My gripe with Mille Bornes

Maybe I’m feeling churlish because I just lost a bout of Mille Bornes to a nine-year-old, but does it seem to anyone else here that the Right-of-Way/Véhicule Prioritaire card is too powerful? Once you get that card, you almost automatically win the round.

The benefits are huge: no need for a Go card, you can’t have a Stop or a Speed Limit played on you, and you’re freed from having to stockpile Go cards or End-of-Limit cards in your hand. Obviously, this is a game of luck, but whatever element of skill exists is basically nullified by the Right-of-Way card, particularly if a player comes by it early in the round.

Anyone else feel this way? Anybody have any house rules to limit the godlike power of the Right-of-Way card?

I find Mille Bornes such a boring game I hope anyone gets the right of way card early so they’ll win and the game will end.

It’s probably too powerful, but as you said, the game is 99% luck anyways and as OldGuy said, it speeds up the game.

My gaming group loathes that game. It’s apparently frustrating to not be able to actually, y’know, PLAY the game because you can’t draw a GO to save your life.

I remember hating this game long ago. As others say, it is overly driven by luck.

Been way too long for me on mille… Isn’t there a bonus if you hold your safeties off until a turn you mediately need it? It would seem at once that the BONUS only when used for the speed limit. Granted the right of way serves a dual purpose, but I wonder if the bonus is in place to check when the right of way is played – or to offer as a soft counter against it.

But yes, ate the point right of way does all of that and a bag of chips, it does seem too powerful --but as mentioned upthread, it’s needed to balance out something else in the game. I’m sure the card survived this long for a reason.