Wild Tiled West — Mine, wrangle, and tussle your way to victory

At its core, Wild Tiled West is a tile drafting and placement game. It mixes in dice rolling, resources, and a little competition to make a fun, medium weight game.

The game is played over 16 rounds. Each round, a number of dice are rolled equal to one more than the player count. These dice are placed around the tile market to indicate which tiles can be drafted that round. Each player, in order, chooses one of the dice and drafts the corresponding tile. Some tiles cost gold to draft. The river is special, because you can spend gold to “claim jump” along it, skipping over tiles to get the one you really want.

Tiles come in different shapes and types, with additional icons on them. Buildings have special abilities, some of which only activate once the building is completely surrounded. Fields contain cows, which you want to combine into large pastures in order to get bonus points and abilities. Bandits are bad, making it more likely that you will lose the tussles that happen during the game. However, sheriffs have the ability to shoot bandits, assuming you have the bullets.

Tiles get placed on your own personal board. You place your first tile on the X and then all other tiles go adjacent to existing ones. Everyone has a unique board with each board having a basic side and an advanced side with special rules. Icons on your board will provide bonuses when a tile is placed on them. Pick axes increase your gold production. Bullets get you ammo for dealing with bandits. Street icons give you small street tiles to fill in spaces on your board. One of the primary goals is to fill in all the spaces for the towns around your board. Doing so will earn you points based on the size of the town and how early you complete it.

A few times throughout the game, players will gain gold based on their production. There will also be tussles, where players compare how many bandits are on their board. The player with the least loses points while the player with the most gains points. This allows for a lot of strategic decision-making in the game. Do you try to ramp up your gold production early, or rush for early points? Do you take large tiles with bandits to fill your towns, or do you try to avoid bandits and win the tussles? Players also get objective cards to influence how they earn points.

There is a lot of depth to Wild Tiled West, but the dice rolling prevents you from being able to plan everything out perfectly. Add in the excellent component quality and you get a great game that should appeal to everyone that plays it.

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