Colt Express: Marshal & Prisoners

Colt Express is a wild ride of a game – it’s a free-for-all heist on board a train! Designer Christophe Raimbault took home the Spiel des Jahres trophy in 2015. Colt Express was a worthy winner for the Family Game of the Year. So, what does the Marshal & Prisoners expansion add to the base game?

Before, Colt Express was a programmed movement game, for 3-6 players. Now, the Marshal & Prisoners expansion adds the possibility for up to eight players to join in the chaos! Mei is a new nimble playable character, with her own asymmetrical player power. When you play a movement card as Mei, you can move up, down or diagonal to a carriage.

The other new playable character is the Marshal, Samuel Ford himself! Of course, the Marshal isn’t trying to get the most money, like the train robbers. They have secret objectives that they aim to complete. If they achieve a certain number of them, they win the game – not the richest bandit! One of the Marshal’s objectives could be to arrest a specific bandit. If they achieve this, they toss that player in the cell in the train’s caboose! You get an extra train carriage in Marshal & Prisoners, and sure enough, it sits at the rear of the train.

If you play with the Marshal, you remove the ‘Move the Marshal’ card from the bandits’ decks. You replace it with a different card – the ‘Brilliant Idea’ card. The Brilliant Idea card has a few actions, if played. It can help a bandit to escape from the cell. Or, you could use it to assist junior bandits out of the prison car. These are like assistants for the bandits; if you rescue your own assistant from jail, you gain extra money. If you rescue someone else’s, you gain the asymmetrical ability of that player. The Brilliant Idea card is also ‘wild’ of sorts, so you can mimic another card.

More schemin’. More stealin’. It’s Colt Express: Marshal & Prisoners!

Player Count: 3-8 Players
Time: 40 minutes
Age: 10+