How to play Tiny Tina’s Robot Tea Party & Review

Tiny Tina’s Robot Tea Party is a hand management, set collection game.

Title: Borderlands: Tiny Tina’s Robot Tea Party

Year Published: 2019

Designer: Adam McCrimmon

Publisher: Nerdvana Games, XYZ Game Labs, Inc

Players: 2-5

Game Time: ~45 minutes

Set-up Time: ~1 minute

Ages: 13+

Theme: Borderlands

Mechanisms: Hand Management, Set Collection

How to win: Complete your CL4P-TP first

Game Description

Sometime after the fall of Handsome Jack, in-between bomb-making and bandit-killing, Tina decided to try her hand at making her own board game. After all, everyone seemed to love her session of Bunkers & Badasses and vault hunters need something to do in their downtime. She started by tearing apart and jamming back together ACTUAL Claptrap units, but the sounds of their protests and complaints got a bit annoying. After consulting Princess Fluffybutt and Sir Reginald she opted for a card game instead.

How to Play Tiny Tina’s Robot Tea Party

Theme

Anyone who has played Borderlands, especially Borderlands 2, will know just how crazy life around Tiny Tina is.

Tiny Tina is my favourite character in almost any video game ever with her tragic backstory leaving her completely messed up which is sadly VERy entertaining.

She’s just the best, I even have a cosplaying duck of her on my desk at work 🙂

Setup & Rulebook

Set up is as easy as easy can be. You do need to give the cards a good shuffle though to separate things out. There are a lot more part cards than actions cards so you want to have a nice distribution of those.

The rulebook is clear and fun which includes lines ‘written’ by Tiny Tina.

Components & Artwork

The box is the hardest box to open I’ve ever had. You have to really get your fingers inside the lid and pull it out!

The cards are AWFUL, very very thin. I’ll be sleeving this one ASAP. (I would have anyway but it’s a MUST for this game)

The art is straight out of the game and is great.

Ease of Teaching & Accessibility

It’s easy to teach and very accessible, nothing much more to say. You also don’t need to have played Borderlands to know what the game is about.

Tiny Tina’s Robot Tea Party Summary

So this is Fluxx-esque in its gameplay. As you get closer to winning you get targeted and there is a tug of war around the table until someone eventually builds a Claptrap.

The different skins are Gentleman, Wizard, Pirate, Sherriff and a generic CL4P-TP. Each has its own style of parts and it’s their own Skin they need to add to win.

This is where I can stick a Pirate hat on your Wizard Claptrap meaning you now need to play a card that removes that Hat before putting a Wizard hat on…

This is where the ‘Strategy’ of the game lies. Also, tactical discarding to maximise your hand too… I mean, it’s not THAT tactical but you know what I mean.

Apart from being light and 100% not for everyone, there are downsides. In one game I was the Pirate and all Pirate Hats, Wild Hats and cards to recover from the Scrapyard (discard pile) had gone… So, no hat (or a way to win) for me.

Luckily the deck cycles quickly due to the number of cards discarded and drawn but still each turn, annoying.

So, good game? No. Good theme? 110%. On the shelf, Yes!

Tiny Tina’s Robot Tea Party Round-Up

  Tiny Tina is the best 🙂

Rating

I give it 6/10