Morrison Games VIKTORY: Terror in Europe

Great hidden movement game! This cat and mouse game feels like Scotland Yard, mixed with a little Fury of Dracula. My game group and I had a blast, especially when the terrorist got cornered and had a bad train ride in Vienna! Definitely recommend!

Full Disclosure: I was given a copy of the game by the designer to play and review for boardgamegeek.com (User: Malacandra). But I've got a play count of 37 which should probably indicate we enjoy the game.The game is a very challenging "hide and seek" game in the vein of "Scotland Yard," "New York Chase," or "Fury of Dracula." Complexity-wise it stands between the first two and the third. The gist is that you are chasing down the terrorist who uses hidden movement. Every turn, a location card comes off his trail and you can see where he's been. If he leaves a bomb in a city and it goes off, he earns victory (Viktory!) points. He can also leave ambushes and recruiting cells. Ambushes deal damage to the operatives and recruiting cells restore "health" to the Terrorist.Each operative is better at "defusing" the items left by the Terrorist. There is a Bomb Squad, a Secret Agent and a Commando. (The maples representing these are very cool!) Their job is to move from place to place, hoping to land where the Terrorist has been, or better yet, is currently. If the Operatives and Terrorist are ever in the same city, they fight. The combat is a simple "high roll on a d6 with some modifiers." The loser loses health equal to the difference in die rolls. A tie in battle lets the Terrorist escape. When Operatives are reduced to zero health (each have six), they come back, but lose a turn doing so.The fourth Operative is the "Informant Network." This is the Operative player who gets to guess in an attempt to locate the Terrorist. He can zero in on a particular city, a particular country, or all the countries where the Operatives are located. This ca reveal where the Terrorist is or where he or she has been. And so it goes, round and round until either the Terrorist wins a Minor Viktory with 12 VPs of destroyed cities or a Major Viktory with 18 VPs blown up; or the Operatives win by finding and eliminating the Terrorist.The game is fun and challenging and gets tougher as players get better. Some games we played, we were able to lock on to the Terrorist and stay on his heels until taking him down. Other times we never caught him at all while he proceeded to terrorize the continent. The movement system (trains, roads, ports, and airports) gives lots of options to get around for both sides.The components of the game are top notch. The board includes health trackers for all the operatives, the terrorist and the Terrorist score track. The cards used by the Terrorist to travel are both alphabetical and numerical so it makes putting them back into the deck very easy; they also have Recruiting strengths and Viktory Point values on them for easy reference. The maples and wooden bomb, trap, and recruiting tokens are good quality. There's even a little screen and a small map for the Terrorist to use to keep what he's doing hidden while he's selecting cards or tokens, or to reference the map without the Operatives noticing where he or she is looking. There is a lot of information, including a PDF of the rules at the game's website. Mr. Morrison knows how to package, support, and garner interest in his games.The name "Viktory" doesn't really have much to do with the game itself, other than it's by the designer of the Viktory and Viktory II games. Terror in Europe doesn't have anything in common with those, which are lighter/medium wargames. But, the designer has made a fun and challenging game with great components. If you like the thrill of the hunt and enjoy boardgames, you'll surely enjoy Viktory: Terror in Europe. It's one of our game group's go to 2-5 player games. (The Operatives are easily divided between one and four players, with one player playing the Terrorist).

Viktory: Terror in Europe from Morrison Games is a game of hidden movement and deduction. One player takes on the role of the Terrorist while up to three others take on the roles of the operatives- a Bomb Disposal officer, a Secret Agent, and the Special Forces officer. The gameboard is a map of Europe and North Africa divided into different regions by color. The Terrorist lays a card face down on the board and plants one of several nasty surprises upon it, also face down, including bombs which if they go off will give the Terrorist victory points. Each turn, the operatives move around the board in the hopes of finding the Terrorist or his trail. On his turn the Terrorist lays down a new card and surprise for the operatives, and the third-most card in the trail slides off the board, activating the surprise. A fifth player can join the game as an intel network, who can ask the Terrorist questions about his location- otherwise the other operatives can do it. The Terrorist wins if he gets to a set number of victory points, and the operatives win if they can defeat the Terrorist through combat, which is essentially a dice roll.Viktory: Terror in Europe is a game that is very dependent upon luck. It is easy for the Terrorist to escape and lose his pursuers in Europe, and can be quite frustrating for the operatives. Count on the Terrorist winning most of the time. Also, combat is a little light, as I said it is essentially a dice roll with a few modifiers. Mechanically, the game resembles the brilliant Fantasy Flight Games' game, Fury of Dracula, where the vampire hunters chase Dracula all over Europe. Fury of Dracula is far and away the superior game, as it has some really cool combat mechanics and a much, much deeper theme. However, Fury of Dracula is a 2-3 hour game. Viktory: Terror in Europe lasts only about 45 minutes, making a quick, engaging game of deduction. If Viktory: Terror in Europe lasted as long as Fury of Dracula, its weaknesses would become very apparent and the luck factor would be just be far too high. As it is, It really succeeds in providing a wonderful chase throughout Europe. Because of the luck factor, you may want to try it before you buy, but I think most players will enjoy it.