Review: Terror Below
Updated: Oct 20, 2023
1990 was a pretty amazing year when it came to movies. There was Goodfellas, Pretty Woman, Total Recall, and Dances with Wolves. These are all fine films in their own right but not the one we are talking about. I am of course am talking about 1990's break out film Tremors. Keven Bacon, Reba McEntire, and Fred Ward star in this wormy desert action flick. Terror Below designed by Mike Elliot is a love letter to the movie Tremors mixed with a little Mad Max for a little spice.
The remote Nevada desert is home to a secret government agency (Area 50ish). The agency may or may not have been experimenting with genetics and may or may not have release Weapons of Remote Massacre (WORMs for short) into the surrounding desert. The government would like the WORMs taken out and the eggs returned. Players will be driving their cars throughout the grid style map picking up WORM eggs and delivering them for victory points. Players can also fight the WORMs to get victory points. These are the main ways players will gain points and the first one to 20 points is the winner.
The agency may or may not have been experimenting with genetics
Upon unboxing the game the first thing a player will note is the large board that is shaped like one of the WORM eggs. The board is also double sided with a different grid on the back that includes a canyon to give more repeatability. The game comes with a bunch of quality pieces eggs, rubble, car meeples and a bunch of cards. The quality for the value is great, especially if you can get it on sale at Renegade Games I got our copy for $8! Setup takes a little bit but isn't overbearing. There are 4 starter cards that put eggs and rubble on the board. Players cannot move through the rubble tokens but they can pick them up when they are adjacent to the tokens and turn three of them in for a new weapon card.
There are 4 bounty cards face up across the top of the board. Players can complete these for victory points and they include a mix of killing WORMs and delivering certain eggs to particular buildings. Players may be asking right now "Bert how do I kill those giant WORMs?". Well to kill a worm it has to attack and you have to be in its attack zone. Beware when the WORM surfaces and the player cannot take it out with weapon cards then their leader dies. Each player has 3 cards that are their crew with on card on top that is the leader. Leaders all have a special attribute. If a player runs out of leaders they are eliminated from the game.
"Bert how do I kill those giant WORMs?"
So now players know what to do now we get to the how. The core of a players turn is playing a vehicle card. When a player chooses a vehicle card to play they choose one of the 3 WORM cards that are in play and play the vehicle card under one of them. Each kind of WORM can hold a certain number of vehicle cards under it. When a player plays the card that fills up that WORM it attacks. At the bottom of each of the worm cards there are 3 circles and they may or may not have arrows. The player who plays the vehicle card moves the target one space in each direction. This is called the distraction. The next part of the vehicle card is the action points. Action points let you move, pickup rubble, pickup eggs or deliver eggs. When players are moving they may not move through rubble and they can jump over the other opponents. The last part of the card is the vehicle's special ability.
Terror Below is a great pickup deliver game that puts you in the cinematic feel of Tremors. The game never takes itself too serious and is light and fun. The game takes about an hour with 2-3 people a little longer with 4-5 so this is a fun light weight game for the week night or a multi game game night.
Players: 1-5
Year Published: 2019
Recommended Ages: 14+
Time to Play: 45-60 minutes
A copy of Terror Below was purchased by Bert's Tabletop Games for this review.
