North Sea Nasties

Achtung! Cthulhu is the roleplaying game of fast-paced pulp action and Mythos magic published by Modiphius Entertainment. It pitches the Allied Agents of the Britain’s Section M, the United States’ Majestic, and the brave Resistance into a Secret War against those Nazi Agents and organisations which would command and entreat with the occult and forces beyond the understanding of mankind. They are willing to risk their lives and their sanity against malicious Nazi villains and the unfathomable gods and monsters of the Mythos themselves, each striving for supremacy in mankind’s darkest yet finest hour! Yet even the darkest of drives to take advantage of the Mythos is riven by differing ideologies and approaches pandering to Hitler’s whims. The Black Sun consists of Nazi warrior-sorcerers supreme who use foul magic and summoned creatures from nameless dimensions to dominate the battlefields of men, whilst Nachtwölfe, the Night Wolves, utilise technology, biological enhancements, and wunderwaffen (wonder weapons) to win the war for Germany. Ultimately, both utilise and fall under the malign influence of the Mythos, the forces of which have their own unknowable designs…

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard is designed for a group of Player Characters who have one or two basic adventures under their collective belt, likely Achtung! Cthulhu Quickstart: A Quick Trip to France. In ‘A Quick Trip to France’, the Agents were assigned to investigate the activities of a Black Sun Master in the village of Saint Sulae, southwest of the city of Rouen. That mission takes place in June, 1940, merely weeks after the invasion of the Low Countries and the fall of France. Barely two months pass and in August, 1940, the Agents are sent on another mission into enemy occupied territory. This time, the Netherlands. As the country’s general populace begins to adjust to the shock of being invaded, the newly formed resistance has already begun to report to London where Queen Wilhelmina and her government are now in exile. These reports percolate throughout the various offices and departments of British intelligence, the odder stories ignored by all except Section M. One such report is from the small Dutch fishing town of Nermegen and tells of a strange installation being constructed at both St. Olaf’s lighthouse and on the nearby Skellen Island and of the presence in the town of Nachtwölfe. The rivals to the Black Sun, they are likely just as dangerous. For Section M, this is the first known sighting of the Night Wolves, and it wants it confirmed by the Agents. Their mission to travel by submarine to the Dutch coast and make landfall by folding canoes. There, they are to make contact with the local Resistance movement, avoid all contact with the German garrison, investigate Nachtwölfe activities in and around Nermegen, before proceeding to Skellen Island and determining what the secret organisation is up to. Any and all intelligence is to be gathered with expediency.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard is a straightforward mission and scenario. The Agents are first given some training in the use of the folboat—or folding canoe, used in Operation Frankton and made famous by the film, The Cockleshell Heroes—and the Player Characters the basic skill in them as a nice bonus, before the mission begins. The process of the mission is presented in some detail, including making contact with the Resistance and gathering rumours about the Nazi activities in and around the town, the latter of which will lead to another location on the coast where Nachtwölfe was seen operating and a local drunken fisherman who might know a lot more than they had imagined! Ultimately, this should prime the Agents to investigate first St. Olaf’s lighthouse and then nearby Skellen Island. Both locations are fortified, the scenario including full details of the defences and the enemy numbers stationed at both. For the most part, stealth is probably the most useful skill that the Player Characters will need as a full out assault will alert the garrison and any Nachtwölfe nearby. That will change once the Agents are on Skellen Island and have broken into the base there, ‘Installation 41’, a big bruising fight the likelihood, helped by some unexpected allies.

If the players have been paying attention, by the time their Agents get into ‘Installation 41’, they will have some idea of whatever it is that Nachtwölfe is up to, it involves the Deep Ones. The latter are a major faction in the Secret War, and just as Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard is designed as the first encounter that the players and their Agents have with Nachtwölfe, it also their first with any other faction of the Secret War. The likelihood is that the Agents are not going to be able to communicate with the Deep Ones—an option that the scenario does not really explore—but they are going to see them in action against the scientists and soldiers of Nachtwölfe. There is the option to add more Deep Ones if the Agents are floundering, but either way, the best way to run this fight is for the players to roll for the Deep Ones as well as their Agents, so as to keep the action flowing and the Game Master from rolling for too many NPCs.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard does involve Nachtwölfe, though not necessarily the key to its power and the means to power its many advanced weapons of war, the vibrantly blue Blauer Kristall. This and the fact that it takes place in August, 1940, means that it takes place after the events of the campaign, Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis, which ends in May or June of that year. It could be run as a sequel, but it could also be shifted to earlier in the war and countries under German occupation that bit earlier. Denmark and Norway are good candidates and if used, Operation Vanguard could be run during April 1940. If the Game Master decides not to run Achtung! Cthulhu: Shadows of Atlantis,or is running for different group of Agents, then she can simply run this scenario as is.

Physically, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard is cleanly and tidily laid out. It is not illustrated, but the maps of the various locations are decently done.

Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard feels inspired by Operation Biting, the 1942 raid to capture German radar equipment from near the village of Bruneval in Normandy. Then again, it could been inspired by any number of World War 2 films or commando missions! Overall, Achtung! Cthulhu 2d20: Operation Vanguard combines a good mix of the Mythos and the military and is a solid stealth and assault mission that includes a little investigation as well.

Contract to Cart

The very latest entry in the Ticket to Ride franchise is Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam. Like those other Ticket to Ride games, it is another card-drawing, route-claiming board game based around transport links and like those other Ticket to Ride games, it uses the same mechanics. Thus the players will draw Transportation cards and then use them to claim Routes and by claiming Routes, link the two locations marked on Destination Tickets, the aim being to gain as many points as possible by claiming Routes and completing Destination Tickets, whilst avoiding losing by failing to complete Destination Tickets. Yet rather than being another big box game like the original Ticket to Ride, Ticket to Ride: Europe, or Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries, it takes its cue from Ticket to Ride: New York and Ticket to Ride: London. It is thus a smaller game designed for fewer players with a shorter playing time, a game based around a city rather than a country or a continent. It is also notably different in terms of theme and period.

Published by Days of Wonder and designed for play by two to four players, aged eight and up, Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam is easy to learn, can be played out of the box in five minutes, and played through in less than twenty minutes. Now where Ticket to Ride: New York had the players racing across Manhattan in the nineteen fifties attempting to connect its various tourist hotspots going via taxis rather than trains and Ticket to Ride: London has the players racing across London in the nineteen sixties, attempting to connect its various tourist hotspots going via buses rather than trains or taxis, Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam takes the Ticket to Ride franchise back to the seventeenth century and the middle of the ‘Gouden Eeuw’, the Dutch Golden Age when Amsterdam was the beating heart of global trade and the wealthiest city on Earth. Of course, it being the seventeenth century, there are no trains! So instead, the players will be fulfilling Contracts by delivering goods across the Dutch port by horse and cart—and if they take the right route, then they can claim a Merchandise Bonus too.

Inside the small box can be found a small board which depicts the centre of Amsterdam, from Nieuwe Waal in the northwest to Blauwbrug in the southeast and De Hendriken in the southwest to Oude Waal in the northeast. Notably, several of the routes are marked with Cart Symbols. When one of these routes is claimed, a player is rewarded with a Merchandise Bonus card. At the end of the game, each player will be rewarded with bonus points depending on the number of Merchandise Bonus cards he has. Besides the board map of Amsterdam, Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam comes with sixty-four plastic Carts—sixteen in each colour, as well as a scoring marker for each colour, forty-four Transportation cards—in six colours plus the multi-coloured wild cards, twenty-four Contract cards—the equivalent of Destination Tickets in other Ticket to Ride titles, sixteen Merchandise Bonus cards, and the rules leaflet. The latter is clearly written, easy to understand, and the opening pages show how to set up the game. It can be read through in mere minutes and played started all but immediately.

Play in Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam is the same as standard Ticket to Ride. Each player starts the game with some Contract cards and some Transportation cards. On his turn, a player can take one of three actions. Either draw two Transportation cards; draw two Contract cards and either keep one or two, but must keep one; or claim a route between two connected Locations. To claim a route, a player must expend a number of cards equal to its length, either matching the colour of the route or a mix of matching colour cards and the multi-coloured cards, which essentially act as wild cards. Some routes are marked in grey and so can use any set of colours or multi-coloured cards. No route is longer than four spaces and a player will score points for each route claimed.

All of which points to standard Ticket to Ride game play. Now as with Ticket to Ride: New York and Ticket to Ride: London, what marks Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam as being different from that of standard game play is most obviously its size, but once it reaches the table, what marks it out as being different is its speed of play. With fewer Cart pieces per player—sixteen as opposed to the forty-five in standard Ticket to Ride—a player has fewer resources and with fewer routes to claim, so play is quick. The shortness of the routes—no route being longer than four spaces—means that a player will spend less time drawing Transportation cards, rather than having to draw again and again in order to have the right number of Transportation cards needed for long routes—routes five, six, and seven spaces in length are common in standard Ticket to Ride. With fewer Locations, fewer Contract cards, and fewer Carts with which to claim them, a player will probably be aiming to complete no more than three or four Destination Tickets—probably fewer given how tight and competitive the board map is, especially when the players want to start competing for the all-important routes marked with Cart symbols.

The other major difference—apart from the theme—is the inclusion of the Merchandise Bonus cards. If a player is careful to claim the routes with Cart symbols, he will be awarded a bonus at the end of the game equal to one or two contracts. The difficulty comes not necessarily in claiming them, but balancing between claiming routes with Cart symbols and those without. For the most part, the routes with Cart symbols lie on the outer edge of the map and they tend to be both longer routes and not as direct as going through the city centre and the centre of the map. Whilst any of the Contract cards an be completed by whatever series of routes a player decides to build, most of them encourage a player to build routes across Amsterdam rather than around it. Of course, this will be complicated by competition for routes between the players which will likely deny one player or another a route that a player wants to use to complete a Contract card.

What the addition of the Merchandise Bonus cards is reminiscent of, is the Stock Share cards of the Pennsylvania map from Ticket to Ride Map Collection Vol. 5: United Kingdom + Pennsylvania. In that expansion, every time a player claimed he route, he could in most cases, also claim a Stock Share card in a particular company. At the end of the game, a player would score bonus points depending upon the number of Stock Share cards he held in the various companies in the expansion. Now Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam does not have Stock Share cards, but the Contract cards do work like them in that the more a player has, the more points he will score at the end of the game.

Physically, Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam is very nicely produced. It feels a little darker in tone, but the Cart pieces are cute, the cards feel small though are still easy to read, and the rules leaflet is short, but easy to understand. Notably though, the Transportation cards are very well designed, not just clear in colour, but unlike the Train cards in Ticket to Ride, the artwork is obviously and clearly different on each colour card. For example, the pink card has a man rolling a barrel, the blue card a sailing ship, the black card a barge, and so on. This makes them a lot easier to use than the standard Ticket to Ride cards.

Like Ticket to Ride: New York and Ticket to Ride: London, what Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam offers is all of the play of Ticket to Ride in a smaller, faster playing version, that easy to learn and easy to transport. However, unlike those other titles, Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam is tighter and more competitive, a player needing to balance the need to complete Contract cards against the possibility of extra points from the Merchandise bonus cards, with the reduced playing time only exacerbating this. For younger players, Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam may be too tight, too competitive, but for veteran Ticket to Ride fans, Ticket to Ride: Amsterdam offers a tighter game and an enjoyably different theming.