Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Baker Street Irregulars

Board Game Geek Reviews

1. 6 out of 10

   Andy Parsons

   All ten cases completed. Let me attempt some general, spoiler-free observations. To a greater extent than in other sets, my enjoyment of the cases varied. For me four, five and seven were the standouts. In particular, case four has an unusually strong and engaging narrative thread that I really enjoyed. Baker Street Irregulars brings several new elements to Consulting Detective, with mixed results. Given the title of the set, it's not surprising that the Irregulars become more than an avatar for the players. Members of the gang other than Wiggins get speaking parts and a new recruit is central to two of the cases. That's fine. I also like the addition of lettered clues, which worked well in Mythos Tales, to prevent huge deductive leaps. Though I found a couple of instances here where their application wasn't flawless. I don't recall Consulting Detective giving us chases before. There are two in this set (cases three and nine) and I have reservations about both. The case nine chase is so straightforward as to be a waste of time. The one in case three presents the risk that if you make one mistake, you've lost. This feels like something of a recurring theme through several of the cases; fail to make one critical deductive leap and you're left puzzled and dissatisfied. The very worst offender in this respect is the final case. Like the Ripper set, Irregulars has Sherlock as an informant. I had concerns about just how useful he was in one of the early cases, but for the most part he wasn't over-powered as a giver of clues. Then in case ten, with Sherlock absent, we get in his place a whole page of hints from Irregulars talking among themselves. That felt a rather large sticking plaster for poor case design. Other reasons for my reservations about this set. A sense in cases one, six and nine that realism has suffered at the expense of making the deductive puzzle work. Too many damned codes to crack (and case six offers little else). A reliance on the newspapers to supply additional addresses (the designer says that the directory is little changed from The Thames Murders). For the most part, that works well enough, although at one point in case ten, with six newspapers to pore over, it became really annoying. Both the English and the proof reading are a great improvement on previous Space Cowboys editions of the cases. The production quality and artwork are to their usual good standards.

2. 8 out of 10

   cfarrell

   Now played through all 10 cases, and there is the usual unevenness; some of them can be frustrating. We didn’t care for 8, which is an all-forensics case with no real way to figure out the motive - something I always find unsatisfying (in this case it was particularly so because there a million people with motive in the story, but the actual perp doesn’t seem to have one). Still, I’d definitely say the overall quality is the best of box sets I’ve played. It doesn’t really warn you, but Case 10 is a monster which ties in a lot of stuff from the last 4 cases, so set aside time for it - two sessions perhaps. —- Two cases in and really impressed. These are much tighter and more narratively satisfying than the stories in previous sets I’ve played. The letter sequencing mechanic for clues, to prevent you from getting information too early via wild guess, isn’t total win - this would be better implemented by an eBook where you could enter a lead or address - but is still a big improvement. It makes it easier for the case author to structure the case, and it allows information to be easier to access at multiple points since a guess or hunch based on no foundation won’t spoil the case and your informants can dispense information more rationally. While the advantages of this structure may be invisible to the player and in fact may sometimes seem frustrating if you draw a blank on a lead that feels like it should be legit just because you don’t have the prerequisite letter, trust me that this ultimately allows cases to be structured more intuitively. Anyway, really fun so far. Looking forward to playing more cases.

3. 9 out of 10

   DougPeterson

   The cases here were generally high quality and more consistent than any of the other sets. There were no translation oddities and frustrations, given that it was written in English to start. I enjoyed this more than the other two expansions.