Switch & Signal - First Play!

19th May 2022

It's a Thursday and I'm enjoying an evening of gaming in Aldershot for the first time in actual years! Take that Covid-19!

Cho chooo! Switch & Signal is a cooperative board game about managing train schedules, that's right - you're playing the generously proportion controller and how do you control these schedules. With switches and signals of course!

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What's in a game?

• Board: This is a double-sided board, one side features a chunk of western Europe and the other is the continental United States. Mechanically speaking, the European side is the 'easier' to play.
  Railways: Both maps feature a brightly coloured landscape dotted with various cities (In 4 colours.) and the port Marseilles which are connected by criss-crossing railway lines. At the edge of the network are 'deployment points' numbered 2-12
  Switches: Where the railway lines intersect, there are 3 or 4 small circles on the junction, depending on whether it's a T-junction or a cross-road. These circles represent switches and are used to control the flow of rail traffic throughout the game.
  Signals: Along most lines are red-light symbols, there are also red-light symbols at every entrance to every city. These are the game's titular signals and must be managed to keep trains moving along swiftly.
  There are 9 supply spaces to place the game's 3 sets of 3 differently coloured trains.
  There are also spaces to place the game's 2 deck of cards and a 'clock' space for time tokens.
  There are also 3 portraits of 3 different characters, each of these characters are 'helpers' and has a special ability that can be made use of once per game.
  Finally, on the European side of the board there are 8 little spaces in the port of Marseille where little cubes will be delivered to. On the U.S. side, they are split over two different opposite edges of the railway network.
• Trains: These are plastic models of trains and there are 3 each in black, brown and grey. In game terms, each type of train travels at a different speed.
  Each train also has a spot to place a little wooden cube.
• Dice: Switch & Signal comes with 5 six-sided dice including a pair of normal six-siders. These are used during deployment.
  The 3 other dice are coloured black, brown and grey, which correspond with the 3 types of coloured train. These are not numbered normally and each on has a unique distribution of numbers to represent the different movements of the different types of train.
• Switches: These smaller wooden black discs are used on the board and 2 are placed on the small circles on every junction to indicate which way a particular set of junction points are facing. They can be moved around to different circles on the junction change it's alignment.
• Signals: These larger wooden green discs represent green 'go' signals and are placed on the red-light spots on the board to let trains past.
• Cubes: These are the traditional little wooden cubes we all know and love. They represent goods that need delivering to their destination, there are 8 and there are 2 each in 4 colours which correspond to the 4 coloured cities on the board.
• Cards: Switch & Signal makes use of 2 types of card.
  Departure cards: These cards feature pictures of the 3 types of train.
  If trains appear the top half of the card, they will always be 'multicoloured', it shows whether 0, 1 or 2 trains will be deployed on to the board.
  If it's in the lower half, it indicates the type of train that will move this turn.
  Frequently trains will appear on both halves of the card.
  One departure card is the starting departure card and always deploys first.
  Action cards: There are 3 types of this kind of card that allow players to perform their actions. There are switch setting, signal setting and train movement cards.
• Tokens: There are 3 types of tokens in Switch & Signal, they are all the standard type of card token.
  Time tokens: These round tokens each feature a illustration of a old-school analogue clock face and as you may imagine, used to track time.
  Location tokens: There are 11 of these octagonal tokens, which are just numbered from 2-12. These are part of the optional rules to further randomise deployment
  Cover tokens: These rectangular tokens are marked with an 'x' and are used in conjunction with the characters on the board.

Quality-wise, all of Switch & Signal's components are made to the usual high standard we've come to expect from modern game and nothing feels particularly flimsy. The game makes good use of a wooden components, especially the dice that are nicely rounded and is something I always like.
​The notable components are the little plastic trains which each contain a space to put a wooden goods cube.

The art is good, the boards are colourful and uncluttered with some nice illustrations for various cities. The art on the cards is equally good.

The game's use of iconography is straightforward, easily understood and doesn't prove an obstacle.

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On to Play
Setup
This set up is for the European beginning default game, the rules provide options to alter the game's challenge and the U.S. side has some different rules.

• Board: Put out the board and put all the trains on their allotted spaces as per their colours.
  ​Cubes: Put the cubes on to their pertinent city, thus each city will have 2 cubes in its colour.
• Time tokens: Put the 7 time tokens on their space. This number can be varied to make the game easier or more challenging.
• Switch & signals:
  Switches: Switch tokens must be put on all the junctions as shown in the rulebook. In later games, players can choose how to align these junctions.
  Signals: The game uses 8 signal tokens, they too must be placed on the map as shown in the rulebook. 1 is placed on a spot on each city and the remaining 3 are placed on spots on the railway tracks.
  Again, the starting spots can be altered in later games and the number of signal tokens can also be varied.
• Cover tokens: Place the 3 cover tokens adjacent to the 3 helpers.
• Departure cards: Shuffle the departure cards cards into face-down deck, discard 2 and place the remaining 16 their space on the board.
• Action cards: shuffle them into a face-down deck on their allotted space and deal 5 action cards to each player.
• First player: Determine a starting a player.

On to play
The objective in Switch & Signal is to collect all 8 cubes from the 4 cities using the trains and deliver them all to Marseille.
Switch & Signal functions much like a lot of cooperative games; that is the active player flips a card and resolves it's actions on the board. Then the active players takes their action(s).

• ​Departure card: The first departure card in the game is always the same and instructs players to deploy 1 train of each colour.
  After this card, the first thing the active player does at the start of their turn is flip over and resolve a departure card. This will have 2 phases.
  ​Deployment: At the top of card it will show 0, 1 or 2 multicoloured trains. If it shows 1 or 2 trains, then the active player must take many trains from the supply on the board, they can choose any of the 3 colours if they're available.
  Roll the dice: Then for each train, they must roll the deployment dice, this gives a result of 2-12 and the train must be put on the corresponding entry spot on the game board.
  If the active player cannot deploy a train for any reason, the players collectively lose 2 time tokens.
  Movement: The bottom have of the departure card will display 1, 2 or 3 trains, they may have a specific colour or may be multicoloured.
  The active player must resolve the movement of these trains in the order they are shown on the card. Thus if a card shows a brown train, then a black train, the active player must resolve movement for all brown trains on the board then all black trains on the board. The active player may choose the order in which trains of a single colour are moved.
  Additionally, if a multicoloured train is showing, then the active player must move all the trains of a single colour of their choosing. Again, the active player chooses the order in which all the trains in a specific colour are moved.
  Roll the die: When the active player moves a train, they roll the die of the matching colour and must​ move the train that many spaces along the rail track and going through the junctions as they have been set up.
  The dice do not have equal numbers and the numbers are distributed as follows.
  Grey: 1, 1, 1, 2, 2 & 3.
  Brown: 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, & 4.
  Black: 2, 3, 3, 4, 4 & 5.
  You will see that black trains for example; move much quicker than grey ones and will nearly always move the same or more spaces. It's very important to remember this distinction between trains.
  When trains move they cannot pass a red signal (A green disc must be on a red-light in order to pass it.), nor can they pass any other train. If this occurs, then the train stops at the signal or behind the other train and the active player must discard time tokens equal to the movement that was not completed. The only exception is when a train enters a city, in this case, the train will always stop, regardless of its speed at no penalty.
  Additionally: If a train went head on into another train or goes off the board through an entry point, it incurs a loss of time tokens and the train is placed back on the supply.
• Actions: Once the departure card has been resolved, the active player can take their actions, this is done by playing cards from their hand. They can play any number of cards from none to all.
  Cards have the following actions
  Switch setting: The player can play one of these cards to change the alignment of any one junction.
  Signal setting: This card allows the active player to move a signal token from any red-light to another, provided every city always has at least 1 token.
  ​Train movement: As you may have surmised, playing a train movement card allows the active player to move any single train - this is done by rolling its die.
  Wild action: By discarding any 2 action cards, the active player may carry out any one of the above 3 actions.
  Load train: When an unloaded train is in a city with an available cube, the active player may discard any action card to load the cube on to the train.
• Other rules:
  Helpers: Each of the 3 helpers can be used once per game and provide a once-only benefit. When a helper has completed their action, use a cover token to cover their ability.
  Delivery: When a train the port city (in this case Marseilles.), if it carrying a goods cube it's automatically unloaded and the cube is put on its relevant delivery spot. The train is returned to the supply.
  Time tokens: You'll have noticed that when things go wrong, the players will be asked to discard 1 or more time tokens.
  What happens when they run out? Then the players must discard a departure card and then replenish the supply of time tokens. Losing a departure card might not sound so bad but believe me.. it is!
• End of turn: Once the active player has used all the action cards they can or want to, they draw 5 move action cards with a maximum hand size of 10.
  Play then progresses to the player on their left.

Endgame
Play continues until one of the following conditions is met.
If the players run out of departure cards and they have to draw one, then they collectively lose.
If all 8 cubes are delivered, then the players immediately win.

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Overall
If you play a lot of cooperative games, the basic mechanics will be familiar here:
Turn over a card and resolve it's action which will create obstacles for the players, then have them perform some actions and choose between progressing the objective or mitigating the problems caused by the drawing of cards.
Rinse and repeat.

Something about Switch & Signal feels a little different though. Maybe its because the departure cards are so contextual.
The trains being moved by the departure cards are both the cause of problems for players and also the means to victory. On more than one occasion, we wanted to move a train but didn't want to spend a card to do so, instead we left it to the 'game' and departure cards to do the job for us.
​It's pretty rare for players to want the 'bad things happen' card to actually do something in a cooperative game.

How trains are moved is vital. Not only do players have to move them into cities to pick up goods, they'll need to manage the different speeds they move at. Getting a fast train behind a slower one is a disaster, no two ways about it.
This is exacerbated by the random nature in which trains are deployed on to the board by the dice.

Players will also to manage the titular switches and signals. They'll look to create clear routes with full green lights to the port and funnel trains down that route in the correct order.
It's a real balancing act though, it's hard to get the junction points where you want them and there's are never enough green lights.

I have to say, that when it works, it feels extremely satisfying.
I've never been a train controller but Switch & Signal genuinely makes me feel a little like one as I think about how to prioritise trains and set up routes with minimum card expenditure.

This brings me to a final point about the game. I said earlier that being forced to discard a departure card is not good and I meant it!
Switch & Signal is a well balanced game and it seemed every victory, every loss came down to the wire, came down to the last departure card or two and losing one felt very risky.
I found it a lot of fun.

If you like train-themed games, Switch & Signal is worth a look, how many cooperative trains games are there?
​If you like cooperative games, you really should give this a try. It's blend of familiar and unique mechanics makes it easy to get into yet different to other cooperative games.