Iron Horse is a tile-laying game that is not related
to the 18XX series of railroad tile-laying games. It's closer to Streetcar (published
originally as Linie 1), but doesn't suffer from that game's
endgame problem. (Mind you, I don't think there's much of an endgame
problem in Streetcar, but many people do.)
At any rate, Iron Horse isn't really that close to any
other game. The game is for 2-6 players, and contains a board, 61
train markers, 60 rail tiles, and 6 set-up charts. The components are
very typical of db Spiele - if you've ever seen any of their games,
you'll recognize both the box and component style immediately. I've
only played three db Spiele games, but this one is my favorite, with
Premiere coming
in second.
Depending on the number of players, a number of trains are set up
around the edge of the board to start with. The tiles are placed
around the board, face down, and mixed thoroughly. Each player starts
with one tile, and the first player begins.
Your turn consists of either:
- placing on the board the tile you have in your hand and then
drawing a replacement, or
- drawing a tile at the start of your turn, playing that tile to the
board, and keeping the tile you started the turn with.
The board is an eight-by-eight array of squares, with the middle four
squares taken up by a town. Each of the 32 board edge spaces has a
place for a train to enter the board, though they're not necessarily
all used, depending on the number of players. Each tile has four
tracks running through it, one coming in from the right side of an
edge, and leading off one of the four edges on the left side - there
are arrows to remind you which are which. Since all the trains begin
on a right side of an edge, they are all going to enter any tile piece
correctly, and leave it so the next tile will carry it onward.
The tiles all have a mark in one corner, and every space on the board
has a similar mark in one corner. You must place a tile so that the
marks line up. There is an optional rule allowing free orientation of
the tiles, but they warn you the game becomes much longer, as players
have to consider many more options when deciding where to play. I've
never felt the need to use the optional rule, myself, though I have
been tempted to use the other optional rule, which allows players to
hold two tiles in their hand. This would also make decision time for
each turn longer, however.
The left side of every edge space has a station, as do the town spaces
in the center of the board. The object of the game is rather contrary
to good railroad engineering practice: to build as long a train route
as possible with each of your trains. You start with anywhere from 5
to 32 trains, depending on the number of players, and your total score
for the game is how well each of your trains do. A train scores one
point for each tile its route passes over before connecting to a
station. If you manage to get to the town, score double the number
of tiles. If your track passes over the same tile twice in a single
run, it counts as two points.
For example, if you'll forgive an ASCII graphic:
-------------------------
| | |
| /--|-\ |
| | | | |
| | | | |
Start -->|-----------|-/ |
| | | /----\ |
------------------------- <----Tile edge
| | | | | |
End <--|--------|--|----/ | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| \--|--------/ |
| | |
-------------------------
^
|
|
Tile Edge
The train above scores eight points, not four, because it passes over
each tile twice in its journey. (Note that for simplicity, the tiles
above do not show all tracks entering and leaving the pieces.) You don't
score until the train route is completed, however.
Also note that the above train was probably sabotaged, either
deliberately or accidentally, by another player. Left to himself, the
owner of the train would have created either a much longer track, or at
least one that ended in the town, thus doubling his route points.
Which brings up the topic of sabotage: it's often easier, in this game,
to sabotage your opponents' trains than it is to build your own. This
is because tiles must be laid from the edge outward - you can place a
tile next to an already played tile or the outer edge, but nowhere
else. So if I place a tile that sends one of my trains out, it's very
easy for you to place a tile like the upper right-hand one shown above,
which loops my train back toward the outer edge. There is, however, a
rule that the shortest route possible is two tiles, so you can't play
such a tile directly on a train, looping it back to its own starting
space.
The game plays very well, and is one of my favorites. It's not
long and is a lot of fun. It does play better with 2-4 players than
with 5-6 players, though. I like to keep score on graph paper, so
you can see how each player is doing train by train - you can't
really judge otherwise how someone who has had four of his trains
completed is doing against someone who has only had one of his
trains completed.
I recommend this game highly - very enjoyable, and has a high replay
value.
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