Mount Washington joins Jungfraubahn and Bayerische Zugspitzbahn to complete a “trilogy” of snow scenarios. Jungfraubahn remains one of my favourite scenarios I’ve covered in this series and while I don’t think Bayerische Zugspitzbahn did snow quite as well, I liked its experimentation with the surveyor. Mount Washington promises us snow again, alongside some dynamite blasting and surveyor sledding. Can it topple Jungfraubahn? Let’s find out!
Track and Snow
Snow here works the same as Bayerische Zugspitzbahn. Rather than fill a number of spaces back up to their rubble maximum like Jungfraubahn, Mount Washington instead adds 2 to a number of spaces. This causes a minor slowdown to proceedings which is important given there are only 10 track cards in play (at all player counts). A fun feature of snow is that it can add rubble back onto spaces that were excavated by the game, making them available for players to take advantage of again. Excitingly for this scenario, there are *a lot* of high value excavation station spaces, meaning snow can create some very big scoring opportunities. If snow is on the weather track, keep an eye on it!
Stations and Surveyor
These are some really good stations. 2 stone for 6VP or 1 steel for 11VP are incredible ratios. As are the many excavation spaces worth 5+ VP.
Surveyors aren’t playing their usual game. Instead, at the end of the scenario, they all sled down the mountain. The catch is yours only goes as far as the first station in which you don’t have an ownership marker. This means if you have an ownership marker in every station, your surveyor will make it to the bottom and score another 11VP on top of the already strong station points.
The B and E actions are going to be busy in this scenario and the early stone is going to be grabbed fast. You don’t want to be left behind because if all the spaces in a station get taken without you, your surveyor will be cut off from the otherwise free VP. Pay extra attention to the Summit, you could get a building in every other station on the line and still score 0 for your surveyor if you don’t manage to get a space there. A thought as chilling as the snow.
New G action - Excavation with dynamite
Since the surveyors are doing all their movement for free at the end of the game, there is a new G action - excavating with dynamite. Firstly, do not let previous scenarios confuse you here, there is no dynamite resource to be collected or spent, it’s more of a thematic implication. The effect however, is very similar. You spend your first work rate removing all the rubble from the next station space and then use your remaining work rate excavating as normal. You don’t keep the rubble from the space that you blasted, but you do get to place your ownership marker on it if it was a station excavation space.
This action is fantastic. You could potentially use it on the last station to get 16VP and 3 rubble for just one worker. But it also makes the excavation timing puzzle trickier. Make sure to take what’s happening over on the B action into account when you place a worker on this action!
Trains
No.9 Foundry Loco
The Foundry Loco also made an appearance in Jungfraubahn. Its ability gives you 2/3rds of an action… but I think it’s rare you’ll efficiently use all 5 conversions enough times to beat out say, the 9VP offered by No. 4 Snowdon.
There are a lot of juicy steel spaces in this scenario though and track is scarce. If you can spend the early game getting 5 steel with this, you will remain an active threat on the board for a long time.
No.10 Old Peppersass
This is a bit more exciting as building is already tied for best thing to be doing in this scenario. Everyone will want stone so this can also really save you if you're struggling to get to the stockyard before others.
Contracts
The Deluxe Master Set gives Mount Washington a full 30 card contract deck all to itself, but 22 of them are a direct reprint of the core deck, 5 more of those are just the cosmetic change on the back from fog to snow. That production oddity aside, we have 3 new contracts to look at.
27 appeals because the E action will frequently be full so this offers more access. Good.
28 awards you 7VP if you don’t own a train at the end of the game. Great.
29 offers extra VP for sledding further by building in more stations. This is even further reward for doing the best thing in the game. Excellent.
A small footnote - with only 10 track on the board, the bigger track contracts will be tougher to score. That said, most players will be elbowing for station spaces so there’s room to slip through with some VP here if you need a backup plan.
Events
The complete station event is gone, replaced by this snow event. Players will be voraciously completing stations anyway but this ensures that an event can’t suddenly cut you off from a good surveyor score which is nice. Some unexpected snow from the event track could shake up the game quite a lot so remember it’s not just the weather track that can cause it.
The lay track event on space 9 is also gone, meaning the game will only end when a player chooses to end it. Keep an eye on the track progression because a player that feels they’re ahead has heavy incentives to end things fast.
Jaya’s design thoughts
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Snowdonia when it gets more interactive. The design of the stations in this scenario along with the explosive new G action create a really tight incentive funnel for everyone to fight through. As a result, I like this scenario because it will really reward watching your competition, figuring out when to strike and when you’ll need to find alternative plans.
The snow then has the potential for significant shifts of the situation on the board, which again, brings out the delicious tactical core of Snowdonia that rewards continuous adaptability above any one single plan.
It’s a pretty simple one, there’s very few new rules to learn. But it’s a very different game from Mount Snowdon. If you’re all experienced, this one will get cutthroat.
Does it topple Jungfraubahn? It’s really close but Jungfraubahn comes out on top. The harsher snow, the variability of track length and dynamite being a resource just makes it that touch more interesting for me.
Which of the 3 snow scenarios is your favourite? Let me know in the comments!
Leave a comment