Let's Play PANDEMIC | Board Game Club

Love the weird post lunch mood here tbh

"Now we just need to survive until it is my turn again and we will be fine." Classic Pandemic.

I love this board game, but it can really screw you if you aren't paying attention. (we went from like one outbreak to being avalanched into a game over in two turns)

if this game was invented before Corona, then it aged like a cup of McDonald's soda left outside for half a year.

Laurie with Heal The World monologue is a W. Michael Jackson FTW.

they practically spent the first 10 minutes of the video giggling at each other like beavis and butthead and i love it

I love how Laurie(sp?)'s beard is brownish-red in the main room, but the lighting in the solo interview segments sometimes makes his beard almost bright yellow :)

Am I the only one who notices that the location cards are displayed upside down (or the world map on them is upside down)

Every time any of you said "The world" I paused the video for 7-9 seconds before continueing cuz of a Jojo meme....

A really investive game, but I can't help to mention that Essen is in Denmark (on the boardgame), and it is triggering me so hard :/

I think they have the best team for this game

countries working together to stop a pandemic.

gee bler cops it gee

Laurie outright carried this and I am here for it. Cheers Laurie! 🎉

"where the first rule of board game club is to not make references of that other thing."
I thought you meant fight club lmaoo

They dont make it easy for themselves. Ignoring the medic ability to block cubes, leading to a double outbreak, and not removing all cubes of a cured disease.

Ginger Jesus

You guys should play plague Inc the board game. It's like this game......but your the disease😈

the editing with the cards and the highlights on the map are beautiful, it adds so much and most people will overlook it.

Plague Inc: The Board Game 1 to 4 players

I wish they could have gone from edge to edge…they connect right?

I'm in awe on how the editor put the country cards upside down.

So we play you have to sunset each to win, but also everyone takes off all cubes if cured

the only jesus i believe in lmfao

I thought when the disease has a vaccine that when you perform a cure action it clears all of that disease at that location

Omg the order they are sitting in spells LABS with the first letter of each of their names! That's hilariously topical.

Those cubes look delicious

I thought that in a four person games players start with two cards.

When Sully cured black after the cure was done he should have cleared all cubes from he city.,

The Romans said Fortuna won the competition between her two sisters. But really. It was her lessor known fourth sister. The Goddess of irony.

Shout out from Atlanta

You forgot LA when Sydney got an outbreak. Happens us all the time when we play :D

If they had drawn Baghdad as a determining loss I would have laughed so hard since on lauries last turn he could have cleared the city instead of going to the research center, since adam couldve moved him to a player from Baghdad aswell, and essentially thr team plan would've been the same with 1 less bad card

I thought the medic prevented that first outbreak.

It would be nice if this game was played on your channel again soon.

If you like this game and want a bit more of a challenge, I highly recommend the Legacy version of the game where each play-through affects the next play through.

Bro was on Seoul but used a Beijing card to fly

Do you have to play the Quiet Night card before you pull from the city deck?

I'm not familiar with the expansion sets, so here is my ranking of the base game characters...

7. Contingency Planner (F tier) - The ability of reusing event cards is extremely beneficial. However, by the nature of the game, this role is completely luck dependent. Far more so than any other character role, in my experience. I have had multiple games where few to none of the event cards were drawn until reaching the last quarter / fifth of the player deck (by which time it was too late to be of any real impact). Essentially meaning that my character had no use (outside of general actions) and no significant way to help the team. In the right game this role can be a benefit. But it's completely down to chance. And it's never as thrilling to win a game of chance as it is to carry out a successful strategy.

6. Quarantine specialist (C tier) - This may be my most controversial choice, but hopefully by presenting this role with a C-tier, you will see that I do not think this role is ineffective. Just that in my opinion, the other roles are more useful. The ability of this role, to prevent infection cubes being added to any city you are in or connected to, is incredibly powerful. And in more than a few games, it has saved my team from being overwhelmed by outbreaks. However, like the contingency planner, this role is quite luck based. If you draw the right infection cards, it can be really effective. But the wrong draw can mean its ability is neutered. This is particularly frustrating in games with multiple hotspots spread across the board. Essentially you have to guess which area to protect and hope the infection draw is kind. Also, if an area is particularly infected, it can be quite paralysing. Meaning your character has to stay still (or return to the same hub city) for multiple turns until the infections are cleared. A very powerful ability, but limited by the nature of the game and when it comes to cube management, there are more powerful roles.

5. Researcher (C tier) - One of the main challenges of the game is swapping coloured city cards, so that you can make sets of these city cards and cure diseases. In order to do so, you need to get two players to a specific city, just to swap a single card. The researchers ability, to give city cards to another player in ANY city, it therefore incredibly useful. The downside is that information can only travel one way (from the researcher to another player), so the usefulness of the role is dependent on which cities the researcher draws. Again, this role is quite luck based (I am seeing a pattern emerging). This puts it in a very similar position to the quarantine specialist, but I put it higher up the list as its ability helps to win the game (curing diseases), rather than just helping with cube management.

4. Operations Expert (B tier) - With the ability to set up research stations, this is one of the roles that can greatly aid fast-travel around the board. As movement around the board is vital, for managing cubes, stopping outbreaks and swapping cards, these fast-travel points can be game changers. However, even with six research stations on the board (the maximum amount allowed), movement can be quite inefficient. It is common to use actions getting to a research station, another action to fast travel, and further actions to get to a relevant city or player. Meaning that you cant remove any infection cubes or swap cards in that same turn. If your team doesn't have a dispatcher, I would say that this is the closest role to an alternative. But it is nowhere near as effective at the job of aiding fast-travel.

3. Scientist (B tier) - This role is a bit of a contradiction for me. The scientist is always useful...but never perfect! Let me explain. The ability of the scientist is to cure a disease with 4 cards, rather than needing 5. This is a very powerful ability, meaning that your team only needs to collect 16 cards (4 cards x 4 cures) rather than 20, in order to win. And in every game I have played with the scientist, this power has allowed them to cure at least 2 of the diseases. Sometimes 3. But never all 4. Luck, once again, dictates the usefulness of this card. As it depends on what you and your teammates draw from the payer deck. However, unlike some of the lower ranks, luck seems to have a lesser effect on this role. As I said, i have never played a game where the scientists ability has not been used. And as the ability is tied directly to the win condition, the scientist is aways a welcome member of the team.

2. Medic (A tier) - Like the quarantine specialist mentioned above, the main role of this character is cube management. However, in my opinion, the medic achieves this far better than the quarantine specialist. The medics abilities are two-fold. One, it can cure all cubes in a city in one action. (Always useful, particularly in heavily infected areas). And two, once a disease is cured, any city the medic visits is automatically treated of all infection cubes, without having to use an action (this is outrageously powerful!). What is great about this role is that it makes eradicating a disease (not just curing, but eradicating) a realistic goal. I have never eradicated a disease without this character on the team. And once a disease is eradicated, it makes the game much easier. Suddenly you do not have to worry about one (or more) of the colours at all. Not about infections or outbreaks or anything. And allowing a team to narrow their focus like that, can completely turn a difficult game around. Throw in the importance of cube management in general (as running out of cubes is one of the lose conditions) and the ability to visit 4 cities and remove all of the cubes present, IN A SINGLE TURN, makes this character a massive asset to any pandemic team.

1. Dispatcher (S tier) - If I got to guarantee that one role would be present on my team, it would be the dispatcher. Like the medic, the dispatchers abilities are two-fold. One, it can move a player's piece as it it were it's own (useful, but used more sparingly). Two, it can move any pawn to a city with another pawn. It's that second ability that it used constantly. One of the hardest aspects of the game is trading cards. As I mentioned earlier you need to get two players to a specific city, before you can swap a single, specific card. With the dispatcher, all you need to do is get ONE player to the right city, and the dispatcher takes care of the rest. It makes movement so efficient. You don't have to trek to the nearest research station and get somewhere near your target destination. You are sent straight there. And the ability is versatile, making it useful in combination with most roles. Is there a heavily infected area...move the medic so they can sort it. Has the scientist got 4 cards...move them to a research centre so they can cure straight away next turn. Has the researcher just drawn a useful card...teleport them across the map so they can trade information to the right player. The only limitation (having to move player to player) is easily minimised by spreading our your characters across the board. Which you are probably doing anyway, trying to manage multiple infections at once. This means that the dispatcher is always useful. Not just every game...pretty much every TURN!

This role is so powerful that i believe it's presence alone can effect the outcome of a game. In the introductory game (4 epidemics), if the dispatcher is present...you WILL win! In the standard game (5 epidemics), if the dispatcher is present...you will PROBABLY win. And In the heroic game (6 epidemics), if the dispatcher is NOT present...you will NOT win! While I do not have any data to support this, I honestly believe it to be true. The dispatcher role is just that powerful!

I hope you enjoyed my list. Let me know below if you disagree!

While watching this I'm realizing how much quarterbacking I do. They keep making decisions I would never make.

Reminds me of when I played this on Xbox and rng royaly screwed me over. I mean, what are the odds, that the 5 epidemic cards are all in the top 15 of the draw deck? 😂

Ginger Jesus? More like ginger-vitis

"As long as you're in the city of the card you hold, you can travel anywhere in the world." Sees this situation, decides to travel to antarctica and says "F*** this S*** I'm out!" lol