The periodic table of boardgames

© Trenton Tron
How many of these You recognize?

#4 Gangster - Godfathers of Chicago

© 2006 Ludoart Verlag, Emilienstr. 43, 42287 Wuppertal, Germany

Wild Chicago in the 20's where four gangs compete to gain control over this fruitful city of crime. With the help of their gangsters players battle each other to be the leader of the Chicago underground - Godfather Al Capone.

Game is really simple. Board is 6x6 square piece of cardboard that resembles the city of Chicago. Beside that there's also score track where all the points from the game are recorded. For a start all players choose their color and 3 chosen men of that color - these are the player's bodyguards.

Players take turns to place gangsters on the board. You can choose to take the gangster from the deck, from the two up-wards gangsters or from Your personal guards (3 chosen men). You can also move a gangster or shoot one. When the row is full (6 gangsters), the strength of different gangs are calculated. The strongest gang scores the difference between them and the second strongest.

Things get really messy when two of the strongest gangs tie. The result is rather logical - they slaughter each other and the next strongest gang takes over. Simple... :)

There are 36 gangsters all together (9 of each different color). The bullets in the upper-right corner show the strength of the corresponding gangster. The lead bullets are for shooting other players of course.... :)

The score track is for recording each player's score as the game continues. The player who reaches to 17 points first will become the new Al Capone and wins the game. Usually the leader's life isn't made any simpler...

The game is nice and rather good. At least for people who don't tend to sit behind the table for hours as do I. First thing that distinguish this one from the most of the games is the WOODEN box. Even I was suprised. This game was meant to last.