Linwood (2009)

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/42380/linwood

Game Box

Well it's about time now to review a Kiwi boardgame. Designed by Shem Phillips this is his first game published by his company Garphill Games. I picked my copy up direct from him on TradeMe and was keen to get around to playing it with the family as it looked like a game they would enjoy.

The game is primarily a tile based roll and move game with some light strategy. The board consists of 60 hexagonal tiles that are laid on the playing surface as the game progresses so the game evolves in a similar fashion to Carcassonne. Each player, represented by a wooden pawn, moves around the board as it grows searching for four special points on the gameboard that deliver a special power as well as a card to that player. The object of the game is to collect all four special power cards and return to the starting position.
 

Starting position

Everyone begins on the starting tile and play progresses clockwise which each player moving the number of places on a single die. When a player reaches the edge of an existing tile and has remaining places still to move on his turn he reveals a new tile and places it adjacent to his current position so that he can complete his move. He must move the exact number of places that he roles and if cannot make a legal forward move must move back to complete his turn. You can reveal as many new tiles as you like to complete your moves on your game turn.

Early gameplay

The advantage of revealing more tiles and exploring the board is that you may turn up one of the four element hex tiles that allow you to gain a card and special ability once you land on the centre of this tile exactly. There are also four tiles with a tunnel symbol in the centre that can be utilised once the fire element is acquired. To start off with you only allowed to move on the green hexes until you gain additional powers to move either on the blue hexes or through the tunnel hexes.

Two special hex tiles

There are four element cards to collect by landing exactly on the special hex on each of these special tiles. The cards give a different special ability to a player holding them. . They are as follows;

Element cards

• Wind - allows players to roll an additional die, ie two dice per turn
• Fire - allows players to use tunnels
• River - allows players to move over water tiles/hexes
• Forest - allows players to control the bandit

Once you gain the Wind element you are allowed a second die and thus are able to move much greater distances on your turn. This can be a huge advantage in covering the board quickly either to gain missing elements or to return to the starting square.

Tunnel hexes

Once you gain the Fire element you can travel through the tunnels. If you land on any tunnel space your turn ends and you move to any other tunnel space to start your next turn from.

Green discovers the River element

Once you gain the River element you can travel across and through the water hexes which are coloured blue. If one or more of the other element tiles are on the 'other' side of one of these tiles and there is no tunnel access to them the holder of the river element card can have a big advantage.

Once you gain the Forest element you are able to control the Forest Bandit once per turn. On your turn you may roll the black die in addition to the white die/dice. After you have moved your pawn you move the black pawn the number on the die. If the Bandit lands on or passes through a space that has a pawn on it (and it can be more than one pawn per turn) the player whose pawn the Bandit comes into contact with is returned to the starting tile. In addition the player that moved the Bandit chooses an element card from each displaced pawn and returns it to the box. This means that this element card must be obtained again by returning to the element tile on the game board. The Bandit also acts as a blocking piece as no coloured pawn can travel trough a space occupied by the Bandit. This can be very very powerful to a player who is the only one to have this particular element card at any time in the game.

Mid game, forest tile undiscovered, Bandit still at home

That's basically it. A race to get all four element cards and return to the starting hex. The Forest Bandit can help to balance the game if the trailing player(s) have this element card, however if they don't the leading player can quickly win.

The online reviews of this game haven't been that kind however overall I would say this is a good looking, fairly quick filler but maybe lacking in a great deal of strategy. Having played the game a few times I have developed some suggestions to make it more balanced for all players. I won't go into detail here but you can find details of this variant at  http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/797768/structured-deck-variant.

The Good Points

• Designed in New Zealand
• 2-6 players
• Good quality components
• Great sized box
• Nice looking game tiles

The Not So Good Points

• Dice rolling mechanism mean a great deal of luck
• Rolling low numbers regularly can really suck
• Instructions could be better
• The Forest Bandit can be a little strong

Overall rating 6.0 (with variant 7.0)