Maturemindedgamers

Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig is published by Stonemaier Games as part of a collaboration with Bezier Games. It’s a fun cooperative tile placement game that seems daunting at first because of all the pieces, but isn’t that bad. Once all players get the hang of it, the game flows very well. I found the scoring at the end to be the slowest part, as with almost all tile based scoring it tends to take forever to figure out who actually wins.
We did a video review for it.

Saddle up! Because today we are talking about Western Legends by Kolossal Games. It’s a choose your own play style Wild West centric game. You can play a variety of characters; some start you out on the lawful side, others the lawless side. You can still decide to go bad on all characters, but once your bad there’s no going back as they say. While choices did seem a little limited on what actions to take it did help streamline things that could normally bog down similar style albeit Heavier Titles such as Xia: Legends of a Drift System by Far Off Games.

Gameplay:

You start off the game as a Famous or sometimes Infamous, Wild West Character. You are seeking Legendary Status and you must choose between two paths. Marshal (Lawmen) or Wanted (Outlaw). Each path provides multiple ways to earn Legendary Status (Victory Points) while limiting you on how you can interact with the world. Being an outlaw provides quick and easy Legendary Points every round, but you have to watch out for the Sheriff (A NPC) who is roaming the Country looking to bring Justice to the West. From robbing banks, stealing cash or cattle from your friends the West is not a safe place. As other players may be working with the Law trying to stop your nefarious deeds and bring Frontier Justice by way of creating their own Legend. Which bring us to the Lawmen. Fighting off countryside Bandits, transferring cattle safely to the train or arresting outlaws the lawmen life was never easy, and it isn’t about to get any easier as legendary points do not come as quickly but are much less risky.

You can also just entertain yourself with poker, both with other players and the house if no one else is game. Each player looks at his hand of poker cards trying to make the best possible set with the river cards, all while staring your opponent in the eye trying to read his bluff. These cards are not only used for poker, but combat as well, so keeping that ace up your sleeve might be more valuable later.

Combat is straight forward and not a long-drawn-out affair or a dice fest. You and your opponent both lay down 1 poker card to decide the winner, high card wins. Most cards have other abilities, some are reactions to being played and others are actions themselves, which adds some fun and variety to combat. They do a good job of balancing the cards, lower value cards which are not good at winning fights, tend to have better reactions, thus giving some balance.

Quick, easy and stress-fully entertaining. The world does give other options that you can follow. Let’s not forget after working in the mines digging for gold, you can always sit back with a brew at the Local tavern and play some simplified Poker Mini-games or stop at the Local brothel to unload some of that extra cash. The west sure did have its perks.

Components:

The biggest complaint we had about this game was the component quality. Western Legends comes with a handful of miniatures. These are barely up to board game quality. Maybe if this game was made 15 years ago it would be amazing. But with other companies doing such a great job with miniatures these days like Fantasy Flight Games and CMON. I really think they need to up the quality on this one to justify the hefty price tag. The game comes with ALOT of cards. Standard card stock, while not bad, again I do feel this game especially the poker deck should have hard paper quality upgraded to linen finished cards. Also included in the game is a little cardboard general store, which is basically a tray that holds all the things you can purchase/upgrade. I’m not sure if the board thickness was not where it needed to be or if the quality of board, but it seemed flimsy, my guess is the later.

Final Thoughts:

Western Legends provides some great story elements that change every game through a relatively simple card system. Cards are activated after a certain action or when ending your turn on a certain type of location. Mature Minded Gamers, encourages you to check out Western Legends by Kolossal Games. Grab some brews, slide a few aces up your sleeve and just ask yourself one question……… You feeling Lucky?

Fugitive is a delightful 2 player deduction game, where a detective is hunting down a fugitive, hence the name. As the detective you are trying to track down the thief as they make their way out of town, always seemingly a step ahead. If the fugitive plays his cards right and avoids capture he can win the game. For the detective to win it’s going to take some smarts and luck to capture the fugitive and win the game.

Fugitive has some of the best component pieces I’ve seen, and a cool magnetized briefcase box to keep them in. The artwork fits the game theme perfectly. Overall it’s one of my top 2 player games that I think anyone could fall in love with.

Want to hear more? We did a podcast review for it because we liked it that much.
https://anchor.fm/mmggeek/episodes/Fugitive-Board-Game-Review-e5pc4t

Mission Red Planet is a fun, easy to learn worker placement game that plays best with 3-5 players. We covered this game on our podcast, please check it out for more details. MMG Mission Red Planet Podcast
Join the MMG and check out our website: Mature Minded Gamers

Marvel Champions offers you a rare co-op CCG experience that’s fun and will only get better with more content. It plays best with 2 or more players. We covered it in detail on our podcast, please check it out for more information.
https://anchor.fm/mmggeek/episodes/Marvel-Champions-The-Card-Game-by-Fantasy-Flight-e97msf
Check out our website and join us Mature Minded Gamers

Fantastic Miniatures led the way for great gameplay and heroic battles in this dark medieval universe. Strategy, wit and some luck will win the day.

We covered in details Times of Legends: Joan of Ark in podcast, please check it out for more details.
https://anchor.fm/mmggeek/episodes/Time-of-Legends-Joan-of-Arc—from-Mythic-Games—Scenario-1-in-Review-e91vhk

Check out our website: https://www.maturemindedgamers.com

Great components, good artwork and unique combat make this standout from other legacy games. It suffers from grind and repeat mechanic’s and a dooms day style game clock that makes the experience feel a bit rushed.

We covered this game in much more detail on our podcast. Please check it out and give us some feedback!
Our Website: https://www.maturemindedgamers.com
Podcast Link:https://anchor.fm/mmggeek/episodes/Tainted-Grail-The-Fall-of-Avalon—Played-and-Reviewed-e9edlo

It’s colorful, has good components, is fun to play, and only slightly devious. Charterstone offers you 12 fun 60-minute gaming sessions that are story driven and offers many big-time game changing opportunities to steer the direction of play. The game rules and features unfold as you advance on giving you time to learn the game slowly. Plus at the end of the 12-story missions you get a permanent unique to your game session Charterstone.

My Scores:
Replay Value – 4 Stars – It’s a Legacy game, so normally this score is the worst, but with the huge variety of play styles and story choices, this would be a lot more fun to replay than most and if not all other legacy games.

Components – 4 – Metal coins, solid cardboard, colorful and fun artwork give Charterstone high marks for components quality.

Easy to Learn – 3 – Not a dictionary rule book like found in most legacy games, which is good. We had some issues understanding when things happened and did have to reference it many times as new mechanics are revealed. We did go online to get some clarification on rules a few times. This is a normal thing for my group when we play a legacy game.
We do a gaming podcast check it out on our website: https://www.maturemindedgamers.com