Base price: $15.
1 – 4 players.
Play time: 30 – 45 minutes.
BGG Link
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Logged plays: 2
Full disclosure: A review copy of Beacon Patrol: Ships and Shores was provided by Pandasaurus Games.
So I’m writing this from my friend’s house; Lorelei and the Laser Eyes turned me into a puzzle monster, and now I’m making all my friends play it. Currently, they’re stuck on the same puzzle that messed with me for several hours, to my incredible frustration; I thought it was some big incredible deal that required math beyond my ken but it was just “here’s a list of squares of numbers but we removed the spaces; which number is missing”. It sounds a lot less impressive when I say it like that, but that’s what it was. Either way, I’m writing while she’s playing, so, more reviews for y’all. I normally have some trouble reviewing expansions, but I actually have some pretty stable game groups at the moment, so I was able to drop this expansion on them with no issue. Let’s check it out!
In Beacon Patrol: Ships and Shores, you’ve demonstrated the criticality of your job to the powers that be, so they’ve authorized new ships to help you map out the seaside to everyone’s benefit. You can do all sorts of stuff with them! There’s the usual ships, like a submarine and a hovercraft, and those … might also … help? With new ships comes all sorts of new challenges, though, so you’ll have to work together with your team if you want to map all the ins and outs of the coastline. What will you discover along the way?
Contents
Player Count Differences
As with the core game, there aren’t a ton of player count differences as you shift the numbers. The major thing is that with more players, you’ll have more folks who can potentially trade tiles with you, letting you shift things around a bit. At four, however, you do get fewer tiles and fewer Movement Tokens per person, so that does cancel out a bit. You kind of hit peak information at three, as a result. One thing that does shift the calculus a bit at higher player counts is that each player will have their own abilities, so now, certain players will want certain tiles at certain times. The Coast Guard, for instance, benefits from having Outposts relatively far apart, so give them the Outposts at different times. The Hovercraft and the Pilot Ship are great for having landlocked tiles, so you’ll want to pass those to the right players at the right times. Player counts for this game require a bit more hands-on management, so if you like that sort of thing, go for the higher player counts! Otherwise, if you’re more of a lone wolf, try the different powers solo.
Strategy
- Play to your strengths. Everyone specializes in different things! Don’t forget to trade tiles usually once per turn (except for the player who can do it twice!) and generally try to take advantage of your abilities as often as you can. Also, let other players do the same! It’s a cooperative game, after all.
- Originally, I thought the Pilot Ship’s lack of a forced move when a tile is played was a drawback; I no longer feel that way. They can place land-joined tiles since they don’t have to move onto the space, for instance, and they can play tiles all around them without having to double back! It’s a bit annoying when you want to go onto the tile (and as a result you have to spend a movement point), but it’s still a decent trade-off. That’s why it has a high difficulty!
- You can still play to help other players even if you don’t have their specific abilities. You can pass tiles to players who can use them better or complete things that they need to score. Or, you know, you can just dump buoys everywhere. They’re pretty helpful for a variety of scoring conditions.
- Still, try not to get too far apart from your friends; you can help each other! If you’re going to be placing tiles to benefit other players, it does generally help if you’re close by each other. The one challenge is that if you are too close together, you’ll be using a lot of movement points to deal with all the newly-placed tiles that might be surrounding you. You miss out on a bit of the free movement if you’re too close together.
- Don’t get too caught up in your abilities and forget about scoring. You score your tiles in a specific way, so make sure you’re doing that while you play! Don’t surround Windmill Tiles with tiles that aren’t open ocean or Wreck Tiles with tiles that don’t have buoys, for instance.
- Furthermore, don’t forget you lose points per player with the expansion. 10 points per player! That’s a lot.
Pros, Mehs, and Cons
Pros
- The boats all have different shapes! It’s very pleasant, especially since the base game ships are all identical.
- Honestly, the hovercraft and the submarine are both silly and I love that. I mean, it’s silly that your local coast patrol would get a submarine or a hovercraft, but that’s the kind of whimsy we need to be bringing to the board game space. It needs to be a bit goofier
- I appreciate that the player abilities have different difficulty ratings assigned to them; that’s a nice way to know how to start. I generally like player powers, just to offer some differentiation, but also this kind of scaffolding is great for players so that they have a sense of the complexity they’re adding to the game. Otherwise, players will definitely feel like some are more difficult or easier than others.
- The art style remains pleasant. It’s very charming! I’m doubly pleased that the designer did it all. We love a double-threat.
- More tiles adds more to the game, for me, which I appreciate. Naturally, they have to subtract points from players to compensate for the new scoring conditions, but them’s the breaks. I like that there are more ways to score
- Everything fits in the new box! I ended up stealing the insert from the base game so that I could have some organization, but all the tiles and pieces fit nicely inside.
Mehs
- The whole scoring thing with this game is a bit arbitrary, so subtracting 10 points per player is kind of odd. It just kind of feels bad at the end of the game since you lose a bunch of your hard-earned points. It would have been a bit better, in my opinion, to just add a new scoring chart to the expansion.
- A more coherent storage system would go a long way. I’d love to be able to separate the pieces with the tiles they belong to, so I’m not just stuck with a bunch of random tiles in a box that I have to sift through every time.
Cons
- I like the Piers and Windmills; I was a bit saddened to see that they’re removed from the game and incorporated into specific player abilities. It feels like a consolidation, which is odd for an expansion. Not terrible, but I did enjoy playing with them and I would have liked to do so with the expansion content (while still getting to try other player powers).
Overall: 8.25 / 10
Overall, I think Beacon Patrol: Ships and Shores is a solid expansion! Generally, when you make a first expansion for a game, “variable player powers” is definitely near the top of the list of things that people do. While that means it’s not a huge surprise, it’s still well-implemented, here, and it’s quite enjoyable! The hallmark of a good expansion, for me, is “can I teach this with the base game without too many problems?”, and I think this passes my test. I’d probably reserve the more complicated player powers for a second or third game, but there are plenty available to get players started without too much fuss. I do like the difficulty range, though: it gives players the ability to progress at their own pace and comfort, without necessarily imposing a game-driven “here’s how you play” on them. They can start with a difficult one if they want, hit a “not for me” point, and then keep moving or try a different one the next time around. I think that’s all pretty fun. It helps that Ships and Shores keeps the spirit of the original Beacon Patrol, as well: it’s still delightful, bright and colorful, and encourages player cooperation in a variety of ways. If anything, the new player powers encourage even more intelligent and strategic cooperation, as certain tiles are now worth significantly more to some players than other players. It kind of feels like the way the game was always meant to be played, at some level, which is satisfying. I think it’s an all-around great expansion, and if you’re looking for more Beacon Patrol, you want to try new player powers, or you just like cute little boats, you’ll probably enjoy Ships and Shores as well!
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