Maglev Metro: Rails above cities on acrylic tiles
Frances & Anthony
How it Plays
Anthony and Frances have been producing playthrough and review videos since 2016, and bring to the Nexus a fun-first approach. Primarily mid-heavy eurogamers, they provide insight into the 2 player experience for many popular board games. Join them as they show you how your next game plays.
Summary
In Maglev Metro, players compete to build rivaling magnetic levitation rail systems across various game maps. The goal of the game is simple – pick up and deliver commuters and robots to enhance your action and scoring abilities, and possibly arrange your metro line in a way that earns you points at the end of the game.
How it Plays
In Maglev metro, players compete to build rivaling magnetic levitation rail systems across various game maps. The goal of the game is simple – pick up and deliver commuters and robots to enhance your action and scoring abilities, and possibly arrange your metro line in a way that earns you points at the end of the game.
This is all easier said than done, though. Players start the game with a player board depicting starting actions and abilities. There is also space to fill for end game scoring bonuses. Each action in the game has a base power of one, for example “one movement” or “pick up one passenger” and many actions can be enhanced by placing robots in the associated action spaces. Robots and commuters can also help to gain players additional actions each turn, and unlock the ability to build stations and pick up commuters of a certain color.
Players get a base of two actions per turn, and the actions they take must have robot representation on their player board. Most actions are available from the games start, with the exception of build station and reverse train.
Player actions consist of:
– Laying or destroying track
– Moving the train
– Picking up passengers
– Dropping off passengers
– Resupplying the station
– Adjusting robots on the player board
– Building a station
– Reversing the train
Players take turns until one of each station is built, and there are no more commuters and robots left in the supply bag. At the game’s end, players get points for commuters (not robots) on their player boards, as well as one bonus card. Additional bonus cards and points for commuters and links can be scored if players have filled indicated rows.
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Our Thoughts
We had different expectations for this one. Anthony thought the game would be more like a route-building, resource gathering game. Frances thought this would be a lighter game with a neat theme. This was less about resource generation as we see in most rail and route-building games, and more about the placement of your route, and building an engine on your player board to maximize scoring.
Easy to learn, difficult to master. The perfect combination for busy gamers. Also some of the chunkiest components we’ve seen in a long time!
Anthony – The Board Game Nexus
What we liked
- Few tile placement games let you destroy tiles or routes. This was a unique mechanic that can be leveraged strategically in a refreshing way.
- The components are top-notch. The acrylic tiles were actually useful, not gimmicky.
- Easy to learn, hard to master, and you aren’t exhausted after playing.
Who Its For
- Anyone who likes a lot of strategy without needing to dedicate a lot of time to learning rules
- Solo players (this game has a solo mode!)
- Newer gamers and seasoned gamers (due to different maps that vary the gameplay experience)
Our Reservations
The color of the copper meeples was problematic in the first printing, but those have been adjusted. Just be cautious of this if you buy a copy used.
This game has always appealed to me and that KS price seems really good for all-in. Think I will take the plunge this time.