Board Game Review: Victorian Masterminds
Last weekend, I sat down with a couple of friends, had a glass of wine in my very best “evil villain” goblet (which has a cat for the stem, because of course it does), and played a new game.
Don’t fret; the wine glass was there for picture purposes only.
It was safely secured elsewhere for the rest of the game.
Game: Victorian Masterminds
Publisher: Cool Mini or Not
Players: 2-4
Time: 45min – 1hr (excluding time taken for first rule readings and learning playthroughs)
Personal rating: 4.5/5
I love the idea behind this game! Thematically, everything ties together beautifully from the determination of the first player (whomever has the best evil laugh), all the way to the multiple paths to villainous victory. Players have several options to pursue in order to gain the most Mayhem Points, ensuring a varied experience from game to game, which gives it a high replay value.
The main victory condition in this game is to acquire more mayhem points than any of your evil counterparts. That said, how you go about this is fairly varied, with lots of opportunity for choice and strategy. You can build your zeppelin, capture monuments, and complete missions in order to rack up points. A combination of all of these is perhaps the best approach, but how each player approaches each is entirely up to them.
My zeppelin, the Beluga!
Each Mastermind gets to choose their own zeppelin card from the six that are available. Each zeppelin has its own unique ability that you can enhance by completing certain pieces of it throughout the game. Each piece of the zeppelin provides different bonuses – some will grant you straight victory points, others will grant you access to additional scientists (who give you bonuses when deploying agents), and others will unlock more abilities for you.
In order to complete missions on the board, you must deploy one of your evil agents to the site, which you do once during every one of your turns. Any time a site has 3 agents on it, they flip over and resolve in order. Each player has a saboteur agent that can cancel out your action if they flip up ahead of you, so be wary!
My captured monuments, bwahahah! *coughs*
Certain agents that you deploy can capture monuments, so long as you have the firepower to do so. You can gain firepower through various actions, and as long as you’re ahead of the Secret Service on the firepower gauge, you can capture things. Each time a monument is captured by a Mastermind, the gauge goes up, making the next heist even more difficult.
The game ends when the Secret Service’s firepower reaches the top of the gauge. Everyone then gets one more turn, and tallies their points. The highest score wins and can proceed to show off their best maniacal cackle. Those who have lost can start their evil plots for next time.
Victorian Masterminds is fun and accessible, one that I also really love and intend to add to my (already too large) collection. If you can find a copy at your local hobby shop, I highly recommend that you pick it up!
What have you been playing lately?
