Thoughts on…. Ivor the Engine
Oh no! Idris the Dragon is causing chaos, scaring the sheep down from the hillside and all over the valley! It’s time for Ivor to get to work! Round up those sheep and maybe you can drop by Grumbly Town in time for choir practice.
If that description means something to you then chances are you’re a late 30’s British person, or maybe just from Wales. If, like me, you don’t know what’s going on, then sit down, take your medicine, and I’ll explain. We’re going to go on a little trip to North Wales. No! Don’t panic! Only metaphorically…
Ivor the Engine was the locomotive of the unpronounceable Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Ltd. Except Ivor also had a mind of his own, could talk and drive himself and generally enjoyed journeying around his corner of North Wales helping out the local characters, including the dragon, Idris, that lives in the extinct volcano. Yes, this is a children’s’ TV series!
Now, Surprised Stare Games have produced a lovely little board game of the show/books. Look at that board, draped in beautiful map of the Welsh countryside, with its little villages and towns, nestled between the mines and hills, and the volcano. Because why not? Look at those cards, each with a lovely piece of artwork from the original artist behind the series. Isn’t it delightful?
Players will be in charge of little engines, moving around the map collecting the lovely little sheeples from each area, hoping to be the one to clear a space for the bonus tile it holds. As this is Wales, sheep equal victory points, and in a unique mechanism the player with the most at the end of the game will win!
The most efficient way of gaining sheep, however, is to complete jobs by visiting the locations on the top of the cards. This will net you a nice bonus in sheep (not a sentence I write very often), but a job can only be completed once the rogue sheep terrorizing that village have all been collected. This controls the pace of the game, and the uneven distribution of sheep at the start means different locations will be contested each time you play.
Initially, the board is covered in sheep. But as more areas are freed up, more job cards become achievable and the game accelerates towards completion. High scoring turns are available when you grab the last sheep from an area, get the bonus token and then play a high scoring job! And these turns are the reward of carefully thought through play.
However, the exciting decisions begin when you see that each of those job cards also has an action on it that you can perform. Something to boost your score or help you out… or sabotage your opponent’s plans so badly you’ll have an enemy for the rest of the game! Because, much like the sheep Wales is full of, that cute child-friendly exterior hides a blood-crazed killing machine.
You may not believe it to look at them, but some actions can be crippling. Know where a player is aiming to complete a job next turn? Why not drop a couple of sheep onto that space, costing him 2-3 turns. Or maybe an opponent is sat on a space with just one sheep left? Play a card that lets you remove that single sheep, grabbing you the bonus tile instead of them, and leaving them stranded!
There are more passive aggressive manoeuvres available too. The Welsh must be very sensitive about personal space, as each hex can only hold a single engine. This allows for some pretty interesting blocking play with your trains, particularly as there are some dead ends on the map. Be careful not to let yourself get trapped in!
There are other little elements too. Coal can be used to get you out of such sticky situations, or just to cross the board quickly. There are event cards that mix things up, and can be purchased to give you an end game scoring boost for completing certain tasks, but will cost you Gold (which is also worth points at the end). And these resources are ludicrously difficult to get hold of.
There can be lots of interesting plays and decisions to make in Ivor. It’s a nice little kids game if played kindly, or an incredibly aggressive gamers’ game if not! It is a rare game that can tick both of those boxes. As a gamer, it works best if everyone is on the ball and playing aggressively, and really needs 4 or 5 players to get players clashing. At lower player counts though, it’s easy for everyone to stick politely to their own areas and not interact much. In which case, it falls pretty flat.
Play this game for the laughs, whether it’s swapping 5 sheeples for a compressed sheep token (SURE, it’s a sheep pen! You tell yourself whatever you like if it helps you sleep at night!) or triggering an avalanche of action card based death. Each hand of delightfully illustrated cards is a nuclear deterrent. But don’t let anyone get away with that. This game is best played in a state of all out war, with the victor arising from the ashes leading his grand army of sheeples!
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