Thunder Road Vendetta and Endeavour Deep Sea- Review

Review of Thunder Road Vendetta and Endeavour Deep Sea

Both brilliant games for different audiences. One is a crunchy worker placement where you're trying to explore marine wildlife doing ecological Surveys and the other is a take that racing game like Mad Max on steroids. I'll let you work out which is which ;)

Review 1 - Thunder Road Vendetta

Looks more complex than it is because of the number of bits but a very entertaining “take that” game where you can enjoy a mild race with diabolical behaviour and plans from other players.

Good things about Thunder Road

It was good fun with strangers. What I mean by this is whilst many “take that” games are purely for the family and close friends you have rivalries and a vendetta against, this one was quite enjoyable for a group of 5 where there where you don't necessarily know everyone very well. It's taken as it looks - Mad Max vibes so all sorts of chaos will ensue.

The goal is straightforward and fitting strongly with the theme. After the first player is wiped out of the game, the end game is triggered, a finish line is attached to the board and the race comes to a closure.

It was only 2 hours or less, including a teach for 4 of the 5 players. That's a reasonable amount of time for a game of this calibre. It didn't get too boring between turns.

It makes me want to learn the rules properly for all the expansions and scenarios and play it with more people. I say this because not every game does this. The main reason I think is the theme (as its basically Mad Max) but the implementation is done really cleanly with dice placement. I'm also intrigued by how the expansions work.

Bad things about Thunder Road Vendetta

It looks intimidating. The shear number of components makes it look intimidating, exciting, but intimidating. I think this has prevented me from playing it sooner. The box looks too big which usually means it's a complex game that will require a lot of effort to bring to the table and a group of people ready with time to dedicate learning a complex game. However it's not a complex game it just looks it.

Not too much strategy, but then again I don't really expect it from a game like this. It's meant as a good bit of fun transporting you to a dystopian world where you destroy your rivals and drive past them.

King making, you absolutely can king make in this game with average rolls of the dice, however it doesn't really matter for this game. It's engaging enough. Turns are in general quick enough.

Summary of Thunder Road Vendetta

It's something I want to learn more about and play again. I think friends groups would love this as well as families who like competitive games that's are a good bit of fun! Highly recommend and I look forward to playing again. Thank you to all the wonderful people at the Sunderland Games group who taught me to play and played it with me.

Review 2 - Endeavour Deep Sea

A crunchy worker placement game where you are trying to do ecological Surveys of the Deep.

disclaimer, I have played a lot of worker placement games recently and being very tired does not help when trying to learn a brand new crunchy game. :)

However… I really liked it and let me tell you why.

Good points about Endeavour Deep Sea

It has a wonderful presented theme which is executed well through its presentation of tiles, characters and cards. Especially the Turtles and Whale.

It was really enjoyable exploring the different areas and discovering how it all came together. Though in my case I did it a bit too late in this game :).

Upgrade tracks on a tableaux are always a good thing in my book! Who doesn't love Upgrades? And then getting the opportunity to bear the fruit of them?

The player interaction wasn't mean. We weren't trying to screw each other over which is quite nice. We were all exploring the deep together in friendly competition. I think that fits really thematically too.

Bad points about Endeavour Deep Sea

It's a difficult Learn. In that whilst the first time you play most crunchy games like this it gives you an idea of how you can plan and strategize in the next. But in a very root manner you've got to be aware of a lot going on at the same time and know roughly what sorts of things are going to happen down the line to be competitive and that'll likely be about game 3 to 5 is when it'll be easier to do.

If you make mistakes at the start you're punished for them later. This is natural in crunchy games, but I can't help but feel it could have been avoided.

It felt like it ended too abruptly, which I understand the reason for as it's very common in most worker placement games I've played. This reason being that if a worker placement game let's you use the engine you've built too much it can become boring and tedious quickly which is a very hard knife edge to get right.

Summary of Endeavour Deep Sea

It's something that I would like to play again (especially when I'm less tired) to see if my second opinion is better than my first. I have a strong feeling that there's even more great things to discover about it that I haven't even touched upon yet. It's a game that's for harder core players and requires a fair bit of mental energy to get your head round. I want to find more turtles! :) Again a huge thank you to the Sunderland Games Group for teaching and playing.

Thanks for reading

Sam

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