Oops, We Missed Something #3

Colt Express: Horses & Stagecoach

We don't play Colt Express often, so it takes longer to encounter a scenario that makes us question whether we're doing something right.

Hostages

The setup when you use the stagecoach expansion tells you to take the deck of hostages, draw a number of them equal to one less than the number of players, and display them face-up near the stagecoach. When you enter the stagecoach, if you don't have a hostage, you must take one of the available hostages. Clearly, then, you choose which one you take. Some of them have a disadvantage, so you wouldn't want them unless you have no other choice, but they're all worth something at the end of the game.

Stagecoach Access

To get to the stagecoach, you use the Ride action, hop on a horse (if there's one next to your train car), and then ride the horse to where the stagecoach is, and dismount into the stagecoach. Alternatively, you can move between the roof of the stagecoach and the train car next to it. On the roof of the train, you can move up to 3 spaces, and one of those moves can be "L-shaped" and let you hop on the stagecoach. From the stagecoach, you can move to the train and then a further 2 spaces.

Our Dilemma Combined These Concepts

First of all, we used the whole hostage deck, face-down, and a blind draw you had no control over. So thematic, right? Shane was the first one into the stagecoach in our recent game, and blindly drew the Nun who prevents you from riding horses. No big loss there. Shane also stole the strongbox, activating the shotgun guy who jumps to the train car adjacent to the stagecoach. Shane climbed up to the stagecoach roof, and on his next turn, jumped to the train. He landed on the shotgun guy, who gave him a neutral bullet, and kicked him into an adjacent train roof.

Second, we thought to move between roofs, you had to use a full movement action. It technically made the game harder for no reason, but it didn't really pose a problem before. In this recent game, the final round card, the Station car, indicated that to win, you had to escape the train, either by horse or stagecoach. Because Shane couldn't ride a horse, he could only use the stagecoach. But to get to the stagecoach would require moving to the train car next to it, then using a movement turn to jump over. But the shotgun guy is always next to the stagecoach, and you can't end your turn in his space, he kicks you out, and you don't have the option of being kicked out to the stagecoach. So as far as we were aware, before we had even played cards, Shane was unable to escape the train, and had already lost the game. He would have won, otherwise, he had done of work a lot to collect money. So, we just agreed to swap out the Station card and continued the game.