Review: Colt Express Big Box (Ludonaute)

Running between train cars, grabbing bags of gold, climbing onto the roof, and getting whacked by an overhanging swivel arm — it’s all in a day’s work for train robbing varmints in just about every movie about the Old West.

With the Colt Express Big Box, a 10th anniversary release from Ludonaute and Flat River Games, you can live your own versions of those moments without leaving your game room.

Whoa — that whistle means the train’s coming fast, so we’d best get to work and go through the top five things you need to know for successful heists in the Colt Express Big Box!

Taking Inventory

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When you crack open the box, you’ll find a lot of goodies inside. In addition to the base game, you also get both the Horses and Stagecoach expansion and the Marshal and Prisoners expansion.

Rounding out the inventory are three sheets of building instructions to assemble the train, a double-wide overview sheet that explains how to load the box’s compartments, outlines several ways to play, details rules for the new bandit, and a player aid page that explains the icons, whiskey flasks, and hostage cards. And, of course, you get all three rule books because you’ll need ‘em.

Say Howdy to Silk

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The Big Box includes a new bandit named Silk. She’s a slippery one, too!

When you play Silk in a game, you get to choose her special ability: move 1 or 2 cars at a time (even changing between the roof and the interior), dodging bullets from the lawman so they hit other characters, and blocking the rear door of the car she’s in so nobody can use a card to move into it from that side. You can even make up your own special power and use it, provided the other players agree.

Pay close attention to the details of how Silk’s powers work, especially if you decide to use the rear door blocking option. There are some rule caveats in how that works, and you’ll want to make sure you play it right.

Prowling the Expansions

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In addition to the base game, the Big Box includes two previously released expansions so you can mix and match to customize every game.

The Horses and Stagecoach expansion adds horses, giving players a clever new way for bandits to pick their starting position and quickly move between train cars during the rounds. It also introduces a stagecoach, complete with a valuable strongbox, a shotgun-wielding driver, and a bunch of high-paying (if sometimes annoying) hostages. Finally, whiskey flask tokens add another kind of treasure that can give your bandit a boost at the perfect time.

In the Marshal and Prisoners expansion, you get two new characters to play. Mei is an acrobatic bandit who can move diagonally when she changes floors in the train. For a completely different twist on the game, you can play the Marshal and interfere with the bandits by capturing them and throwing them into the prison car.

Mixing Your Options

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With so much packed into the Big Box, you’ll want to be careful about adding too many expansions into a given game. This goes double if you’re introducing new players to Colt Express. There’s already plenty for them to learn without pouring on a bunch of extras.

We adopted the new bandits, Mei and Silk, as permanent parts of the base game so they’re available every time we play. They’re too much fun to hide away. Likewise, the whiskey flasks earned a spot in every game setup.

In our plays, separating the horses and the stagecoach worked well. The horses add a fun interaction to game setup, plus give you more options for moving between the cars. Adding the stagecoach increases player options but also jacks up the complexity, so only use it with experienced players.

What about the Marshal?

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Adding the Marshal makes a much bigger impact on the game than swapping one bandit for another. The Marshal adds a package of new mechanics to the game that you can’t really split.

Including a Marshal means adding the prison car to the train, and breaking out the prisoner deck, the Wanted Posters, and the Brilliant Idea cards, along with the Marshal’s deck of action cards. You also add the Marshal’s various scoring mechanisms, which can quickly get overwhelming.

If you decide to add the Marshal, make sure everyone understands his rules and mechanics, not just the player running that character.

Verdict

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The Colt Express Big Box is Ludonaute’s gift to the game playing community, and we wholeheartedly recommend it.

The game features a great combination of previously released expansions plus some new material, namely our new bandit. She increases the number of player bandits from six to eight, although you could probably add the Marshal and boost the number of players to nine. We can’t offer guarantees about how well that number of players will work, but if you have the people and the time, it could be fun to try.

Our only nitpick with the game is the language translation from French to English. In several spots, the rules had stilted phrases and strange word combinations that threw us a bit as we played. You should be able to figure everything out on your own, but it might take a moment. Be ready to make a few trips to the Colt Express discussions on Board Game Geek if you get stuck.