Bad Company Board Game | Gang Heist Themed Set Collection Strategy Game | Fun Family Game for Kids and Adults | Ages 8+ | 1-6 Players | Average Playtime 30-45 Minutes | Made by Matagot

Took a bit to figure out the rules but it was a fun game. Not too complicated to try for the first time on a game night and a refreshing change from card-based games.

This game is a favorite with my family. It has the vibes of Space Base, but there are other objectives you are trying to complete. Good combination of strategy and luck. I'd probably say 60% luck, 40% strategy. Easy to learn, as the instructions are pretty clear. It also helps to watch a how to play video, but not required.

OVERVIEW: Bad Company is a one to six player competitive European style engine building game. Released in 2021, it is about becoming the most notorious criminal gang in the city. Players compete to pull off heists, stay ahead of the police, and expand their gangs, in a race for points that plays in less than an hour. Turns are quickly resolved by rolling five six sided dice, which determines the progress of the police, and the specific gang members that can be activated to help commit heists, earn money, or evade the police. Each time the active player chooses two gang members, every non-active player can activate one of those two corresponding members of their own gangs, keeping everyone involved. There are a number special abilities and prizes players can collect along the way, but the core of this game is a race for points before someone reaches the end of the track.SCALABILITY: Bad Company allows for up to six players, but I recommend four or less. A fifth or sixth player would advance the police much too quickly, and create table space logistics issues in relation to the large player gang boards. The solo game provides a very different experience, as it becomes a race against the police. Unlike the multi-player game where you are penalized when the police catch you, in the solo game if they catch you, you lose. Plus the police always move one extra space in the solo game, making it a challenge to stay ahead.ACCESSIBILITY: Despite Bad Company's theme of organized crime, the cartoonish gang members and ridiculous gang names offer a more light hearted appeal. It isn't too difficult to learn, and the player aid cards are incredibly helpful. Bad Company feels like a classic traditional European style game, with aspects of American style gimmicks and randomness woven throughout, giving it an international flavor. This game is for strategic players who thrive on adapting to random challenges.COMPONENTS: Where Bad Company soars on innovation and creativity, it fails on components. The wooden tokens are serviceable, all the cards are decent quality, but the player gang boards are a bit thin, and there are a lot of standard cardboard tokens involved. The biggest issue is the two main game boards. Instead of incorporating the entire design on one larger board, the game is broken into two smaller boards prone to warping. The main board displays the track on which players evade the police. The other board tracks the cost of upgrading your gang members, and a tiny track around the outer edge tracks your overall points. The design is impractical and inconvenient for gameplay, and unattractive in the center of the table.DICE MECHANIC: Four white dice and one black dice are rolled at the beginning of each turn. The black dice determines how far the police advance. Players pair the four white dice to produce two numbers from two through twelve, similar to the classic game, 'Can't Stop'. These numbers trigger corresponding gang members to take action. Absent any analysis paralysis, this keeps the game moving quickly. Once the active player chooses two numbers, every other player can also activate a gang member corresponding to one of those two numbers. This simultaneous action mechanic keeps everyone invested because there is always something to do, even if it isn't your turn.GANG MECHANICS: Every player has two pieces that fit together to form their gang of eleven people, numbered two through twelve. Each gang member shows a symbol related to progressing heists, earning money, or evading the police, which can be activated through pairs of white dice equal to each gang member's number. Players can pay a progressively increasing rate to upgrade gang members three through eleven with additional abilities and endgame points. Numbers two and twelve are always static, offering progress on any heist or progress against the police, respectively.HEIST AND NECKLACE MECHANIC: Every heist has a different set of criteria to solve, a different amount and type of loot involved, and a different reward for completion. Rewards range from endgame points, additional scoring options, and special abilities. Players have the opportunity to score additional endgame points by winning necklaces for stealing the most of each type of loot (money bags, gold bars, diamonds, and paintings). These necklaces can be taken back and forth by players scoring more loot than each other. As the necklaces hold no value beyond what can be exploited during gameplay, players are in a race to claim them and use them while they can.SPECIAL ABILITIES: The real game changers in this system are the special abilities that can be won through heists or picked up along the track. These special abilities offer free rerolls, allow players to choose numbers adjacent to the ones rolled, and allow non-active players to activate both numbers on opposing players' turns. These abilities are permanent game altering advantages that traditional gamers might not appreciate. These abilities are all on designated cards which can be excluded for a more controlled game.PROS: Bad Company is a short and simple, fast paced and light hearted, progressive race, offering multiple strategies to victory. Although it is relatively easy to learn, it takes one playthrough to really understand all of the deeper strategic decisions available, making it accessible to casual and hard core gamers alike. Bad Company is incredibly easy to set up and tear down, making resetting for a second game very appealing. The dice mechanics and short game length allows it to scale much better than most other games, with fast turns and strategic decisions on opposing player turns.CONS: The two small game boards are the elephants in the room. They are ridiculously small, and poorly designed, as if they were an afterthought. This is not something that card sleeves or coin capsules can fix. It's a pretty embarrassing center piece for gamers who appreciate a strong table presence. The gang boards are kind of thin, and let's not get started on the cardboard tokens. The concept is kind of goofy, and the hybrid Euro-American nature of the mechanics might not sit well with some gamers. Sure, you will probably play a second game, but beyond that? It's a novelty game with an ugly center piece. How many times is this going to hit the table?CONCLUSION: There is no doubt that Bad Company has a major design issue in the two main boards. That being said, this is a fast, fun, and exciting game to play. It can get deeply strategic, and one special ability can change everything, but the game is so quick that this has minimal impact. The thrill is in the constant choices and surprises players encounter in such a compressed amount of time. I may not play Bad Company more than two times in a row, but it always comes back out for a return visit to the table.

Love this board game

Bad Company is a fun, little engine-building game along the same vein as games like Space Base. Players take turns rolling dice and activating their gang members corresponding to the rolls of the dice. The gang members will either earn the player cash, tokens to be placed on heist cards/the player board, or advance their getaway card on the track. Afterwards, players can upgrade the gang members to give more rewards in the future or complete heists or tasks for immediate or future bonuses.What makes the game stand out is that all players can do all actions on every turn, so there is practically no downtime for anyone, instead the active dice roller just gets a bit of a bonus compared to everyone else. There are also quite a few different paths to victory as players can try for big point heists, constant trickles of points, buying victory points directly with cash, and so on, so games don't dwindle down to everyone going for the same play. The player mats are also slightly different and are divided in two parts allowing for a variable setup, helping games play out differently.My main criticism comes from the components themselves. The wooden tokens are not the right size for the game board, with either the tokens being too big and/or the board being too small. If more than 3 players were on the same space on any track, they would start spilling out of the space provided. It was also very common to see the score tokens being knocked out of place as they were incredibly easy to bump when moving the upgrade meeples around (and if they were a tower, also a common occurrence, they would go rolling as they were round instead of square). My group felt that a lot of these issues could've been resolved by having the board around 25% larger than what it is. Also, as a minor nitpick, the larger of the player boards fits almost too well in the box insert, needing you to flip over the box to get them out as there's no room on any side to grab them.

Great game, a little like Space Base but with a little less downtime (with our game group at least) because upgrading ("recruiting") is done by looking at three cards from a deck and choosing one, rather than keeping track of more than a dozen cards on offer (as in Space Base). The fact that you're doing something on everybody's turn is a great plus! Also, on your turn you're rolling five dice: one tells you how many spaces the police car is going (you want to stay ahead of it) and the other four you're grouping into two sets of two ... so it's a little thinkier in that regard. Plays up to 6 players ... we played it with 4 and it went very well.

I've been waiting for this game for a while and it's ok. No one really wants to play with me though

Would've been a perfect rating if I wasn't missing 3 of the golden dice that was supposed to be in the pack. I think it's a factory error since the box was sealed when sent to me.Edit: sent a request on the Matagot website and they responded that they'd send the missing dice to me directly. Hope they come!