The family hit Fantasy Flight Game Center on Tuesday night and we tried out a new game, called Trains. It’s a unique combination of a deck building game, and a board game. The goal of the game is to expand your rail lines across the map, building stations in various cities, to earn more victory points by the end of the game than your opponents. You achieve this by building a deck of cards with which to lay more track, build stations, and buy more cards (as in traditional deck building).

We had a fun time for our first time out with this game, and got the hang of it pretty quickly (we’re all experienced deck builders). Having a board added a very unique aspect to the game. Not only was the goal about collecting victory points, but there was a spatial element to contend with. As players built around the map it changed the cost of routes, meaning that strategies need to change part way through. There are also random sets of cards to purchase that change every game, meaning that what worked in one play-through, may not be as effective this time around.

We had a really fun time learning and playing Trains, and if you’re a deck building fan I think you’d really enjoy it. It’s familiar, but different enough to make it more engaging that just another set of artwork on the same old deck building concept.