Pandemic: on review of marginal expansion

Could there be anything worse than destroying the world's population by four diseases? Certainly not.

What about five diseases? And one of them mutates. Oh, and why not throw a bioterrorist there too?

If you thought cooperative titanium Pandemic couldn’t get more terribly intense, think again! See the full Pandemic: In the overview of the Brink board game extension below.

Pandemic spread: on the brink

THIS IS AN EXPANSION OF THE PANDEMIC BOARD GAME: You will need a Pandemic ...
Raise your stakes and face new challenges with this expansion: ...
THREE MAINTENANCE NEW CHALLENGES: Challenge 1: One disease could ...

A brief overview of the pandemic: on the brink

Most GameCows readers have probably played Pandemic before - and there are undoubtedly some stories that have made it a legend among their friends.

For those unfamiliar, Pandemic is a group collaborative game that tackles you, a rough and ready team of disease experts, with the spread of four deadly diseases. Your mission is to cross the globe , on a mission to cure and cure disease before destroying humanity. (NOTE: make sure you also check out Bryan’s wonderful review and complete guide to the original pandemic ).

On the edge is one of many extensions , adding additional player roles, additional special events to mix things up, and three new modules that change the nature of the game.

For those who feel like they’ve played a pandemic to the end (the health community has already called for it to be added to the WHO Infectious Diseases List), On The Brink allows you to tackle the game with brand new strategies. Three additional modules give a new look to the game when you want to change things up a bit.

Variations and extensions

Didn't you try the original pandemic? Stop reading now and go Play . (You still need the original to play on the edge ...)

Pandemic has a TON of amazing versions and extensions. They are all so good that we wrote an article about it.

Pandemic unpacking: on the edge

Pandemic: An extension of the Brink board game

It’s important to note that On The Brink is an extension, so if you haven’t owned it originally , you’ll need to buy it first. In the field you will find:

Components:

1 Rules
7 deposit cards
7 pussies
8 tickets for events
12 disease cubes
1 Drying mark
1 Drying indicator
1 drying indicator card
3 mutation cards
2 Mutation cards
5 petrijevk
4 blank cards
6 virus strain cards
1 Bioterrorist location

The first thing pandemic fans will notice are small Petri dishes in which you can store disease cubes. They have no impact on the game itself, but they are a nice themed addition and help keep things beautiful and tidy.

You will also see 12 new cubes of purple disease. While you may be expecting 24, don’t worry (or maybe you should worry), you don’t miss any. No. This new disease intentionally only has 12 cubes, which means it can wipe you out twice as fast!

The benefit is that the box is large enough to fit all the original components. This way you can easily keep everything beautiful together in one place

How to play a pandemic: on the edge

The basics of the game are the same as the original pandemic. In the beginning, however, you’ll be able to choose from six additional roles: archivist, containment specialist, epidemiologist (which is a lot of fun to say), field operative (less), general, and troubleshooting.

With new roles and additional special events, you can continue to play Pandemic as usual. However, this means that you can develop completely new strategies and techniques to stop the spread of the four diseases. Among the special events that have been added is a commercial travel ban that reduces the infection rate to one for one round of turns or inadvertent remote treatment that allows you to remove two disease cubes from anywhere on board.

The most notable additions, however, are three new game modules (or “challenges”) that I will briefly introduce.

Virulent strain

In this challenge, one of the diseases got worse. Each epidemiological map that comes into play adds a new feature of Virulent Strain disease, making it harder to beat. What’s more, it’s often about lasting effects that last through the game. The longer it goes, the stronger it gets - very similar to a fine wine , only much less tasty.

At first, you may find that your Virulent strain has a complex molecular structure, which means you need to submit six city maps instead of five to eradicate it. However, if you’re incredibly lucky, you may even find that there’s an undiscovered hidden pocket of disease that will require you to put Virulent Strain cubes back on the board, even if you’ve already eradicated it.

Mutation

The mutation challenge leads to a series of heel, purple disease. In this case, you need to cure all the diseases or cure the original four to win, and no purple cubes should remain on the board.

The way it enters the game works a little differently than other diseases:

If a mutation card is drawn, you must take the infection card to the bottom of the infected deck, which brings another location into play.
Mutation Event Cards - Usually drawn from a game board. If it appears, you must follow the rules on the card. As you’re probably guessing, they’re not good and they’ll see how purple disease threatens, spreads, and then intensifies throughout the game.
Infectious Cards - If a site has a purple cube and its infection card is drawn (regardless of color), you must add a purple cube and a cube of that color.

Another important fad of purple disease is how to eradicate it. To do this, you can discard five cards of any suit. There must be a purple cube on one of these cards. The effect is that it is easier to cure with the spread of purple disease. However, since it only has 12 dice in total, you are also much closer to losing!

Bio-terrorist

The final challenge is the most controversial. In this version of the game, a member of your party becomes an enemy and takes on the role of a bioterrorist. This adds a whole new dimension to the game. Instead of striving to eradicate just four diseases, you must also tackle the evil deeds of an evil genius who seeks to destroy humanity by spreading their violent purple disease (a comic evil voice is not obligatory but encouraging).

The bio-terrorist does not move around the board, but secretly plans their moves and records their position on the attached block of paper. The job of the other players is to figure out where they are and, hopefully, catch them.

As a bio-terrorist, you can be quite adept. You can move along the paths of each player, even if you only have three actions and not four. This can infect the city where you are, infect the city whose card you have in your hand, or even remove research stations if you really want to annoy people.

Your first pandemic game: on the edge

If you’ve come this far, you’re probably already well aware of the intricacies of playing Pandemic. However, there are a few things to keep in mind in this enlargement.

First, as mentioned in Bryan’s review of The Best Pandemic Extensions , if you’re playing with a few newcomers or you have one player who usually dictates the game by interfering with other people’s turns, why not make them bio-terrorists? This gives the less dominant players the opportunity to make their own decisions, and they can remove some of the frustrating things according to the rules of the game.

If you want to make things extremely difficult, you can combine modules by facing two challenges at once. Keep in mind that you need purple cubes for the challenges of mutation and bioterrorism, so you can’t play with active modules.

To make things interesting, make sure you mix and match the roles you choose. In the original Pandemic, all combinations of seven roles between four people could be quickly spent. If you add seven more, there is a whole new level of variation.

Of course, due to their special abilities, it is very tempting to choose Medic and Scientist for each game, but give other combinations a chance. It seems to me that a generalist whose special ability is to do five acts instead of four is often overlooked. But you will find that one extra step at each step is very helpful!

Advantages disadvantages

Advantages:

Even more repeatability
It can now be played with five people
A new competitive element

There are a lot of downsides to thinking about here, as the original game was so good. The main advantage is new roles and special events that will encourage you to think about completely new ways to win the game (or as usual loss). You can play three Pandemic games and send three almost completely different teams.

The possibility of playing with five people is also a great advantage, as it solves the unpleasant moment when one of your permanent members asks you to bring your boyfriend / girlfriend with you to meet everyone in a quick game.

Weaknesses:

New modules can age quickly
The bio-terrorism module is not for everyone

While it may seem a bit risky to introduce a competing element into one of the world’s favorite joint games, the introduction of new modules offers some welcome changes. Above all, we enjoyed the human element that the bioterrorist contributes to the spread of disease, rather than the movement of your enemy simply dictating the cards.

However, the modules are limited in scope. As if the game wasn’t hard enough yet, the bioterrorist’s job seemed too easy. Not to mention, after a few games, we ended up longing for the thing that made Pandemic so good - playing as part of one team.

TL; DR

For avid pandemic fans, the extra roles and events featured on On The Brink are a great way to spice up the game and make it even more repeatable. The new modules are a fun addition, but we’ll probably overlook them over time in favor of the original rules we all know and love. However, this does not detract from the great value that this extension adds to the original.

Conclusion - verdict?

Adding On The Brink to your arsenal is nothing special for anyone who regularly destroys disease. The new modules bring with them a whole new kind of challenge, while it’s great if you have the option to introduce a fifth player.

Some players may get a little tired of the new modules over time, but additional roles and special events in the coming years will fit perfectly into your usual pandemic sessions - I often find help from a generalist or containment expert when playing with a friend who only owns the original. .

For avid Pandemic fans (basically everyone who has played Pandemic), the extra roles and events presented in The The Brink are a great way to spice up the game, even if after six months you decide to leave the new modules on one side.

Pandemic spread: on the brink