Legends of Andor
2-4
14+
60+
Legends of Andor is a cooperative adventure board game for two to four players in which a band of heroes must work together to defend a fantasy realm from invading hordes.
To secure Andor’s borders, the heroes will embark on dangerous quests over the course of five unique scenarios (as well as a final scenario created by the players themselves). But as the clever game system keeps monsters on the march toward the castle, the players must balance their priorities carefully. Will their heroes roam the land completing quests in the name of glory, or devote themselves to the defense of the realm? Uncover epic tales of glory as you live the Legends of Andor!
images © Fantasy Flight Games
User Reviews (2)
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Legends of Andor is a cooperative adventure game with great artwork (illustrated by Michael Menzel). There are four characters; each of them has a special ability.
Game play
Each player takes on the role of one of the characters. A day is divided into ten hours, allowing you to do more or less actions. For example, a combat takes at least one hour, and the length of a travel depends on how far you go.
The game features a great number of components, various monsters, and an incredible number of different tokens. All this may seem confusing when you open the box, but there is a very short rulebook that lets you learn everything step by step, when you need to know. The scenarios are progressive too, so in the first ones you don’t need everything.
The different events in the scenario are revealed progressively, as the narrator token moves forward: when a day is finished or whenever a monster is killed. But be careful: when the narrator gets to the end of the track, if the objectives are not fulfilled, you lose the game !
My experience with the game
This game is difficult! Monsters are popping everywhere on the board, every now and again, and the time constraint is very, very high. At the end of the game, pressure is always high, because victory is never certain. This is what makes winning so rewarding!
Since there are several objectives to accomplish and powerful bosses, I found it easier with more than two players.
However, more characters to choose from would be a plus.
Replay value
Since it is a scenario-based game, I feared that the games would be more or less the same. So I played the same scenario twice (the one in the mine) and the experience was very different. The first time it was almost easy (we had been very lucky) and the second time we lost by far! Some of the scenarios are designed so that they don’t look the same every time: you don’t even get to fight the same boss!
Conclusion
Legends of Andor is definitely a great game, that looks very good. Maybe figurines would have been even better, but you can’t have everything you dream of in the same box! I recommend it to gamers who want to have a hard time beating the game, and who are a bit into medieval fantasy too.
So what to say about this game.
My feelings at first was a bit mixed. I always play my new games one or two times before introducing them to friends to learn the rules. When playing this game alone I was a bit frustrated at first:
a. the rule book consists of 4 pages and the rest of the rules you are supposed to learn from playing the initial legend. As this is a pedagogical way to do it, I felt a bit back tied at the same time. I need to know what all the components in the box are for, but even after legend 3 you haven’t used em all and therefore don’t know what they do.
This resulted in me doing stuff at times when I wasn’t supposed to, like buying equipment aso.
b. I ended up loosing every legend I was trying; learning the rules AND trying to maneuver 4 different character was a bit too much for me.
Then I first played it with one friend and later that week with two other friends.
My last play through was a really great one and made me see what this game really is.
The under laying goal of the game is to keep monsters from overrunning the castle. But that’s not all. You also get new quests through out the legend you a playing. This can be find the witch, get an item to the king, warn the ranger aso.
Legends of Andor comes with 5 “legends” (scenarios) which make a story line. Each of these legends consist of different cards that gives start conditions, updates in the scenario and end conditions as the game flows. Each card has a letter on the front which indicated when it’s going to be read.
At the right side of the (double sided) board you find the “legend track” which goes from A to N. The legend marker moves one space up when:
1. a day ends
2. you kill a monster (!)
Each day you can do 7 things for “free” and 3 things that cost 2 willpower each (willpower is also your health). One of these “things” can be:
– move from one area to another
– buy something from a merchant
– 1 round of combat
May it isn’t that clear, but the time flies away really fast!
As you progress though out our mission you are constantly trying to balance between offence and evasion, because if you kill everything you come over you will loose!
Now I’ve played 3 different legends that can be described by a few steps;
a. you start of confident with a mission (other than defending the castle)
b. there will spawn loads and loads of enemies and you kill a few – because if you don’t they will overrun the castle and you’ll loose
c. you’ll get a new mission and try to sort out how to do that pluss fending of enemies and the fisrt mission
d. you start to see that you are going to loose and you start holding your breath
e. you’ll see the outlines of a plan that might work
f. you’re testing your plan finding out it’s not going to work
Then repeat d. to f. until you 1. loose or 2. win but a big chuck of your butt is in the monsters mouth…
This might sound boring (that the story repeats it self), but that’s not the truth. This game keeps you tense, focused as you are trying to find that small gap that will make you win the game. And when you do the feeling of conquering is really pleasing!
This is the game that gave all us 3 players the best “win feeling” compared to any other games we’ve played!
We are definitely bring this game back to the table and soon! We’ll try a full setup (4 players) to see how that works. So far I’ll recommend 3 over 2 players for a much better experience.
As of the components there nothing much to say other than this is a FF game (aka great art, great quality components).