Episode 158: Flotilla

1) The Pegs discuss their recent game plays including Bloom Town, Gates of Delirium, Detective: City of Angels and many more;

2) All the Pegs review the tile-laying, hand-building game Flotilla; and

3) Look back at Thing: Infection at Outpost 31.

Join in the conversation for this episode over at our Board Game Geek guild.

Show Notes

00:01:04 – Trivia

Banter

00:07:15 – Christina is a floater
00:15:04 – Jeremy on Gumbo Live!
00:20:26 – Robb Goes Full Star Wars Nerd on Geek Allstars
00:23:21 – Google Hangout! November 11th and 8:30

Plays

00:25:07 – Robb revists Tapestry [Buy] – Stonemaier Games; Designer: Jamey Stegmaier, Artist: Andrew Bosley, Rom Brown

00:30:15 – Robb revists Smash Up [Buy] – AEG; Designer: Paul Peterson

00:35:48 – Gates of Delirium * [Buy] – Renegade Game Studios; Designer: Jordan Goddard, Mandy Goddard; Artist: George Cotronis

0:44:34 – Bloom Town * [Buy] – Sidekick Games; Designer: Asger Harding Granerud, Daniel Skjold Pedersen; Artist: Brigette Indelicato, Jessica Smith

00:52:44 – Detective: City of Angels [Buy] – Van Ryder Games; Designer: Evan Derrick; Artist: Vincent Dutrait

01:02:00 – Gold West * [Buy] – Tasty Minstrel Games; Designer: J. Alex Kevern; Artist: Adam P. McIver

01:08:37 – Passtally * [Buy] – Pandasaurus Games; Designer: Masaki Suga; Artist: Saori Shibata

01:15:25 – Claim [Buy] – Deep Water Games; Designer: Scott Almes; Artist: Scott Almes, Mihajlo Dimitrievski

News
01:22:55 – Burning Cat
01:28:08 – Legendary: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
01:31:57 – Quick and the Undead
01:37:34 – Abomination: Heir of Frankenstein variants: Igor and Prometheus

Flotilla [Buy]

01:41:43 – Rules Breakdown

Flotilla is a 3-5 player game designed by J.B. Howell and Michael Mihealsick, with art by Bartek Fedyczak, and published by WizKids in 2019.  In Flotilla, players will become scavengers and civilizers in a post-apocalyptic drowned world, alternating between exploring the sea and collecting resources, and adding their own watercraft to the ever-expanding flotilla city.

Flotilla is notable for its two distinct modes of play.  At the start of the game, all players are Sinksiders, which focuses on exploration, expansion, and resource collection.  At any point – even the first action of the game – a player may switch to Skyside, which focuses on market manipulation, tile laying, and a bit of set collection.  These two roles interact, creating interesting dynamics when some players are Sinkside and others are Skyside. For example, certain actions Skysiders take will advance a Sonar track, which then affects the results of some dice roles that Sinksiders will make when delving for resources.  Similarly, Sinksiders will find artifacts which will give them a one-time bonus, but will also make the results of certain Research dice that Skysiders will roll more valuable. And both Sinksiders and Skysiders interact with the same market, meaning that when Sinksiders sell resources they become cheaper for Skysiders to buy for their building actions, and those purchases make resources more valuable when Sinksiders later sell to the market.  There are other ways in which the modes of play interact, but this gives you a sense of it.

Actions in the game are card-driven.  Each player starts with the same starting deck of Crew cards, but may gain more as the game goes on.  On your turn, you simply play a card and take the resulting action. Each Crew card has a Sinkside and a Skyside face, depending on the mode of play you are in, though the action the card allows you to take is broadly the same regardless of face.  Sinkside actions you will take include moving your skiff around the board in order to collect resources; rolling Delve dice to collect resources, rescue survivors, and potentially deplete ocean tiles; or drawing and adding new tiles to your territory, suffering Toxicity as you do so and possibly finding artifacts if tiles are laid correctly.  As a Skysider, you will no longer have the ability to gather resources, but you will collect income with most cards that will allow you to visit the market. You will also roll Research dice that provide scoring opportunities on various guild tracks, and you will build tiles onto the Flotilla, scoring points based on matching sets of district colors you can connect in your watercraft.

Both Sinksiders and Skysiders will also be able to advance on one or more of the four Guild tracks, which grant bonuses and scoring opportunities based on end-game majorities, and take various Transaction actions such as buying new skiffs, trading with the market, or establishing outposts that give you additional scoring opportunities.

As you can tell, there is a lot going on in this game, and mechanisms interact in a myriad of ways.

The end game is triggered when the last point token from the pool – set at the start of the game at 100 points per player – is claimed.  At that point, the current round is finished and each player gets one more turn. Players will score small amounts of points throughout the game with various basic actions, such as advancing the guild tracks or expanding the Flotilla, and potentially score big points during the Outpost Milestone action where players may earn points based on various collections they have met at the time of scoring.  At the end of the game, players will also score for leftover money and resources, majorities in each guild, and their position on their Toxicity tracker – which will most likely result in a penalty.
If this rules explanation is leaving you feeling lost at sea, don’t worry – the rest of the Pegs are here to throw you a life jacket.  So let’s join them on deck for a fuller exploration of Flotilla.

01:45:39 – Review
02:12:25 – Ratings

ReRoll

01:59:26 – The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 [Buy]

Check out our original review for The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31 during Episode 133

* Disclosure: These titles were received free of charge by the publishers or distributors.