F@#$ Brass Birmingham hints, an incomplete and largely incomprehensible strategy guide.

Part 1 :  Broad Strokes

1. There are two ways to score points, canal/rail links and industry VP.  In general, you either want to flip high level industries in canal phase so they score twice OR start with a pile of money in rail phase and claim lucrative rail links quickly.  A hybrid strategy is viable as well, if harder to pull off.
2. Canal phase should set up rail phase:  L1's go away so have a good reason to play an L1 industry.  Auto-Flipping a L1 iron or coal is a very good reason, ineffiecently trading a L1 cotton or manufacturing is not a good reason. 
3. Canal phase should set up rail phase part two:  SPREAD OUT IF YOU CAN!  Rail links and industry cards require you to be 'in network' and it's important to be in multiple regions heading into rail.
4. There is a lot of resource sniping
1. don't leave something you want open (this includes markets)
2. even if you don't leave it open, don't be surprised if it's unlocked and taken anyways

Part 2 : Tactical hints

1. if you are flipping a tile and taking a loan in the same turn, always take the loan first.    The lower rungs of the income ladder are much easier to climb than the higher.
2. Canal's are inefficient.  It's incredibly difficult to escape canal phase without building at least 1 canal, but think carefully before playing one.
3. Coal is great at generating income but is awful for victory points.  In rail phase, don't subsidize rail builds by supplying cheap coal!  Similar to canals, it's incredibly difficult to not play any coal in rail phase but simply auto-flipping a coal mine in rail phase is not an adequate reason  to justify playing that tile.
4. My favorite mechanic in the game is playing with turn order.   So pay attention to what was spent, what you're going to spend.  
5. "Scouting" -  if you have to scout more than once, the game is not going well for you.  Also I think it's better to do it earlier in the round than later.
6. There's no hard and fast rule for Iron plays.  Development is really important in canal phase, but playing Ironworks is incredibly lucrative.  Iron is a game within a game.
7. I have not figured out Clay at all, so take this with a grain of salt.  Even number pottery tiles look like they're there to claim spots and be overbuilt by the next level up.   Only trade them if they're part a multi-trade action.
8. The market bonuses are nice but not vital.  Yes try to get them, but the true benefit is flipping your industry tiles.

F%#$ Robin Hood and the Merry Men

a request!  My annual post!  

Robin Hood and his Merry Men

The review :  I feel this game is about 10 years too late.   It's...ok.  And if it was published around 10 years ago, when board game choices where much more limited, I'd would have enjoyed it more.  As it stands, it's a middling game in a crowded field and there's just so much more I'd rather play.

Basic Gameplay    

It's a two tiered worker placement.  Generic Workers, "Merry Men", gather resources, build things, other supporting tasks and you can usually count on one of them being being threatened by Villains.  The Hero Worker, does the Robin Hood things.  Rescue Merry Men, win Archery contests, rob carriages, etc etc.

So it's a good theme.  All the Robin Hood tropes are in there, I especially like rescuing the Merry Men as a thematic element.

So what's the problem?

In no particular order

- there are NINE types of resources to collect.  4 of them are typed as Weapons and are little interchangeable with on another, and 3 of them are typed goods and are also a little interchangeable.  But sometimes you need a specific weapon or good, and you're managing nine of them.

- literally everything is random.  Your hero is random, your secret end game goals are random, your Merry Men are random, where the villains move and what they do is random, defeating guards is random, winning an archery contest is random.  Everything is random.

- In the hero phase the board changes too rapidly.  You simply cannot plan ahead because the event/villain deck just alters everything right before every hero moves.

-  Also in the hero phase:  There's this mechanic where if a guard shows up in a location with a Merry Man, you have to ante a good.  Well a hero can go rescue that guy, defeating the guard and claiming the ante.  And then next event card re-arressts him forcing another good payment.  This is just a meteor strike that screws players for reasons.  Yikes.

-  There's this reinforcing loop of building things to score points but they also give you the materials to build more things.  Basically if you don't draw the appropriate Merry Men to gather the proper resources to build something in early rounds, you're also meteor struck.

- circling back to RANDOM, the absolute worst random mechanic is the loot bag.  There's a couple ways to get a draw from the loot bag.  But there's like 40 tiles, and maybe 1/4 of them give two things and the balance gives 1.   I'd probably be ok with it if resources weren't so damn hard to get and so easy to lose.

-  my group did play 5 player which absolutely exascerbated the board change and the Merry Men double jeopardy instances.

Can this be fixed with expansions?

No.  Aboslutely not.  This game is already incredibly busy.  Imagine a Christmans Tree and you hang one too many ornament onto it.  It'll topple over.

Ok smart ass blogger, how would you fix the 2nd edition?

1) 

There's a game concept of active vs. passive Merry Men.  You play a Merry Man into a position that can't be blocked, and this guy remains in play passively.  The benefits are so small that if there's literally any other direction to go, don't play a guy passively.

I think that there should be actual incentive to this passive play, make this a hard choice and not the consolation prize 

2)

Preview the villain deck.  Have some mechanism on the villain deck's back that kind of hints at what it does.  Or  make some kind of timed reveal on what pain is being brought.  Make it so the game isn't playing you.

Ok that's it for my stream of concsious ideas

 

Summary

If theme is important to you, you'll like this game more than me.

If you enjoy chaos, then you'll enjoy this game more than me.

I didn't hate it, I just can name several dozen games I like more.