Western Legends

Plays: 4Px1.

The Game

Western Legends is an open world game set in the wild wild west. You are cowboys (in the loose sense of the word and not specifically cow herders). You freely roam the map and you get to do lots of different things, interacting with many different locations and people. You goal is to score victory points, here called legendary points (LP). Whoever reaches 20VP triggers game end, and whoever scores the most points wins. One big decision in the game is whether you want to be a marshal or an outlaw. Depending on the path you choose, you'd be doing different things. Either way, you can become a legend.

At the start of the game you randomly draw two character cards and you pick one to play. In the game I played, I happened to draw one good guy and one bad guy. I decided to be conservative and I picked the good guy (Wyatt Earp).

This is the back of the character card. Different characters have different starting resources and starting locations.

This is your player board. Your character card is placed on the left. There is a blood marker below the character card. That's for tracking injury. When you are injured your hand limit is reduced. You can visit the clinic to get healed. If you end the game with injury, you will be penalised. The three spaces at the top right are for equipment. You can buy equipment at the general store. Space is limited and once you've bought three items, you can't buy more. You have a separate single space for weapons and another single space for mounts. However there is no restriction on the number of weapons and mounts you can buy. The restriction is only that you may use just one weapon and one mount at a time. The three cards at the bottom left are missions. They specify what you need to do, and where. You get to score points when you complete a mission. These missions drive the story when you play. They are something you can plan for, they drive the behaviour of your character.

On each half of the map there is one town, and within each town multiple buildings which you can interact with, like the general store, the saloon, the bank and the clinic. In the northeast and northwest corners there are two ranches. In the southeast and southwest directions there are two gold mines. A train station is in the south. There are bandit hideouts in the four corners and in a valley in the centre. All locations with icons are locations you may interact with. On the left side of the board are two decks of story cards. The text on the card back describes what you need to do to place one of your markers here. Once a card has a certain number of markers (which depends on player count), it is revealed and resolved, usually giving some benefit to those who have contributed markers. These story cards drive player behaviour and create stories.

The important strategic decision you need to make in Western Legends is whether to be a marshal or an outlaw. This here is the Wanted track. When you become an outlaw, you earn Wanted points and you progress on this track. When you reach certain levels, you gain some benefit. Also, every turn you score victory points. This is very attractive. However if you ever get caught and jailed, you lose all your Wanted points, i.e. your status. On the bright side, you may now choose to turn over a new leaf. You may also choose to continue being a criminal. To earn Wanted points, you simply break the law. E.g. robbing other players, robbing the bank, and herding cows from a ranch owner to his competitor instead of to the train station.

This is the Marshal track. If you choose to be a cop, this is your career path. You gain benefits too when leveling up. However you don't score points every turn. You only do it at game end. The 9th level is a lucrative 6VP (blocked by the cubes in this photo). So if you're going to be a cop, you've got to aim to be the best.

These are all the things you get to buy at the general store. The card holder is superfluous. The only true use is saving a little bit of space. However it does look fine. I like it. There are four weapon types, and three mount types. The plus sign under the price tags means these can be upgraded. You need to be at a general store, and you pay the same price again to upgrade an item.

This metal box in the bottom right corner of the player board is for storing gold nuggets. You can store at most four. When you deliver gold to the bank, you earn money and points. The two round tokens are cattle from one of the two ranches. To gain the benefit written on the cattle token, you need to deliver the cattle to either the train station, or the competing ranch. Doing the former is legal, the latter is not.

The icon with two masks is a cabaret. You visit the cabaret simply to spend money and earn victory points. $30 for 1VP. Your wallet has a cap of $120, so you can earn at most 4VP per visit.

When you mine for gold, you roll dice. The cross means you get nothing. The nugget means you get gold. The dollar sign means you get $10. Dollar sign and arrow means earn $10 then reroll.

A few things in Western Legends require the use of poker cards. You use them when fighting. Winning a fight is simply playing a higher card. You can fight one another. You can fight bandits. You need to fight the guard when you rob a bank. You also use poker cards when gambling at the saloon. Whenever the active player wants to gamble at a saloon, other players in town may choose to join. If they do, all participating human players compete among themselves; if they don't, the active player competes against the saloon. Gambling is done in a similar format as Texas Poker. Three cards (called the Flop) are revealed from the deck and become shared cards. Every player then secretly selects two cards from his hand to be played. These are revealed simultaneously, and the player with the best hand type wins. Only hand types matter and not the individual cards. A pair of Aces and a pair of 2's are considered the same rank. In the case of ties, the active player has the advantage. So if the active player has a pair of 2's while another player has a pair of Aces, the active player wins.

On your turn you get to perform 3 actions. Often you'll spend some of those on simply moving from place to place. You will often be interacting with the locations you visit. Another type of action you can take is playing a card for its effect. This card on the right can be played this way. You'll be drawing 3 cards, so effectively you are spending one action to swap one card for three, and hopefully they are useful for your current situation.

The Play

You can think of Western Legends as a race game, because you are racing towards 20VP. Reaching this threshold triggers game end. There are many ways to earn points, and you want to be as efficient as possible. That means making the most of the unique abilities of your character. The story cards inject short term, tactical considerations. You should not ignore them. If you do you are letting your opponents easily gain extra benefits. The marshal vs outlaw relationship is an interesting one. The marshals cannot allow any outlaw to become too notorious, because outlaws score points every turn and can become runaway leaders. Unfortunately in our game everyone decided to be marshals, so we didn't get to experience this tension. We were all good boys and we seldom fought. There are a few broad strategies in gaining VP's, and you need to focus in order to be efficient. If you want to be a true cowboy (as in cattle herder), you should get a workhouse which helps you herd more cattle. Get yourself the right weapons, mounts and items that match your strategy, and they will help you greatly. It is not a good idea to diversity too much because you don't have the luxury to improve your abilities in too many areas. You need to stay focused and play to your strengths, while grabbing opportunities that come your way.

In our game Ivan was the most efficient in scoring points and soon sprinted ahead of the rest of us on the score track. He was first to hit 20VP to trigger game end. When the game ended, we still had to do some score calculation due to hidden VP's and VP's which were only scored at game end. We had expected Ivan to beat us comfortably, but to our surprise the scores were close and he won by only 1VP. The end game scoring and hidden VP's cannot be underestimated.

Component design and artwork are evocative.

Figures with grey bases are non player characters (NPC's), while those with other colours are player characters.

The map design is cleverly done. Related locations are set just far enough apart for things to be interesting. E.g. the distances between the ranches and the station, the distances between the gold mines and the bank. They are far enough that it takes considerable effort to complete one cycle of work, e.g. collecting cattle and herding them to the station, or mining gold then depositing it at the bank. However once you buy the right mounts, which speed up your movement, this work cycle becomes shorter, making the whole enterprise much more efficient.

The sculpts do not match the drawings on the character cards. You can pick any sculpt you like to play. You only use the base colour to determine who's who.

Sculpts not picked by players are used as NPC's (grey bases).

Wyatt Earp's special ability is he gains an extra action after defeating a bandit. This makes him gravitate towards fighting bandits. However this ability only takes effect after he reaches 5VP. He doesn't have this at the start of the game.

With these three common cards coming up during gambling, it is possible for players to make a straight.

Having three 6's in hand looks strong, but actually isn't. When gambling, you can only add 2 cards from your hand.

I had completed all three of my missions, so I had claimed three tokens (the black ones at the top left). The tokens contain hidden VP's.

The Thoughts

Westen Legends is a very immersive game. It is an open world, and you get much freedom. It reminds me a little of Merchants & Marauders. Despite the free hand given, you should not flail about with no sense of purpose. This is a game of racing to become most legendary in the wild wild west. Be good, or be bad, just don't be undecided.