Alvin And Dexter: A Ticket To Ride Monster Expansion Review

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(More customer reviews)Yes, the theme is crazy. An alien and a Godzilla-like monster terrorizing the Ticket to Ride maps? Amazingly, though, this is an effective and surprisingly deep expansion for the series. And while the theme is a little "out there," it adds loads of depth to the gameplay.
Players can move Alvin the alien and Dexter the monster across the board by playing a locomotive card as a free turn. Playing one locomotive allows the player to move a monster up to three cities away, and playing two locomotives allows the player to move a monster up to six cities. This is a free action--the player still draws, plays trains, or draws tickets on his or her turn. The player then takes a card from either the Alvin or the Dexter deck (each has their own little deck of cards) and places it faceup in front of them. This stays faceup until the end of that players next turn. While that card is faceup, nobody else may move that monster.
When a monster occupies a city, that city becomes a "City in Chaos," and no new trains may be placed in or out of that city. This is where the strategy really comes in to play. Ticket to Ride tends to be more of a solo game, where each player is trying to play routes and complete their tickets. A player can block another by playing trains, but they have to spend their turn doing so. With this expansion, there is more opportunity to attack the other players.
At the end of the game, any tickets with cities that Alvin or Dexter currently occupy are worth half of their value, rounded down. Near the end of the game, then, players are going to want to place the monsters in cities that they think are on their opponents' tickets. Or, they will place them in cities that are on their own tickets that they don't think are completable. A well-placed monster at the end of the game can drastically change the outcome. If your opponent has two tickets coming out of Los Angeles, and you place Dexter in Los Angeles at the end of the game, your opponent will suffer in the final scoring.
The other incentive to move the monsters is that at the end of the game, whoever has moved Alvin the most receives 15 points, and whoever has moved Dexter the most receives 15 points. 30 points can drastically change the outcome of the game.
While small, this expansion adds enough strategy to make it worthwhile. Plus, at only 13 dollars, it's a steal. It breathes new life into an already great game. Buy it!

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Meet Alvin and Dexter - two detailed monster figures that bring their own special brand of chaos to cities across the Ticket to Ride landscape. Alvin (the Alien) and Dexter (the Dinosaur) are two wacky characters ready to help you stomp opponents and zap tickets in this fun expansion. But don't take them too lightly, they also introduce a devious new tactical layer to the game.The last two players to start get to place the monsters in different cities on any Ticket to Ride map. It doesn't matter which map - Alvin and Dexter are just as adept at rampaging through London, Zurich or Stockholm as they are in New York or San Francisco. Once a monster moves in, it's now a City in Chaos - no one can build a new route into or out of that city until the monster moves on. This is an expansion. An original copy of any complete board game from the Ticket to Ride series is required to play with the Alvin and Dexter Monster Expansion.

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