Board Game: 'Thunderbirds' ('The 50th Anniversary Cooperative Board Game') (2015)

This is an impressive game. If it hadn't been for some enthusiastic reviews on the 'Dice Tower' for the expansions (Thank you, Zee Garcia) and great playthroughs on Youtube from 'Dad Vs Daughter', it probably wouldn't have popped into the mental category of 'buyable games', but it thankfully did. However, you do need to get the 'Tracy Island' expansion, which makes it all just a tiny bit easier more intuitive. It's essential for getting the full effect, and playing without that little mountain miniature would be a gloomy business indeed.

It's exceedingly unusual to find good licenced games which aren't just 'Star Wars' or war games of some other flavour. Exceedingly unusual. 'Thunderbirds' bucks that trend. In it, one to four players share out some characters from the show between them, and spend an hour to two hours moving around the board, dropping off and picking up each other and utility vehicles, and averting disasters with the help of various bonuses and the disaster dice. On each occasion, if you're lucky you get a reward and save the day, or you fail and possibly advance the progress of the arch nemesis known only as the Hood. Why is he called the Hood, despite not having a hood? These questions are best left for finer minds than mine. Arching above these pursuits, you also need to stop three of the Hood's schemes before he moves far enough along his progress track to launch any of them. It is surprisingly tense, and the integrating of the 'Thunderbirds' mythology into this classic Matt Leacock ('Forbidden Island', 'Forbidden Desert', 'Pandemic') cooperative game is great.

Ultimately, 'Thunderbirds' is what is called a 'pick up and deliver' game. You have nine characters, each of which has a primary active power, and a secondary power which is active when he or she is in his home vehicle or location. By carefully optimising, and burning out your brain in the process, how you're going to move, you try to have all your pieces, vehicles, and tools in the right places at the right times (including in space!) to avert the disasters and schemes before the Hood can win. All with gorgeous art from the 1960s television show, and a rather gorgeous board and solid miniatures. It's lovely, and quite difficult even at the lowest level of difficulty. Sometimes you have to plan things out carefully, and sometimes you just have to rely on your luck and hope to roll your way out of an unavoidable crisis. Sometimes you lose, and learn a life lesson in dealing with impossible situations, as the world falls to the machinations of that purple fiend. Hopefully, you have a plan for most of the time.

Yes, it's a good game. I do wonder if it would be lessened by a lack of exposure to the original television show, which saturates the experience. Sometimes you do want to just get John Tracy back on the space station and out of the way, and I would be surprised if anyone ever could resist the temptation to do Parker impressions while driving Lady Penelope around in FAB 1. Recommended, but you really do need to get 'Tracy Island' too! (The other two expansions aren't particularly important in comparison.)

O.