Mike Spoto
United States
Omaha
Nebraska
-
After months of waiting for expansions to arrive for several of the best games from the last year or so (Pandemic: On the Brink, Kingsburg: To Forge a Realm, Race for the Galaxy: Rebel vs Imperium) I was once again disappointed to find they still weren’t here (this doesn’t bode well for the Ghost Stories White Moon Expansion and Battlestar Galactica: Pegasus Expansion due out this fall). Fortunately Z-Man has come through once again with a new game that’s fast, fun, and furious just in time for the Fourth of July weekend: Long Shot.
Overview:
Long Shot is a light horse racing game for 3-8 players. Players have the opportunity to buy and/or bet on the 10 different horses during the course of the race. They will also play Long Shot cards throughout the race to raise money, affect the movement of horses on the track, or steal cards from other players. You can teach the game in about five minutes and it plays in about an hour.
Components:
Z-Man has provided excellent quality components for the game. Inside the box you’ll find: a plastic insert that securely holds the components with very little room to spare, a heavy board depicting the track with some nice artwork, 10 plastic horse miniatures, stickers for the miniatures, 2 special dice, 78 heavy cardboard tokens printed on both sides (and a ziplock bag to hold them), 10 cards depicting the horses in the race and their abilities, 104 Long Shot cards, paper money, and an 8 page color rule book.
The cards are all full sized on heavy stock with the popular linen finish recent games have been using. The tokens consist of 10 sets of 7 tokens (one set for each of the 10 horses) and are used to mark your bets, along with 8 reroll tokens (one for each player). The dice are good quality hard plastic. The movement die is a d6 with the faces 0,1,1,1,1,3. The horse die is a d10 with horses 1-10 for its faces.
The horse miniatures are sturdy identical pieces in three colors (black, brown, and grey). You have to carefully apply two stickers to each horse: one to its base and another on its saddle. The stickers give each horse a unique color and a number (from 1-10). Z-Man has included two full sets of stickers in case of any problems/as future replacements. The base stickers seem to work well. The saddle stickers on several of my horses had unfolded between the time I prepped the game and actually played it, they easily folded back down and after 24 hours only one horse was still having this problem.
My only real complaints with the components are minor. The plastic insert well that holds the cards is deeper than the finger holes on its side, so getting the last few cards out of the well can be an issue. Also the rather plain paper money included in the game is enough for the betting part of the game but not for the final payouts (which can be fairly large). The inclusion of some $100 bills (only $5, $10 & $20 are included) would have easily fixed this. Like all paper money games, I advise getting a good set of poker chips and using those for all your games.
Theme:
This game drips with theme. There’s just something about a horse track that seems to draw people in. The miniatures and the betting soon had our players rooting for their horses (as well as playing cards to help them and hurt their rivals). Near the end of our first race we were all cheering at the tightly packed group of lead horses battling just short of the finish line, only to see number nine shooting up from last to win it out of nowhere. The card humor, game mechanics, and player interaction are dead on and the game is a blast to play.
Setup:
Pick one player as banker. Each player gets $25, a reroll token, and three Long Shot cards to start. Put the ten horses into the starting gate, roll off to see which player’s first, and they’re off!
Game Play:
Each turn a player follows a simple sequence:
First if you own any horses, you see if any of their special abilities apply. If so, those abilities take effect.
Next, you roll the two dice. If you want to use your one reroll (for the entire game) you may turn in your reroll token and roll one of the two dice again. The horse shown on the horse die is then moved forward the number of spaces shown on the movement die. If you own any horses, you check to see if the horse shown on the horse die appears on any of their movement bars. If so, then your horse(s) with the matching number on their movement bar will also move the number of spaces shown on the movement die. NOTE: Horses you own only get this extra movement on your turn.
If a zero is rolled on the movement die, you may steal a card at random from the owner of the horse shown on the horse die (if any) otherwise you take a card from the draw pile if the horse shown is unowned. If you own the horse, you get nothing! No horses move when a zero is rolled.
Next, you take one (and only one) of the following actions:
- Play a Long Shot card and follow the instructions on the card.
- Buy an unowned horse from the bank (and take its card to show you own it now).
- Place a $5 bet on any horse (mark this bet with one of the cardboard tokens if you don’t own the horse, or put the money under your horse’s card if you do). You may add $5 to an existing bet. NOTE: You may not place a bet on a horse in the No Betting section of the track.
- Discard exactly two Long Shot cards (ignoring their effects) and collect $5.
- Pass
Finally, you end your turn by drawing a Long Shot card and passing the dice to the next player.
Winning:
When the first horse crosses the finish line, it is placed in the Winner’s circle in the blue ribbon position. The second horse over goes into the Place position (red ribbon), and the third into the Show position (white ribbon). When the third horse crosses the finish line the game immediately ends. If more than one horse crosses the line on a turn, the horse rolled on the horse die crosses the line first, then any horses owned by the rolling player cross in whatever order the rolling player wishes. If a horse that has already finished is rolled on a turn, reroll the horse die.
The player owning the winning horse (if any) gets a $100 purse. The player owning the Placing horse (if any) gets a $75 purse, and the owner of the Showing horse (if any) gets a $50 purse.
Players then resolve their bets one by one as follows: all losing bets go to the bank. For each bet on one of the top three horses, you give the bet to the banker. They then consult the odds on that horse’s card for the position they finished in and are then paid the amount of the bet multiplied by that number (so a $20 bet on a 9-1 winning horse will pay $180).
At game end, players total their winnings with their remaining cash on hand. Whoever has the most money then wins (unfortunately there are no official tie breakers, as we had a tie on our first race for the winner. We went with the player owning the winning horse for that game).
High Points:
This game is a lot of fun to play. The theme and player rivalry is great. The fact that you can make money by betting on other people’s horses makes for some interesting alliances during the race. A flurry of movement cards played near the end of the race can really rev up the excitement (Wow, your two horses are right at the finish line. Too bad the track’s muddy and they have to move back two spaces. Insert evil grin here).
Low Points:
Downtime can occur, and is greater with more players. The good news is turns are short and there are some cards you can play out of turn to keep you in the game. Some players may not like the wild luck swings possible.
Final Impressions:
I really enjoyed this game. Its got a good mix of things to hold your interest and is short enough not to wear out its welcome. I think it will soon hold a similar place in our play rotation as Around the World in 80 Days, a frequently played light game that’s easy to learn, fun to play, handles up to eight, and enjoyed deeply.
-
Christian Montague
United States
Hilmar
California
-
You really nailed this review of the game. It has a very high energy atmosphere, and is great when looking for a game to root for your horses and have a good time. It turned out how a horse racing game needs to be, with betting and the progression around the racetrack. I would also like to add playing this game with more players may take a little longer in timem but is awesome when trying to entertain 8 people.
-
Gordon Adams
United Kingdom
-
My nephew bought this game and he just loves playing it with his friends at Uni.
Having read that it is a good 2-player game.....yep, you guessed right 
-
Jason Lott
United States
Cheverly
Maryland
-
Great review - you sold me on this one! It's on order for my birthday. :)
Question - is there 2-player variant?
-
|
|
Posted Sat Jul 4, 2009 5:23 pm
