Bootleggers, from Eagle Games, wants to be that game. In Bootleggers, players take control of the family still and brew up crates of whiskey to sell to various speakeasies. All the while, they jockey for influence, steal trucks, and order hits on opponents. In the end, the gangster with the most money controls the town and gets to sell his whiskey anywhere he wants.
The Game
The rules for Bootleggers are sort of like a Reiner Knizia game, except opposite, in that they are really long and complicated enough to require a summary for each player. During a single turn, players will buy muscle, place influence, draw and play cards, brew whiskey, and carry crates of booze to the bars. Then everyone will make some money and they will do it all again. This is a lot to remember, and without the summary printed on each player’s family still, this could be a nearly impossible game to play the first time out.
The setup for this game is extensive. Each player gets all the influence markers in his color (little men in trenchcoats with tommy guns), the card representing his family still, and twelve random muscle cards. Every player gets ten thousand dollars, which we will refer to as ‘10G’ from this point onward. Each player gets a single influence marker to place in the back room of his family still. Each player also receives a small truck – these are especially cool because they are actually little plastic trucks, with beds that can hold the cubical crates of whiskey.
At the onset of each turn, each player selects a muscle card to represent turn order. This can be crucial, since the player who acts first has the best access to trucks, influence, and speakeasies. Players must pay for the muscle, and the player with the highest card goes first throughout the turn.
Once turn order is determined, players may select ‘Men of Action’ cards, or buy a truck, but not both. There is one more card available per turn than there are players, and expansion requires a careful balancing of resources. These cards are the only place to get resources, and can be very hot commodities.
The cards allow players to increase influence (more gangsters), improve stills (more whiskey to produce), improve speakeasies (which then buy more whiskey), buy trucks (to haul all that whiskey), and more. Special abilities on cards may allow players to rub out opposing influence markers, steal trucks, destroy shipments, or otherwise cause malicious mayhem.
Once all players have chosen cards, they may place influence in the various speakeasies. These speakeasies buy whiskey from players, and players who control the speakeasies can even sometimes get a little graft off every crate that passes through the bar. This can be a great way to make money, and there is a lot of competition for the various bars.
Players then make whiskey by rolling a number of dice. At first, each still makes only one die worth of booze, but improvements can cause players to be making up to 20 or more crates by the end of the game. Making lots of whiskey is all fine and good, but is useless if you can’t get it to the bars. This is where trucks come in.
Trucks can only carry so much booze. Small trucks carry four crates, but larger trucks are available as well. Unfortunately, buying a truck generally means you miss out on some other opportunity, such as improving influence or buying an offsite still. If a player has more whiskey than he can load into his trucks, he may sell it to other players at a discounted rate. If he cannot sell it or ship it, the whiskey is wasted.
Once all trucks are loaded, players line up at the speakeasies to sell their moonshine. The player with the most muscle places his trucks first, and everyone lines up behind him in order. There are six different bars at which to sell, but they may not all be open. In fact, at the beginning of the game, only the smallest speakeasy is open for business. As the game progresses, the larger establishments come open, allowing players to earn more per crate, and buying more whiskey so that players are not left parked outside the bar with a truck full of booze and no buyers.
The turns ends once all whiskey is sold or discarded. Players get money for their illegal booze, then everyone goes back and selects muscle cards again. This happens twelve times, or until a player makes $100,000. Additional rules arise, such as a cop who breaks up crates of whiskey or specific points when everyone gets more influence, but these rules represent the basics of the game. And if you think I discussed lots of rules just to call them basic, you’re right – these rules are extensive.
The Pieces
Bootleggers comes with staggering number of playing pieces. There are three decks of cards, roughly 20 trucks, family still cards, remote still cards, about 120 influence markers, a plethora of tiny dice and a bag full of little wooden cubes. This makes for a considerable pile of goodies, and those who like lots of pieces will delight in the enormous quantity of toys in the box.
The pieces are decent quality. There are six different colors of gangster minis, all with a reasonable amount of detail for a board game. The trucks are especially neat, with beds that just hold four crates, or more if you stack them. The pieces give Bootleggers a very tactile quality that helps to capture the feel of late night whiskey runs.
The art on for Bootleggers is good, but not incredible. The artist is obviously talented, but not about to go on to work for Wizards of the Coast. The art does a very good job of capturing the mood of the game, however, and it looks quite good. Especially on the game board and the card backs, the art is evocative enough to further the immersive quality of the game.
With quality art and cool game pieces, I would be inclined to give Bootleggers a 5 out of 5 for style – except for one thing. Eagle Games spent a lot of time making some great pieces, but they apparently ran out of steam before they were done, because there is no tray or caddy for all these elements. With more than 140 plastic miniatures, not to mention cards, dice and crates, a tray to store everything seems to be almost required. After you play, you will have to place all these myriad pieces loose in the box, from paper money and playing cards to plastic trucks and tiny dice. There are small bags for the dice and the crates, but this game is painfully bruised by the lack of a well-designed tray.
Summary
At first, the rule book is daunting. Sixteen pages of rules is a lot of rules, even if there are colorful examples. This is not a game that a ten-year-old could pick up and play, and even adults may find that they need a few turns to get the hang of it. However, once everyone has had a few turns to adjust, Bootleggers is a ton of fun. As long as an adult who knows the rules is playing, there is no reason younger kids could not join in. My eight-year-old daughter won the first two games we played, and both my children are continually pestering me to play again. I generally give in without much persuasion, because I have enjoyed playing Bootleggers. Once the complexity wears off, Bootleggers is a fun game of selling booze and shooting people that I can play with my kids. And that is just about the best of both worlds.
Style: 4 – The pieces, board and rules are all attractive, but I would have liked something to store all these damned pieces.
Substance: 4 – Complicated rules make the game a little daunting, but once everyone understands, Bootleggers is lots of fun.
