Reviewing ALL 28 Railroad Ink Expansions!

before we get started on this video some brief background oath was a game that i reviewed so hard that i managed to give myself the coronado virus that's what my doctor told me at least turns out it's pretty hard to do most of your job when you need to devote 90 of your time to lying down feeling sorry for yourself and watching restoration videos on youtube and combined with the fact that most games just can't be played horizontally but you know what game can be played horizontally you know what game was with me in my time of need that's right it's the big box of trains this bad boy is railroad inc deluxe edition and during my isolation and illness period i played 28 games of railroad inc and thus have become a world leading expert so to pull some value from that experience to make all those games worth something this is a review of all 28 individual expansions in this box can you buy this stuff no you sort of can but it's scarce so why am i doing this i don't know for those that aren't in the know railroad inc is a relaxing roll and right game about drawing little train lines on top of a nice grid we've got a review of it over here if you don't know what it is but if you clicked on this video you want to get to the good stuff you want me to tell you about the wild expansions added into the railroad inc formula you want me to tell you if the arcade expansion is better or worse than the engineer expansion it's way worse so without further ado i will waste no more time than i have already this is a review of all 28 railroad inc expansions rivers we're starting with the oldest and faithfulest of the bunch deep blue and two expansions rivers and lakes rivers are essentially a third kind of route to draw on your board a little bit irritating and they kind of get everywhere but they are the definition of a good railroading expansion a little bit head-scratching to manage but a nice new thing to draw on your board and you know what's great about the rivers is that you can instantly tell that they're rivers they work exactly as you expect them to with minimal friction these things perfectly embody rule number one of good railroading expansion content simplicity is key bt it's a good expansion flex lakes are even better they let you draw one big central puddle that all your routes connect into making a big interconnected wet grid and in the spaces in between you can draw waves but also little boats or maybe a lighthouse if you fancy they're real nice to draw and they add to the chill vibes of any given game of railroad ink and they're real nice on the eyes to boot eightier a lovely expansion and those are both expansions in the deep blue edition and as such this edition encompasses the a and b tiers like so meteor meteors are the first expansion of blazing red edition and at first blush they seem pretty cool you're adding meteors that come down and crash into your board creating craters and disrupting your plans what's not to love everything this is a highly opinionated list and meteors annoy me quite a lot rubbing out bits of your lovely track feels bad and having danglies leading into craters to score points is not aesthetic what right do they have coming down from space and ruining my day detail i mean most people would probably give them bt but this is my list and i'm gonna give them detail hot hot lava the lava expansion in blazing red edition wants to ask you one simple question do you want the lake expansion but fiddlier and worse no tough you bought blazing red edition and now you're paying the price detail and this one embodies the second key rule of railroading expansions no bad expansions that's blazing red edition and overall this bad boy should go in the detail but the sum of both expansions being detailed obviously means it goes off the bottom of the list and into hot hot hell where it belongs healthier challenge edition ah a new challenger approaches railroad inc challenge shining yellow and lush green are both challenge edition boxes of railroad inc which add a bunch of new things to the base game formula namely a tweaked set of core dice including the dreaded baseball dice and some small features on the board villages that get you points if you put stations on them universities that give you access to additional special routes and factories that let you double your dice challenge edition also adds these goal cards to the game which add an extra bit of player interaction as players scrabble to complete them before anyone else obviously i don't really care about the goal cards or the player interaction because i mostly play this game alone these new additions to the formula make railroad inc challenge a meatier experience than base game railroad inc and as such they add a new modifier to the tier list better with challenge and with that in mind let's review the two expansions contained within railroad inc shining oh yellow so many expansions cactus the cactus expansion is a weak expansion or at least it was in my one game of it where i rolled nothing the cacti and oasis and just got points to explain the cactus expansion has you planting cacti on one die face that are worth points but if you roll a sun you burn them all away but not if you protect them with these oases you can put next to the cacti to keep them alive you know i can sort of imagine this being a fun expansion if the die go your way and in my game they just didn't so i'm putting this one in the theoretical beat here canyons canyons are the other expansion in shining yellow edition and [Music] i literally forgot everything about the canyons expansion so it and shining yellow edition go in the secret question mark tier trails mwah delectable delicious lush green is home to the trails expansion which is maybe my favorite single core box railroading expansion essentially it adds these single thin paths to some routes that you can use to connect your stations together with little walking trails what a lovely little spatial challenge where you need to plot out where you're putting your little trails between each different station and planning it all out like a real map it's tactically and visually pleasing ester s-tier expansion sublime for rest also in lush green edition is the forest expansion which is a little basic but boy does it toast my bread you get diced with trees on them and the more trees you put in a big forest the better a tier it's simple to understand but also an absolute blessing of an expansion if you want something that's simple to implement easygoing and just plain fun and it also reminds me of not only rule one simplicity is key but also rule three it's good when you know the thing in real life and that's lush screen edition which obviously because both of its expansions are delightful gets the pleasure of being located in the opposite of heltier very good tier and so we are at the end of our core box railroad inc journey wasn't that fun dry lazy phoned in yes to some of the above but that's not all railroad ink deluxe edition also comes with a phenomenal amount of these admittedly very poorly packaged expansion dice and a bunch of other optional bits and pieces why not why not review those as well i mean we've got to meet our expansion quota or quinn's will be angry under the ground what's better than one game of railroading that's right one game of railroading is the right amount of railroad ink but what if that one game was two games in one take that psychology the underground expansion for railroad inc adds a second board that you'll draw underground routes on creating a tube system for trains and a tube system for farts if you connect your underground stations with your above ground stations then you get bonus points but if you put your above ground stations on top of the pipes you get breakages nightmare the underground expansion is one that's cool whoa the underground expansion is one that is cool in concept but ultimately i'm not that much of a fan the joy of railroad inc is located secretly in its brevity and this expansion effectively doubles the length of the game which is fine if there's meat on those bones but these bones are effectively meatless meatless i'm sorry underground you're going in the seat here the electricity expansion comes with two modules either you can make ultra long highways peppered with street lights or you can manage a power grid across your board the street lights are pretty neat you pop them down with your roots and then whenever you use a special route you get to power them up for bonus points line them up and strike them down it's very satisfying and both dice have more roads on them which means your game becomes motorway inc this is one of the additional expansions that embodies the simplicity is key rule b-tier expansion beta but forest wasn't that spicy and it got eighty correct all these smaller box expansions have a new rule applied to them the disappointingly expensive modifier because you have to buy these in addition to the core boxes they're working uphill it's an uphill struggle that's what i was looking for they've got to work harder to impress me king of railroading i think it's fine to call myself that and speaking of working harder to impress me let's talk about the second expansion in the electricity expansion the power grid expansion power grids here you're connecting a central accumulator space to as many exits as possible and charging your routes with power distributed from that accumulator snaking a route of power across your board at the end of the game you get a multiplier how charged your accumulator is multiplied by the number of exits connected by electrified spaces the winner gets a copy of power grid delivered to their home address i like this one it's trixie and it's fun and you're kind of playing two games at once in your copy of railroading it's a nice game and there's it's a nice game a tier eightier expansion power grid the actual board game can go in hell tier though and that's not a joke oh my goodness there's so many expansions airline airline dice are the first module in the sky expansion and they add effectively rivers in the sky you got two dice and they've both got airlines on them and making a long route that snakes across your board and ends in those airport spaces will get you a bunch of points this one was fine it was perfectly inoffensive which surely means it should be a b-tier this is unfortunately not the case because of the modifiers this bad boy is getting hit with the disappointingly expensive modifier that drags it down to a c tier and a new rule the i wanted this box to be cooler rule airlines sound great i kind of wanted this to be a bit like a better version of the underground expansion where they sit on another layer on top of your board but unfortunately they're just another route that you've already got in deep blue edition basically this one just has river stations detail detail the weather the weather expansion makes up for the airline disappointment you get two extra dice that'll apply weather effects to two pieces you draw that round big areas of weather will score you points but if two different weather areas touch you get nothing brutal but a perfect addition to the railroad inc formula one that is unobtrusive joyous and simple in fact it abides perfectly by rule one subclause a simplicity is key as long as it's not boring this is just a good little box eight here engineer do you enjoy railroad inc but get frustrated that your success is at the whims of some random die rolls and that your performance is somewhat arbitrary but often whole games can come down to the role of a dice do these things make you question why you're playing railroad inc on your own at all then say hello to the four module engineer expansion which gives you four cool options in a little box of joy to renovate change and replace your existing transport hellscape renovation lets you alter routes adding new bends and tunnels the special die gives you a bunch of options for bigger better routes and fancier interchanges and the construction dye lets you move stuff around and remove things from your board for planning perfection and the separation dice is a literal hellscape look at this thing it was designed by a maniac i hate it and i love it the engineer expansion kind of looks a bit like a dull expansion but it does let you make some truly bonkers roots it's that perfect subtle expansion magic that adds a little twist to the existing game sweet but not too sweet it fits perfectly into rule one subclause b or if it's just boring enough and making it even better is the fact that it's super versatile because whereas other expansions have to be used alone the engineer expansion is compatible with any other expansions ester let's do it ester except for the last hellscape dice that goes into the healthier by design okay so we're some time into this review it is baking hot outside and we've still got 12 more dice to review so it's time for the nuclear option it's the lightning round baby we're going to review all of the arcade eldritch and future expansions speed style plugman play pac-man on your railroad ink board put ghosts and fruit and pluckmen on your exits to score points it's fine beta tetromino die do you want to play tetris and also railroad ink bad luck because this feels like neither it goes into the new boring zone rainbow dye what what is this it's weird and i don't like it it feels like the most half-baked of all the expansions and that is saying something boring tear but crossing the gap into hell-tier just because i feel like it galactic invaders adds player interaction into railroad inc you draw aliens on your friend's boards and hope that they blow up parts of their meticulously laid track this one is nifty and irritating a bit of a gimmick expansion but reasonably fun and silly beat here that's the arcade expansion done and now it's time to get eldritch the eldritch expansion adds all kinds of spooky scaries to your games of railroading i need to be so careful pointing at these things because this is a horrible mess the ritual die adds new exits round the edges of your board which allow new point scoring opportunities if you link them up with these little rituals that you also get to draw on the board these are pretty nifty beat here the portal die is just fine ct the tentacle die basically adds speedy rivers that you make loads of roll a tentacle and draw that much of it on your board all in one go the tentacle die really just is speedy strange rivers but i really don't like the theming of it being tentacles i would be so much happier with this expansion if it was just rivers revised or something boring like that and the eldritch expansion introduces a new rule anything in the eldritch expansion immediately gets docked one tier because i'm sick to the teeth of anything lovecraft investigation die this stuff is pure bananas and therefore gains the banana bonus this expansion has you putting an investigator at an exit at the start of the game and drawing clues onto the board for him to find spending movement points to get him to snuffle up the clues just like a regular pluck man and in a lovely thematic touch you can use your own built stations to move him faster along the routes s tier expansion purely because it's just nuts the first module in the future expansion is the alien dye and i'd rather use the alien dye in the arcade expansion than the alien die in the future expansion this game has too many expansions the alien farmer die in the future expansion adds cows and ufos to abduct them and it's alright totally and utterly forgettable expansion tier super connectors are the second die in the future expansion and they add a new kind of route that's a universal connector fine and totally forgettable also seat here lastly in the future expansion we have the city builder dice and these two are rememberable the city builder dice give you various ways of earning income by building in really annoying inefficient ways and you can then spend that income on extra bonus points at the end of the game these buildings act as stoppers for the ends of your routes lovely little expansion eight here and that is all of the railroad inc deluxe edition mini boxed expansions we did it we got to the end but that's not all contained within the deluxe edition box there are also a couple of other bonus bits and bobs that i would be remiss not to mention first off these giant boards are an absolute joy they do exactly what they say on the tin they're just a bigger railroading board and you can go and download them off the horrible guild website where you could laminate a copy and have one for free not only do these make a standard game of railroading even bigger and better they also give you the option of playing with multiple expansions at once which means you can fill your boots with all kinds of weird and wonderful combinations and on the other side the epic board goes even further with this idea having little pocketed towns that you need to connect up in the middle of the map what a nifty lovely little big thing there's also a solo board available and it's really nifty having you fill in spaces that let you re-roll your dice for increased planning opportunities i didn't really use this one much though because for the interests of testing these expansions i presume you didn't have it available because whereas the giant board is available online i don't think that the solo board is so there's that and lastly lastly lastly you've got these wonderful starting city layout cards these change the starting layouts for your maps in a way that reminds me of the utterly delicious mobile and pc game mini metro i legitimately can't wait to play through every single one of these double-sided beauties in a little mini campaign a railroading campaign where you where do i put these and that's it we're done i've reviewed all of the railroad inc expansions what a joy before i end this video though a brief aside railroad inc is a lovely game and the designers have put work into making it infinitely ridiculously expandable and even though i didn't enjoy my time with every single one of these individual weird dice i still played the game 28 times and i had a good time doing it every single time so cheers i've got water somewhere cheers mr railroad inc for making a good game about trains it's so warm and that's it for this week's episode of the shut up and sit down video adventure series we'll be back next week with a video that's less warm and less rushed bye

Channel: Shut Up & Sit Down

Views: 59,540

Rating: 4.9590678 out of 5

Keywords: Shut Up and Sit Down, SUSD, SU&SD, Board Game Review, Review, Board Games, Board Gaming, Boardgame, Board Game, Gaming, Tabletop, Fun Games, Tom Brewster, Horrible Guild, Railroad Ink, Railroad Ink Challenge, Railroad Ink Expansions, Train Games

Id: VBo7JV3dLnw

Length: 20min 21sec (1221 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 22 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Jewtheran]

I discovered Railroad Ink when my local game store got the expansions in stock a couple months ago. I initially bought the Lush Green edition and loved how relaxing and simple it was and I went back the next day and got the Sky and Electricity packs. Every time I'm in the game store, I pick up another expansion. I'm addicted to this stupid game.

I loved this video, even though I disagree with Tom about the tentacle expansion, which I think is chaotic and fun. I was skeptical about the number of expansions too and the "disappointingly expensive modifier" is a very real thing (these things are $10 per box! For 4 dice each!), but every set I've bought has had at least one set of dice that twisted the game in a fun and interesting way and I don't regret any of them yet.

[u/slick-morty]

I bought the Blazing Red edition of RRI last month, with no research into it really. Just assumed it was like choosing which Pokémon I wanted, lol

Good to know I own the worst expansions out of all 28!

[u/TheAeolian]

As someone who only bought Lush Green and the Engineer expansion, this man has impeccable taste.

[u/Bring_Back_Zoboomafo]

Tom is so enjoyable, I'd watch him review fruit.

[u/DurdleExpert]

As someone who has re-found his love of boardgames through shut up and sit down last year I have to say, that seeing Tom slowing coming into his own as part of the content creators has been a joy to behold. He is a great addition to the team.

EDIT;

I should be better with names.

[u/tehsideburns]

For anyone thinking about buying green vs yellow:

The canyon dice, which tom blanked on, is actually a cool expansion. You need to spend “bridge points” like anytime a route crosses a canyon, and you have a limited number of them per game, so you have to be careful not to make placement of routes literally impossible later on.

Both yellow expansions feel more like “push your luck” and gambling. And because of that, they’re both slightly more fun and appropriate for multiplayer games. The cactus/oasis/sun gamble might be fun to compare who took which risks in multiplayer, but it feels pretty stupid in a solo game. Whereas the green expansions both feel great when played solo.

In summary:

Blue - Should be everyone’s first purchase. Rivers are just a third type of route. Lakes = you will most likely connect all 12 exits into a single network.

Red - Meteors = random pain. Volcanoes are just lakes but they’re on fire and can destroy things if you’re not careful, but you can probably avoid that, so you wind up just playing “angry, less-helpful Lakes”. This is the box for people who enjoy random destruction.

Yellow - The box for people who like gambling and push your luck elements, and will play mostly multiplayer.

Green - Forests are super enjoyable and kind of relaxing(??), especially with a green marker. Trails feel very nose-down and thinky, definitely an ideal solo expansion.

Best expansion for anyone to buy? Colored dry erase markers.

[u/psyven]

Tom has got to be my favorite reviewer on any channel at this point. It used to be Quinns, and I still love Quinns... but Tom is just... delightful to watch.

I have no desire to play Railroad Ink or any of the expansions, but I watched every second of this video just because it's Tom. :)

[u/ChromakeyDreamcoat]

I really enjoy Railroad Ink. It's not my favorite Roll/Flip & Write but it's solid.

That being said, the design of all these expansions are basically nightmare fuel. We're talking about ~60 d6s that all come in different tuckboxes - I feel like this should be a single box with a gametrayz insert and one rulebook. Shame I can't really buy that.

[u/ManiacalShen]

Well now I feel bad for owning only and exactly the Blazing Red edition.