Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West

The Game

Ticket to Ride getting the legacy game treatment comes as no surprise. The evergreen game series is hugely successful. A number of other popular games have had legacy versions published. When I learned about Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West, I felt it was a matter of sooner or later. It was certainly exciting to see Alan Moon, Rob Daviau and Matt Leacock work together. Ticket to Ride is well known, so I won't describe it. I will focus on what Legends of the West is like. 

When you open the large box, this is what you see. That long box on the left stores most of the cards. The eight boxes along the top are components to unlock as you expand the map. The legacy campaign (which consists of 12 games) starts with a map of just the eastern coast of USA. As you play through the campaign you will unlock regions and grow the map. You will be opening boxes and adding game components and new rules. 

The five boxes along the bottom are the player companies. You will keep some components for your next game, and this is where you keep such components. 

The basic rules of Legends of the West are similar to that of basic Ticket to Ride. In fact when the campaign starts, I find the rules even simpler. Later on there will be more rules and new mechanisms, but things don't get too complicated. This is still a family game. The complexity doesn't go up much. This is not a gamer's game. One aspect which is different from standard Ticket to Ride is you don't score points when building tracks. This simplifies the game. Also here your points are simply called money. At the end of a game instead of scoring points from completed tickets, you earn money. It's the same thing. If you fail to complete a ticket, you are fined. One more difference is when you build a track in your colour, you earn some money. There is incentive to collect train cards in your own colour. Tracks on the map come in six colours instead of eight. There are five player colours plus white. No more orange or pink. 

There are events. Some newspaper cards are shuffled into the train deck. When you draw one, you have to reveal the next event card from a separate event deck. You follow the instructions. Sometimes it is a one-time effect. Sometimes it is ongoing. This injects some uncertainty and variety. 

Some of the train cards. 

These are tickets

This is the map at the start of the legacy campaign. Much of the continent has yet to be explored. Florida is a large missing piece. The game is not meant to be historically accurate. Think of it as a historical what-if drama. 

Every player colour has a different train piece shape. 

This is a player's company box. It has two sections. One is for keeping components for the next game in the campaign. The other is for components needed for scoring at the end of the campaign. That's called the vault. Throughout the campaign you will be asked to put stuff into the vault. 

At the end of every game, you do scoring using this slip. Your points (i.e. money) come from three different sources. First, cash on hand. Second, the number of train pieces left. If you manage to use up your trains, you get a $16 bonus, which is significant. If you are able to, you want to end the game while others still have many pieces remaining. The third way you make money is from your completed tickets. Total money determines the winner for the game. This slip is then put into your company vault. It will be used again at the end of the campaign. 

This is the legacy card deck. You'll reveal some cards at the start of a game and also at the end. There will be some story to read out. New components and rules will be added too. 

The Thoughts

The campaign takes 12 games to finish. So far I've done seven. I don't have a complete map yet, but I have seen many game mechanisms and components. There will be more to come. I have been enjoying the journey so far. There are many pleasant surprises. From a game mechanism perspective, Legends of the West and Ticket to Ride are just slightly different. Not better or worse, just a little different. The new mechanisms are fun. Not particularly innovative. If they were in a different standalone game, I probably won't find them interesting. However as they are combined here as a package, they are fun. Playing Legends of the West is about enjoying the story and the extended journey, not really about looking for a new interesting game. It is about enjoying variants to the core Ticket to Ride formula. 

Like most legacy games, Legends of the West is best played with the same group of friends for the whole campaign. I would suggest you get 4 or 5 players. It will be a wonderful shared journey. 

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From this point onwards there will be spoilers. If you haven't played this game and intend to do so, best not to read any further. If you have no intention to play it, welcome to read on to see more details. If you have already played the game, let's reminisce...

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One part I absolutely love is this hole puncher. This is introduced at the end of the first game. When you complete a ticket, you have to punch a hole in it, in the section of your player colour. Some tickets let you punch one hole per row. Some let you punch two. Whenever a row is completed, that ticket is retired permanently. 

This particular ticket has some instructions. When it is retired, the player who completes it receives a letter. The letter has a story element, which must be read to the whole group. It also has some power which the player keeps for future use. 

The first time we expanded the map, we went for Florida. We were not comfortable with that glaring gap. Here you can see some routes are semi transparent. They don't have a specific colour yet. You get to decide what colour these routes will be if you are first to build tracks. You will add stickers to the board to determine the colour. From then on, for all future games, the colour is fixed. 

This is an employee card. Every game you will pick one. At the end of a game, you get to choose one for your next game. The poorest player gets two employees instead of one. This particular employee above can only be used twice for the whole campaign, thus the need to punch a hole whenever he is used. 

The piggyback card is a life saver. In case you are stuck and locked out of a city, you can use this card (it's single use per game) to build one track to that city, using a route already claimed by someone else. 

This is the circus. When it comes into play, you can collect carriage stickers by building tracks of at least length 3. In Legends of the West you don't score points for building tracks. Painstakingly collecting many cards of the same colour to build long tracks feels like a waste of effort. The circus makes long routes attractive. Carriage stickers will help you score points. I mean make money. 

Everyone gets a tiny sticker booklet like this. You collect carriage stickers here. Every sticker is worth some points. If it is in your player colour, it is worth more points. Money. I mean money. 

On this page, you collect stickers in sets. Within a set, the colours must all be different. The largest set is worth $64 if you manage to complete it, but getting stickers in 5 different colours is not easy. 

I wasn't too ambitious and only attempted the 4-carriages set. 

 

Eventually the circus will end their tour. When you see this icon, it means the circus will leave play and you won't be able to collect any more carriage stickers. Whatever you have collected go to your company vault, to be scored at the end of the campaign. 

The grey pawn is the bandit. It always starts at Dodge City. When the bandit comes into play, whenever anyone uses a locomotive card (joker), the bandit must be moved. Whoever has tracks at the city he moves to is robbed. The money from these robberies go to the bandit's stash. The stash will keep growing, and when a specific event comes up, all players may get to share this stash. When the event happens, you may discard four cards to participate in splitting the loot. 

At this city, the bandit robs the blue and the yellow players. 

Towns (in red) can be controlled by players. In this photo above, St. Louis and Cincinnati are now controlled by the blue and the green player respectively. Taking control of a town can only be done through special powers and events. It's not something you can choose to do any time. The benefit of controlling a town is whenever anyone builds a track to that town, you get to collect a fee. Chicago is a city and not a town, so it is safe from being controlled by players. 

If you look closely you will find that the tracks around Oklahoma City are all stickers added to the board by players. Dodge City is where the bandit always starts, so players tend to be wary about building tracks in this area. 

At this point in the campaign we had about half the map revealed. There were still many routes in the newer regions (on the left half) not yet stickered. 

Baltimore has an anchor icon, which means it is a port. There are some minor gameplay elements related to ports. I (green player) took control of Baltimore when the opportunity arose, because I felt many routes would go through Baltimore. It was a hub. 

Shares! That's another mini-game in the campaign.

When shares are in play, there will always be two face-up share cards. If you build a track in the colour of one of these shares, you get to claim that share. When the campaign ends, you will make money from shares. Each of the six companies will pay shareholders based on who has more shares. So this is a majority competition. The shares mini-game leaves play after players claim all the shares. 

This is yet another mini-game - treasure hunting. This comes into play when you unlock the Sierra Madre region. Whoever builds tracks in the regions gets to either collect a treasure map or attempt to find a hidden treasure. How the treasure hunting works is that in order to be successful, you need to draw ten cards from the deck without any skull icon. This is actually quite difficult. Treasure maps are a tool to help you improve your chances of success. Every treasure map you have allows you to ignore one skull icon. 

When you successfully find treasure, you scratch off one section of this lost treasure card and claim the reward shown. Throughout the campaign hidden treasures can be found five times only. After that there are no more treasures. 

This particular employee helps in treasure hunting, increasing your chances of success. 

My progress with Legends of the West is a little slow. I started in Nov 2023, and so far I have played 7 games. Still 5 more to go to complete the campaign. I hope I can get it done before November this year! Perhaps I'll share more after I complete the whole thing. 

Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

The Game

Gloomhaven was once the #1 game on BoardGameGeek.com. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is a standalone game set in the same universe and not an expansion. It uses similar mechanisms and is slightly simplified. It is currently ranked #9 on BGG, which is amazing. Whether Gloomhaven and Jaws of the Lion should be ranked so high is debatable. They are legacy games, which means to truly experience it, you need to be committed to play through the whole campaign. Players who are willing to make that kind of commitment are probably big fans of the genre. They are already inclined to like the games. Those who are not very interested will not likely buy or try the game. So legacy games naturally filter out players who may not rate them high. This is how they have some advantage over non-legacy games in the BGG rankings. The Pandemic Legacy games which I like have this advantage too. 

Jaws of the Lion is a fantasy-themed roleplaying tactical battle game. This type is not really my cup of tea, but given the opportunity to try this popular game, I was happy to give it a go. The game is scenario based. One game is playing a specific scenario in the scenario book. Every scenario has its own map setup and objectives. The game comes with 25 scenarios. That's not as many as Gloomhaven, but if you manage to get 25 plays out of a game, it's great value for money. 

I picked this character to play - the bomb guy. There are four characters to pick from. Every character has its own deck of cards. Your actions in the game are all driven by your deck. At the start of a game, you hold all your cards in hand. Every turn you play two cards to perform actions. Each card has two halves. You must use the upper half power of one card, and the lower half power of the other. As you play, you will eventually run out of cards. You will then need to perform a reset to take your played cards back into your hand. As you do this, you randomly lose one card. You go through this cycle multiple times and you will have fewer and fewer cards. You must complete the mission before you run out of cards. This is the time pressure you have to face. 

This is a cooperative game, so you are working together with your fellow players to complete the mission. As you gain experience and money, you upgrade yourself and buy equipment. These are the legacy elements of the game. 

The tutorial (learning scenarios) in Jaws of the Lion are well done. You don't need to read through the whole rulebook to start playing. You just follow the tutorial booklet. There are five tutorial scenarios, and they introduce rules to you bit by bit. By the end of the 5th scenario, you will know the full rules. The first two scenarios are a little simple, but from the third one onwards this very much feels like the full game. Map setup is easy, because the maps are already printed in the booklet (see photo above). You don't need to assemble scenario maps using multiple game pieces. You still need to place some monsters and treasures, but overall it's not much work. 

The cards are the core of the game. At the centre you see an initiative number. Of the two cards you play on your turn, the one with the lower number determines your initiative. Lower means you go earlier. The monsters have initiative values too. If theirs are lower, they will move and attack before you do. On this card above, the two tiny numbers on the left, at the corners of the upper and lower sections, are the basic actions. You may choose to forgo the main actions for these instead. The basic actions are moving two steps and melee attacking at strength 2.  

This is an event card. These cards have story elements. You read the passage, then decide what you want to do. The outcome can be good or bad, and is only revealed after you make your decision. These events are mostly random and generic. You draw them from a deck after all. 

One of the four characters you can play.

There are different types of monsters, and within each type there are different levels. The yellow and white bases represent monsters at different levels. 

This game component is used to keep track of monsters in play. It shows the health points, movement range and attack strength. The six sections on the sleeve are used to track injury dealt to up to six monsters of this type. Slot number 4 has two round tokens, which means monster #4 on the board has been dealt 2 damage. 

These two are equipment cards. You spend money to buy equipment. Any leftover money can be kept for future games. This is part of the legacy element of Jaws of the Lion. Some equipment are worn, e.g. the boots. You can't wear two pairs of boots at the same time. You can't carry too many weapons at any one time, since you only have one pair of hands. 

This little board is used to keep track of elements in the game. Elements are a kind of magic force. There are six types of elements. Some actions you take generate specific elements. You shift the marker for that element to the rightmost position, signifying that this element type is available. Certain actions when taken with the presence of specific elements become stronger. At the end of every round, the element markers shift one step left, representing the elements waning. Eventually the markers will return to the leftmost position, which means the corresponding elements are no longer active. Characters can generate elements for themselves and for one another. This is one way you cooperate and boost one another's abilities. 

The Play

The learning scenarios in Jaws of the Lion are very well structured. I could start playing very quickly. Although the first two scenarios were short and simple, the experience of learning the game was smooth and easy. Now I am not a particular fan of fantasy roleplaying battle games. Jaws of the Lion doesn't feel particularly different. To me, it is mostly just another one of this type of game. The core mechanism of managing your cards is interesting. This is a little different from other games of this type that I have played. You don't roll dice. Sometimes you draw from card decks. There is still some luck. However you can plan out many steps in detail. Much of the game is deterministic, like how the monsters behave and the effects of your actions. You can plan meticulously. Completing a mission is like solving a complicated puzzle. It is planning a long sequence of actions, taking into account how the monsters will react to your actions.  

Allen and I ganging up on a monster

Some maps have treasure chests

These acolytes in red are a pain

Water snakes

The golem is slow, but incredibly strong

For some scenarios, the booklet is not big enough for building the entire map, so a supplementary booklet is used (see the lower part of this photo). 

This time it is he hero being surrounded by monsters

The Thoughts

A few years ago when Gloomhaven was still the #1 game on BoardGameGeek, I almost started a campaign with a few other friends. The pandemic was still happening then. We never got around to start our campaign because we were busy with all sorts of different things. Now that I have tried Jaws of the Lion, I consider that item on my to-do list checked. Jaws of the Lion is pleasant but not surprising for me. Take that with a grain of salt, since it is not my type in the first place. The card mechanism is interesting. The scenarios are immersive. I'm not sure yet whether I'll continue. I still have not done tutorial scenario 5. Since I have only played a handful of scenarios, I can't comment on the overall legacy campaign and the story. That should be an important part of the experience. I'll share more if I do continue the campaign. 

boardgaming in photos: Ali Baba and Ra

The game I am planning to publish this year under Cili Padi Games is Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. It has gone through many rounds of playtesting, but I still needed to get it cold tested. I asked Julian and his gaming group to cold test for me, i.e. I hand them the game and the rulebook, and they learn to play by themselves without me guiding them or answering any questions. I was there, but they pretended I wasn't. The cold test is an important test for the rulebook and the game component design. I can't be there to teach every person who buys my game, so the rulebook and the components must be as fool proof and conducive to understanding the game as possible. 

Just to make sure I don't set wrong expectations - the game on the table is A Feast for Odin. Only what's in Julian's hand (left) is Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. 

I observed and learned a lot by just watching them play. Which rules they were unsure about and how quickly they were able to clear it up by looking up the rules or by referring to the game components were all important information for me. In their first game, it took only one round for Arief to win. That was a short game. It has happened before. That particular round they made it to the higher rewards. It was a little sudden. Maybe it is a problem. I decided not to implement any unwieldy additional rules to eliminate the possibility of short games. Just let that be a possibility. 

The group quickly proceeded to start a new game. This time the length was more normal, about 6 to 7 rounds. As they played, they came up with suggestions on how to modify the components. They even started implementing some of their ideas. That copy of Ali Baba had no component to help keep track of the current sum of all face-up cards. Players have to keep track of it in their heads. It's just one number. If you forget, you have to count again. Julian's group took out a 12-sided die to do the tracking. However after a while they found it tedious to fiddle with the die to find the right number, and they abandoned it. After the game, they gave me more suggestions. This was a very fruitful playtest session. 

Once I got home I started making improvements. I added a yellow background colour to cards with sun and moon icons. This provides a much stronger visual reminder to players to check for the presence of both a sun and a moon. I also added the Cave card (bottom left) to help players keep track of the sum. Initially I was worried whether it would be tiresome. I tried playing with it, and it turned out okay. I may test this more with other groups. 

I asked younger daughter Chen Rui to help me test the various 2-player variants of Ali Baba. She was the one who did the most playtesting with me when I designed Dancing Queen. That's the convenience of designing 2-player games. It's easier to get playtesting done. At one point I planned to make Ali Baba a 3 to 6 player game. I felt it wouldn't be as much fun with 2 players. Later on I decided to tweak it to support 2 players. I knew with less than three some dynamics would be missing, so the game needed to offer something interesting for two. Adjustments were necessary. I came up with several ideas, and tried them all. Having now compared them, the variant I will go with is when drawing from the deck, you draw two and pick one to apply. If you draw the Boss, you must apply the Boss (i.e. you will lose that round). Using this variant, I give a bit more control to the players. In a two player game, you only have one opponent and thus only three face-down cards you can reveal. Your options are limited. Drawing two from the deck and picking one initially felt overpowered. However after some playtesting, I found it wasn't as overpowered as I thought. The Boss rule makes drawing from the deck riskier, balancing things out a little. 

Dancing Queen is going to Hungary. This couple is gamers from Hungary visiting Malaysia. They bought some games from BoardGameCafe.biz including my Dancing Queen. I am always excited to see Dancing Queen reach new countries. 

Ra is a game I played a lot of when I first became a boardgamer. Julian has a copy of the latest deluxe version, with art by Ian O Toole. The Ra marker is huge. I should have put my hand in the photo for scale. 

The tiles in the game are not cardboard but wood. Red in this game means something bad. The first tile is a Ra tile, i.e. the countdown mechanism in the game. The other three are disaster tiles - drought, war and earthquake. 

The tiles in the first row are not Ra tiles, although they do look like the Ra tiles in previous editions of the game. These are actually the backs of the tiles. Yes, this edition has art on the backs. Previous editions have blank backs. The tiles in the next two rows are the monuments. 

First row, from left to right - pharaoh, god, gold, flood and Nile. Second row is the five different civilisation tiles. 

The Axis & Allies series will have a North Africa game! I call myself an Axis & Allies fan, but I have not been playing it for a long time. I still own many games in the series. I'm still a supporter because nostalgia. When I eventually get this, it will probably get one play and then sit on the shelf for a long time. I still haven't played Rommel in the Desert again. #firstworldproblem #toomanygames