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The transport system in the UK is often criticised. Look at trains for example. They’re often dirty and graffitied. Tickets are expensive. Trains are delayed or cancelled on a frequent basis. Still, they could be worse. They could have ghostly figures trying to sap your life from you. I am of course referring to Vagrantsong,
This is a 2-4 player cooperative game. As a team, you’ll work together to complete a series of scenarios set aboard the Silver Ferryman, brought to life by the stunning board art. Each story sees the vagrants trying to give humanity back to the haints, the spirits stuck hanging around like a bored husband in Primark. You do this by “breaking” them, often more than once.
Not For The Haint-Farted
Each vagrant starts the game with full health and two starting skills, though you might play as the runaway and have a rather cute dog to play with as well. Each vagrant also has three coins placed on character cards to denote which actions you’d like to take.
Often, you’ll have a choice of five actions: Moving your character up to the number of allowed spaces. Investigating when placed on an event token or rummaging for items in the bindle. Patching up wounds and busting… which basically means hitting the haint.
Moving and rummaging are actions that can be done freely, whilst other actions rely on the rolling of bones. You may also have an opportunity to use your special skills, but more on those shortly. Once you have taken your action, the haint takes their action. This is done by drawing an item from the bindle. Each item in there corresponds to a different way the haint moves, attacks and impacts on the vagrants.
Once everyone has taken their actions for that round, a new round begins. There’s no set turn sequence and players can take their turns in any order. Each story has its win conditions, which often revolve around giving the haint their humanity back.
Stories can also be lost. Each vagrant may lose their special skills and humanity and become “westbound”. Regardless of victory or defeat, players move onto the camp phase. This is where coins can be spent to acquire skills or junk, heal, or decide to hold a séance, which can give the vagrants a helpful ability in the next story.
Vagrantstrong
I don’t have the greatest expertise in playing story-driven games, but mechanically this game works. I’ve played some that are quite clunky. If I use Stuffed Fables as an example, the enemy turns are irregular and often limited. Having the haints move after each player’s turn makes so much more sense.
Haints may also have changes in mood, which causes them to move in different ways, as well as having different effects on the vagrants. Each story lasts for around 30 minutes per player, so they don’t overstay their welcome.
The theme comes through in the game as well. Whether that be through the language choices used in the stories or the incredible artwork, the theme runs parallel to the gameplay. Vagrants become haunted if the haint moves into their space and can have ongoing effects as a result of an event in the story or a haint action. There’s a feeling of tension when a vagrant loses a skill and becomes one step closer to becoming westbound.
This is often exacerbated by the hobo code. If there is doubt about how to move the haint on a turn, always move them in a way that’s most harmful to your chances of winning. This can mean some vagrants suffer relentlessly, but the challenge is preventing that from happening whilst also trying to break the haints. This balancing act has seen many stories I’ve played go right down to the wire.
I do want to come back to the production quality of the game. It is exceptional. The acrylic pieces are of the highest quality. It is worth mentioning that you don’t have enough bases for all the pieces and may need to swap them between stories.
The cards are well made (but do have a finish on them which makes them hard to separate in the first play) and the bindle evokes the imagery of a vagrant leaving town with a handful of possessions. Everything about this game is meticulous. Having said that, meticulousness is not always a good thing.
Vagrantlong If I was going to have any criticisms about Vagrantsong, they’re not about the game itself. The game is straightforward, and the mechanics run smoothly. However, after reading the rulebook for the first time, I did wonder what I’d let myself in for! I love a rulebook that tries to cover all the bases, but this rulebook is needlessly dense.
An example of this is a section that teaches players the difference between ‘toward’ and ‘away’. If I don’t know the difference already, I probably wouldn’t be playing this game! It also meant that other more important rules were easy to overlook. I mentioned earlier that each vagrant starts with two special skills and can possess up to four.
They also often rely on the roll of the dice. Placing more coins on these skills can increase the number of bones you roll, upping your chances of success. However, special skills cannot be used on consecutive rounds, unless stated otherwise. This was a rule that my partner and I accidentally overlooked, and it was brought to our attention on a YouTube video.
I then read the section on special skills to find clarification on this, but it wasn’t there. This was mentioned in a completely different section. The rulebook made the game seem more confusing than it is.
Should You Get On Board The Silver Ferryman?
The dense rulebook is just a minor criticism of a wonderful game. Each story feels different enough to be interesting and challenging in its way. If you are someone that wants to try story-driven games, this is a very good place to start. You might also want to print off additional copies of the mileposts, in case you want to play the game with different groups or try again with different vagrants.
Travelling onboard the Silver Ferryman isn’t meant to be easy, going westbound is a very real and constant risk. Still… at least it’s cheaper than going westbound on a train to Swansea.
