Western Legends – David Wood
Howdy partners! Looking to have fun robbing banks, playing poker, and rustling cattle? Well Western Legends is the game for you. In this “sandbox”, old west themed game, players take on the role of some of history’s most famous, and infamous, legends – Calamity Jane, Billy the Kid, Doc Holiday, Kit Carson, and others – each with a special ability. On their turn, players take 3 actions, and those actions will determine whether they become wanted outlaws or a marshal sworn to uphold the law. Either way players choose to go will give them opportunities to accumulate Legendary Points. The player with the most LPs at the end of the game wins.
The choices open to players offer many different possibilities for earning LPs: mining for gold, fighting bandits, arresting outlaws, and even robbing other players. Turns go quickly, although at higher player counts there is going to be a bit more down time. In a 2-player game, players must contend with the non-player character, the Man in Black, a nod to the cyborg from the movie WestWorld.. Western Legends allows players to immerse themselves into their roles and is a hoot to play. So, saddle up and get ready for a rip-roaring time.
Ease of entry?:
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?:
★★★★★ – Will definitely play it again
Read more articles from David Wood.
Rumble Nation – Bob Pazehoski, Jr.
All I can say after one play of Rumble Nation is: Bravo, Yogi Shinichi, bravo. Having never played, I taught the game in about four minutes. Having now played, I could do it in two (I tried it with a timer). At three players, our game took 15 minutes. Now that we’ve witnessed the endgame war, I believe it would take 10-15 minutes longer. In combination, these two observations say something about the depth of the decision space alive in this Sengoku Civil War.
Cascading area control is a brilliant idea that makes for a particular flavor of brain crunch: wanting to capture the surface token by having the greatest presence, hoping to then send reinforcements to all the surrounding regions, needing to have at least a minor presence in those surrounding regions for the reinforcements to stick.
Perhaps folks would criticize the dependence on dice to visit the whole map, but with a reroll on every turn, there are ample opportunities to make a mark. My only complaint at this point is that Rumble Nation could fit in less than half its current box. This is only a complaint because I would love to carry it around with me for the next few weeks to introduce it to everyone I meet.
Ease of entry?:
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?:
★★★★★ – Will definitely play it again
Read more articles from Bob Pazehoski, Jr.
Amsterdam – David McMillan
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Amsterdam has arrived on my doorstep and the stars have aligned in such a way that I was actually able to get it to the table. And, let me tell you, it’s MARVELOUS.
For those not in the know, Amsterdam is a reimplentation of Feld’s classic, Macao. But it’s more than that. With Amsterdam, Feld has taken everything he’s learned from Macao and reapplied it, fixing some things that were troublesome, improving some areas I didn’t even know needed improving, and outright inventing a few new things that improve the overall experience.
Let’s just say this: after playing Amsterdam just one single time, I am fairly confident that I will never play my physical copy of Macao ever again. Keep an eye open for my upcoming review to find out why.
Ease of entry?:
★★★★☆ – The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?:
★★★★★ – Will definitely play it again
Read more articles from David McMillan.
Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game – Andrew Lynch
I’ve played Star Realms a few times, and I’m pretty indifferent. I loved Star Wars as a kid, but Disney’s done a good job of bleeding that out of me. The prospects for Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game, which is Star Realms with a few tweaks, were not good. Work necessitated that I learn it, though. At the end of one play, I liked it fine. The tweaks over Star Realms were simple but thematically evocative. After two plays, I liked it plenty. Now at four, I…I might love it? There’s more depth than you might expect. From my experience so far, it seems to be more strategically asymmetrical than it seems at first blush. Characters combo in sensible groupings (Han, Chewie, the Falcon).
What I truly did not expect from Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game was the nostalgia high I get while playing it. I feel an excitement about Star Wars that I’ve not felt since the trailer for The Force Awakens came out. I feel like a kid again. It’s a good, solid game. The feelings it evokes are absolutely magical.
Ease of entry?:
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?:
★★★★★ – Will definitely play it again
Read more articles from Andrew Lynch
Extravaganza – Jesse Fletcher
Extravaganza is a game all about being the fiercest drag queen, bedazzling, dancing, and lip-syncing your way to victory. Each player takes turns moving (like a chess queen) around a T-shaped stage (board), collecting colored rhinestone tokens, drawing dance move cards to gain lip-sync tokens, using the rhinestones to pay to play those dance cards, then using lip-tokens to gain lyric tiles. Star quality (VP’s) are scored both along the way, and via set collection at the end of the game. I enjoyed my play of Extravaganza, even though the scoring was not exactly intuitive, and we played a fairly significant rule incorrectly. It leans heavily into the theme, so the rules bumps were forgivable because overall it was good cheeky fun, with some satisfying turns along the way.
Ease of entry?
★★★☆☆ – There were a few questions
Would I play it again?:
★★★★☆ – Would like to play it again, in particular to introduce it to fans of its theme.
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