This was a game Phillip knew that he was purchasing at his first Gencon. He waited in line patiently with a wonderful French scientist who explained to me why she repressed her accent (turns out you can’t take anyone serious if they are speaking in a ridiculous French accent). After waiting my turn to get in, off the hundred copies they had for the day only 4 were left and none of the blue color I wanted so I settled for the Red Edition.
Move forward a few years and Horrible Games does another Kickstarter for Railroad Ink Challenge. Since this is Heather’s favorite game, we went all in: all the expansions, all the extra boards, the pretty box to hold all of it together in one place. Very Shiny! Today we are playing with those extra components.
The larger board and the portal dice expansion are from the extra stuff. The forest expansion is from the lush green edition of Railroad Ink Challenge. First time playing all of it and it was a great time though planning became something of a nightmare.
You can get your own copy of Railroad Ink and support your Meeples while you are at it.
How to play Railroad Ink
First thing to do is decide what version you are playing and get all the components out and ready to go, this consists of a player board and marker for each player, all the dice needed (the 4 main dice and any expansion dice you are using)
Randomly pick a player to roll the dice each turn or rotate it as you are playing for 7 rounds ( or more depending on expansions and board size)
You are then draw the dice faces that are showing on your player board. Railroads have to connect to railroads and highways to highways unless you have a station that changes it.
Through the course of the game you are trying to connect the cities (green incoming arrows on the edge of the board) together by networks of rails and roads. You also gain points for your longest road and rail, squares used in the center of your board, and expansion points. While you lose points for every dead end you have on your board at the end of the game.
What Phil & Heather Think
Short, sweet, and with the dice rolls different every game even with using the same strategy. This game gets a lot of play in our house because it takes up so little space. It tends to get played in our bed right before we go to sleep as it only needs a dice box for your rolls. This one will stay in our collection for as long as possible as Heather will not let it go unless I pry it from her cold dead hands.
Phil’s Take
This is a fabulous game that is very simple in it premise but when the dice are rolled it becomes a puzzle to sort through to ensure you complete as many routes as possible.
Phillip, an engineer of terrible transportation routes.
Here is the full playthrough of Railroad Ink by Phillip and Heather on Table for Two.
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Phil is an avid gamer who not only loves board games (he has played 100’s) but is one part of the “Table for Two” board game YouTube series and has designed several of his own board games. In addition to gaming he is all about the DIY life for creating gaming shelves or additional pieces and has a luck with dice that is mathematically infuriating to everyone else at the table most of the time.