This was a belated (5 months) birthday present from my sister, and after getting home we had to give it a go. Thunderbirds Board Game is a recent reissue of a 1966 Waddingtons original.
Let's worry less about the graphics and more about play-testing, please? West 11 Designs no longer existsIf this is really a reproduction of the Waddingtons game then I'm shocked, as the game I received has the rules set in such a way that you can't win!
The game sees the four main Thunderbirds craft travelling (most of) the world in an effort to stop The Hood setting off 9 emergencies at once. In order to win, they must also collect 8 photographs of the arch evil-doer.
Players decide which craft they control and then play rotates between each Thunderbird, alternating with The Hood.
The Hood's go involves spinning the spinner twice to get a latitude and longitude for the emergency. A red alert token is put on the square, with The Hood on top of it.
A Thunderbird go involves rolling a die and moving North/East/South/West in an effort to land on the alert and resolve it. If they land on the alert when The Hood is still there, they get a photograph.
There are details in that certain squares can only be resolved by certain craft, and of course Thunderbird 4 can't travel over land unless it's being carried by Thunderbird 2 (which is a great little detail).
So far, so good, but there's nine alert tokens and once they are all out, the game is over. The alerts can be anywhere on a 15x15 board, but a craft can only move up to 6 spaces and each craft takes turns, so have only had 2 moves in the time it takes all 9 alerts to be placed. You would have to be impossibly lucky and have all of the alerts grouped near the starting position (Central America) to have them grabbed in time to be recycled back into the unplayed alert pile.
What normally happens is that you can clear two alerts and grab one photograph before The Hood wins every time.
Actual losing position at the end of a game. When that last alert token is placed, the game is over, so its not worth placing.AND another thing - look at the board. The latitude values shown at the top and bottom of the board are different! Whoever designed the board took the top set and flipped it over to do the bottom, not seeing that it wasn't symmetrical.
Since then, we've tried only giving The Hood a go before each Thunderbird 1 play (i.e. a 1/4 of the number stated in the rules), but then you can't lose and it just gets boring as you're waiting for photograph moments with no sense of tension.
So we tried giving the Thunderbirds two dice. Still couldn't win.
This is a real shame, as the game concept is fun - chase around the world in a constant battle against time.
It's just occurred to me: what if the Thunderbirds can travel diagonally? Will that allow them to save the day? Quick! Roll the theme music!
Update
Using a d12 (12-sided dice) and allowing diagonal moves I've hit the right balance between winning and losing.
Courtesy of 'Rick' at Board Game Geek.