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- 01Galaxy Trucker
- 01Mansions of Madness (1st ed)
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- 00King of Tokyo: Halloween
- 00Spirit Island: Branch And Claw
- 00Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization
- 00Twilight Imperium (4th Ed.)
- 00Thunderstone Quest
- 00Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon
- 00Nemesis
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I love competitive games; I love cooperative games. But I have a real disdain for psuedo-cooperative games that force players to act like they’re working together while looking out only for their best interests. If I’m playing a competitive game against friends or family I will happily try to outright defeat them, but if I’m playing a cooperative game the last thing I want to do is try to manipulate or bluff someone into doing something for personal gain. And Marvel: Legendary frequently falls victim to this sort of behavior.
After a few games with a friend who will kill-or-be-killed to get an individual victory in a coop game, where he regularly let villains escape the city and drastically reduce our chance of defeating the Mastermind in order to attack a single card that would maximize his personal victory points, we instituted the following rule: nobody keeps the villains they defeat – they simply go into a communal “defeated” pile – and bystanders are not worth victory points (this allows players to keep bystanders in their hands should one of their hero cards have an effect that necessitates them).
We have a much better time playing this game now, although the individual that caused the problems seems to have a hard time grasping playing a game where he can’t win a solo victory. His problem, not mine.
We recruit heroes from the HQ for a reason. They are more powerful than the twelve SHIELD heroes our deck starts with. Generally, our decks will be more successful if we draw our recruited cards more often. The best way to do this is by KO’ing those twelve starting cards as soon as possible.
If the HQ contains any hero card which has a KO ability, that card must be your top priority. Also scoop up any cards that have required class or team symbols to trigger said KO ability. Optimally, you want these cards recruited before the first reshuffle after turn two. If you can KO some SHIELD cards during the second pass through your deck, it will become exponentially stronger with each reshuffle, increasing the opportunity to draw and play the culling card even more frequently.
This strategy will be the best way to purge your deck of all, or most, of the starting cards and enable you to put together some amazing combo hands capable of smashing any Mastermind!
This game has been my current obsession for solo gaming. Unfortunately, it is biased towards hero victory and does not always provide a difficult challenge. Choosing my own heroes and setting up power combos only amplifies this issue. This is a method I use to keep things interesting while letting me flex a few different strategic muscles.
I begin with a randomized scenario in Advanced Solo Mode. Mastermind, scheme, villains, henchmen and heroes all chosen by fate. This takes away my ability to min/max through hero selection and forces me to come up with original interactive combos. If I win, I start over with a completely new set-up.
When I run into a villain/scheme that my random lot of heroes just couldn’t beat, I start to allow advance planning to creep in. I still go with two random heroes, but I choose the third, one who either matches well with the others or happens to be really great against the mastermind.
I continue to replay the scenario with one less random and one more chosen hero until I succeed.
This method will challenge you to learn new heroes and get out of your comfort zone, but eventually let you introduce your old standbys when you need to. It also provides a nice excuse for not having to do as much sorting and preparation in between games, since the villain deck only needs a bystander refresh before you start your second match.
Legendary is a great game, even when playing solo. However, I’ve found that games with one player (and even two) seem unbalanced in the heroes’ favor, because the player are able to obtain powerful cards at a quicker pace than the villains. After 7-10 turns, the heroes reach a critical mass where you’re unstoppable.
To offset this, we’ve experimented with the following house rules to slow down the heroes’ “power creep” for games with one or two players.
1. Scheme Twists
When a Scheme Twist is played, all players also receive one Wound, in addition to its regular results.
2. Master Strike
When a Master Strike is played, in addition to its regular results, all players also receive Wounds equal to the number of Master Strikes that have been played. (Example: One Wound each for the first Master Strike, two Wounds each for the second Master Strike, and so on.)
3. Mastermind Strength
Masterminds require four successful fights to beat as usual. However, their strength is increased by +2 each time. For example, the Red Skull’s power starts at seven. Therefore, seven power would be necessary to fight him the first time, then nine, then eleven, and thirteen for the final battle.
These additions have made the game much more challenging when playing solo. I hope they can help add an interesting twist for other players as well!
Depending on the Mastermind you’re facing, they may require you to have certain card types in your hand. It could be that you need X-Men or green strength cards. If you can go after them do.
Try not to put too much variety in your hand when it comes to the colors of the cards. Chaining off other cards is vital and the more often you can pull those often, the more likely you’ll win.
I posted a tip for the randomizer app on the Apple App Store earlier. We have now officially made a house rule that ALL games of Legendary played must be setup using the randomizer. It really cuts out any strategy of synergy between heroes, and really forces the players to play smart… and cuts out any ill feelings of experienced advantages.
When you set-up the game, determine in a random order and in that order you can select one card of cost 3 or less from the hero deck to start with and you can then remove one card from your deck of your choice. That is then you’re starting deck. This can prevent an early master strike from ruining you and also speed up the game just a tad.
Bystanders, inherently, do nothing but give you Victory Points. If you are playing a purely cooperative game (and therefore don’t care about Victory Points), they are, therefore, essentially worthless (unless you have specific heroes that interact with bystanders). If you have the Dark City expansion and Villains, you might want to build the Bystander deck entirely out of the special Bystanders that come with those. If not, agree on a house rule that gives Bystanders some utility when you gain them. My favorite is to have them let you KO a card from your hand or discards. This gives you a reason to pursue Bystanders if you are playing a purely cooperative game.
For anyone that has played Legendary: Marvel a few times, a basic strategy is to keep control over the Sewers, the Bank and Streets as much as possible until you build enough strength to face the Mastermind.
Carefully balancing when to go against the Mastermind is crucial to winning. The real deciding factor is based on the terms of winning the Scheme and when you attack the Mastermind.
Another thing to remember, unless the Scheme calls to protect bystanders, then don’t be too afraid to let a few villains escape with a bystander so long as your concentrating on the Mastermind.
Black Widow has a card that gives “+1 attack per bystander in your victory pile.” Black Widow cards are already geared towards collecting bystanders to help this card, but if you combine it with Spiderman’s Web Shooters which is cheap and lets you rescue a bystander every time you play it, this combination can lead to a large smack from Black Widow.
Sometimes I want to play an Avenger’s theme and be able to use all of the heroes from the Core Game. Since a Villain deck must be built each game, having a pre-built hero deck cuts down on the setup time for the game. Here are the cards I use:
Hero_____________Card_Name_________Quantity
Ironman__________Arc_Reactor___________2
Ironman__________Quantum_Breakthrough___1
Ironman__________Endless_Invention______2
Ironman__________Repulsor_Rays_________2
Black_Widow_______Mission_Accomplished___3
Black_Widow_______Dangerous_Rescue______3
Hulk_____________Unstoppable_Hulk______3
Hulk_____________Growing_Anger________3
Hulk_____________Hulk_Smash!__________1
Hawkeye__________Quick_Draw__________3
Hawkeye__________Team_Player__________3
Captain_America____Avengers_Assemble!_____3
Captain_America____Diving_Block__________2
Captain_America____Perfect_Teamwork_______2
Thor_____________Odinson_____________3
Thor_____________Surge_Of_Power_______3
Thor_____________God_Of_Thunder_______1
Nick_Fury_________Battlefield_Promotion____2
An interesting alternative to bypass the lame (only 5) heroes rules is to instead take 10 heroes. Shuffle all those cards together and then divide the deck in half and only play with half of it. This gives you a ton more variety, you aren’t sure exactly what to expect, but it might make you think twice about missing out on a certain card when it comes up. Really adds some extra spice to the game.
I have to agree with the previous post that early heroes with Ko abilities are a must. That being said don’t forget to use those villains who do the same. Many times the villains will help you a ton if you are willing to sacrifice a few victory points early game.
When setting up a game, I far prefer to match the Mastermind to at least two or three of the Heroes they regularly face. Some Masterminds and at least a few Villains are most appropriately matched to specific heroes.
For example, Loki can work against any hero team, but one of the heroes should be Thor. There certainly isn’t any rule that says Thor has to oppose Loki, but to me it just makes everything else make more sense.
This also applies to some Villains. The Blob, for example can only be defeated by a player with an X-Men hero.
Don’t be afraid to go for heroes with 2 or more recruitment stars early on – including Deadpool. Although he may scare some away with his weird abilities they can come in quite useful as in placing a Bystander under the vilian you want to fight (more points) and his recruitment stars will help get Better heroes that dish out more wounds.
I was able to get a Deadpool card with 6 wounds early on and this helped me through most of the game with placing the Bystanders behind the villain I was to beat.
This is a combination of design-flaw break-down and heart-felt advice.
Firstly, let’s break down the problem we’re hoping to avoid:
1) Every player’s starting hand can have a maximum of four Fight power, a minimum of zero, and an average of two. As there are twelve cards total, and six cards per hand, it takes two full rounds of play (each player revealing the top card of the Villain Deck, placing any Villains or Bystanders, resolving Master Strokes/Scheme Twists, fighting Villains, buying Heroes, and passing the turn) before you will draw or play anything that will change these numbers.
2) Without the expansions, the weakest villain in the deck requires 3 Fight power to defeat. There are five City locations and an Escaped Villains pile. Every turn, the top card of the Villain Deck is flipped, and Villains are placed in the right-most City location, pushing any previously-revealed villains to the left, towards the Escape pile.
3) If all three players draw the statistically-likely “Two Fight, Four Buy” starting hand, it will take six turns (two rounds) before the first player has a chance to actually fight a villain and twelve turns (four rounds) before they are actually guaranteed to draw something they didn’t start with. With four players, the initial dry spell is eight turns. With five, it’s ten.
4) Some of the Villains, Schemes, and Master Strokes deal heavily in “Escaping Villains” and may introduce a “Lose Condition” if too many are pushed off of the City before the Mastermind is defeated. Even without those effects, each escaping villain forces you to KO a Hero card and discard a card from hand if they had a Bystander hostage. This puts strain on the Hero Deck(which forces a team loss if it is exhausted, and the size of which does not reflect the number of people playing).
The end result is:
Having more players in the game increases the difficulty immensely, sometimes to an insurmountable degree.
My recommendation to counter this is:
After becoming familiar with the ebb and flow of the game, each group should read the Mastermind and Scheme very carefully before deciding how many players should participate, and how many should sit out for a session. Alternatively, you could increase the number of players to challenge yourselves on any particular Mastermind or Scheme, in addition to the other difficulty options.
In the upper left corner of the hero cards, you will see a team and a hero class icon. These can be extremely important because many hero effects are dependent upon having already played another team member or a hero class.
Classes include Strength (which isn’t just physical strength, but also contains heroes with will, leadership or determination), Instinct, Covert, Tech and Ranged. Teams include X-Men, Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D. and Spider Friends.
Carefully read the card effects and then build your hand utilizing either Team or Class types, and you’ll see your deck power grow to amazing levels.
On the Apple App Store there is a randomizer app called Legendary Randomizer. It’s great for starting games when you no longer care which heroes you play or which villains you destroy.
We have recently adopted a Pandemic style of building the villain deck. During set up, shuffle the villains, henchmen, bystanders, and any other groups required together. Split them into 5 somewhat equal stacks. In each stack, shuffle in 1 master strike and 2 scheme twists. The smallest 2 decks will only receive 1 scheme twist. Stack the decks, smallest to biggest, so the 4th and 5th decks with one less scheme twist will be the last you draw from. Now, you are ready for a more balanced game that is much less likely to have a group of twists and master strikes all in a row. (This assumes 5 master strikes and 8 scheme twists. Adjust as necessary).
When I first got this game, it was really hard to feel the coop or sense of danger for that matter. To remedy this, I followed instructions to up the difficulty, adding more scheme twists, upping the mastermind’s hp etc.
While I still feel the coop is a little bit lacking, you will find some situations where you will need to make decisions to benefit the group instead of being out for yourself.