DoomTurtle
United States
Redford
Michigan
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Has it really been 50 already? Why it seems like it was only 7 and a half months ago I decided to do something somewhat productive here on BGG. Maybe not necessarily useful, but it's helped me kill some time.
And now 50 reviews and hundreds of thumbs later, I just want to let my dozens of fans know that this fame and excitement has not gotten to my head. I am still the same reviewer I was when I started review #1. And my writing has certainly not improved in the least. But I would like to take a minute to think back on all the fine memories we've shared together.
30 seconds...
5, 4, 3, 2, 1,
and were back. Onto the review!
Red November was one of the three FFG games I looked into and put on my Christmas list back in 2010 (along with Through the Desert and LotR: The Confrontation). I did not receive it as a gift that year, nor was I able to pick it up at a store because it was out of print at the time, and the larger version reprint had not been announced yet. Yet, around that time, a Geeklist was made by a thrifting fanatic (current geeklist is here), in which you could add a game to the list, and if
Kent Fletcher
United States
Riverton
Utah
"But existing is practically all I do."
or any other thrifter found the game you wanted, they would send it to you for the cost of shipping.
So on the list Red November went, and shortly afterwards a user had a copy for me. Not just a thrifted copy, but a copy from his collection that he no longer had a need for. And luckily,
Steve Donohue
United States
Allen Park
Michigan
worked only 10 minutes from where I worked, so I could pick it up during my lunch.
The game was in fantastic shape, and other than being opened, it looked like it had never been played. So thank you for the game!
The game has been played 6 times over the year that I've had it. I've never had an easy game of Red November, every win or loss has always come down to the wire on the last couple of turns.
The Premise:
The Red November is an experimental submarine built by gnomes. While it is out in the waters, things start to go wrong. Fires break out, rooms start to flood, the sub starts to descend too low which increases the pressure, and the missiles are set to launch. Not too mention, out there in the murky depths is a large, slimy, tentacled kraken ready to devour this craft.
Help is on the way, but can the gnomes survive long enough to be rescued? It will take a lot of teamwork, not to mention a lot of liquor, to keep the sub together long enough to live.
The Components:
This is FFG's silverline verison of Red November, so it will have slightly different components than the current release. The game board is pretty small, and instead of cards, the items are all represented by cardboard tokens. Tokens are also used for fires, floods, and blocked doors.
The a deck of small cards are used for determining the events that occur, as well as one card for each of the 8 player colors to denote who is who, and keep track of how much they have had to drink.
Plastic gnome figures and markers are included in the 8 player colors to keep track of each player's location in the sub and their position on the time track. A 9th white marker is used for the current players turn on the time track. 3 wooden cubes are used to keep track of the three disaster tracks. A 10-sided die is also included.
The Gameplay:
The revised rules are online, so this won't be a complete rehash. For any players that have the original version of the game, I suggest you print out the revised rules, as they are much better written than the silverline rules.
The players must work together to survive long enough for help to arrive. Help will arrive in 60 in-game minutes (less time with 6+ players). Each player rolls a die to randomly determine which of the 10 rooms they will start in, and they also start with two random items. They will place their time marker at the appropriate starting point based on the number of players.
On a players turn, they can move anywhere they would like and take one action. It takes one minute of in-game time to open a hatch that leads to another room, which is then free to move into unless it is flooded, which then takes an additional minute. As the player moves. the white time marker (the ghost marker) is moved up an additional space on the time track from where the player started for each minute used.
The actions available are mostly of the variety that let you deal with a disaster. Actions include pump water, put out a fire, work on the nuclear reactor/oxygen pumps/pressure system/missile dock, etc. When you choose to do one of these actions, you choose how much time you spend doing it, up to 10 minutes. If you choose 10 minutes, you automatically succeed, and you move the ghost marker up 10 more spaces. If you choose less time, than you must roll the die to see if you succeed. For example, if you choose 6 minutes, you must roll a 6 or less. 4 minutes means you must roll 4 or less. The ghost marker will move up the track the number of minutes you choose. The less time you spend, the less odds you have to succeed, but also less time used for this one problem which means time can be spent elsewhere fixing other problems.
Once the action is done, the update phase begins and you must move your matching colored marker along the time track to meet up with the ghost marker. At certain points along the track, other events are drawn which causes more problems on the ship. So the more time you spend doing one thing, the more problems that come along that you can't help with yourself, and that your teammates must take care of.
Items that you start with and can find are often used to help with certain disasters and give you "free" minutes. A water pump gives you 3 free minutes to clear water out of a room, so if you choose to spend 5 minutes pumping water and use that item, you need to roll an 8 or less to succeed. Some items are necessary for certain actions. You can't even enter a room on fire if you don't use an extinguisher or drink grog.
Grog is an interesting item because it gives you a bonus to any action, as well as enter rooms on fire as noted above. However, drinking grog can you make you drunk, and the more times you use it throughout the game, the higher chance you have of passing out for 10 in-game minutes for which you can't do anything. Anytime a player drinks grog on their turn, they must make pass a check after the action is rolled for to see if they can stay on their feet.
Other items available are coffee which help sober up a drunk gnome, and an aqualung, which allows a gnome to leave the sub for a bit.
Losing can happen in several ways. Certain events cause the markers on one of three disasters tracks to move. If any track reaches the end, then the game is lost. There are also timed events that occur in the game. If the players time markers go beyond the point that a timed event can be prevented, then the game is also lost. Gnomes can also die, but the game continues for the survivors. A gnome dies if they start their update phase in a room on fire without any way to escape, or if they start in a room that is completely flooded. A gnome that has passed out from grog can die from those situations at the start of any player's update phase.
The players win when all of the surviving gnomes time markers reach the very end of the time track. This means help has arrived, and they are all safe. There is a bit of backstabbing that can go on in the final ten minutes, however. If a gnome has the aqualung, and there are 10 or less minutes left on the time track, they can leave the sub and swim to safety. Any players that escape will win if the sub does not survive. However, if the players on the sub do survive, then the escaping player has lost. I assume the survivors pay the abandoning gnome a little visit once they reach dry land.
Final Thoughts:
The original rulebook is very confusing, but now that the revised rulebook is out, it is much easier to grasp how this game is played.
I think this is a fun game which is all about risk management. This game offers a lot of decisions, since you get to pick the number of minutes on each hazard, and you have to decide when is the best time to use your items, and risk passing out when drinking grog. There is also a lot of cooperation in most instances, since you only get one action each turn, and you often must rely on your teammates to take care of problems that block your passage into a certain room with a hazard that must be dealt with before you lose.
This is a game that deals out constant dread (with a little respite now and then), which some players may not like. However, my win rate is 50%, and while luck is a huge part of the game, I have never had massive blowouts or cakewalks when winning or losing. All my games have been tense and come very close to the end of the wire where either outcome can happen.
It's not a very deep game, but is a game of tactics and reacting to what is happening a the moment. It's fairly quick, and easy to teach (again, with the revised rules), and I must say I like it. Going by the BGG guidelines, I rate this game a 7.5.
Thanks for celebrating my 50th review with me here, and if you're so inclined, you can see my 49 others at A Year With My Games.
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Mike Fox
United States
Fort Worth
Texas
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 + 
Great review of a great little game. Totally agree about the rulebook--I have the first edition, so fighting through the rulebook was a chore, but totally worth it because this game packs a lot of fun into such simple system. Love it!
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Posted Wed Jan 25, 2012 5:55 pm
