Trains

On the 11th of July, 1899 at 10 a.m., the Union Pacific Express has left Folsom, New Mexico, with 47 passengers on board. After a few minutes, gunfire and hurrying footsteps on the roof can be heard. Heavily armed bandits have come to rob honest citizens of their wallets and jewels. Will they succeed in stealing the suitcase holding the Nice Valley Coal Company's weekly pay, despite it having been placed under the supervision of Marshal Samuel Ford? Will these bandits hinder one another more than the Marshal since only the richest one of them can come out on top?

In Colt Express, you play a bandit robbing a train at the same time as other bandits, and your goal is to become the richest outlaw of the Old West. The game consists of five rounds, and each round has two phases:

Phase 1: Schemin' Each player plays 2-5 action cards on a common pile, with the cards being face up or face down depending on the type of the round. Instead of playing a card, a player can draw three cards from her deck.
Phase 2: Stealin' The action cards are carried out in the order they were played, with a player's best laid plans possibly not panning out due to mistakes and oversights!

The game takes place in a 3D train in which the bandits can move from one car to another, run on the roof, punch the other bandits, shoot them, rob the passengers, or draw the Marshal out of position. The train has as many cars as the number of players, and each car is seeded with gems, bags of loot or suitcases at the start of play.

Each player starts a round with six cards in hand, with each card showing one of these actions. At the start of a round, a round card is revealed, showing how many cards will be played; whether they'll be played face up or face down, or individually or in pairs; and what action will occur at the end of the round (e.g., all bandits on top of the train move to the engine). You can pick up loot, gems or suitcases only by playing a "steal" card when you're in a train car that holds one of these items — but since everyone is planning to get these goods, you'll need to move, punch and shoot to get others out of your way. You can punch someone only in the same car as you, and when you do, the other bandit drops one of the goods he's collected and is knocked into an adjacent car.

Each player's character has a special power, such as starting the round with an extra card, playing your first card face down, or pocketing a bag of loot when you punch someone instead of letting it hit the ground.

You can shoot someone in an adjacent car or (if you're running on top of the train) anyone in sight, and when you do, you give that player one of your six bullet cards; that card gets shuffled in the opponent's deck, possibly giving her a dead card in hand on a future turn and forcing her to draw instead of playing something. If the Marshal ends up in the same car as you, likely due to other bandits luring him through the train, he'll be happy to give you a bullet, too.

At the end of the game, whoever fired the most bullets receives a $1,000 braggart bonus, and whoever bagged the richest haul wins!

Trains returns with all-new cards and strategies for you to build the best rail system in Japan. Trains: Rising Sun not only features all new cards, it includes three entirely new boards. Two of the boards are designed specifically for two-player games, while the Nagoya map is for 2 to 4 players. This standalone game can mix easily with the original Trains game for even greater replay possibilities!

Trains: Rising Sun also introduces Route Bonus Cards, allowing you to score additional points for being the first to connect specific stations. Route Bonus Cards are included for the original Trains game as well!

Integrates with Trains

In Continental Express, players add train cars to their station in the hope of fulfilling objectives and maximizing the value of their secret contract. To start the game, each player chooses one of two contract cards dealt to them; these contracts require players to collect icons of a particular color or groups of like-colored icons or icons and company tokens of differing colors.

Players then take turns drafting cards from three face-up rows; the card on the end of each row costs nothing, the card in the middle costs $1, and the card closest to each of the three decks costs $2. Players start with no money, however, and the only way to get some is to draft it – but naturally that means you'll be forgoing other cards. If a player has train cars matching one of the three face-up objective cards, he can choose to discard those train cars and claim the objective – and since the objectives have the icons that satisfy contracts, you'll probably want to do that.

In addition to train cars and money, players can draft characters, taking the special action of a character when he drafts one. Actions include things like taking a train car of your choice from the card array, stealing all money from one player, and taking a company token of the color of your choice. The card decks also include two events, and those cards flush either the objective cards on display or the smaller cards that players draft.

When a player claims his fourth objective, each other player takes one more turn, then the game ends. Players tally the points scored for their contract (if any), their claimed objective cards, and any money still in hand. Whoever has the highest score wins!

User review: Players make money by building a network of railroads to deliver freight and passengers. They may also speculate on the price of precious metals by claiming mines and mills.

To play: Each player chooses a color and takes possession of all the surveyors and prospectors of that color. How much money they begin with, in which city the players start, the number of surveyors and prospectors they begin with depends on the turn order and the number of players in the game.

A game turn is divided into seven phases:
First phase - The turn order cards are shuffled and dealt to the players.
Second phase - Players may place prospectors and surveyors on the game board in turn order.
Third phase - Disputes are resolved between players who placed surveyors in the same box on the game board.
Fourth phase - Players pay for construction and claims made by their prospectors in turn order. Players can collect revenue for passenger cards and deliver and sell freight for up to two claims.
Fifth phase - The dice are rolled to determine price changes for each mine.
Sixth phase - Claims and passenger cards taken by the players are replaced.

At the end of the sixth phase, it is determined whether anyone met the victory condition for the scenario chosen.

Availability : The original Two Wolf version is long-since out of print, but the newer-released Mayfair has a wider distribution. The New Mexico expansion is available for the Two Wolf game, but the Mayfair version has the expansion included with the base game.

Expanded by:

Silverton New Mexico Expansion (Two Wolf version only, Mayfair version includes the expansion)

Ticket to Ride - Märklin Edition is the third installment in Days of Wonder's best-selling Ticket to Ride series. The board for the Märklin Edition is based on a map of Germany and each individual card in the deck depicts a different Märklin Trains model. A DVD introducing players to the Märklin line of model trains is included.

Märklin is a heavier version in the TTR series, allowing players to not only travel from city to city but also from cities to countries. A new mechanic is also introduced in the form of passengers and merchandise tokens. When the game is set-up a series of merchadise values worth victory points are placed on nominated cities. The values of these tokens diminish when multiple tokens are present within a single city, requiring players to move quickly to capture the higher valued tokens.

These tokens can be collected by the players by placing their Passengers (3 per player), which can be achieved at the end of a turn in which a player lays trains to enter the city in question. Once a passenger is in play a player can forfeit their regular turn to move a passenger. Moving along a player's own train network comes at no cost and allows a player to take the top merchandise token from each city that is passed through. A passenger can also move along sections of track featuring other players trains but a passenger card must be paid each time this occurs to do so.

The player who completes the most destination tickets receives a 10 point bonus (instead of the base game's longest route bonus).

Part of the Ticket to Ride series.