Game Preview/Review: Leader 1

by Andrea “Liga” Ligabue
October 13, 2008

Publisher: Ghenos Games
Distributor: Rio Grande Games
Designers: Alain Ollier & Christophe Leclercq
Players: 2-10
Ages: 14+
Playing Time: 90-120 minutes
Release Date: Released (Europe) / Announced (U.S.)

I have played the final version of Leader 1 more than five times now, and it’s one of the best race games I have ever played. It depicts a quite realistic simulation of a bicycle race, playable in the right amount of time, including runs, punctures and falls. It is a resource management game, with a bit of luck to ensure that the success of your strategy is not 100%, but not so much as to make it a random game.

Preparing to Ride

Every player controls three riders: a leader, a velocist and a climber. Every rider will start with exactly the same amount of energy and you have to manage it for the entire race. The exact amount of energy, usually between 40 and 60, depends on the length and shape of the track, and in a multi-stage race, this total can be altered by energy you saved in the previous stage. (If you play with more than four players, you use only two riders, with seven or more players, only one rider; I think the best set-up is four players with three bikers each or six players with two bikers.)

The race course is built using hexes: you have 21 route hexagons printed on both sides and you can vary the length of the race by using more or fewer hexagons. The rules for building a course are simple: You need a start and an end, and you need at least one ground rise before a mountain pass. There are also plains and downhill hexes. The hexes display a grid, typically with 2-3 squares. Racers moves on the grid according to their stats and the energy spent.

Every racer moves 1 to 3 squares according to his stats: Velocists move better on the plains (3) but are slow in mountains (1); climbers are good in the mountains (3) and slow on the plains (1), and leaders are equally average (2). All racers are capable of moving two squares on a ground rise and four on downhill hexes. Each racer can spend from 1 to 15 energy to move 1 to 6 additional squares, and making a 6 square increase is much more expensive than making two 3 square increases. The group moves according to a d12 roll from 3 to 5 hexes, but it can move one square more if it is pursuing and one more if all the racers have broken away. On the plains and downhill, the group moves usually in a short route but in the mountains it has to follow a longer path, making it easier for racers to break away.

There is also a slipstreaming rule that allows the racer who is exactly behind another one 1 square of free movement, but the slipstream is lost if the preceding racers move 6 or more squares (8 when moving downhill). This rule makes it possible to break away from followers, especially in the last stages of the race when the energy is low.

Some squares on the hexes are black. Moving on that space requires a roll check and the risk of a fall. The distribution of these squares opens a lot of strategic options to the leader. Leader 1 is much more strategic than it could seem on first examination as the races are often decided by only 1 or 2 squares, so how you move and where to stop both during the race and in the final squares becomes extremely important. The rule that allows the racer moving last in one turn to be the first in the next turn if tied gives a lot of advantage to the followers in the final rush.

One to three feed zones on the track give racers a random and secret amount of energy (from 2 to 5) that prevent a perfect knowledge of your opponent’s energy.

In every mountain pass hex, a special crack counter is placed that shows how many extra squares can be moved on that slope without risking a crack. Moving more than that number requires a crack roll (the first time rolling 5 or more on a d12, the second time 8 or more, and 11 or more after that); failing the roll means that you have to spend three times the usual energy for that move. You can’t take that risk if you don’t have the energy, which means that you need to have a lot of energy to break away perfectly in the climb, especially at the end of a stage. The risks of falling and cracking are cumulative, so every time you take a risk of any sort you know that the next time will be more difficult.

You can also encounter an unluckly event while playing safely, but that’s really rare. One 4 on the group die is marked with red, and every time you roll that 4 (one chance in 12), every racer must roll a d12 with a 1 causing a puncture. A punctured tire causes you to move last in the next round, losing slipstream: while this roll could be a problem, as with a velocist in the group who gets a puncture in the mountains, usually it’s nothing to worry about.

Crossing the Line

You can build wildly varied courses such as a climber race with a lot of mountain passes, a velocist one in which it will be difficult to break away until the end; a mix that allows different strategies. Sometimes the group will catch the racers in the end, and sometimes a carefully planned early run will take you all the way to the end. Since everyone starts with the same amount of energy, to win you have to plan carefully when to break away, using the track to your best advantage. You also have to make a team work, sometimes using the energy of one of your racers early to tow the other two; you also might need to cooperate with other players to make a run successful.

Leader 1 is a really good simulation of a bicycle race that plays in a good time, with simple rules for stage races that allow all the options you can have in a real stage race.

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