Ticket to Ride

## Overview

*All aboard the Smash Up Express! This faction will go across the board looking to see all the sights and explore all the bases using colorful train cars. If you manage to create the Trans-Continental Railroad, your destinations will arrive sooner than you might think!*

Ticket to Ride will spread its base modifiers to as many bases as possible and reward you when you get enough of them out. The modifiers can also be revealed from your hand or deck for other effects.

### Details

#### General

* Name: Ticket to Ride
* Author: Berryl
* Complexity: 4/5
* Version: 1.3
* Last updated: March 8, 2023

#### Mechanics

* Subtypes
* Stack Shuffle

### Breakdown

This faction has the standard 10 minions and 10 actions. This faction has the standard 30 total minion power or an average minion power of 3. Among their actions, they have:

* 0 play-on-minion actions
* 6 play-on-base actions: Locomotive, Coal Car, Boxcar, Freight Car, Passenger Car, Caboose
* 4 standard actions, 0 of which directly affect one or minions: 2x Full Steam Ahead, 2x Cross-Country Line

### Minions (10)

* **1x Trainmaster (5):** You may play a card from the top of the base deck. Talent: Return one of your actions on a base to your hand. You may play a Train as an extra action on a base where you have no Trains.
* **2x Conductor (4):** Talent: Transfer one of your actions to another base. You may move one of your minions from the action’s original base to the same base.
* **3x Rail Engineer (3):** You may play a Train on this base as an extra action. Ongoing: At the start of your turn, you may reveal a Train in your hand and shuffle it into the top 3 cards of your deck. Use the Rail Engineer Ongoing ability only once per turn.
* **4x Passenger (2):** Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal a Train, draw it, and shuffle the rest into the deck.

### Actions (10)

* **2x Full Steam Ahead:** Reveal your hand and play a Train in it as an extra action.
* **2x Cross-Country Line:** If you have a Train on at least 3 bases, until the end of the turn your Trains each gain the ability “Ongoing: This base’s breakpoint is reduced by 3.”
* **1x Locomotive (Train):** Play on a base. Talent: If you have no other Trains here, transfer this action to another base to move one of your minions from here to there. Special: After this card is revealed from your hand or deck, you may play an extra minion of power 3 or less.
* **1x Coal Car (Train):** Play on a base. Talent: If you have no other Trains here, this base gains the ability “minions here have -1 power” until the start of your turn. Special: After this card is revealed from your hand or deck, give all of your minions +1 power until the end of the turn.
* **1x Boxcar (Train):** Play on a base. Talent: If you have a minion here, look at one card from the top of your deck for each base where you have a Train, then return them to the top and/or bottom of your deck in any order. Special: After this card is revealed from your hand or deck, draw a card.
* **1x Freight Car (Train):** Play on a base. Talent: Give one of your minions here +1 power until the end of the turn for each base where you have a Train. Special: After this card is revealed from your hand or deck, return a minion of power 3 or less to its owner’s hand.
* **1x Passenger Car (Train):** Play on a base. Talent: If you have a minion here and no other Trains here, you may shuffle a minion from your discard pile into the top 3 cards of your deck. Special: After this card is revealed from your hand or deck, shuffle an action from your discard pile into the top 3 cards of your deck.
* **1x Caboose (Train):** Play on a base. Special: After this base scores, if you were the winner, move one of your minions here to another base. After this card is revealed from your hand or deck, you may move any minion to or from a base where you have a Train.

## Clarifications

* **Trainmaster:** The extra base is permanent.
* **Cross-Country Line:** Trains played later in the turn still inherit the granted ability.

## Strategy

### General

Ticket to Ride wants to spread its Train base modifiers to as many bases as possible while also revealing Trains from its hand or deck for extra effects. Balancing which Trains are played and which are kept to be revealed is extremely important. There are ways to double-tap them, such as playing the Trains with Full Steam Ahead or returning them to hand with Trainmaster, but this won't cover all your bases. All six of the Trains have carefully chosen abilities to make the decision between playing and holding them worthwhile.

Which standard actions you draw should influence what you do with your Trains as well; if you draw Full Steam Ahead, leave Trains in your hand for a big chunk of reveals. If you draw Cross-Country Line (aka Transcontinental Railroad), play your Trains onto as many bases as possible. Trainmaster will help, especially in low player counts, by giving you extra breathing room to stage Trains and spread out your engine (pun intended). Cross-Country Line is generally harder to set up properly than Full Steam Ahead, but it can lead to very big convergence plays or multi-base attacks.

Passengers are very valuable minions, as not only do they guarantee you a Train in hand, but by definition they reveal a Train, meaning their ability comes with more attached to it than might appear at first glance. Rail Engineers are amazing engines for repeatedly revealing the Trains you want to keep in hand, but remember that you can't immediately repeat a particular Train due to the stack shuffle, and this will slow down your draw. Conductors are good for converging your assets, particularly after Cross-Country Line; most of the Trains' in-play abilities are built around staying alone until you want to break bases with CCL, and after that point are convergence-friendly.

Ticket to Ride lacks ways to retrieve the Trains from the discard pile, making the decision to play a Train that much more impactful. The faction may have a hard time against action destruction or losing bases with Trains prematurely.

### Partner Suggestions

Although TTR is generally somewhat self-sufficient, a couple key ingredients to round out its kit are terminal minions and action recursion. A partner that offers one or both of these will be very valuable.

#### Published

* **Dragons:** This faction offers both of the above criteria with extra area control capabilities as icing on the cake.
* **Time Travelers:** Time Box is extremely helpful to TTR, and Repeater Perfect has no shortage of good candidates to retrieve. Spamming Trainmaster with Do-Over is an option but not advisable unless you want to lose friends.
* **Killer Plants:** Sprouts to grab Rail Engineers and Venus Man Trap to grab Passengers are both highly desirable. Trainmaster can bounce Overgrowth after it triggers to go for another round. Blossom into three Passengers can be huge if you know you have three Trains left to draw.
* **Werewolves:** Ticket to Ride has plenty of talents for the Great Wolf Spirit to double, and you can pull the same Trainmaster trick on Marking Territory as you do with Overgrowth.

## Author Notes

This faction was really fun to design. It combines a lot of aspects of my favorite factions both published and custom, including Polynesian Voyagers and Astronomers. It also came together unusually quickly, which perhaps was aided by two failed drafts of TTR factions preceding it made by other people for the Board Game Bonanza - this version simply tied the concepts those early versions were trying to get at and sprinkled in some influence from Astronomers and it just worked.