Review of New York 1901: Painted Figures

Blurb from the publisher: 'The New York 1901: Painted Figures contains 16 hand painted figurines plus one game variant for New York 1901.'

What you get: Your EUR 15 or equivalent will buy you New York 1901: Painted Figures, an expansion for the New York 1901 game line that was started by New York 1901, a 2 to 4 player gateway boardgame that lasts from 30 to 60 minutes. As the blurb states, the expansion is comprised of 16 hand-painted miniatures and a small variant in eight languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and Russian).

The product's title on the actual box might be misleading, seeing how it only reads New York 1901 Limited Edition, without any mention to Painted Figures. It is however a small and semi-transparent box, something that makes the content rather obvious. This is not an independent game. You need the original New York 1901 to enjoy the hand-painted miniatures in their natural environment. Assuming that the Limited Edition seal is true, and I have no reason to believe that it will not be, this item will not be in the market for long.

Gameplay: The sixteen figures are identical to the ones included in the basic game, namely a young builder resting his hand on a metal column. Here however the figures are hand-painted to the last detail of his belt buckle. The four hand-painted minis should be used instead of the single-coloured ones in the game. One of the old ones however will fulfill an additional function. At the beginning of the game each player places one of his old, monochromatic workers, in a major street (not an intersection); there are five of them and four players, as you remember. At the end of the game, if a player has majority control of the street he placed his old worker on (no ties), he scores 3 additional points.

The strong points: This is clearly an eye-candy expansion. The rule addition is just two lines long; one will need less than 5 seconds to explain it and start playing. Clever as it is, it is not something that one couldn't have thought on his own in order to provide a simple little twist to this light gateway game.

The real attraction of the present expansion are the miniatures. In one word, they are beautiful. They have an air of high quality toy about them, and look great from all angles. The facial expression of each worker is very well done; it's almost as if the little guy is optimistic, proud and very confident about what he does. There is no comparison between using these miniature and the old ones, even though they have the exact same design.

I wasn't sure these miniatures would fit in the plastic tray of the basic game along with the older components, yet miraculously they did. I am very happy for that.

The weak points: There is really no game here. You can incorporate the extra rule I just described without buying the expansion. If you buy it, it's because you would like to play New York 1901 with pretty hand-painted miniatures. If this is not to your liking, then you are probably not the target group for this expansion.

Conclusion: New York 1901: Painted Figures is exclusively about the miniatures. In that sense it is less of a game and more of an accessory. Light gamers can definitely find it of interest if they prefer pimping up an existing game instead of buying a new one. I know I did.

To find out more about New York 1901: Painted Figures and Blue Orange, take a look at http://www.blueorangegames.eu/en.

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