Monday afternoon saw Dave kindly play host to an afternoon of gaming with Jonathan and myself.

There was only one game on the agenda to play. That was the 2015 released Thunderbirds the board game. A game I have owned since it came out but never played!

Thunderbirds the board game is designed by Matt Leacock (yes he of Pandemic fame). The game itself is based on Pandemic but with some changes to make it more thematic.

If you own a copy of this game open up the rule book and their listed amongst the kickstarter backers is my name. Yes your assumption is correct I did indeed back this game on kickstarter.

At the time of the campaign it ticked a lot of boxes for me. I liked playing Pandemic, I was a fan of Thunderbirds. Why wouldn’t I back a game that combined the two?

As a kid I used to watch Thunderbirds whenever it was on tv. I was jealous of my friends that had one or two of the metal models of the shows iconic craft.

Although I did have the Thunderbirds/Captain Scarlet lp. I listened to that a few times over the years as I grew up. Thinking about it, that and the Snow White read along record may have been the start of my love of what would later be radio plays.

I have a vague memory of playing briefly the Thunderbirds computer game that came out in the mid eighties. But it doesn’t stand out as one of those gaming moments like say playing Revenge of the Mutant Camels, Ghostbusters, Jetpac, or Harrier Attack.

During the late eighties, early nineties I even went and saw the amazing Thunderbirds stage play. I think I saw it two or three times.

Even now I have all the original tv series and movies on dvd. I’m tempted to get the Big Finish audio plays. They have done a good job with Doctor Who. So I trust them.

But for me the live action movie (which was dire) and modern cartoons are just not worth the time and effort. I’m sticking with the superior original.

Back to the board game.

It’s brutal.

More so than Pandemic.

Due to the perfect storm that was drawn on the disaster track we barely had two turns each before it was obvious we were doomed and unable to beat the game.

So we reset and tried again.

Our second attempt we did better, even upgrading our characters (not me). But still eventually we got into an impossible situation that saw us being defeated.

Dave called in the big guns to help, Clack.

Our third game we lasted a lot longer. All of us at least getting our second upgrade if not to our third. The disaster track was under control. But still it was a war of attrition and the inevitable once again happened with the game beating us.

I loved the game. It captured the theme of Thunderbirds really well. The changes made to the core Pandemic mechanics really worked for me. The having to avert disasters by manipulating the board by getting certain characters, craft, equipment to specific locations to meet the disasters criteria. Much more fun and puzzle like than spawning cubes.

I think the production is better with the character pegs, model Thunderbirds craft, etc They really are needed to help with the theme.

With the events track when triggered making the game harder by switching off some ability or mechanic. The game gets even more brutal.

You don’t hear people talking much about Thunderbirds, especially those that enjoy Pandemic. It possibly is the most forgotten member of that family of games. Which is a shame because I think along with the Star Wars Clone Wars Pandemic it is one of my favourite Pandemic games.

Which is a big call considering this was the first time I have played the game, and was not even close to beating it.

But I like it. I am finding that I do prefer the spin offs to Pandemic more than I enjoy the original game (including expansions). I like the extras or twists that the spin offs bring to the table.

This is a brutal, but fun game. I can’t wait to play it again. And I haven’t said that about a Pandemic game for a long time.