon meeple matching their colour. The brigade will be moved throughout the game to put out fires. The wagon will be moved to stop fires from growing stronger as well as being an opportunity to refill the brigade with water.
Tokens:
There are multiple tokens throughout the game; the water and fire tokens that will be used to track the fire on blocks as well as the water that will be used to extinguish the fires. Upgrade trackers are tokens that will be placed on the firehouse board to keep track of the upgrades the player has gained throughout the game. Renown tokens of the players colour will be placed when a fire is extinguished. This will match the amount of fire that was there before extinguishing the fire. When the renown tokens are placed they can be on the block that was just extinguished or any blocks orthogonally adjacent to the original block. When the number on a block matches the number of renown tokens of the same colour on that location, all renown tokens will be removed from that block and a loyalty token will be placed instead. This helps a player to keep track of their success with the objective of winning the game.
Blocks:
Standard Block:
Each block will have a faction associated with it in the bottom left, points and renown tokens needed to gain the loyalty in the bottom right, as well as a track of how much fire the block can take before being destroyed.
University Blocks:
University blocks are the hardest blocks to gain loyalty as they have the highest value. They can also withstand the most fire. If you gain the loyalty of three of the four university blocks then this is a won condition of the game.
Starting Blocks:
Each player has a starting block, this is where your brigade and wagon will start and, besides buildings with loyalty tokens, this is the only place you can refill the water for your brigade/wagon.
Setup:
Player:
- Each player chooses a warden and gathers a firehouse board, brigade meeple, water wagon meeple, 16 renown tokens, fire warden card, action tracker card, 10 loyalty tokens and 3 upgrade trackers.
- Place the firehouse board and fire warden on side 1 (the basic side) if playing on basic mode, otherwise have both on the opposite side.
- Place the upgrade tokens on the first spot of each track on the firehouse board.
- Place two water tokens on the firehouse board wagon spot and two on the fire warden.
Board Setup:
- Place the four pyromancer university tiles in the centre area.
- Randomly place the standard blocks face-up surrounding the university tiles until it becomes a 6x6 grid.
- Part of this grid is one of each of the starting blocks on an edge of the grid.
- These starting blocks will have the matching coloured brigade and wagon placed on it.
- Place the fire and water tokens within reach of all players.
- Shuffle the crew deck and place it within reach of all players.
- Remove the six starting events and shuffle them separately.
- Resolve three of these events then shuffle the other three into the main event deck and place that deck within reach of all players.
How to play:
The aim of the game is to either have five blocks of the same affiliation loyal to you, have three of the pyromancer university tiles loyal, or have one of each affiliation loyal to you. If one of these occurs the game stops and the winner is declared. However, the game can end if eight blocks are destroyed, three of the pyromancer university tiles are destroyed, or all fires have been extinguished. If one of these occurs then the game is over and players tally the score of the blocks that are loyal to them. Whoever has the highest score is the winner.
On your turn, you first reveal the top event card and resolve it. Then players can perform actions shown on the leadership track. The seven options are; moving the brigade, moving the water wagon, extinguishing the fire, refill, recruit, transfer and upgrade. Each of these actions can be performed multiple times on a turn except for the upgrade action which can only be done once per turn.
Upgrade:
The upgrade action allows you to move one step up on one of your tracks. The tracks include improving your leadership, the amount of crew your brigade can hold and the amount of water the wagon can hold.
Recruit:
Recruiting lets you draw two cards from the crew deck and choose a crew member to add to your brigade (as long as you have room available). Once recruited they will automatically come with their water-filled and you will be able to use their ability once you have the loyalty of a block that shares their affiliation.
Transfer:
Transfer is simple; you are moving any amount of water between your brigade (warden and crew) and your wagon as long as they share a block.
Refill:
Refill allows you to refill your brigade and/or your wagon as long as you are on a block that is loyal to you. You can only refill both if they are currently sharing the same block.
Move Wagon:
Move to any block that isn't currently burnt, or occupied by another players brigade/wagon.
Move Brigade:
Your brigade can move up to three spaces in any direction. However, if you land on a block on fire, like all good firefighters you must end your movement on that block.
Extinguish Fire:
The last action a player can do is extinguish a fire. If the brigade is on the block they want to extinguish then they can spend water from their warden and crew to deplete the fire. If the wagon is also on this block they can spend water from the wagon as well. However, the wagon cannot extinguish fires by itself. To extinguish a fire you spend water equal to the amount of fire on the block. After this you gain renown tokens equal to the original intensity of the fire. These renown tokens can go on this block or any block orthogonally adjacent. Remember, when the renown tokens equal the block value then all renown tokens on this block get removed and one of your loyalty tokens is placed instead.
Final Thoughts:
Pros:
- Full strategic game with quick game time.
- Unique and engaging theme.
Cons:
- The fire meeple is too big to see what intensity the university fire is on.
- Some rules can be a bit tricky to remember.
The Brigade has a very unique theme of firefighting in a fantasy world. Red Genie Games have created a strategic and competitive game that packs an hour-long strategy into a condensed 30 minute run time. Brigade is a puzzling game of what you should upgrade while focusing on what building you should gain the loyalty of. It can be quite competitive as there are multiple ways to win so you have to keep a close eye on your opponents. This is a very fun game with challenging but quick gameplay that will be enjoyed for many more plays.
Click...feed the addiction:
Comments
Post a Comment