We played Pandemic using the On the Brink Expansion. There were four of us with a good bit of experience with the game so we tried playing the Virulent Strain Challenge. For the most part it may have been too challenging…

On the first play our initial Infection Card draws were horrible. Both London and Paris were infected as well as Ho Chi Minh City and Manila. Starting with a few cities right next to each other and getting a quick Epidemic had us off to a rough start. Our roles were the Epidemiologist, Archivist, Generalist and Medic. Red was the Virulent Strain and we were drawing many of those. Oddly enough we started with no black disease and were able to eradicate it. Unfortunately with so many cities next too each other having outbreaks we quickly lost control and lost.

We figured part of our loss was the luck (or bad luck) of the draw, so we tried again. This time the set up was more favorable. Our roles were the Field Operative, Scientist, Archivist and Troubleshooter. Red was again the Virulent disease, but this time we were prepared to fight it. The Scientist, Archivist, and Troubleshooter worked to cure and control the Red, Black and Blue diseases, while the Field Operative worked on the Yellow disease. The first three were cured and things were looking good. We had cured three diseases and the fourth was in pretty decent control. But the Field Operative never had more than one yellow card in her hand and as the rest of the team were headed to aid her there was a massive Yellow outbreak. We lost when we ran out of Yellow disease cubes. This shows how quickly things can get out of control in this game.

Wanting to win at least once we tried Pandemic without the Virulent Strain Challenge. I’m not sure if it was not using the tougher scenario, smarter play or plain old luck, but this time we won. Even though we reshuffled the roles the got the exact same as we had the game before. We used the Archivist’s ability to take cards from the discard pile to get him five cards in both red and blue. The Scientist cured the Black disease while the Field Operative handled the Yellow disease.

After trying the harder Virulent Strain Challenge the normal game seemed a lot easier. But we even still we only had 6 cards left n the draw stack so we still cut it kinda close. Maybe it was just that we weren’t fighting the game as much or it wasn’t fighting us as hard.