Get to da Checkpoint!

1 Player. Ready to start playin'. This was actually last week (I'm catchin'-up with Postings).

Image Source: Me

It's a light dice-chucker with an initial push-your-luck element. You start by rolling all 9 dice. But before you allocate them to those 6 boxes near the lower-left, you can reroll any (or all) of the dice up to 2 times each, with the exception of 1's, which you cannot reroll. There's a total of 12 missions, but each game only uses 4. As your squad (starting with 12) makes their way through the jungle, they encounter obstacles that need to be overcome and enemies you engage in combat, or sometimes you sneak by 'em instead. At times, some of your squad will forage for supplies and more ammo. In addition to your 'basic' enemies, there are some Bosses, which, as usual, are enemies that are more bad-ass than the basic ones. On occasion, you'll be subjected to a Jungle Event which will need to be dealt with. Those 3 tracks in the lower-left assist you in keeping track of your health, amount of ammo, and the enemy's current level of fire-power.

I had to put the stickers on the Meeples, but I generally find stickers to be a better 'picture' than on your average painted, wooden Meeple, so I didn't mind. The accordion-style Rulebook coulda been bigger, IMHO. The inside of the box is about 6.25" x 8.8" (15.9cm x 22.4cm), but the Rulebook is about 3.5" x 4.75" (9cm x 12cm), so the writing was pretty small.

2 comments

Comments (2)

Zerbique

Apr 05, 2022

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It does seem fun! Do the different missions feel very different, and if so, how so?

Cadet Stimpy

Apr 05, 2022

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Replying to

I'd say they don't feel immensely different, but somewhat. Here's one of the maps. With this map, e.g., you have 2 paths to choose from to reach the Checkpoint. As you can see from the legend at the bottom, the locations along your journey have different dice modifiers when you're occupying that particular spot. The white circle locations don't modify your roll. Depending on the 'situation', a + or - to your roll may help or hinder you. Since you might encounter Zombies, there's a 'Bitten" area (on this particular mission) where your wounded may wind-up, and are dealt with a bit differently than squad members with more conventional wounds.

Image Source: Me

Here's the other part of this Zone. There are up to 3 icons at the bottom of these sheets. When you make 'contact' with something (you'll then be drawing cards from the Contact deck), it'll usually have an icon denoting its type. If it matches any of the icons on the sheet, you'll have to follow the very brief instructions at the bottom of that sheet. It'll be something like they're more alert (which makes them more difficult to sneak past), harder to kill, and/or that foe will gain firepower to injure you more.

Image Source: Me

The footprint isn't that big (as you can see from the first photo), Z, so if you got one of the larger tables on the train, you could probably play it, if there's a way for you to roll 9 dice without them goin' all over the place. You probably couldn't finish a full game, but if you applied a 'house rule' ('train rule', in your case) of completing fewer missions for a game, you could. Or you could do a couple of missions on the way to work and a couple more on the way home, for a full game of 4 missions. 🙂