review
High noon in lawless!
Flick ’em Up!
Sheriff versus the Cooper Gang!
Essen 2015 - somewhere at the „back“ end of Hall 3 - lots of people clustered around tables, laughter, sounds of Oohs and Aahs and some more forceful expressions of displeasure, and two friends from our gaming group who tell me, with eyes shining, about a game that I simply have to pick up.
Well, that was enticement enough - next morning, thanks to being an exhibitor, I walk over to the booth, before the public arrives, and get my first glimpse of Flick ’em Up! A big table with side fencing, a few buildings on feet, cacti, some figures and I think Oh, well?
Well, here we play High Noon, or Wild West, if you want, Sheriff vs. the Cooper gang, not really a new topic - however, the allure and surprise are in the way how you play: The basic rules can be told in two words: You snip!
This of course, is only the basis or the beginning of the game, the real fun is provided by the details.
But first let me say that in the end I did not manage to bring home a copy of the Pretzel edition with wooden components. However, at Essen 2016 I received the new edition of the game by Z-Man, not as magnificent, a bit smaller and with components made from Bakelite instead of wood, but coming with the same components and providing the same fun to play.
To begin with, players decide on one of two teams - you can play with the Sheriff and his Men or with Ol’ Cooper and his gang. Next, you choose a scenario and find yourself a large, smooth, plane area to play. Take care that the area is easily accessible from all sides.
Before we look at the detail rules of the scenarios, lets check out the basic rules of the game:
A round in the game equals an hour on the Town Hall clock and each player has a turn within such an hour. Teams alternate to play, that is, first player A1 plays, then Player B1, followed by player A2 and player B2, and so on. IF you want to play a piece of your team, called Cowboy, you have two actions and choose from the option of movement, shooting or take/drop off/exchange within a building.
Movement and shooting is done by snipping objects; you use only one finger to snip or, if you want to call it that, to shove, because this results in a more controlled movement than snipping with both thumb and finger. If you want to move the cowboy, you replace the cowboy with the movement disc and snip the disc - if the disc does not touch an object or a cowboy or a building support block, the movement has been successful and the movement disc is replaced by the cowboy at the new location, the cowboy can be aligned in any direction of your choice. When the disc touches something or falls off the table, the movement failed and the cowboy is put back into the original position.
To enter or exit a building, the cowboy must be snipped, again without touching anything, between the support blocks of a building from the respective direction; the support blocks of the target building may be touched. To successfully enter a building the movement disc must partially cross the door line; to exit a building the disc must end the movement completely outside the door markings. Important! Objects that block the entrance area may be relocated.
In a building, a cowboy can use an action to take a chip for a weapon, dynamite, document, etc. or to drop off such a chip; chips that you take are placed on your cowboy board; on this board, there is room for two such chips; the board also shows a marking for a Colt as your basic equipment and the board also holds the live points of your cowboy.
Shooting works similar to movement; the cylinder representing a bullet is placed next to the cowboy and then snipped towards an opposing cowboy. If the opponent falls over, he loses a live point and remains prostate, he cannot be hit again until he is set upright again. If the opponent does not fall, your shot did miss. Cowboys in buildings can only be hit in a duel. When a cowboy loses his last live point, he is taken out of play; objects he owns are placed on the support block of the undertaker building, the cowboy’s hat is placed on his board, current side up.
As to the cowboy hats, the work as a kind of round marker; depending on the starting time of a scenario, cowboys wear their hats blue side up or red side up; during an hour, all cowboys are played and their hats turned over to the other side, so that you always know which cowboy was not yet used in a round.
The game ends at 12, noon or midnight, or when a scenario end or winning condition is achieved.
This takes us to the scenarios; each of the ten scenarios - Duels, Transport of a wounded witness from the Town Hall to the Sheriff’s Office, a Bank Robbery or coming to the aid of a damsel in distress - tells the background story, names the goals of each team and provides a map of the town with information on which components are placed where. You also are informed about the number of life points for the cowboys or neutral pieces as well as the starting time on the Town Hall clock.
Most important, of course, is information on the end-of-game/victory conditions and the special rules for the respective scenario, which can be a prohibition on entering buildings or a ban on shooting for bandits in the first round, and so on.
When a scenario features a duel, the special duel rules apply: A special area on the table must be reserved for resolving the duels. Such a duel is fought, when two cowboys are in the same building at the same time - both cowboys are placed at the opposite end of the special dueling area. The cowboy who was second to enter the building, shoots first. If he misses, the opponent advances by the width of the movement disc and shoots; and so on, until one of the cowboys is hit. He loses a life point and is either eliminated from the game or - if he survives, is placed into the building and shot out by the opponent, that is, snipped through the door, without his hat, and then toppled.
Wrooom! The cactus topples! Gleeful laughter from the sheriff’s troop! Why did I overrate myself and think that I can avoid the cactus when trying to hit the door and to enter the saloon? I should have remembered that a cactus can be shifted at an entrance! But what the heck! I have one action left and now the cactus will be shifted!
Absolute action fun! I have seldom laughed so much during a game and was miffed so often because the targeted and hit objects were rather different and at a distance from each other. And why, please, is the opposing team so much better at shooting?
Not only the fun provided by this game is remarkable, but also the components; the Bakelite slides easily; hay bales, barrels, fences and cacti are somewhat abstract, but all the same „real“ enough; the hand of the Town Hall clock is fastened with a screw! The design and everything else is simply marvelous with its painstaking attention to detail!
If you love a western setting and topic and love action, you should get Flick ‘em Up! in this version, by all means, it is equal to the wood version, needs less room on the shelves and is also less expensive.
Dagmar de Cassan
Players: 2-10
Age: 8+
Time: 45+
Designer: Jean-Yves Monpertuis, Gaëtan Beaujannot
Artist: Chris Quilliams
Price: ca. 38 Euro
Publisher: Z-Man Games 2016
Web: www.heidelbaer.de
Genre: Action, snipping
Users: For families
Special: Many players
Version: multi
Rules: de en + cn es fr it pl pt
In-game text: no
Comments:
New edition in Bakelite instead of wood
Fantastic components with loving details
Needs some room
Pure fun to play
Compares to:
Flick ’em Up! Wooden version, other snipping games
Other editions:
One Moment Games (cn), Pretzel Games (en fr de), Ludonova (es), Lacerta (pl), Ghenos (it), Galapagos Jogos (pt)
My rating: 7
Dagmar de Cassan:
Role playing with action! Beautiful damsel in distress! I love it and would I could get in a few more accurate snips!
Chance (pink): 0
Tactic (turquoise): 0
Strategy (blue): 0
Creativity (dark blue): 0
Knowledge (yellow): 0
Memory (orange): 0
Communication (red): 0
Interaction (brown): 1
Dexterity (green): 3
Action (dark green): 3