After Action Report – Games Gathering @ Brookhurst Hobbies, March 1, 2014

In the midst of the first real weather we have had in Southern California in 2014, I was able to get myself to the Games Gathering at Brookhurst Hobbies on Saturday.  The weather held until I got to Brookhurst Hobbies .  Then as I was walking across the parking lot to the store, there was a cloud burst and rain dumped down on me.  I was concerned that this would be a indication of how the day’s gaming would go for me.  There were 20 people at the event and 4 games being played at any one time.

I was able to play one game at the event, Russian Railroads.

In Russian Railroad the players take turns placing workers on actions on the board.  These actions consist of building factories, upgrading trains, moving pieces up the rail or industrial track, and purchasing engineers.  Once all of the players have placed their workers, the round is over and everything is scored and the game moves on to the next round.  The game lasts seven rounds.

To review my discoveries about the game thus far, there are two good strategies to the game.  The first is to focus on building two of the rail lines trying to maximize the advantages you can get from them to gather as many points as possible.  The other is to focus on building factories and only build the track you need to gain bonuses to complete building a full set of factories.

I have also determined that there is importance in collecting some engineers especially if their abilities help you reach your goals.  There is also a 40 point bonus at the end of the game if you have the most engineers.  In order get engineers you must make sure that you go early in the turn order by using one of your workers to make sure you are the first player in the next turn.  The plus about using the worker in this way in Russian Railroads versus other worker placement games, is that you get to reuse the worker at the end of the round on another action.

This was a very interesting game for me.  At the start of the game I was trying to figure out whether I should follow the Transiberian strategy or the factory building strategy.  I decided to go with the factory building strategy when I saw that all of the other players appeared to be doing the track building strategy.  I got concerned when the other players started building factories in the second round of the game so while they were working on that I focused on getting my sixth worker on the Moscow to Kiev line and kept going back to the factory track when I had the opportunity.  Once I got my sixth worker I built out the Moscow to St. Petersburg line so I could take advantage of the bonus spots on that line.

By the end of the game I had maxed out both the Moscow to Kiev and the Moscow to St. Petersburg lines and received the bonuses for that.  I was able to purchase all five factories I needed.  I did have two tokens going up the factory track but I did not max out either of them.  However I did manage to win the game.

My stats for the event:

Game	No. of Plays	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	Avg.
Russian Railroads	1	1	-	-	-	-			1.00
Totals	1	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	1.00