Western Legends

OVERVIEW: Western Legends is a 2-6 player competitive sandbox game set in the American Wild West. Players take on the roles of historic characters of the period competing to become a living legend. The sandbox nature of this game allows players the freedom to accomplish this by robbing the bank, arresting outlaws, rustling cattle, gambling, prospecting for gold, and robbing each other for a little notoriety in the pages of history. This notoriety is translated into Legendary points that establish the goal of the game as a race against the other players to the finish line. You may choose to become a Marshal charged with hunting down Outlaw players, or an Outlaw on the run from Marshal players. Then again sometimes you might decide it makes sense to switch sides, as they each involve specific benefits and liabilities. The innovative aspect of this game is that players have complete agency over these decisions and therefore greater control over their own destiny.POKER MECHANICS: Most aspects of Western Legends are driven by a specialized deck of poker cards (with the exception of mining for gold and managing cattle, which uses a die and tokens respectively). Fighting and gambling involve more simplified versions of poker, but cards can also be used for their special abilities on the face of the card instead. This presents the issue of using a card for an advantage, or saving it for defense. These decisions can be further influenced by special abilities afforded to each character and abilities from equipped items. All of these options allow players to mitigate the random nature of game mechanics and encourage the satisfaction of clever game play instead.SANDBOX MECHANICS: The 'sandbox' nature of the game is truly the most unique part about it. There are very few board games out there that tell you up front everything you can possibly do, then get out of the way and let you handle it your way. The biggest obstacles you have to face are the other players, because in Western Legends you only really get hurt by the ones you love. It becomes a matter of understanding the rules in order to find the quickest path to victory. However, the game only moves as fast as the players involved, and the system itself easily lends to modifications and house rules to suit individual groups.SCALABILITY: This game allows for two to six players, but the best count in my experience seems to be four players. I base this on weighing the length of turns against the impact of more characters in the sandbox environment. High player counts can leave players disengaged waiting for their turns, while low player counts puts more responsibility on players to keep up with the pack and eliminate players who pull ahead. The two player variant offers a deck driven A.I. character, called the Man in Black, to mitigate players in the lead, and could be modified for a three player game in a pinch.PROS: Western Legends is a beautiful game with outstanding artwork that draws you right into the theme. It offers a diverse selection of characters, each with a unique special ability to impact the game. The components are all very good quality, and the storefront card holder is both practical and a thematic addition to the game. The rule book is clear, well written, and organized for easy reference.Every part of the game oozes the wild west theme immersing players into the backdrop while simultaneously coaxing them into exploring the many paths leading to legendary status. The storytelling aspect of the game has an incredible impact on players as they recount being shot by best friends and robbed by loved ones. Western Legends offers a great deal of variety and replayability because of all of the freedom of choice it offers players.CONS: Western Legends is a little more difficult to teach because of all of the freedom of choice it offers players. New players will not be able to make informed choices unless they understand the options, and there are a number of options. Once they get the concepts they can move forward, but there is a learning curve involved. Knowledge of the game can be a huge advantage, giving experienced players an edge, so it is best when learned together. Ideally, someone should familiarize themselves with the rules and everyone else should watch a few YouTube videos on the game before playing. Many of the concepts are similar to poker but are different enough that even experienced players will need to reference the rules often. The board itself is beautiful, but the spaces are weakly defined and can be difficult to identify. Finally, the estimated game length of 60 to 90 minutes is more realistically a measurement of a two player game involving experienced players. Western Legends is going to take a few hours (we average an hour per player). You can expect to add some time referring back to the rule book until everyone gets dialed in as well. The game can be arbitrarily shortened by lowering the required Legendary Points if desired.CONCLUSION: I absolutely love this game, but I also understand that this is taylor made for my group, and it is definitely not for everyone. Western Legends requires players to make informed choices and aggressively take action in order to out-maneuver each other or they will be left in the dust. This is what I would consider a medium weight game for intermediate to experienced gamers, with an interest in the western theme, the poker mechanics, and the sandbox mechanics. The game is absolutely stunning on the table, yet leaves a great deal of room to be further tricked out by a crafty gamer. There are two full sized expansions and a few other add ons, but everything you really need is already inside this one box (nothing against the expansions or add ons). It is a unique and entertaining addition to any collection that will have players coming back to rob and arrest each other to prove once and for all, who is the greatest legend of the old west.

Finally got to try this game out after hearing about it for years. This was our first sandbox style board game, and I have to say that it did not disappoint. I enjoyed the idea that you could earn your points however you chose to. The difference between the marshal side and the wanted side also made for a fun distinction. It was actually very easy to play. The rules weren’t too hard to learn, and most clarifications were easy to find. The quality of the production was also fairly good, from the sculpt of the minis to the design of the board.I look forward to playing more of it to see how it scales with more players and what different things we can experience. I recommend this for fans of westerns and a more open style of play experience.

Had been really looking forward to this game, and it did not disappoint! It has a bit of a learning curve, but once you get rolling, the turns are pretty quick, there's loads of paths to maneuver through the game, and the gameplay is never short on action! Definitely a blast, and highly recommend to anyone wanting to try out a new game, especially a sandbox game.

The mechanics for the game won't win any awards. In fact, the only somewhat clever thing about gameplay is the poker cards, because they can be used in multiple ways. Do you want to use a card for its special action, or to modify the result of another action? Or would it be better to save that card for use in poker? Or to keep it to protect yourself from thieves as you do a gold run? Mildly interesting.Most of the fun of the game is the theme and player interaction. Trying to rob players, duel with them, or block them from completing their objectives is a huge part of the game. If everyone just tries to get points via their own methods, it turns into a dull race where the winner is whoever just gets lucky. So you need to keep a constant eye on your opponents, and be sure to spend enough of your actions trying to get into position and make moves to restrict their efforts - while at the same time trying to gather some points for yourself on the side.It's a fun enough experience, but it's not a tightly-designed mechanism by any means. If you're into complex game systems and satisfying engines, this isn't it. At the same time, it's a step above "beer and pretzels" games, as you will need to strategize a bit and constantly adjust your plans in response to other players' turns.Unfortunately, since the game depends so much on player interaction it relies heavily on player count. With 3 players (or 2 plus the included Man In Black cards to act as a bot third player) the map is just too empty and players can avoid each other too easily. The game then just becomes a race of players doing their own thing away from each other, and who wins comes down to mostly luck.I also tried it with 5 players, and then there was a lot more interaction but turns took so long I had players actually walking away from the table to chat with others in the game store, browse shelves, etc. while waiting for their turns. They were more casual players, sure, and in truth you should be paying attention to other players all through the game because you need to guess where they're going and what kind of cards they have to decide what the best plays for yourself would be. There's also the need for players to take on the role of NPCs during gunfights to help them stay involved.But the fact remains that things just go too slow with 5 players, and I can't imagine trying to play this with 6 unless everyone was experienced with the game and made a point of playing quick. But with 6 the map would probably feel too crowded and it'd be very hard to accomplish anything. So I wouldn't play 6 unless I had the Ante Up expansion that expands the map...but then it might get me back to the problem of the map being too large and people being spread out too much to have enough interactions to be interesting.So I strongly recommend 4 players as the optimum. Maybe 5 if they're experienced and you don't need to do a full teach.I've not touched on many other mechanics and details, but they're pretty hit or miss. The store is nice, but some things are either totally necessary or of very questionable use. It's good for theme and roleplaying I suppose. The story cards are not handled great in the base game; the things I've heard about them in the Blood Money expansion sounds vastly superior. And the personal goals in this core game feel pretty tacked on (it'd be much better if they were on standard sized cards so that some historical info about the Legend could be presented, making each personal goal somehow tied into that person's real actions in life).Despite my disappointments, the game is fun enough to keep around - especially if you get some expansions. But I don't think it's a good value for most board gamers. If they were to do a 2nd edition that addresses some of the biggest problems - like changing the base story cards to those in Blood Money, and having separate maps for different player counts - then it might become a solid purchase at around the $60 price point. But as it is, I advise people to try before you buy, or test the core game before going all out with expansions. I would certainly avoid grabbing a full kickstarter pack of everything or whatever if you haven't at least played the core game first. It's not going to be to everyone's liking, and it's not a great game by any means.Personally, it feels more like a roleplaying game...but with vastly fewer options than an RPG would offer. I might keep it a bit longer, but overall as a hobby board gamer who likes the old west style but isn't in love with it, I was somewhat disappointed and might sell off the game after one or two more plays.

I am hoping this is complete. I purchased it for a Christmas Gift and I still have months before I will find out if it is complete. It was a very good price. Fingers crossed it is a hit.

I had no idea what to expect with this one. I had never seen nor heard of anyone in my group playing this game. I purchased it on a whim, and we've played it twice in the past week. it was a big hit. we played at 2p with the Man in Black, and at 3p. I feel like the more players, the better it will be. time will tell.