Thunderbirds Board Game First Impressions

Posted on January 31, 2016 by Jesta ThaRogue

Thunderbirds is a co-op game by Matt Leacock…

Good.

Set in the year 2065, Thunderbirds follows the exploits of International Rescue, a secret organization committed to saving human life, secretly founded and funded by the millionaire Tracy family, with the motto: ‘Never give in, at any cost!’ International Rescue has a host of technologically advanced land-, sea-, air-, and space-rescue vehicles and equipment ready to launch at a moment’s notice.

So this is essentially Pandemic, but you’re flying around the board in Thunderbirds trying to foil disasters and ultimately stopping the Hood’s evil scheme. Each player controls one of the Tracey family or Lady Penelope. You have a player card with a special ability and your character is represented by a head on a peg that plugs into a vehicle.

To complete a disaster you need to be in the right location in the world and on the right terrain. This means being in the sky or on land etc Once there, you need to roll the target number on dice… But, if you’re there with the right combination of People/Vehicles you get a bonus…

Completing disasters has two positive results… Each turn a new disaster is revealed, pushing the others down the track. If it hits space 8, everyone loses.

You also get tokens that help with the other part of the game…

At the top of the board is the Hoods track. He marches down this when triggered by game events or certain player actions. At certain points on the track are schemes that require tokens and other things to be completed. You have to deal with these, in order before the Hood reaches them or you lose the game too.

To win, you need to defeat all the Schemes…

Thunderbirds Summary

For me this is simple…

If Thunderbirds gives you fond memories of Sunday morning TV like it does for me, you may like it.

If it doesn’t, get Pandemic. I’m currently 4 months into a Pandemic Legacy campaign as I write this and I feel I’ll play that and be done with it more than I would play Thunderbirds before I would be done with that.